run/pass ratio: The tiers of Tennessee's offense

[kamoshika]

Interesting analysis by RTT's Will Shelton:

Tennessee certainly seemed to find a home in risk management last season. And there’s no doubt Mike DeBord has a conservative reputation. But when we label the entire Vol offense as conservative and nothing else, we misrepresent what Tennessee was about last season and will have a chance to be about this fall.

We broke down the run/pass ratios for Tennessee’s 2015 season, and found several distinct tiers that help identify what the Vols were and weren’t able to do offensively.
Run/Pass Ratio: The Tiers of Tennessee's Offense - Rocky Top Talk

Related piece by Shelton:

The closer we get to September, the more the hype builds.

Part of the conversation comes in comparing Tennessee to the competition. But having been gone so long, part of it comes in comparing Team 120 to Vol squads of past glory and previous decades.

These Vols may have a particular identity around the run game, but their strengths overall can be bigger than just Dobbs, Hurd, and Kamara. Every offensive position group has an opportunity to be the best the Vols have seen in several years; the starting 11 have a chance to go down in history.
Eleven Weeks: Best Offense Since... - Rocky Top Talk

 

[GAVol]

Everybody talks about downfield passing and big plays. What really cost them last year was that they were no good at getting 1st downs and staying on the field at the end of games when everybody knew they were running the ball. 1 or 2 first downs would have iced Oklahoma and Florida and would've made Georgia easier. I don't know if that means we need to get in the I more or playcall more aggressively or just be better up front, but it was a glaring issue.

 

[jakez4ut]

there's some good points in this...

Tennessee’s defense certainly carries some weight in these losses last year, and a major change has already taken place there. The Vols don’t need a major change on offense, in philosophy or execution. If Tennessee can fit a few more big plays into an already strong attack, we’ll be identifying the Vol offense with far more exciting terms.

in particular this...we just weren't a great 1st down offense, in the big spots, in the bigger games....that didn't help. it's still amazing to me how good we were on 3rd down overall last season...

though negative yardage plays on first down were just as responsible if not more so than conservative play-calling with a lead.

i found this maybe the most interesting, in regards to the "trust" factor.

The Florida Gameplan

Florida 68.5% run
This is, of course, the game that made the biggest impact on Vol Nation last year, and as a result I think it’s still the game that colors our perspective most. When we ask if DeBord and Butch Jones trust Josh Dobbs to throw the ball against a great secondary, this game is Exhibit A. Dobbs went 10 of 17 for 83 yards against the Gators, but thanks to a strong and steady running game it still should have been enough to win.

I’m sure we’ll ask if something like this will be the gameplan against Florida again in September. But seeing what a more balanced attack was able to do against Georgia and Alabama provides evidence and confidence we might see more from Dobbs in the passing game against the Gators this time.

good stuff.

 

[jakez4ut]

Everybody talks about downfield passing and big plays. What really cost them last year was that they were no good at getting 1st downs and staying on the field at the end of games when everybody knew they were running the ball. 1 or 2 first downs would have iced Oklahoma and Florida and would've made Georgia easier. I don't know if that means we need to get in the I more or playcall more aggressively or just be better up front, but it was a glaring issue.

i think you can get a little more creative. but that doesn't mean we have to nuts. they'll find some bread and butter, but we have to be better on 1st down for this offense to click.

agree 100%.

 

[utvols74]

Its amazing what a toss to the TE over the middle or in the flat 2 or 3 times a game will do to a Dobbs-shadowing-MLB which should either result in a pass completion (TE faster than MLB) or Dobbs takes off for 20.

Use all of your weapons UT, use all of them.

 

[SaintLouisVol]

Its amazing what a toss to the TE over the middle or in the flat 2 or 3 times a game will do to a Dobbs-shadowing-MLB which should either result in a pass completion (TE faster than MLB) or Dobbs takes off for 20.

Use all of your weapons UT, use all of them.

+1

They absolutely HAVE to come up with 3-4 high-percentage pass plays (excluding middle screens and bubbles) that they run about 10,000 times in practice so the coaches have the seeds to call them late in games. Almost any SEC caliber defense has a decent chance to stop a one-dimensional offense for a few series.

If I have to watch too many more three and outs in the fourth quarter with a lead, I am going to have to drink more.

 

[VolPack22]

Conservative play calling on offense was not the problem last year. It was being conservative on defense that costed us 3 games in the 4th quarter. That issue has been corrected with the Shoop hire and I don't think I'm too far out of line when I say I think we will win several games by 20+ points because of that hire alone.

