Todd Grantham defenses, a statistical breakdown

[lbt86]

To get through the football dog days, I decided to start a site: "3rd and Dak" (see first link)
I'm currently a computer engineering student and I especially enjoy reading/working with data analysis in sports (namely football and basketball) --


Analysis of Todd Grantham defenses:
https://missstateblog.wordpress.com/

Below is the link to the spreadsheet/tables used. Feel free to discuss/nit-pick (I also included Ole Miss team defensive stats for reference):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3RSuuReWSH4eDByZ0RiRC1DTWM/view

 

[mcdawg22]

Good info. Thanks.

 

[Shamoan]

im excited to see what he can do.


whenever i am sad, i just think about the trade we made with louisville and my spirits are lifted. that whole swap was a stunner. unless sirmon becomes something we never saw while here and turns into the exact opposite of what he was, this is going to end very poorly for louisville.

 

[RightOfCenter]

I want us to have a nasty defense so bad and maybe he can bring. Here is hoping.

 

[ShrubDog]

Appreciate your time and work.

 

[lbt86]

im excited to see what he can do.


whenever i am sad, i just think about the trade we made with louisville and my spirits are lifted. that whole swap was a stunner. unless sirmon becomes something we never saw while here and turns into the exact opposite of what he was, this is going to end very poorly for louisville.

Sirmon is inheriting a proven defense. If he can't field an average defense at Louisville, he shouldn't be a coordinator at all

 

[Shamoan]

agreed. im betting they are on the low end of average or high end of bad. he literally brought nothing to the table from an in-game coaching standpoint. im sure he learned from his first season, but damn that sucks for us having to let a coordinator cut his teeth at our expense...not that we hadnt tried that before to some degree.

 

[BlueRidgeMtns]

Nicely done

 

[lbt86]

Appreciate your time and work.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I look forward to doing other pieces in the near future (returning offensive production, physical makeup of Grantham defenses, etc.)

 

[lbt86]

agreed. im betting they are on the low end of average or high end of bad. he literally brought nothing to the table from an in-game coaching standpoint. im sure he learned from his first season, but damn that sucks for us having to let a coordinator cut his teeth at our expense...not that we hadnt tried that before to some degree.

I think it's incredibly weird that Louisville went with Sirmon as their coordinator. I would think Ron English is even an upgrade over Sirmon as a coordinator.

We have two coaches on our defensive staff that are objectively better than Sirmon at coordinator

 

[lbt86]

On the subject of "3rd and Grantham"

It was definitely a thing at Georgia: Georgia had the 67th ranked 3rd down defense in 2013 and the 97th third down defense in 2010.

At Louisville however, “3rd and Grantham” was a myth: Grantham’s 3rd down defenses at Louisville were quite good (10th, 32nd, and 9th from 2014-2016).

 

[BiscuitEater]

Appreciate the work. Interesting comments and I really hope that Grantham 'learned' from his time at Georgia to 'simplify' his 3-4. His time at Louisville seem to point to that.

I too, am really ready to see an attacking defense. Create chaos .. be 'Joe Lee Dunn' like unpredictable .. get to / harass the QB .. force TOs .. put less pressure on OUR secondary.

An 'attacking D' + reasonable secondary play + improved STs + 'Dan Mullen O' = puts MSU in position to win most games.

 

[Prediction? Pain.]

I'm a dork about statistical mumbojumbo, too, so I'm glad to see a stats-centric State blog. Well done.

Another thing to note about the 3rd-and-Grantham complaint is that, in the context of the SEC, he actually only had one bad year -- his first. Among SEC teams in conference games, here are UGA's third-down-conversion-defense ranks:

2010: 12th
2011: 2nd
2012: 5th
2013: 7th

So yeah, Grantham's 2013 3rd-down defense wasn't great, but it was still in the top half of the conference in SEC play, ranking ahead of LSU, A&M, Tennessee, and U. Miss., among others.

Plus, by the same metric -- conference rank in 3rd-down-conversion defense in conference games only -- Grantham's Louisville defenses were stellar:

2014: 3rd
2015: 3rd
2016: 2nd

Now compare that to the 3rd-down defense we've seen here the past couple of years: 11th in the conference in both 2015 and 2016.

