A stat worth watching

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Yards per completion. This measures explosiveness in the passing game. The lower you are, the more dinking and dunking that's going on.

Well Leach is always going to be on the lower end of the rankings. But the actual number is the important one. In his 20th season, Leach has almost always averaged 10+ yards per completion. There are 3 exceptions. 9.9 yds per completion in 2017 at Wazzou. 8.7 yds per completion in 2020. 8.6 yds per completion in 2021 so far. It appears the 2020 average of 8.7 is one of the worst in football history.

This seems to indicate SEC defenses are better at keeping the ball in front and making tackles as well as a complete lack of stretching the field. This number has to improve dramatically. It's an indicator of how defenses are throttling the air raid.

https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-completion?date=2021-09-30

 

[Dawghouse]

I agree but one thing I've noticed is poor pass placement has impacted this number as well. Rogers doesn't always put the ball where the receiver can catch it on the run.

Plenty of other issues causing this but this is one we can control (or maybe not). It's not just defenses throttling the air raid. In many cases we are throttling ourselves. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

If you broke it down by quarters, I bet you’d see big differences like you do in the points scored. Some may be SEC defenses but some also is probably Rogers

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

That's a good stat if you want to get in to some of the issues with the current scheme of this offense

 

[Go Budaw]

Yards per completion. This measures explosiveness in the passing game. The lower you are, the more dinking and dunking that's going on.

Well Leach is always going to be on the lower end of the rankings. But the actual number is the important one. In his 20th season, Leach has almost always averaged 10+ yards per completion. There are 3 exceptions. 9.9 yds per completion in 2017 at Wazzou. 8.7 yds per completion in 2020. 8.6 yds per completion in 2021 so far. It appears the 2020 average of 8.7 is one of the worst in football history.

This seems to indicate SEC defenses are better at keeping the ball in front and making tackles as well as a complete lack of stretching the field. This number has to improve dramatically. It's an indicator of how defenses are throttling the air raid.

https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-completion?date=2021-09-30

Great post. I’ll add that even the checkdowns would be a lot more productive if Rogers would read the field faster. When you stand back there for 5 seconds, LB’s and safeties have all day to move over to the RB in the flat by simple process of elimination. If you see the first 2 reads aren’t there and then immediately check it down, you stand a much better chance of some YAC. A checkdown should still net you 4-5 yards minimum every time, but we’re only getting 1-2 yards far too often.

Rogers’ arm strength also continues to be a problem even on the check downs. The ball is in the air forever even on these 3 yard flat passes. Gives the defender a whole additional step of reaction time. Even Leach’s weaker armed QB’s have been able to put some zip on the short passes to the RB’s. I don’t know of Rogers is taking something off on purpose there, if its a mechanics issue, or if he just doesn’t have it in the arm.

 

[msudawg12]

I dont think it reflects leach at all. It reflects will’s decision making. Hes taking safe throws. All game ling, there are receivers open 15-25 yds downfield

 

[idog]

2020 has to have an asterisk. We played a SEC only schedule with a true freshman the majority of games. The transfer QB (I already forgot his name) slung it all over the field against LSU. What was our average that line game?

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

I thought about that... But we did have the benefit of Costello against LSU, which will never happen again. That one game taken out drops the YPC from 8.7 to 7.8.

Then I looked at the absolute garbage defenses we have played so far this year and realized, 8.7 was a real number for last year if we could only get to 8.6 against 3 bottom 20 passing defenses in the country so far this year.

 

[idog]

The qb for Arkansas average about 20 yards per pass vs the best defense in the country last night…

 

[047Dog]

The play with the Heath cross just about sums up what we see from Rogers. He ran, uncovered, from hash to hash on an 8 yard cross while Rogers stood in the pocket with the ball. He finally threw it to Heath when he was one step from the sideline. It was of course incomplete.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

It was actually 30.6 per completion. I watched that game and all I could think was big plays are how you win games when you don't have a huge personnel advantage.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Rogers dumps it off too much and misses wide open guys a lot. He doesn't see the field and his arm is marginal at best. He also can't run it.

 

[missouridawg]

If you broke it down by quarters, I bet you’d see big differences like you do in the points scored. Some may be SEC defenses but some also is probably Rogers

I wonder if defenses are playing us differently when they’re up two scores in the fourth quarter? I’m not a X’s and O’s Guy, so something like wouldn’t jump out to me watching live. But it makes very little sense at how we look like the 1999-2000 Rams for 2-3 drives per game and the 2003 Mississippi State Bulldogs for the rest of the time.

 

[Go Budaw]

I thought about that... But we did have the benefit of Costello against LSU, which will never happen again. That one game taken out drops the YPC from 8.7 to 7.8.

Then I looked at the absolute garbage defenses we have played so far this year and realized, 8.7 was a real number for last year if we could only get to 8.6 against 3 bottom 20 passing defenses in the country so far this year.

That 7.8 number last year also includes those 4 terrible Costello games, so take that into account. Rogers by himself in 2020 was 8.3 YPC. 8.6 this year isn’t a huge difference, but it is marginally better. It’s certainly worth tracking this along with his aDOT and how it changes going forward to see if the outlook of the offense is better.

 

[wsjmsu75]

That 7.8 number last year also includes those 4 terrible Costello games, so take that into account. Rogers by himself in 2020 was 8.3 YPC. 8.6 this year isn’t a huge difference, but it is marginally better. It’s certainly worth tracking this along with his aDOT and how it changes going forward to see if the outlook of the offense is better.

What is that?

 

[maroonmania]

The qb for Arkansas average about 20 yards per pass vs the best defense in the country last night…

Definitely easier to hit big pass plays when the defense is playing to stop the run.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Average depth of target

 

[ckDOG]

Leach stats make your head hurt. Just go PPG

We suck at that. We need another 10 ppg to sniff the top 25. Maybe we get there one day? But hey, our QB has a high completion percentage and a few yards. Yay.

 

[patdog]

And we've played most of the worst defenses we'll see all year. It's not going to get any easier from here on out.