FanPost

Scouting the Aggies: Reviewing the Four Game Homestand

Alright, I'm back and I have some info I think you'll enjoy. I have the whole season scouted with the exception of the second half of the Ole Miss game, so what I thought I'd do is just look back at the four game homestand. It included three conference games and one cupcake, it was the middle chunk of the season when the whole offensive playbook was, as far as we know, being used (save for any specific wrinkles the coaches are holding back), and it included everything from blowout wins to close wins to a close loss. A fair sample, I'd say. As always, these numbers do not include garbage time and if there are any discrepancies, it's either very minor, easily explainable, or shut up you're not my real dad.

First, let's talk personnel. Many fans seem to have opinions on whether we run too much five wide, or too little, or whatever. I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other, but here are some numbers showing how much we used each personnel group in each of the last four games and the ratio of successful plays that each group produced.

Auburn:

  • 0 personnel: 9 times, 56% success
  • 10 personnel: 62 times, 65% success
  • 11 personnel: 1 time, 0% success
  • 12 personnel: 3 times, 0% success
  • 13 personnel: 1 time, 0% success
  • 20 personnel: 5 times, 40% success

Vanderbilt:

  • 0: 2 times, 50%
  • 10: 47 times, 72%
  • 11: 3 times, 67%
  • 12: 1 time, 100%
  • 13: 1 time, 100%
  • 20: 1 time, 0%

UTEP:

  • 0: 2 times, 0%
  • 10: 33 times, 55%
  • 11: 2 times, 50%
  • 12: 1 time, 100%
  • 20: 1 time, 0%

Mississippississpipsspi State:

  • 0: 8 times, 75%
  • 10: 47 times, 49%
  • 11: 6 times, 50%
  • 12: 4 times, 50%
  • 20: 3 times, 100%

Overall, our success rate in each game was:


Auburn: 53%

Vandy: 69% (wow!)

UTEP: 51%

MSU: 54%


So what does that all mean? Well, the Vandy number was great, and was no doubt aided by those first four stellar drives in which it seemed like every single play was successful, but the other three games are our lowest numbers of the season. Should that concern us? To be honest, it does slightly concern me.

This team normally is over 60%, or at least they were in the first half of the season. It was a bit of a sloppy homestand as far as offensive execution is concerned. Yes, even with the 51 points and 565 yards per game. As great as those numbers are, and they are great, we are not being nearly as efficient as we are capable of. Heading into two games in which common opinion says our margin for error will be very small due to our defensive issues, we need to get these little things cleaned up. Hopefully the bye week is the cure. Again I don't want to sound like I think our offense is sick, because we are legitimately, in my opinion, the best offense in the country, but we could be even better, and the only thing stopping us is our own fixable mistakes.

So, on to more numbers. Now that Trey Williams has arrived and is healthy, he is doing great things. Let's compare him and Ben Malena. I'm not bothering to add the other two running backs simply because Carson missed significant time with the injury and Brandon Williams is still not getting enough reps to make the numbers very meaningful. Also note that by only including the homestand, Trey Williams isn't getting credit for the great work he did in our last two road games.

Trey Williams:

Trey has had just 22 charted carries in the last four games. On those, 50% have been successful. Scouring the numbers for any trends, I found a couple. He excels on first down. 8.9 yards per carry on those 12 carries, while getting just 3.3 ypc on his other 10. He also excels the closer he gets to the end zone. When he is on the opponent's side of the field, his success rate has been 9/12, 75%. In our own territory, he's 2/10, just 20% success rate in these last four games. Meaningful? You decide.

Another stat that shows his nose for the end zone (maybe, or maybe it's just meaningless work on my part) is his "percentage of available yards" number. 50% of his carries in the last four games have gained at least 20% of yards needed to score on that play.

Finally, on downs in which the needed first down yardage is 10 (1st and 10, 2nd and 10, etc.), Williams is successful 67% of the time and averaging 9.1 yards per carry in 15 attempts the last four games. On his seven other carries in which shorter yardage was needed, he averaged just .6 yards per carry. Meaningful? You decide.

