ChattaTNVol
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I think the raw returning production numbers are a better data point to use for analysis than Bill’s adjustments and the principle reason is he doesn’t include the offensive line for the offense and he doesn’t distinguish between the position groups on defense either.
The offensive line in the SEC is the heart and soul of the offense. So last year he had Florida at #21 in total raw returning production but because of their 4-7 record in 2017 he adjusted their overall returning production down to #62. He had them ranked overall at #32 preseason but by the end of the season they had climbed all the way up to #9 in his analysis.
Phil Steele had Florida’s offensive line ranked as #9 in the nation based on returning career starts. Bill can’t seemed to figure out when that matters and when it doesn’t. If you have good skill positions, see Auburn who he adjusted their returning production last year up from a raw ranking of #47 to an adjusted ranking of #6 preseason because they had a good season in 2017, but don’t have an offensive line (#114 according to Phil Steele). then you’re going to have a hard time doing anything consistently on the offensive side of the ball.
I think the same applies on defense. The secondary is critical regardless of whether you are in a 4-3 or 3-4 so he relies for the most part on returning production for the secondary. In reality in a 4-3 the defensive line is more important than the linebackers and in a 3-4 the linebackers are more important than the defensive line. He doesn’t even try to capture the differences from what I can see. He uses a cookie cutter approach and because he doesn’t have a lot of competent competition it’s good enough. And now since ESPN bought him off, both FPI and S&P+ are under the same roof.
When these guys come out with their numbers I try to dig into them to see what they’re based on and then see if that makes sense to me. For example, Jesse Simonton wrote an article in May in which he declared that based on his deep-dive into the PFF database we had the worst redzone offense in the SEC last year. That was incredibly misleading if not patently false. We had the 4th best red-zone offense in the conference last year and were ranked first against conference competition. We were 2nd best in the conference at scoring TDs against fellow SEC teams when we were in the red-zone. He measures our red-zone offense by the absolute total number of TDs we score from the red-zone and consequently misses the forest because of the trees. The facts are that if we got into the red-zone last year we had tremendous success. Our problem was not being able to get into the red-zone in the first place not what we did when we actually did make it. I could not believe that he would write something so stupidly absurd.
Anyway, my point is, when the guys publish their opinions, it’s most often my experience that before you bet the farm, either way, you should exercise a bit of scrutiny on their basis and methodology for developing such opinions, no matter who they are. Due diligence. No one can do that for you, well, except me. You can trust me. jmo.
