HungryCalBear said:

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Heard from a commentor at the other site it's Troy Taylor ... thrilled if true!

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Decent hire if true. Can you say Which site you are referring to? Thanks!

I think that guy's reply was just trolling another poster who had been beating the TT drum pretty hard.

This is not a tweet one would send right before jumping ship. Calling Sanford as Cal OC dead and altacalifornia's profile on deathwatch.

HungryCalBear said:

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Heard from a commentor at the other site it's Troy Taylor ... thrilled if true!

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The poster admitted he was joking ... Sorry I was just too anxious with nothing better to do on a New Year day than waiting for some Cal news ...

HungryCalBear said:

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Heard from a commentor at the other site it's Troy Taylor ... thrilled if true

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dimitrig said:

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Cave Bear said:

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No, just no.

First, his one season as OC at BSU was under Harsin, who was de facto OC and playcaller. I'm not inclined to see those stats as indicative of Sanford when he was basically assistant offensive coordinator. Not surprisingly, once Sanford got out of Harsin's shadow and had control of the offense (either as HC himself, or as OC under defensive HCs) his own offense emerges and it looks nothing like Boise State. In fact it looks a lot like Baldwin's offense, but lighter and more pass happy -- and none of those three attributes are positi

Forget YPP, 3rd Down % and Turnovers. While those metrics aren't completely irrelevant, scoring PPG already incorporates every subordinate aspect of offense including those other three metrics. If a coach has a poor YPP but great PPG, I don't care about the poor YPP. Conversely if a coach has a great YPP but poor PPG, I don't care about the great YPP. Scoring is what matters most, in conjunction with the temperament of the offense.

Let's take a close look at Sanford's offenses post-Harsin

Sanford's two year stint at ND was uneven. Their 2015 offense was a marginal improvement on the 2014 pre-Sanford offense (34.2 PPG, +1.4 over 2014) but then in Sanford's second season, 2016, the offense took big step back (30.9 PPG, -3.3 from 2015) which was surprising because they returned a huge amount of offensive production from 2015. When Sanford left ND to be HC at Western Kentucky, ND also lost their star QB DeShone Kizer who was an NFL early entrant. The replacement for Kizer was the mediocre Brandon Wimbush, but now without Sanford their offense stepped back up to 32.4 PPG again.

In two seasons at WKU, Sanford's offenses averaged a total of 23.4 PPG -- and that's while playing schedules that were among the very worst in FBS. They averaged 2.0 yards per carry and his QBs were sacked 48 times in 2017 while scoring 25.5 PPG. Their offense was even worse in Sanford's second year, at 21.1 PPG.

Now we have Utah State. When Sanford arrived they were coming off a 2018 season wherein they were #2 in FBS in scoring at 47.5 PPG. Sanford led the 2019 offense off a cliff, dropping them to 29.2 PPG. QB Jordan Love regressed big time.

Your analysis just glosses over anything problematic. The trajectory of his ND stint was not good. His WKU offenses (which you didn't even include, choosing to limit the results to just "OC" with no justification for it) were truly awful and his USU offense was a gigantic step down from the previous year.

I hope Wilcox knows we can do better

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Points per game just seems like a lousy indicator when we are talking about the relatively small difference between 30.9, 32.4, and 34.2 points per game over seasons with different personnel.

Instead of points per game, I would love to look at points per possession (or "drive" in football parlance). Is that a stat that any public source publishes? It would account for defensive scores and for pace (e.g., quick scores versus long sustained drives).

However, even that metric has some flaws because in football the defense helps determine the starting position of the offense on the field. A defense giving the offense good field position all the time will make the offense seem better than it is.

I am not sure how to account for that. Are there some advanced stats that do?

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Any set of statistics needs to be examined in a larger context, both with other sets of statistics and also qualitative measures.

wifeisafurd said:

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Uthaithani said:

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OaktownBear said:

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heartofthebear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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heartofthebear said:

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golden sloth said:

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Yea, based on those comments, it seems as though Wilcox had more influence on the offense than I originally thought.

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Yes.
And that could explain why Baldwin left and it also is a bit concerning.
If Wilcox wants to limit explosiveness because of the possibility of scoring too fast for his defense, then I think we are going to end up with the same problems of folks loading the box against us.

I really think the 49ers are good example of how success is achieved. They don't pigeonhole themselves by micromanaging their options. They win a whole bunch of ways. Cal needs to be willing to win defensively and offensively. And they need to coach that ability into their players.

We need an OC that can do ball control for 70% of the play but then knows when to break it open downfield. The old Seattle Seahawks were a good example. When Wilson first emerged, he did not have that impressive passing numbers, except one, yards per pass. The Seahawk offense would underwhelm you until suddenly they had a 50 yard touchdown to Baldwin or a 60 yard pass downfield to Golden Tate.

