Statistically Speaking - Georgia Tech | by Pat
It's a Numbers Game
Some notable stats gathered from the ND/GT box score and the recent game notes media release...
• Of the 61 players that played on Saturday, 31 were freshman or sophomores. That is the highest number of freshman/sophomore participation since freshmen became eligible in 1971.
• 16 players saw their very first minutes of playing time on Saturday including 9 freshmen (Clausen, Allen, Hughes, Kamara, Romine, Neal, Tate, Walker, and Williams), 6 sophomores (Jones, Wenger, Gordan, Schmidt, Mullen, Wade), and 1 junior (Bemenderfer).Opponent, Date Fr./So. Played
Georgia Tech, 2007...............................31
Virginia, 1989 ..................................29
Purdue, 1983 ....................................29
Purdue, 1984 ....................................23
Maryland, 2002 ..................................23
Indiana, 1991 ...................................22
Kansas, 1999 ....................................22
Purdue, 1980 ....................................21
Michigan, 1987 ..................................21
Northwestern, 1992 ..............................21
• It may not have seemed like it, but in his very first collegiate game, Armando Allen totaled more than 100 all-purpose yards. In addition to his 25 yards rushing and 1 yard receiving, he totaled 84 yards in kickoff returns (16.8 yards per return) for a grand total of 110 all-purpose yards.
• 9 different players caught the ball for the Irish on Saturday, the most in Weis's tenure. Of the 9 who caught the ball, 5 made their first career reception (Allen, Hord, Jabbie, Kamara, Yeatman)
• Zibby had 4 tackles in the game and with his 1st tackle, he passed Michael Stonebreaker for 10th on the Irish career tackles list. With 224 career tackles, he is 66 tackles away from #9 Steve Niehaus. He is 5 tackles away from passing Jim Browner (228, 1976-78) for most career tackles by a defensive back.
We want M.O.E.
Our pre-season post about Major Offensive Errors (M.O.E) generated a fair amount of conversation both for and against such metrics. For those who don't remember the original post, the idea is that adding sacks allowed, offensive penalties, dropped passes, interceptions, and fumbles and then dividing by the total number of plays yields an "offensive efficiency" number. The lower the number the better, with 12% or lower being the goal of sorts.
In order to see how the generalized "12% as indicator of victory" rule of thumb holds, I'm going to be tracking the M.O.E. for both ND and the opponent all year. And even if you don't really care about its value as a metric, it does give you a quick and easy snapshot of how effective (or not) the offense was in a particular game. Not that you need it for last Saturday.
As expected, ND's M.O.E. against Georgia Tech was a pitiful 21%. That is second only to the 2006 Michigan game as the worst job in Weis's tenure. The key culprit in this calculation was the high sack total (9).
Georgia Tech did a great job holding on to the ball and focusing on the run. That meant they limited their chances for interceptions and sacks and the M.O.E. result of 4% shouldn't be a surprise. It will be interesting to see how this stat stacks up against the rest of the ND opponents over the course of the season.
The full breakdown for each team can be found here and will be updated as the season unfolds.
Raw Data
This year I'm putting all of the offensive, defensive, turnover, and special teams stats into a google spreadsheet in order to keep this post a bit shorter and make it easier to update as the season goes on. If you're interested in knowing which two defensive categories are currently ranked in the Top 30, and just where our offense is ranked, follow this link. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this week's installment of Statistically Speaking.
