101 replies to this topic

[Swifty]

Can any of the Oregon guys speak to how disciplined Kelly's teams were with regards to penalties?

[MicrowaveDonuts]

scoregon, on 18 January 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

I saw a number of you guys have checked out the fishduck stuff and saw some comments about power sweeps and other looks. This is something that national media types (especially NFL ones who don't have the time or inclination to watch a lot of college games) don't understand very well. Chip's offense at Oregon was indeed based on inside and outside zone, but in certain games where Chip saw an alignment, personel, or schematic advantage the Ducks ran a lot of power plays. Both power sweeps (with guard and center pulls) and inside power (with a guard pulling). In addition to this, you see Chip coming up with counters, sometimes during games.

Example: In a game against Washington, they were overloading the play side (side opposite the back who comes accross the QB's face) of the bread and butter inside zone with alignment and slants and then just keeping a single player backside to account for Darron Thomas (who couldn't beat that one guy). In the second half Oregon comes out and runs a quick toss play the opposite direction that they'd never run (pretty sure he designed it in the locker room) which absolutely gashes the Washington defense until they are forced to stop cheating on the inside zone, at which point Chip just starts gashing them with his entire playbook. If you can't take away inside zone, you will lose to Chip's offense...if you can, it better be through superior players, because if it's through playing unsound defense Kelly will find your vulnerability and exploit it.

Maybe the most interesting thing in the press conference for me (I've seen plenty of Chip pressers) was one of Lurie's comments. He talked about how Chip took them through where he sees the game going, about trends and counter-trends. I think this is one of his great strengths...he sees the counters to his offense before they arrive and has already developed his solution, while at the same time hitting people over the head with what's working now. Lots of coaches think this way (though maybe not as effectively as Chip), but the great thing about Kelly calling an offense is he rarely outsmarts himself. If something is working, he's going to destroy the other team with it...see outside zone against USC this year for an example (Kenjon Barner gained about 250 of his 335 yards rushing on the same play).

I can certainly confirm this with many, many examples.  Chip rarely outsmarts himself.  Once the game starts, he doesn't give a crap about diversity or balance.  When he finds a play or scheme that works, he'll beat you over the head with it until you stop it.  He won't let off the gas until he's up by many touchdowns.  

When we played Washington in 2007 (Chip's first year as OC), we basically got their DC fired (you could argue he got himself fired) when he was quoted after the game saying "they ran the same play 50 times, and we couldn't stop it".  We ran the Inside Zone Read 50 times.  We gained 465 yards rushing.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We did the same thing agains USC this year....and last year (in the second half with a little pitch/sweep action)...and the year before that.

[MicrowaveDonuts]

Swifty, on 18 January 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

Can any of the Oregon guys speak to how disciplined Kelly's teams were with regards to penalties?

Short answer: pretty good, better than average.


Medium answer: If you go by the NCAA stats, you'd see we were very penalized this year, but then so were all the teams in the Pac12.  So either you believe the Pac12 had 5 or 6 of the 10 most sloppy teams in College football, or you believe the Pac12 officials are much quicker to the pocket than normal.  This was proved out in the bowl season.


Long answer:  The vast majority of penalties (in a schematic sense), don't matter...they may even be good.  

There's a distinction for pre-snap offensive penalties, "sloppy" penalties like illegal formation, delay of game, and offensive false start...these almost certainly have a negative impact on winning, but these are relatively rare.  Most of the other penalties are the result of getting caught trying to gain an edge on the play.  Even Defensive off-sides is usually the result of trying to jump the snap-count.

This is especially true of defensive penalties.  There's basically no correlation between defensive penalties and losing.  STL did a study on this 5 years ago or so... and here's one from 2003 from a pretty small sample that indicates the least penalized team only wins 45% of NFL games.

There are a number of theories on this, but the prevalent one is that everything you lose in defensive penalty yardage is gained back in increased aggressiveness.  For example, NE and SF led the league in defensive holding penalties...or that NE led the league in Offensive interference penalties, Baltimore had the most Personal Fouls, and Houston had the most illegal blocks above the waist, and SF had the most flagged for unnecessary roughness.  Teams that play aggressively, barely skirting the rules in certain aspects will get flagged more...but it can also be a signal that they're much more effective in that aspect of the game.