With Polk, Remigio and now Hunter, we will have the personnel to engage in this type of offense. There is no reason why Cal can't score 30 points/gm, this way, especially with a healthy Garbers arm and shoulder. But if Wilcox doesn't like that, then it won't happen and we will be back to winning on 24 point games and losing on 20 point games.

Keep in mind, our defense next season is not going to be holding teams under 20 points as often as in the past. We will be young in the back 7. Even if several players emerge, they won't be maximizing their abilities until well into the season.

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You guys are extrapolating his words not only to the breaking point but in direct contradiction to what he said.

All he said was that we have a program philosophy. He didn't say he runs the offense or interferes. He definitely didn't say that he wants to limit explosiveness. Putting an "if" in front of that statement doesn't make it better.

A program philosophy means he knows to a certain extent what offense he wants to run and he gets a guy who runs that offense. That is every head coach. There is zero in here that implies that he interfered with Baldwin.

In talking about wide receivers he specifically talked about needing to get guys that can get down the field. He said absolutely nothing about limiting explosiveness.

I'm sorry, but people often read these threads, don't watch the actual video, and assume what people talk about was actually said. Not only is none of this in anything he said, it is contradicted in the video.

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The above video isn't the only video where Wilcox has referred to game strategy or philosophy. In the past he has mentioned the strategy of shortening the game by limiting possessions. That's how we won some of our games. It's also how we lost to Oregon St. So, if that is his philosophy, I don't agree with it. In fact, I don't agree with any philosophy that is stubbornly adhered to regardless of the dynamics of that particular game. That is also what happened against OSU. I was at that game, and it really sucked. It was also the game that gave first hand knowledge that Baldwin had to go. But, if he was trying to exercise Wilcox's philosophy of limiting possessions, then that is a concern. And yes the if matters. That is why it is part of the english language. And it is not my problem if folks don't watch the video or don't read each word carefully.

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Okay, IF you are proposing an offense that maximizes interceptions and fumbles and has our running backs run backwards, I drastically disagree with you. Since you are not, and since Wilcox isn't doing anything like what you are saying you would disagree with, I won't worry about it.

That isn't why we lost the OSU game. Going into the OSU game, in the 6+ quarters since Garbers went down we were 22 for 48 passing for 203 yards, 3 interceptions and had scored 17 points. Our QB play had been terrible. Against OSU we were 14-33 passing for 175 yards and an interception. If you think opening up the offense in that situation is the right way to go, you must have loved Baldwin's performance in the CheezIt bowl. When your pass offense, and specifically quarterback play is inept, and you have a good defense going up against a mediocre offense, you shorten the game. That is flat out obvious situational strategy. You uglify the game. I don't know who looks at the pass offense we had at the time and says yeah, I wants me some more of that. Turn that baby loose.

In context, his statements have been clear that he is running a ball control offense that picks its shots down the field vs. an uptempo score as fast as you can offense. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to score. Most ball control offenses like to pressure down field to keep men out of the box and he has specifically stated in this video he needs receivers who can get down the field.

Feel free to link video where Wilcox says he doesn't want to stretch the field or have any chunk plays. Otherwise, IF you choose to worry about him interfering in the offense based on comments that don't say that and IF you choose to worry about him running an offense he doesn't run, I will choose to correct your characterization in both points.

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The bowl game tells me Wilcox isn't putting pressure on the OC to uglify the game. Any OC will have the freedom to take big shots downfield, run every down, or anything in between. And with a better offensive coaching staff and better personnel, the offense will look much better in 2020 than it has in recent years.

And people need to read between the lines. When Wilcox makes a point to keep repeating how great Baldwin was and how much he'll be missed, that doesn't actually mean Wilcox didn't nudge him out. Nothing in Wilcox's body language tells me he is the slightest bit unhappy to be looking for a new OC. His constant repetition about how great Baldwin was just means Wilcox understands politics.

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I agree, the Bowl Game was the Garbers show. I think he really does want a multiple offense (both pass and run balanced) as opposed to a one-dimentinal running game with long passes when the box is overloaded like Furd a few years back. That is why I think (thought?) the new OC also will be the QB coach, though Greatwood stepping down and noise (and public admission from Wilcox) that some guys with major resumes wanting in, may mean a new OC with an oline background (speculation on my part).

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I believe the term "multiple" offense refers to one that adapts to the players available that season and also to the opposition, usually borrowing a little bit from various schemes and philosophies. Its opposite is a "system" offense.

B.A. Bearacus said:

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This is not a tweet one would send right before jumping ship. Calling Sanford as Cal OC dead and altacalifornia's profile on deathwatch.

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Pshaw! Just because I can't figure out things like mobile ticketing doesn't mean that I can't figure out who our next OC could be.

dimitrig said:

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Cave Bear said:

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No, just no.

