So, I'm bored and I've basically made the Bert a pseudo hobby during the Rona. Additionally, another website that has taken over more time than I'm willing to admit is ProFootballFocus. This site provides incredible insight into CFB players and statistics that I really haven't seen put into a better portal before now.
To combine those two hobbies, I thought it would be fun to find 3 areas Arkansas could potentially exploit against an opponent's weakness. In my head, this sounds like an awesome idea. On paper, it may be shit. If it appears to be the latter, let me know. I also used the most cliché statement in football for the title as anything more than three seemed too daunting of a task and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the name. Well, without further rambling, here's my first go at it.
Three Areas to Expose:
To combine those two hobbies, I thought it would be fun to find 3 areas Arkansas could potentially exploit against an opponent's weakness. In my head, this sounds like an awesome idea. On paper, it may be shit. If it appears to be the latter, let me know. I also used the most cliché statement in football for the title as anything more than three seemed too daunting of a task and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the name. Well, without further rambling, here's my first go at it.
Three Areas to Expose:
- Bo Nix's struggles against pressure
- I think it's been evident that I'm not the biggest Nix fan: he runs a QB friendly offense with an offensive coordinator as a head coach yet is constantly praised regardless of only achieving mediocre at best statistics. If anything, this offense should inflate a QB's abilities/statistics rather than limit his potential. It's no secret that QB's have underperformed under Malzahn at Auburn, but you could additionally point to Newton or Marshall and show how a talented QB could thrive in the offense.
With all of that said, the stats in 2020 again clearly indicate Bo Nix is well below average. Specifically, his struggles appear to be magnified far more than the average QB if you get in his face:
The two numbers that I want to hammer on this image are 2.0 ypa and a completion percentage of 26.1%. To put those numbers into perspective, Nix is the 6th worst QB in D1 (min 70 dropbacks - 56 QBs) under pressure in terms of completion percentage and 2nd worst QB in D1 (min 70 dropbacks - 56 QBs) under pressure in terms of yards per attempt. In other words, he's arguably the worst QB in D1 when under pressure.
- I think it's been evident that I'm not the biggest Nix fan: he runs a QB friendly offense with an offensive coordinator as a head coach yet is constantly praised regardless of only achieving mediocre at best statistics. If anything, this offense should inflate a QB's abilities/statistics rather than limit his potential. It's no secret that QB's have underperformed under Malzahn at Auburn, but you could additionally point to Newton or Marshall and show how a talented QB could thrive in the offense.
- Auburn's Run Game Issues
- I think we can all attest to the greatness that is UGA's run defense: eight players from their current team could have their names called in this year's draft. However, looking over Auburn's rushing numbers, it is alarming how poorly they've run the ball over the first 2 games.
Highlighted are the two main areas of note: no push & no explosion. As Auburn averages 2.32 yards per carry after contact and 3.0 yards per attempted rush, that indicates Auburn averages 0.68 yards/carry prior to contact. Or to put it into layman's terms, on the 47 attempts running the ball this year Auburn only gets approximately 2 football lengths beyond the line of scrimmage before they are hit. Additionally, of their 4 runs over 10 yards this year, 3 of them have been by the QB and 1 is by their injured running back, Shivers.
Of the two healthy RBs that have gotten significant PT this year, Auburns averaged yard per carry has been 2.6 for D.J Williams and 3.3 for Tank Bigsby. So not only is Auburn struggling with pressure in the QBs face, they are additionally struggling to get any push and any explosion from the OL & RBs, respectively.
- I think we can all attest to the greatness that is UGA's run defense: eight players from their current team could have their names called in this year's draft. However, looking over Auburn's rushing numbers, it is alarming how poorly they've run the ball over the first 2 games.
- Attacking Auburn's Run Defense
- This is an area that I thought Auburn would be high in statistically. Their first two games were against opponents who define their offensive success based upon how well they do running while their quarterbacks are either an unknown (UGA) or are strongly predisposed to running the ball (UK). Kevin Steele is a fantastic DC and I assumed that AU would do everything they could to make both programs as one dimensional as possible via limiting the run. However, looking over the stats, AU has been well below average in both tackling and rush defense.
The first area of note, tackling, is even more pronounced on their defensive line. Below is an image taken from PFF in which I highlighted the 9 players for Auburn who have over 90 snaps on the year. The three DL that have played the most for Auburn - Newkirk, Wooden, & Truesdell - each have an average tackling grade below 40. To put this in perspective, if you were to compare Arkansas' top 9 defender in terms of snaps to AU, these three players would rank below 8 of our 9 players (Greg Brooks Jr. - 28.8).
Additionally, if you were to do this same exercise in terms of rush defense, those three aforementioned players would only be higher than 7 of our 9 players (Greg Brooks Jr. - 47.8; Bumper Pool - 32.2). What this is saying is Auburn's DL has been exceptionally sub-par in terms of defending the run.
It is again illustrated in the images of the two teams running success against them.
This shows each team was able to dictate the LOS against AU by looking at their yards/carry before contact: 1.92 for UGA and 2.63 for UK. Combined, AU opponents have 82 rushes for 371 yards (4.52 ypa) and 187 yards after contact (2.28 ypo) indicating a 2.24 yards/carry prior to contact. To contrast with their OL that is averaging 0.68 yards/carry prior to contact, AU is getting ~3x less of a push on the defensive front in comparison to their opponents.
- This is an area that I thought Auburn would be high in statistically. Their first two games were against opponents who define their offensive success based upon how well they do running while their quarterbacks are either an unknown (UGA) or are strongly predisposed to running the ball (UK). Kevin Steele is a fantastic DC and I assumed that AU would do everything they could to make both programs as one dimensional as possible via limiting the run. However, looking over the stats, AU has been well below average in both tackling and rush defense.
