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Average length of target


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I’m seeing everyone getting pissed about the average length of target Saturday, and I like to refer to them as non-ball knowers. Did you not watch the Georgia game and see that every attempted deep shot ended in a sack fumble for both of our QB’s. This needed to be a quick release, 17 completions in a row, rhythm game for Quinn and it was.

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40 minutes ago, Nederlandboy42 said:

I’m seeing everyone getting pissed about the average length of target Saturday, and I like to refer to them as non-ball knowers. Did you not watch the Georgia game and see that every attempted deep shot ended in a sack fumble for both of our QB’s. This needed to be a quick release, 17 completions in a row, rhythm game for Quinn and it was.

Calling people non-ball knowers while showing you don't know ball is definitely a choice. Citing the Georgia game where depth of target was a huge issue because Georgia suffocated the YAC is even more of a choice. 

 

Vanderbilt ranked as the 94th ranked defensive FEI team and their pass defense ranks 102.

Edited by Hashtag
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3 hours ago, Hashtag said:

Calling people non-ball knowers while showing you don't know ball is definitely a choice. Citing the Georgia game where depth of target was a huge issue because Georgia suffocated the YAC is even more of a choice. 

 

Vanderbilt ranked as the 94th ranked defensive FEI team and their pass defense ranks 102.

The issue with the Georgia game is exactly as you mentioned: Ewers wasn't throwing it to open guys down the field. Because we couldn't run the ball and they were tackling in space, we needed Ewers to be willing to attack the middle of the game and be aggressive. Against Vandy, there's no need to force the issue down the field when they consistently gave you the short game, and it worked. This ADOT stuff is worthless anyway. Ewers had an ADOT of 6.1 against Michigan, and he was excellent. If we want to criticize based on ADOT, the actual criticism is that Ewers isn't hitting the open guys over the middle enough. 

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Weren’t a lot of folks, including me, complaining about Sark and QE forcing too many long shots downfield about 2-3 years ago?  Mostly, they’re taking what the defense gives them. Teams are respecting the Horns speed with high safeties and/or blitzes to protect against big plays. Somebody thinks QE can throw deep.

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Something to keep in mind with ADOT…it only measures the vertical yardage of a pass target.  For example, a 15-yard seam pass from the QB to a WR inside the hashes is roughly a 15-yard ADOT pass by the QB.

However, it doesn’t measure horizontal distance of a pass thrown..  For example, on Quinn’s 3-yard TD pass to Matthew Golden, he threw the football on a dime from a distance of 36 yards to Golden.  The far hash to the front pylon of the end zone = 36 yards.  However, ADOT only counts 3 yards of those 36 yards, while the other 33 yards are not counted in ADOT. 

While fans talk about ADOT and Ewers, it’s probably worth noting that opposing defenses need to defend the entire field (horizontal and vertical).  The swings and check downs to RBs outside the numbers (hitting them in stride) are typically longer distance passes than many of the slants, RPOs, Mesh routes, skinny posts, and seam passes that so many other college QBs get much of their ADOT credit for.  If you measure the average WIDTH of a pass target, it’s still yardage that the defense must defend against.  I think Sark understands this, and leverages it.  (Note: nobody understood the geometry of offense better than Mike Leach).

Texas is currently #17 in college football in passing yards per attempt at 8.5 YPA.  Last season, Texas also had 8.5 YPA for the season.  On Saturday, Quinn was averaging over 10 YPA for 3 TDs in the first half (then fell off in the 2nd half to finish at 7.7 YPA).  We are also the #14 passing efficiency offense in college ball.

For me, it’s certainly informative that Quinn’s YPA is down by 25% since he returned from injury (to 6.4 YPA), which may point to (1) lingering injury, (2) opposing defenses now playing 2-deep Safeties, (3) poor pass protection in the last few games, or (4) some combination of all of the above.

Personally, if we are a top 17 team in producing yardage every time we run a pass play (YPA), and also a top 14 team in passing efficiency, than I really don’t care if we generate those yards by throwing more risky downfield passes against two high Safeties or by throwing swing pass / check downs to RBs in the flats and letting them get the YAC provided by the defense’s two high Safeties playing so deep.  The net result is 8.5 yards, and how you achieve them really doesn’t matter.

 

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23 hours ago, Hashtag said:

Calling people non-ball knowers while showing you don't know ball is definitely a choice. Citing the Georgia game where depth of target was a huge issue because Georgia suffocated the YAC is even more of a choice. 

 

Vanderbilt ranked as the 94th ranked defensive FEI team and their pass defense ranks 102.

What was more of a problem. Depth of target or the 4 strip sacks? 😂

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On 10/29/2024 at 1:04 PM, Hashtag said:

A 3 year starting QB performing worse in pocket than a RS freshmen?

I agree it was bad. I think a large part of the problem was replicability of our snap count. I’ve never seen a defense stem consistently that close to the snap of the ball.

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