First, his one season as OC at BSU was under Harsin, who was de facto OC and playcaller. I'm not inclined to see those stats as indicative of Sanford when he was basically assistant offensive coordinator. Not surprisingly, once Sanford got out of Harsin's shadow and had control of the offense (either as HC himself, or as OC under defensive HCs) his own offense emerges and it looks nothing like Boise State. In fact it looks a lot like Baldwin's offense, but lighter and more pass happy -- and none of those three attributes are positi

Forget YPP, 3rd Down % and Turnovers. While those metrics aren't completely irrelevant, scoring PPG already incorporates every subordinate aspect of offense including those other three metrics. If a coach has a poor YPP but great PPG, I don't care about the poor YPP. Conversely if a coach has a great YPP but poor PPG, I don't care about the great YPP. Scoring is what matters most, in conjunction with the temperament of the offense.

Let's take a close look at Sanford's offenses post-Harsin

Sanford's two year stint at ND was uneven. Their 2015 offense was a marginal improvement on the 2014 pre-Sanford offense (34.2 PPG, +1.4 over 2014) but then in Sanford's second season, 2016, the offense took big step back (30.9 PPG, -3.3 from 2015) which was surprising because they returned a huge amount of offensive production from 2015. When Sanford left ND to be HC at Western Kentucky, ND also lost their star QB DeShone Kizer who was an NFL early entrant. The replacement for Kizer was the mediocre Brandon Wimbush, but now without Sanford their offense stepped back up to 32.4 PPG again.

In two seasons at WKU, Sanford's offenses averaged a total of 23.4 PPG -- and that's while playing schedules that were among the very worst in FBS. They averaged 2.0 yards per carry and his QBs were sacked 48 times in 2017 while scoring 25.5 PPG. Their offense was even worse in Sanford's second year, at 21.1 PPG.

Now we have Utah State. When Sanford arrived they were coming off a 2018 season wherein they were #2 in FBS in scoring at 47.5 PPG. Sanford led the 2019 offense off a cliff, dropping them to 29.2 PPG. QB Jordan Love regressed big time.

Your analysis just glosses over anything problematic. The trajectory of his ND stint was not good. His WKU offenses (which you didn't even include, choosing to limit the results to just "OC" with no justification for it) were truly awful and his USU offense was a gigantic step down from the previous year.

I hope Wilcox knows we can do better

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Points per game just seems like a lousy indicator when we are talking about the relatively small difference between 30.9, 32.4, and 34.2 points per game over seasons with different personnel.

Instead of points per game, I would love to look at points per possession (or "drive" in football parlance). Is that a stat that any public source publishes? It would account for defensive scores and for pace (e.g., quick scores versus long sustained drives).

However, even that metric has some flaws because in football the defense helps determine the starting position of the offense on the field. A defense giving the offense good field position all the time will make the offense seem better than it is.

I am not sure how to account for that. Are there some advanced stats that do?

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I'm sure there are, but I don't know of any that are readily and freely accessible in a historical DB. Regardless, any such metric ultimately suffers from the same problem in attempting to measure "true effectiveness" of an offense that using PPG or PPP does: how do you validate it?

I agree PPP would be a better metric for offensive performance though it also would have flaws, but no I don't know of a free site that offers historical, FBS-wide PPP.

GMP said:

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Cave Bear said:

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Cal89 said:

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Sanford seems appealing and I imagine we'd have strong interest. I like that he has experience in places like Stanford, Yale and Notre Dame too...

As an OC, yards/play:

2014 (BSU) - 6.53 (19th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 7.02 (6th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 6.07 (43rd FBS)
2019 (US) - 5.81 (69th FBS)

3rd down conversions %:

2014 (BSU) - 44.39 (33rd FBS)
2015 (ND) - 42.50 (39th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 40.48 (65th FBS)
2019 (US) - 42.64 (37th FBS)

Turnovers:

2014 (BSU) - 24 (87th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 20 (61st FBS)
2016 (ND) - 18 (47th FBS)
2019 (US) - 26 (122nd FBS)

Scoring:

2014 (BSU) - 39.7 (9th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 34.2 (34th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 30.9 (53rd FBS)
2019 (US) - 29.2 (63rd FBS)

The 29+ PPG low (this year) was likely hampered by the many turnovers. Also, according to Phil Steele, Utah State was the 123rd least experienced team in 2019.

Would seem to be a good hire.

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No, just no.

First, his one season as OC at BSU was under Harsin, who was de facto OC and playcaller. I'm not inclined to see those stats as indicative of Sanford when he was basically assistant offensive coordinator. Not surprisingly, once Sanford got out of Harsin's shadow and had control of the offense (either as HC himself, or as OC under defensive HCs) his own offense emerges and it looks nothing like Boise State. In fact it looks a lot like Baldwin's offense, but lighter and more pass happy -- and none of those three attributes are positi

Forget YPP, 3rd Down % and Turnovers. While those metrics aren't completely irrelevant, scoring PPG already incorporates every subordinate aspect of offense including those other three metrics. If a coach has a poor YPP but great PPG, I don't care about the poor YPP. Conversely if a coach has a great YPP but poor PPG, I don't care about the great YPP. Scoring is what matters most, in conjunction with the temperament of the offense.

