Over at Rock M Nation, a Missouri sports blog, the proprietor, Bill Connelly, has developed a system for rating the success of college teams, units and players that has also made its way into columns at ESPN and Football Outsiders. I am going to do something similar to analyze the Illini, though not quite as advanced, for the sake of saving time.
Basically, there are two metrics that I want to look at. One is yards per play, which I am converting into points per play based on an average ratio of 1 point for every 13.8 yards (Note that this reflects projected points scored, not actual points scored, which is something I will discuss more tomorrow). The other is success rate, which measures whether each play was a success. I'm using Connelly's criteria for what constitutes a success, namely:
1st down: A play that gains 50% of required yardage is a success
2nd down: A play that gains 70% of required yardage is a success
3rd and 4th down: A play that gains 100% of required yardage is a success
Then, similar to what Connelly does, I added the team's projected points per play and success rate together - thus capturing the pure scoring rate of an offense while also capturing its play-to-play consistency (i.e., are they more dependent on one big play to score or a series of smaller plays).
Now, for some season statistics!
I don't have a lot of data yet to put into context exactly what these numbers mean but suffice it to say that the .835 figure for the Illinois offense is probably average but the .935 figure for the defense is pretty bad (and the numbers would look a lot worse if not for Illinois' beatdown of Illinois State). Illinois' success rate on offense (44.5%) is not that much worse than the success rate of their opponents (46.6%), but their opponents get significantly more points per play, reflecting the Illini's lack of big play ability. Illinois has actually outperformed their opponents on the season in the run game - but again, that is skewed because of the 400 yard rushing performance against Illinois State. Still, the run game has largely been a wash for the Illini. Where they have been beaten badly is in the passing game.
In performing this play-by-play analysis, I counted all sacks as pass plays (since that's what they are!), which means that Illinois actually averages more points per rush than per pass, which is rare. Generally, you would expect the passing game to have a higher points per play value but a lower success rate due to incomplete passes. Instead, the Illini passing game has been ineffective all around with a low success rate (37.5%) and a poor ratio of points per play. On the other side of the ball, the secondary has been regularly torched this year, yielding a 1.016 S&P+ (using Connelly's terminology for the time being - though it is not exactly the same thing). Apart from the Penn State game, the run defense has been pretty good but the strategy of putting the corners into loose coverage has clearly not been an effective one.
Tomorrow, I will show why the Illinois offense has been rather unlucky this year and why the Illinois-Indiana game was closer than it looked, perhaps giving some positive signs going ahead.