Ben Malena:

Ben is, as always, Mr. Consistent, but as you'll see, not running as well as Trey Williams is, for whatever reason. Ben has had 24 charted carries in the last four games, and has a 42% success rate and is averaging 4.6 yards per carry in that time.

He does better than Trey in short yardage needed situations. Ben is 5/8 in downs that need five or fewer yards for a first down. But remember the stat about Trey Williams getting 20% of the necessary touchdown yardage on half of his carries? Malena only succeeded on that metric 20% of the time. Malena's numbers were pretty similar regardless of what down it is.

It seems to me that Malena continues to be valuable as an all-around back and will no doubt benefit the team, often in ways that go unnoticed, but Trey Williams has unequivocally established himself as the most dynamic running back on the team and is backing it up by finding the end zone (six touchdowns in the last six games, the shortest one coming from nine yards out).

Johnny Football

Let's run down some Johnny Manziel goodness real quick. We talked about personnel earlier. Here are Johnny's passing numbers from the last four games for 0 and 10 personnel.

0: 9/15, 186 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 12.4 yards per attempt, 215 passer rating.

10: 82/108, 1151 yards, 14 TD, 5 INT, 10.7 yards per attempt, 199 passer rating

Not too shabby. Now let's look at depth and direction.

0-10 yards down the field: 26/39 success rate (67%)

10-20 yards down the field: 15/19 success rate (79%)

20+ yards down the field: 15/26 passing, 58%, 457 yards, 6 TD, 2 INT, 17.6 yards per attempt, 266 rating.

Go ahead and read that last line again. I dare you to find a better quarterback in the country when it comes to throwing the ball down the field. Maybe Brice Petty's numbers would compare, I don't know, but that is an elite level passer to put up those kind of numbers.

Throwing left (beyond the LOS): 26/40, 65%, 8.1 yards per attempt, 5 TD, 2 INT, 164 rating

Throwing right (beyond the LOS): 28/37, 76%, 12.2 yards per attempt, 6 TD, 2 INT, 221 rating

I'll give you one guess as to why Johnny has more success throwing to the right side than the left. Here's a hint: rhymes with Schmike Shcmevans.

So, analysis? Put yours in the comments box, for sure. I'd love to hear any thoughts. As I touched on above, I think we need to tighten up our execution just a little bit on offense. As great as we are, we haven't played a full game to our capabilities yet. Hopefully these next two weeks are when it all comes together.

Finally, let's end with one quick explanation of a wrinkle A&M used against MSU to score a touchdown. The play in question was the 33 yard pass to Travis Labhart, who continues to make catches every week despite always carrying that lunch pail around while being another coach on the field and running great routes. #HEWHITE

We did something very clever on this play, and it's plays like this that I don't think people give our current staff (McKinney and Spavital, specifically) enough credit for. We always, and by always, I mean about 99% of the time, line Evans up on the far right, as the outside receiver, or the #1 receiver if you number them from the outside in. Seriously, it's probably 99% of the time. We don't move him around. But... we moved him on this play.
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Why is it significant? Here's why. First of all, the defense is in Cover 3, where each corner is responsible for one deep third of the field and the deep safety is responsible for the deep middle.
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We appear to run the famous Four Verticals play, which is the perfect play to attack that coverage. You send four players deep (they can break off the routes if necessary) and force the deep safety to be responsible for two different receivers.
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At the snap, Evans and Labhart switch lanes, with Evans moving back to the outside where he would normally be and Labhart coming back inside. But with Evans starting inside, the defense is more focused on him than Labhart and doesn't do anything to impede Labhart's progress.
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Sometimes you just have the absolutely perfect play called for the defense that you're facing.

The CBS guys did a good job of showing the free safety come up on Kennedy, but I don't recall them mentioning the switch between Evans and Labhart. In my opinion, that little unnoticed wrinkle is a big reason why the play worked at all. They were so focused on Evans that they didn't even put a hand on Labhart as he ran right down the field. Great play design, great job by all the receivers and great read by Johnny.


I'll try to add the gif soon.

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