Let's take a close look at Sanford's offenses post-Harsin

Sanford's two year stint at ND was uneven. Their 2015 offense was a marginal improvement on the 2014 pre-Sanford offense (34.2 PPG, +1.4 over 2014) but then in Sanford's second season, 2016, the offense took big step back (30.9 PPG, -3.3 from 2015) which was surprising because they returned a huge amount of offensive production from 2015. When Sanford left ND to be HC at Western Kentucky, ND also lost their star QB DeShone Kizer who was an NFL early entrant. The replacement for Kizer was the mediocre Brandon Wimbush, but now without Sanford their offense stepped back up to 32.4 PPG again.

In two seasons at WKU, Sanford's offenses averaged a total of 23.4 PPG -- and that's while playing schedules that were among the very worst in FBS. They averaged 2.0 yards per carry and his QBs were sacked 48 times in 2017 while scoring 25.5 PPG. Their offense was even worse in Sanford's second year, at 21.1 PPG.

Now we have Utah State. When Sanford arrived they were coming off a 2018 season wherein they were #2 in FBS in scoring at 47.5 PPG. Sanford led the 2019 offense off a cliff, dropping them to 29.2 PPG. QB Jordan Love regressed big time.

Your analysis just glosses over anything problematic. The trajectory of his ND stint was not good. His WKU offenses (which you didn't even include, choosing to limit the results to just "OC" with no justification for it) were truly awful and his USU offense was a gigantic step down from the previous year.

I hope Wilcox knows we can do better

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You lost me when you said "forget YPP" and then tried to argue PPG subsumes all other stats. This is backwards thinking. It's arguing for the pitcher win as a determining stat in 2020 when we know so much more goes into what makes a good pitcher.

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I use other metrics to diagnose what went wrong with a particular offense, but when comparing several different offenses, trying to use a basket of metrics leads to chaos. Teams A, B, C, and D rank all over the place in YPP, 3rd Down %, Turnovers, RZ scoring, etc: what conclusion are you supposed to draw from that?

Quote:

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PPG is much more random. It includes defensive and special teams scores. It does not take into account field position. It does not take into account pace of play. Yes, points are how we win or lose, but we have better ways to measure how the offense performed. One of those ways is YPP.

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There's just nothing else to say to someone who thinks yards are a better measurement of offensive performance than points other than that's really dumb.

Quote:

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I know little to nothing about Sanford, but having read your argument, I'd lean slightly toward optimistic if he's the hire.

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Then you've drawn an dumb conclusion. You can dismiss my argument as meaningless if you want, but if you're just going on my argument alone and you draw an optimistic conclusion from the numbers then you must still be hungover.

Cyrus B. Goode said:

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Big C said:

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I believe the term "multiple" offense refers to one that adapts to the players available that season and also to the opposition, usually borrowing a little bit from various schemes and philosophies. Its opposite is a "system" offense.

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I believe the term multiple offense is used by offensive coordinators who lack a guiding philosophy for their offense, but want to sound like they have more of a plan than they actually do. I prefer the term "overly cluttered with too much crap" offense.

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I believe this is sometimes the case, to be sure. Is there a certain offensive system you like (for Cal)?

Cave Bear said:

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dimitrig said:

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Cave Bear said:

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No, just no.

First, his one season as OC at BSU was under Harsin, who was de facto OC and playcaller. I'm not inclined to see those stats as indicative of Sanford when he was basically assistant offensive coordinator. Not surprisingly, once Sanford got out of Harsin's shadow and had control of the offense (either as HC himself, or as OC under defensive HCs) his own offense emerges and it looks nothing like Boise State. In fact it looks a lot like Baldwin's offense, but lighter and more pass happy -- and none of those three attributes are positi

Forget YPP, 3rd Down % and Turnovers. While those metrics aren't completely irrelevant, scoring PPG already incorporates every subordinate aspect of offense including those other three metrics. If a coach has a poor YPP but great PPG, I don't care about the poor YPP. Conversely if a coach has a great YPP but poor PPG, I don't care about the great YPP. Scoring is what matters most, in conjunction with the temperament of the offense.

Let's take a close look at Sanford's offenses post-Harsin

Sanford's two year stint at ND was uneven. Their 2015 offense was a marginal improvement on the 2014 pre-Sanford offense (34.2 PPG, +1.4 over 2014) but then in Sanford's second season, 2016, the offense took big step back (30.9 PPG, -3.3 from 2015) which was surprising because they returned a huge amount of offensive production from 2015. When Sanford left ND to be HC at Western Kentucky, ND also lost their star QB DeShone Kizer who was an NFL early entrant. The replacement for Kizer was the mediocre Brandon Wimbush, but now without Sanford their offense stepped back up to 32.4 PPG again.

