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ESPN Game Recap || Highlight Video
Alabama 41 -- Michigan 14 | ||||||
EqPts Differential: Alabama + 12.656 | ||||||
Michigan | Alabama | Michigan | Alabama | |||
TOTAL PLAYS | 53 | 61 | STANDARD DOWNS | 36 | 42 | |
Success Rate | 0.340 | 0.585 | Success Rate | 0.361 | 0.619 | |
Points Per Play | 0.292 | 0.486 | Points Per Play | 0.253 | 0.523 | |
SR + PPP | 0.632 | 1.071 | SR + PPP | 0.614 | 1.142 | |
PASSING PLAYS | 24 | 19 | PASSING DOWNS | 17 | 19 | |
Success Rate | 0.417 | 0.421 | Success Rate | 0.294 | 0.368 | |
Points Per Play | 0.477 | 0.610 | Points Per Play | 0.374 | 0.324 | |
SR + PPP | 0.894 | 1.031 | SR + PPP | 0.668 | 0.692 | |
RUSHING PLAYS | 29 | 42 | 1st Down S&P | 0.511 | 1.084 | |
Success Rate | 0.276 | 0.595 | 2nd Down S&P | 1.013 | 1.051 | |
Points Per Play | 0.139 | 0.394 | 3rd Down S&P | 0.264 | 0.606 | |
SR + PPP | 0.415 | 0.989 | ||||
1st Quarter S&P | 0.443 | 1.490 | ||||
Standard Down Rush S&P | 0.426 | 1.078 | 2nd Quarter S&P | 0.776 | 0.798 | |
Standard Down Pass S&P | 0.992 | 1.323 | 3rd Quarter S&P | 0.816 | 0.854 | |
Passing Down Rush S&P | 0.362 | 0.738 | 4th Quarter S&P | 0.481 | 0.763 | |
Passing Down Pass S&P | 0.796 | 0.629 | ||||
Leverage Rate | 67.9 % | 68.9 % | ||||
TURNOVERS | 3 | 1 | % of plays past midfield | 15.1 % | 54.1 % |
Stat Definitions (via Football Study Hall):
Leverage Rate: A team's ratio of standard downs to passing downs. National average: 68%. Anything over 68% means a team did a good job of avoiding being leveraged into passing downs.
Passing Downs: Second-and-7 or more, third-and-5 or more.
PPP: An explosiveness measure derived from determining the point value of every yard line (based on the expected number of points an offense could expect to score from that yard line) and, therefore, every play of a given game. EqPts is the sum PPP of every play run by an offense. National average: 0.32.
S&P: Think of this as an OPS (the "On-Base Plus Slugging" baseball measure) for football. The 'S' stands for success rate. The 'P' stands for PPP, an explosiveness measure that stands for EqPts Per Play. For more about this measure, visit the main S&P+ page at Football Outsiders. National average: 0.747. Standard downs S&P average: 0.787. Passing downs S&P average: 0.636.
Standard Downs: First downs, second-and-6 or less, third-and-4 or less.
Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down. National Average: 42%.
Analysis after the jump:
Obviously things didn't go well: Alabama dominated Michigan in almost every facet of the game. The most shocking part of the game was how quickly and efficiently Alabama was able to distance themselves from Michigan -- after going three-and-out on their first possession, the Tide scored three touchdowns on three consecutive drives, kicked a field goal, and found themselves up 24-0 early on. Midway through the second quarter, an easy interception return for CJ Mosley pushed the score to 31-0 and put Michigan out of reach. The first quarter was particularly bad for the Michigan defense; Alabama's first quarter S&P of 1.490 is just as absurd as Alabama's three touchdowns on four drives. Here's Alabama's drive chart:
Michigan's offense didn't do anything until that deep pass to Jeremy Gallon to set up Michigan's first touchdown, and by that point, the Tide had already leapt out to that 31-0 lead. There's not really too much that can be said about the Michigan offense -- the running game was horrible (0.415 S&P), the passing game was very inconsistent (0.417 success rate, as well as three interceptions). Michigan's two touchdowns came as the result of big plays: the long bomb to Gallon set up a short Denard Robinson run, and a 44-yard touchdown to Devin Gardner were Michigan's only two scores. Without those two long passes, Michigan's PPP would be a measly 0.130 -- Michigan only had two other plays of longer than twenty yards. Michigan's rushing attack was hurt by the suspension of Fitzgerald Toussaint, but none of Michigan's runners -- including Denard Robinson -- were able to move the ball.
Attempts | Success Rate | EqPts Per Play | |
Vincent Smith | 13 | 0.154 | 0.078 |
Denard Robinson | 10 | 0.400 | 0.278 |
Thomas Rawls | 6 | 0.333 | 0.041 |
Targets | Catches | Yards | |
Jeremy Gallon | 7 | 4 | 107 |
Devin Gardner | 7 | 1 | 44 |
Roy Roundtree | 5 | 2 | 12 |
Vincent Smith | 2 | 1 | 11 |
Drew Dileo | 1 | 1 | 20 |
Mike Kwiatkowski | 1 | 1 | 6 |
Jerald Robinson | 1 | 0 | 0 |