So, yeah, I'll be fine with a big ole bucket of 3rd and Grantham next season.

 

[lbt86]

I absolutely agree. From a UGA fan perspective however

I'm a dork about statistical mumbojumbo, too, so I'm glad to see a stats-centric State blog. Well done.

Another thing to note about the 3rd-and-Grantham complaint is that, in the context of the SEC, he actually only had one bad year -- his first. Among SEC teams in conference games, here are UGA's third-down-conversion-defense ranks:

2010: 12th
2011: 2nd
2012: 5th
2013: 7th

So yeah, Grantham's 2013 3rd-down defense wasn't great, but it was still in the top half of the conference in SEC play, ranking ahead of LSU, A&M, Tennessee, and U. Miss., among others.

Plus, by the same metric -- conference rank in 3rd-down-conversion defense in conference games only -- Grantham's Louisville defenses were stellar:

2014: 3rd
2015: 3rd
2016: 2nd

Now compare that to the 3rd-down defense we've seen here the past couple of years: 11th in the conference in both 2015 and 2016.

So, yeah, I'll be fine with a big ole bucket of 3rd and Grantham next season.

UGA had two dominant defenses in 2011 and 2012, and 2013 had a decent amount of NFL talent (future NFL starters Leonard Floyd, Ramik Wilson, Corey Moore) to only be a mid-tier SEC defense. And Georgia ended the 2013 season playing pretty bad (and unlucky) defense especially against Auburn and Nebraska (in the Gator bowl)

 

[Hoover Dawg]

I see you are a fan of Bill C. I listen to his podcast and read some of his work from time to time. He's to be admired for doing that incredible amount of work, but his stats, like all others, just miss so much in my opinion. I would like to see his recruiting metrics improved because talent means more than anything else.

I've never seen where he hits the mark any better than traditional pollsters which is essentially public opinion.

 

[lbt86]

I see you are a fan of Bill C. I listen to his podcast and read some of his work from time to time. He's to be admired for doing that incredible amount of work, but his stats, like all others, just miss so much in my opinion. I would like to see his recruiting metrics improved because talent means more than anything else.

I've never seen where he hits the mark any better than traditional pollsters which is essentially public opinion.

I do read Bill C and enjoy a lot of the articles he writes. My main criticism(s) of his work is:

1) He relies too much on his own created advanced metrics that there's a somewhat high learning curve to read his work. Some traditional stats are fairly good (yards per play, for example), but he avoids using them.

2) Some of his stats are too big picture in the sense that the number really doesn't tell you anything because there are too many factors that affect it.


My goal is to write well researched and robust articles that incorporate primarily traditional metrics while focusing on more specific content where the stats are relevant

 

[Hoover Dawg]

Good luck to you. I've thought about it but like I say, it's an incredible amount of work to not be getting paid, like Bill is. I've toyed with trying to re-vamp 247's recruiting rankings by weighing line play and quarterback a little heavier, but it just takes too long to dive in. And as you know, to really understand Bill C's or anyone's advanced stats, you really have to 100% dive in and spend hours looking at it. Jake Wimberly interviewed him the other day on OOB and it was nearly useless due to only having about 10 minutes. Bill isn't a great short interview guy, but his 1.5 hour podcasts are pretty good.

 

[lbt86]

Appreciate the work. Interesting comments and I really hope that Grantham 'learned' from his time at Georgia to 'simplify' his 3-4. His time at Louisville seem to point to that.

I too, am really ready to see an attacking defense. Create chaos .. be 'Joe Lee Dunn' like unpredictable .. get to / harass the QB .. force TOs .. put less pressure on OUR secondary.

An 'attacking D' + reasonable secondary play + improved STs + 'Dan Mullen O' = puts MSU in position to win most games.

Heck, for year one under Grantham, we'll have a pretty good team overall if our defense performs equivalent to a 40th or 50th ranked defense. Last years defense with Sirmon was on its own level of bad (73rd in S&P+ and 72nd in relative rank)