In two seasons at WKU, Sanford's offenses averaged a total of 23.4 PPG -- and that's while playing schedules that were among the very worst in FBS. They averaged 2.0 yards per carry and his QBs were sacked 48 times in 2017 while scoring 25.5 PPG. Their offense was even worse in Sanford's second year, at 21.1 PPG.

Now we have Utah State. When Sanford arrived they were coming off a 2018 season wherein they were #2 in FBS in scoring at 47.5 PPG. Sanford led the 2019 offense off a cliff, dropping them to 29.2 PPG. QB Jordan Love regressed big time.

Your analysis just glosses over anything problematic. The trajectory of his ND stint was not good. His WKU offenses (which you didn't even include, choosing to limit the results to just "OC" with no justification for it) were truly awful and his USU offense was a gigantic step down from the previous year.

I hope Wilcox knows we can do better

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Points per game just seems like a lousy indicator when we are talking about the relatively small difference between 30.9, 32.4, and 34.2 points per game over seasons with different personnel.

Instead of points per game, I would love to look at points per possession (or "drive" in football parlance). Is that a stat that any public source publishes? It would account for defensive scores and for pace (e.g., quick scores versus long sustained drives).

However, even that metric has some flaws because in football the defense helps determine the starting position of the offense on the field. A defense giving the offense good field position all the time will make the offense seem better than it is.

I am not sure how to account for that. Are there some advanced stats that do?

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I'm sure there are, but I don't know of any that are readily and freely accessible in a historical DB. Regardless, any such metric ultimately suffers from the same problem in attempting to measure "true effectiveness" of an offense that using PPG or PPP does: how do you validate it?

I agree PPP would be a better metric for offensive performance though it also would have flaws, but no I don't know of a free site that offers historical, FBS-wide PPP.

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The best proxy for points per possession that is easily available is yards per play (either offense or defense) and is available for free at sports-reference.com

There are some issues with using an average: it overvalues big plays and undervalues consistency. It ignores situations: red zone, third down, short yardage, etc.

However, it does tell a lot.

For example, in 2015 Cal was #8 in the country in Total Offense and in 2016 Cal was #10 in the country in Total Offense. Only a slight drop off right? Well in 2015 Cal was #6 in Yards per Play (7.0) but in 2016 we dropped to #56 (5.9). I think that drop from #6 to #56 more accurately reflects the productivity of the offense than #8 to #10.

Cal Yards per Play Ranking
2000 #92
2001 #96
2002 #65
2003 #18
2004 #2
2005 #12
2006 #10
2007 #21
2008 #28
2009 #36
2010 #76
2011 #58
2012 #65
2013 #98
2014 #33
2015 #6
2016 #56
2017 #101
2018 #120
2019 #110

Cyrus B. Goode said:

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Cave Bear said:

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GMP said:

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You lost me when you said "forget YPP" and then tried to argue PPG subsumes all other stats. This is backwards thinking. It's arguing for the pitcher win as a determining stat in 2020 when we know so much more goes into what makes a good pitcher.

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I use other metrics to diagnose what went wrong with a particular offense, but when comparing several different offenses, trying to use a basket of metrics leads to chaos. Teams A, B, C, and D rank all over the place in YPP, 3rd Down %, Turnovers, RZ scoring, etc: what conclusion are you supposed to draw from that?

Quote:

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PPG is much more random. It includes defensive and special teams scores. It does not take into account field position. It does not take into account pace of play. Yes, points are how we win or lose, but we have better ways to measure how the offense performed. One of those ways is YPP.

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There's just nothing else to say to someone who thinks yards are a better measurement of offensive performance than points other than that's really dumb.

Quote:

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I know little to nothing about Sanford, but having read your argument, I'd lean slightly toward optimistic if he's the hire.

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Then you've drawn an dumb conclusion. You can dismiss my argument as meaningless if you want, but if you're just going on my argument alone and you draw an optimistic conclusion from the numbers then you must still be hungover.

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When I'm looking at who the best passing teams are, I always look to yards per attempt first. Although you get some outliers due to fewer attempts (no, I don't really think Air Force and Navy have the best passing attacks in college football), I find it to be the most useful stat because it encompasses all of the passing measures into one stat. Completion percentage is inherently part of the stat - the more passes you complete, the higher your number goes up. The deeper the passes are that you complete, the more your number goes up. And it rightly punishes teams that are too conservative in their passing attacks. Points are nice, but they generally get lumped in with non-offensive scores and they don't tell me anything about field position and how that benefits or hurts the team.

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I give some value to YPA in evaluating a passer but its limitations as an metric for offensive-wide pass performance are not confined to outliers, specifically that it does not account for TOs, sacks or TDs. Southern Miss is a particularly good example. This season USM starting QB Jack Abraham had a superb 8.7 YPA, but threw 15 INTs and lost 4 fumbles on sacks vs 18 TD passes. If you only had the YPA you'd have to conclude USM had a highly effective pass offense but if you have all the stats you realize the team is 74th in scoring offense and turns the ball over approx 1 per 20 pass attempts.