Playing with these stats for a moment, the most penalized defensive teams in the NFL were:

Baltimore
Pittsburgh
Cleveland
Houston
Minnesota
New England

The least penalized teams were:
Atlanta
NY Giants
KC
Chicago
Dallas
Philadelphia

There's very little/if any correlation...if you can see a pattern you're better than i am, and if you can statistically prove a pattern, you could be published.

[Iggles_Phan]

I can strongly assume that Chip's O rarely took a Delay of Game penalty, or burned a timeout to avoid one.  That's something that this franchise was known for as a hallmark over the past 14 seasons.

[sflomenb]

Wonderful post, thanks very much for all the info.

[Swifty]

MicrowaveDonuts, on 18 January 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

Short answer: pretty good, better than average.


Medium answer: If you go by the NCAA stats, you'd see we were very penalized this year, but then so were all the teams in the Pac12.  So either you believe the Pac12 had 5 or 6 of the 10 most sloppy teams in College football, or you believe the Pac12 officials are much quicker to the pocket than normal.  This was proved out in the bowl season.


Long answer:  The vast majority of penalties (in a schematic sense), don't matter...they may even be good.  

There's a distinction for pre-snap offensive penalties, "sloppy" penalties like illegal formation, delay of game, and offensive false start...these almost certainly have a negative impact on winning, but these are relatively rare.  Most of the other penalties are the result of getting caught trying to gain an edge on the play.  Even Defensive off-sides is usually the result of trying to jump the snap-count.

This is especially true of defensive penalties.  There's basically no correlation between defensive penalties and losing.  STL did a study on this 5 years ago or so... and here's one from 2003 from a pretty small sample that indicates the least penalized team only wins 45% of NFL games.

There are a number of theories on this, but the prevalent one is that everything you lose in defensive penalty yardage is gained back in increased aggressiveness.  For example, NE and SF led the league in defensive holding penalties...or that NE led the league in Offensive interference penalties, Baltimore had the most Personal Fouls, and Houston had the most illegal blocks above the waist, and SF had the most flagged for unnecessary roughness.  Teams that play aggressively, barely skirting the rules in certain aspects will get flagged more...but it can also be a signal that they're much more effective in that aspect of the game.

Playing with these stats for a moment, the most penalized defensive teams in the NFL were:

Baltimore
Pittsburgh
Cleveland
Houston
Minnesota
New England

The least penalized teams were:
Atlanta
NY Giants
KC
Chicago
Dallas
Philadelphia

There's very little/if any correlation...if you can see a pattern you're better than i am, and if you can statistically prove a pattern, you could be published.

Thanks for the response.

With regards to the bold, it's an interesting way of looking at it. If you're aggressive 100% of the time and get flagged for penalties say 7% of the time (just throwing a number out there) then  one would think it's worth it to stay aggressive because that you're making positive plays for your team that other 93% of the time.

[EAGLES1EAGLES]

eephraim, on 17 January 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Thanks for the post.

I'm worried about Kelce quite honestly. I didn't see a lot out of him the last 2 seasons. He's a poor pass protector...but it didnt help that he had Watkins beside him much of the time.

If Kelly can implement an offense that "hides" this olines faults it will be the ultimate magic trick.

Plays to its strengths...LOL

[cmart102]

scoregon, on 18 January 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

Maybe the most interesting thing in the press conference for me (I've seen plenty of Chip pressers) was one of Lurie's comments. He talked about how Chip took them through where he sees the game going, about trends and counter-trends. I think this is one of his great strengths...he sees the counters to his offense before they arrive and has already developed his solution, while at the same time hitting people over the head with what's working now. Lots of coaches think this way (though maybe not as effectively as Chip), but the great thing about Kelly calling an offense is he rarely outsmarts himself. If something is working, he's going to destroy the other team with it...see outside zone against USC this year for an example (Kenjon Barner gained about 250 of his 335 yards rushing on the same play).

This is what I'm most excited about. He's great in game. If he needs to change he does. If not keep killing em with what works

[John Davis]

All I know is that I hope he's as good with the Eagles as many think he'll be!

[jme42257]

great post thanks for the insight!

[DieHardPhan]

I appreciate your post, scoregon.

I am very optimistic about this team's future.

[EAGLES1EAGLES]

SinCityEaglesFan, on 18 January 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

i think this is one of the most informative and educational threads on EMB... love the info. Thanks guys.

are we sure this is TATE ??

We will slide back to normal soon