Looking for Progress in Irish QB Play

Curious about the seeming lack of development at the QB position over Kelly’s first 2 seasons, I looked over some of the numbers reflecting in-game ND quarterback play to see if they showed anything that I hadn’t seen with my own eyes.

To try to identify development over time, I broke ND quarterback play into 3 roughly equal sets of games: (1) the first 8 of 2010, when Crist was at QB (in this set, I also included Crist’s half of play against USF to open 2011, so as to attribute that performance to the appropriate QB); (2) the last 5 games of 2010 (I include Tulsa), when Rees took the helm, and the first 4 of 2011 (minus Crist’s half against USF); and (3) the final 9 games of 2011 (minus the second half against Stanford, so as not to attribute Hendrix’s performance to Rees). This leaves us with three sets of 8 games (Crist), 8.5 games (Rees), and 8.5 games (Rees). It overlooks Crist’s snaps taken before 2010, the play of Montana in 2010 and Hendrix in 2011, all passes by Goodman, the few snaps taken by Rees before Tulsa, and the few taken by Crist after USF.

I looked at the following averaged figures: offensive points per game; passing yards per game; total passing attempts; passing yards per attempt; net rushing yards per game; QB rushing yards per game; QB turnovers per game; and interceptions per attempt. Here are the numbers for each figure for each of the three sets of games I broke down (I apologize that this isn’t in the form of an actual chart):

Progress in Irish QB Play

1st set of 8 games (Purdue 2010 to Navy 2010) > 2nd set of 8.5 games (Tulsa 2010 to Pitt 2011) > 3rd set of 8.5 games (Purdue 2011 to FSU 2011)

Avg. offensive points per game: 25.9 > 24.8 > 27.2

Avg. passing yards per game: 266 > 237.1 (-28.9) > 221.5 (-15.6)

Total passing attempts: 294 > 295 > 271

Avg. passing yards per attempt: 6.9 > 6.8 > 6.95

Avg. rushing yards per game: 120.8 > 151.9 (+31.1) > 174.8 (+22.9)

QB avg. rushing yards per game: 8.2 > - .5 > - 6.4

QB avg. TOs per game: 1.25 > 2 > 1.1 (1.4 in final 5 games)

Avg. INTs per attempt: 2.38% > 4.41% > 2.95% (5.88% in final 5 games)

What does all of this tell us? Not much, because the amount of data is pretty small, but with that caveat, here’s what I see:

Across these three sets of games over two seasons, the offense scored a very consistent average number of points per game. There was almost no change in the total number of passing attempts between the first set of games and the second, and just 25 fewer in the third. There was virtually no change in the number of passing yards per attempt across the three sets of games, which is interesting when you contrast completion percentage: Crist hit 58.6% of his passes (excluding 2009, through USF) and Rees, 63.0% in his first 8.5 games and 65.0% in his last; still, close to 6.9 YPA across the board. The QB turned the ball over an average of 1.25 times per game in the first set, 2 times per game in the second, and only 1.1 times per game in the third, but that obscures the increase in QB turnovers at the end of 2011, when Rees turned the ball over twice in each of 3 of the last 5 games (Hendrix contributed 2 additional INTs in the final 2 games).

Average passing yards per game dropped off noticeably between each set of games, by almost 30 and then by another nearly 16 yards per game. Average rushing yards increased noticeably across the three sets of games, by just over 30 and then by another more than 20 yards per game, basically off-setting the decrease in passing yards; this obscures the clear decrease in rushing yards per game in the final 3 of 2011, where we dropped from an average of 197.0 ypg on the ground (in the first five of my last set of games, Purdue 2011 through MD) to averaging just 103.7 ypg on the ground (almost 20 yards per game fewer than the average for the first set of games, though, granted, against 2 superior rush defenses in Stanford and FSU).

The rate of interceptions per attempt also shifted significantly across the three sets of games. Crist threw INTs on 2.38% of his attempts in 2010 (plus the first ½ of USF in 2011). In his first 8.5 games, Rees threw INTs on 4.41% of his attempts and then on 2.95% of his attempts in his last 8.5 games. However, in just the last 5 games of 2011, Rees threw INTs on 5.88% of his attempts.

For me, this sheds just a little numerical light on the evolving quarterback play for the Irish. In two seasons, the numbers at this key position have stagnated, despite evident improvements around it on the o-line and in the run game, as well as in greater experience at receiver and tight end and in the decrease in injuries to key offensive players across that time. Passing yards per game dropped over the two seasons while the number of passing attempts remained fairly constant; rushing yards made up for this until the final games of 2011. This isn’t anything we all didn’t see just watching the games, but seeing it on paper helps to crystallize that.