A more prominent example from this season comes from the NFL with Jameis Winston, who has an excellent 8.2 YPA (NFL #5), but threw 30 INTs plus lost 3 fumbles vs 33 TDs and was sacked 47 times. If you only had the YPA, or even the YPA and TDs, you would have to conclude he's highly effective, but then you see he led the league in INTs (by nine!) and surrendered the 4th most sacks. This apparently explosive pass attack was in reality crippling to its own team's success. Someone might look at this all together and say "if Winston can clean up the INTs and sacks he would be phenomenal" while overlooking the fact that the positive production and the negative production are linked. Winston's recklessly aggressive style produced both the positive and the negative. Counter expectation, Winston was actually more effective in previous seasons with lower YPA averages.

There are YPA metrics that try to account for the value lost to TOs and sacks plus the value gained from TDs but those are subject to the reservation affecting all synthesized metrics: there is no way to know how accurately the synthesized metric measures effectiveness. My eye test says they do a poor job accounting.

There are other issues with YPA however, passing is only an aspect of offense. YPP incorporates both passing and rushing, but is otherwise subject to all of the same problems as YPA. Yardage metrics only really matter to me in assessing how an offense operates and where their strengths are. The proper way to begin a measurement of the entire offense is through points, though I agree that the best points metrics would be per drive to control for defensive and ST scores.

Earlier in December:

"A memorable season of milestones, firsts and accolades continued for the Sacramento State football team this week.

Days after Hornets quarterback Kevin Thomson was named a finalist for the Walter Payton Award for the nation's top Division I FCS player, Sac State coach Troy Taylor was named the STATS FCS national Coach of the Year.

Taylor, in his first season with the Hornets, guided the program to its first Big Sky Conference championship, its first FCS playoff and first postseason berth in 31 seasons, a year after after going 2-8. Sac State went 9-4, its most wins since going 10-3 in 1988 while in Division II.

Taylor also earned Big Sky Coach of the Year and Thomson Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year honors. "


https://www.sacbee.com/sports/college/article238330583.html#storylink=cpy

I haven't followed this thread too much, but wouldn't points per drive, or yards per drive be a good measure of an offense?

YPP is odd because it seems a defense that keeps it in front between the 20s would give up a lot of yards, but not necessarily be a poor D. But there is no readily available stats that measure what I am saying, so I assume it's not a good measure?

Cal88 said:

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Earlier in December:

"A memorable season of milestones, firsts and accolades continued for the Sacramento State football team this week.

Days after Hornets quarterback Kevin Thomson was named a finalist for the Walter Payton Award for the nation's top Division I FCS player, Sac State coach Troy Taylor was named the STATS FCS national Coach of the Year.

Taylor, in his first season with the Hornets, guided the program to its first Big Sky Conference championship, its first FCS playoff and first postseason berth in 31 seasons, a year after after going 2-8. Sac State went 9-4, its most wins since going 10-3 in 1988 while in Division II.

Taylor also earned Big Sky Coach of the Year and Thomson Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year honors. "


https://www.sacbee.com/sports/college/article238330583.html#storylink=cpy

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Congratulations Troy Taylor!

tequila4kapp said:

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510 Bear said:

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QMy money's on Tui getting a promotion. It's the Cal way. Unless we've found a G5/FCS person, the other likely outcome I can picture. In either case, we should hope whoever we found can exceed expectations somehow.

Anyone dreaming of luring away an NFL OC to become our OC should review one of the many threads on this site in 2007, when the peanut gallery debated whether Cal fans should prefer a berth in the national title game vs a Rose Bowl.

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Tui being promoted would be the single worst decision ever. Please not that.

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"Nobody could make a worse hire than Mike Williams hiring Wyking Jones."

Wilcox: "Hold my beer."

"Tui hired as Cal OC."

LunchTime said:

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I haven't followed this thread too much, but wouldn't points per drive, or yards per drive be a good measure of an offense?

YPP is odd because it seems a defense that keeps it in front between the 20s would give up a lot of yards, but not necessarily be a poor D. But there is no readily available stats that measure what I am saying, so I assume it's not a good measure?

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I agree that per drive metrics would be better than either per play or per game. Unfortunately per drive metrics aren't readily supplied by free CFB stat services. You have to do a fair amount of work to derive them yourself.

LunchTime said:

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I haven't followed this thread too much, but wouldn't points per drive, or yards per drive be a good measure of an offense?

YPP is odd because it seems a defense that keeps it in front between the 20s would give up a lot of yards, but not necessarily be a poor D. But there is no readily available stats that measure what I am saying, so I assume it's not a good measure?

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Yes, everyone agrees points per possession would be the better metric. It still would not fully capture the value/cost of turnovers, defensive scoring. However, if anyone compiles it, it does not appear to be given away on the internet.