 

[butchna]

Everybody talks about downfield passing and big plays. What really cost them last year was that they were no good at getting 1st downs and staying on the field at the end of games when everybody knew they were running the ball. 1 or 2 first downs would have iced Oklahoma and Florida and would've made Georgia easier. I don't know if that means we need to get in the I more or playcall more aggressively or just be better up front, but it was a glaring issue.

More runs out of the offset I will address that nicely.

 

[BACKDOC]

Last week Ainge and Co. were saying we would we would run for less yards this season because we will be throwing it more. I think we might run for more yardage in 16. Our line will be more experienced, Kamara is a year removed from JC, and lets face it we did not get up for some of the cupcakes last season. We left some yards, and points out there in a couple of games.

 

[Iam4utalways]

Everybody talks about downfield passing and big plays. What really cost them last year was that they were no good at getting 1st downs and staying on the field at the end of games when everybody knew they were running the ball. 1 or 2 first downs would have iced Oklahoma and Florida and would've made Georgia easier. I don't know if that means we need to get in the I more or playcall more aggressively or just be better up front, but it was a glaring issue.

Nailed it. Against quality opponents it is difficult to get a first down while trying to run clock. Until we can just take a knee to run the clock out in a close game, getting more pints is the best answer.

Go Vols!

 

[Titan&Volfan4life]

All our experienced O players know our base O very well.

We saw some new things in our last Bowl game and they were well practiced and well executed in the Bowl game.

This season I believe we're going to see more new things as the season rolls along.

I also believe we'll keep many of our new things hidden as long as possible to keep them off the tapes unless we need to use some of them to keep our WIN streak building.

DeBord will keep things as vanilla as he's able.

I also believe Shoop will keep things as vanilla as possible with our D as long as he's able.

We want to keep as many things a secret as long as we can as the season moves forward.

We have a really tough 4 game gauntlet to face that will define where Team 120 goes this season.

The more secret bullets we can keep in our gun for big plays when we must have them the better off we'll be in the long term because nobody can prepare for what's not on tape.

You can bet that buTch, DeBord and our new TE coach have come up with some new things to confuse and take great advantage of any D we have to face.

The same can be said about Shoop and his D staff so be prepared to see some exciting new things when everyone least expects it.

The pass back to Dobbs for a TD was great to watch and it was just used 1 time so that let us know we have things left we've never seen before.

The pressure is on, the hype is beyond belief and everyone is watching to see if our Tennessee footVol Team can do it on the field and finally scream at the top of their lungs...WE'RE BACK!!!

Get your lungs prepared because I think we really are back.

We'll know after Fla, UGa, aTm and Bummer where we really deserve to be sitting in the national rankings and I believe we'll all be very happy going into the rest of the season and the SEC Championship game.

WIN by WIN Team 120 earns their respect and climbs the rankings...VFL...GBO!!!

 

[SaintLouisVol]

Conservative play calling on offense was not the problem last year. It was being conservative on defense that costed us 3 games in the 4th quarter. That issue has been corrected with the Shoop hire and I don't think I'm too far out of line when I say I think we will win several games by 20+ points because of that hire alone.

I can't agree. Part of playing good defense is playing less of it. They put the defense back on the field late in games far too many times last year. With the depth they had, you cannot expect them to play that many snaps late in the game and be successful. The more aggressive they play, the more it takes out of them.

The best offense on the planet can't comeback from the sidelines.

 

[jakez4ut]

there's a ton of stats out there on this.
cfbstats.com - 2015 Tennessee Volunteers

but what i got from all of this is a couple things. i'm sure there's more if you want to dig....

we ran 73% of the time on 1st down
we threw 52% of time on 2nd and 3rd down.

Rushing YPC 5.5 on 1st down...drops a full yard per carry on 2nd and 3rd down.

completion % on 1st is at 59, and remarkably it's at 59% for 2nd and 3rd down.

YPC and YPA are up on 2nd and 3rd down from 1st, but i think that's a function of having more than double the attempts. (only 8 pass attempts on 1st down per game compared to 24 runs per game)

the net result...we had 212 3rd downs. 105 were 3rd and 4 or longer(8 3rd downs/game out of a total 16 3rd down attempts/game).....meaning that on those drives (nearly 1/2 of our drives) we had 1st and 2nd down plays that netted less than 6 yards.

in total, we converted to a 1st down (off any down) 22.5 times per game, which is slightly less than a 30% conversion rate (we averaged 76 plays per game).

3rd down conversions--7.4/game, leaving 15.1 conversions per game from the other 3 downs.

simply stated....1 in 3 drives results in a 1st down conversion. 1/2 of our drives resulted in having a 3rd down that was 4 yards or longer.

we need to be a better 1st and 2nd down offense.