Yards per play (or yards surrendered per play) is the best available, but does not take into account situation: red zone, third downs, short yardage and can undervalue consistency. On that last point for example, a team that gets 3.5 yards per play (a bad average) but gets it EVERY play will get a first down every three plays and will score a TD on every drive.

Still, yards per play has a lot of advantages over total yards and total points as a measure of offensive efficiency.

Jesus Christ, can you nerds argue about stats in another thread. OC candidates please.

Methinks that people who argue about football stats are the antithesis of nerds, in the year 2020.

Uthaithani said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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510 Bear said:

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QMy money's on Tui getting a promotion. It's the Cal way. Unless we've found a G5/FCS person, the other likely outcome I can picture. In either case, we should hope whoever we found can exceed expectations somehow.

Anyone dreaming of luring away an NFL OC to become our OC should review one of the many threads on this site in 2007, when the peanut gallery debated whether Cal fans should prefer a berth in the national title game vs a Rose Bowl.

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Tui being promoted would be the single worst decision ever. Please not that.

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"Nobody could make a worse hire than Mike Williams hiring Wyking Jones."

Wilcox: "Hold my beer."

"Tui hired as Cal OC."

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I wouldn't put it past Cal to demote a guy from QB coach to TE coach and then hire him the next year as the OC. And in typiCal fashion it would not be a worse hire than WJ.

calumnus said:

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LunchTime said:

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I haven't followed this thread too much, but wouldn't points per drive, or yards per drive be a good measure of an offense?

YPP is odd because it seems a defense that keeps it in front between the 20s would give up a lot of yards, but not necessarily be a poor D. But there is no readily available stats that measure what I am saying, so I assume it's not a good measure?

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Yes, everyone agrees points per possession would be the better metric. It still would not fully capture the value/cost of turnovers, defensive scoring. However, if anyone compiles it, it does not appear to be given away on the internet.

Yards per play (or yards surrendered per play) is the best available, but does not take into account situation: red zone, third downs, short yardage and can undervalue consistency. On that last point for example, a team that gets 3.5 yards per play (a bad average) but gets it EVERY play will get a first down every three plays and will score a TD on every drive.

Still, yards per play has a lot of advantages over total yards and total points as a measure of offensive efficiency.

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Found myself a project then... Nice.

WavyBear said:

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Jesus Christ, can you nerds argue about stats in another thread. OC candidates please.

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bruh, if you're not a nerd, you're in the wrong forum.

LunchTime said:

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I haven't followed this thread too much, but wouldn't points per drive, or yards per drive be a good measure of an offense?

YPP is odd because it seems a defense that keeps it in front between the 20s would give up a lot of yards, but not necessarily be a poor D. But there is no readily available stats that measure what I am saying, so I assume it's not a good measure?

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Not all drives are created equal because of field position.

Points is a fine measure to a point, but it's too dependent on tempo. There are two benefits to your offense having the ball. One is that it can score points for you. The other is that the other team's offense can't score points while your offense controls the ball. Sonny's offense scored lots of points vs weak teams, didn't score as much vs better teams (makes sense, better teams probably have better defense that are harder to score against), and most important, wasn't winning those games against the better teams. In theory, if his defense had been better, maybe he does win those games, but as we're seeing with the big-time teams running tempo, they're also giving up more points than they have historically, so it seems as though the offense results in more points for both units. Does that mean that the defenses aren't as good anymore or does it mean that they aren't getting as much support from the offense as they used to in terms of rest and field position?

There is no perfect measure and as Cave Bear says above, yardage doesn't take turnovers into account (TD's I really don't care about as I consider that a team stat and not a player stat - I don't care whether TD's are scored on running plays or pass plays). But a team that ranks poorly in average yardage generally isn't going to be a good offense, regardless of their turnover rate. A team that ranks higher in average yardage may be bad if they turn the ball over a lot, but all low average yardage and few turnovers gets you is a lot of 3 and outs. Cal has been able to win some games like that, but it won't win a lot of games.

Cave Bear said:

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GMP said:

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Cave Bear said:

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Cal89 said:

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Sanford seems appealing and I imagine we'd have strong interest. I like that he has experience in places like Stanford, Yale and Notre Dame too...

As an OC, yards/play:

2014 (BSU) - 6.53 (19th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 7.02 (6th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 6.07 (43rd FBS)
2019 (US) - 5.81 (69th FBS)

3rd down conversions %:

2014 (BSU) - 44.39 (33rd FBS)
2015 (ND) - 42.50 (39th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 40.48 (65th FBS)
2019 (US) - 42.64 (37th FBS)

Turnovers:

2014 (BSU) - 24 (87th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 20 (61st FBS)
2016 (ND) - 18 (47th FBS)
2019 (US) - 26 (122nd FBS)

Scoring:

2014 (BSU) - 39.7 (9th FBS)
2015 (ND) - 34.2 (34th FBS)
2016 (ND) - 30.9 (53rd FBS)
2019 (US) - 29.2 (63rd FBS)

The 29+ PPG low (this year) was likely hampered by the many turnovers. Also, according to Phil Steele, Utah State was the 123rd least experienced team in 2019.

Would seem to be a good hire.

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No, just no.

First, his one season as OC at BSU was under Harsin, who was de facto OC and playcaller. I'm not inclined to see those stats as indicative of Sanford when he was basically assistant offensive coordinator. Not surprisingly, once Sanford got out of Harsin's shadow and had control of the offense (either as HC himself, or as OC under defensive HCs) his own offense emerges and it looks nothing like Boise State. In fact it looks a lot like Baldwin's offense, but lighter and more pass happy -- and none of those three attributes are positi

Forget YPP, 3rd Down % and Turnovers. While those metrics aren't completely irrelevant, scoring PPG already incorporates every subordinate aspect of offense including those other three metrics. If a coach has a poor YPP but great PPG, I don't care about the poor YPP. Conversely if a coach has a great YPP but poor PPG, I don't care about the great YPP. Scoring is what matters most, in conjunction with the temperament of the offense.

Let's take a close look at Sanford's offenses post-Harsin

Sanford's two year stint at ND was uneven. Their 2015 offense was a marginal improvement on the 2014 pre-Sanford offense (34.2 PPG, +1.4 over 2014) but then in Sanford's second season, 2016, the offense took big step back (30.9 PPG, -3.3 from 2015) which was surprising because they returned a huge amount of offensive production from 2015. When Sanford left ND to be HC at Western Kentucky, ND also lost their star QB DeShone Kizer who was an NFL early entrant. The replacement for Kizer was the mediocre Brandon Wimbush, but now without Sanford their offense stepped back up to 32.4 PPG again.

In two seasons at WKU, Sanford's offenses averaged a total of 23.4 PPG -- and that's while playing schedules that were among the very worst in FBS. They averaged 2.0 yards per carry and his QBs were sacked 48 times in 2017 while scoring 25.5 PPG. Their offense was even worse in Sanford's second year, at 21.1 PPG.

Now we have Utah State. When Sanford arrived they were coming off a 2018 season wherein they were #2 in FBS in scoring at 47.5 PPG. Sanford led the 2019 offense off a cliff, dropping them to 29.2 PPG. QB Jordan Love regressed big time.

Your analysis just glosses over anything problematic. The trajectory of his ND stint was not good. His WKU offenses (which you didn't even include, choosing to limit the results to just "OC" with no justification for it) were truly awful and his USU offense was a gigantic step down from the previous year.

I hope Wilcox knows we can do better

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You lost me when you said "forget YPP" and then tried to argue PPG subsumes all other stats. This is backwards thinking. It's arguing for the pitcher win as a determining stat in 2020 when we know so much more goes into what makes a good pitcher.

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I use other metrics to diagnose what went wrong with a particular offense, but when comparing several different offenses, trying to use a basket of metrics leads to chaos. Teams A, B, C, and D rank all over the place in YPP, 3rd Down %, Turnovers, RZ scoring, etc: what conclusion are you supposed to draw from that?

Quote:

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PPG is much more random. It includes defensive and special teams scores. It does not take into account field position. It does not take into account pace of play. Yes, points are how we win or lose, but we have better ways to measure how the offense performed. One of those ways is YPP.

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There's just nothing else to say to someone who thinks yards are a better measurement of offensive performance than points other than that's really dumb.

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I know little to nothing about Sanford, but having read your argument, I'd lean slightly toward optimistic if he's the hire.

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Then you've drawn an dumb conclusion. You can dismiss my argument as meaningless if you want, but if you're just going on my argument alone and you draw an optimistic conclusion from the numbers then you must still be hungover.

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Two things, re the bolded above.

1. I said "one of those ways is YPP." It's not the only way, but MANY of them are better than points per game, which, again, is like pitcher wins. It tells very little of the story.

2. I was being facetious - the point being your argument was so bad that if you don't like a candidate it increases the odds the candidate is a good one.

CGB's big board of possible OC candidates: Helfrich, Likens, Sanford, Fisch, Derek Dooley, Kellen Moore.

None of the statistical measures take in to account catastrophic injuries such as Garbers this year. What an OC does with a back-up is laudable and interesting, but not a true measure of his system.

B.A. Bearacus said:

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CGB's big board of possible OC candidates: Helfrich, Likens, Sanford, Fisch, Derek Dooley, Kellen Moore.

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Wait I thought CGB folded.

KoreAmBear said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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CGB's big board of possible OC candidates: Helfrich, Likens, Sanford, Fisch, Derek Dooley, Kellen Moore.

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Wait I thought CGB folded.

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I have Cal ties and I like to wear suits on the sidelines.



or in the stands.