Eleven Warriors

[Ed: Bumped for statistical porn.]

Pryor's numbers from the Sugar Bowl win against Arkansas.

Pryor waited until the second half to make his bad reads, both on third downs in the third quarter.  On third and nine with 13:22 left, Pryor scrambles then throws deep to two Arkansas db's who drop the ball.  The pass was well short of Sanzenbacher.  The next series on third and two, Pryor throws to the middle of two defenders short to Saine, while Brown(?) the outside receiver to the top of the screen has the numbers to the sideline open against one man as he starts inside and then breaks outside.

Five inaccurate passes, four on deep throws and one short out to Sanzenbacher.  One ball thrown away to avoid a sack and an early pass batted as Pryor had his arm hit while attempting a pass. Then there was the dead on ball to the back shoulder of Posey for a touchdown to close the first half.

[Ed: Bumped for history's sake. Edmund Morris would be proud.]

Probably the most useful information from this table is that I haven’t ruled a single completion as inaccurate or used the pressure category.  This means the data is most likely skewed towards the catchable category.  A more useful manipulation of the data can be found below.

Completely ripped off from MGoBrian.  He explains his terms here http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/hennechart-legend.html

Throwing

The first bad read was on 3^rd and 10 to begin the second quarter.  Michigan showed 7 at the line of scrimmage, Posey ran a slant on the short side and looked to have some space in front of him, Pryor threw to the outside.  The second bad read was to close the first half, the ball was thrown short into double coverage resulting in an interception.  On 3^rd and 10 with 9:21 remaining in the third quarter Pryor threw a pass that could have been placed in any one of catchable/inaccurate/bad read categories.  Michigan brings 6, the mlb and safety are on Herron out of backfield leaving Posey on the short side of the field and Sanzenbacher on a quick out to the wide side of the field in single coverage.  The ball grazed of Herron’s hands just behind the line of scrimmage, though I would bet Pryor wishes he had gone to one of his top two wide outs.

Two inaccurate passes, one on the first play from scrimmage severely under throwing Sanzenbacher on the deep out, the second an under thrown out to Corey Brown with around 13:27 left in the second quarter.

Dead on ball to Sanzenbacher for a touchdown, splitting two defenders while staring into the blitz.

Pryor made some big gains scrambling, and Michigan got to him once on a three man rush.

Posey returns from a rough day at Iowa with a big game against Michigan.  A week after dropping a season high 8 passes, there are 0 drops, and one spectacular leaping catch by Sanzenbacher over the middle.

This nest table is similar to what I think mgobrian is doing with his receiving chart but I am unable to find a link to his explanations so mine will have to do.  The first digit in the grade is from the receiver’s point of view, 4 easy to 1 impossible.  The second digit indicates the presence of the defender (1 there, 0 not there) at the time the ball hits the receiver’s hands.  When I say there, I mean close contact.

Therefore:

11        Bad pass, tight coverage.  Not sure if this will ever be used.

10        Bad pass, no defender to stop it

21        Really tough ball to catch and in tight coverage.  A catch on this means the receiver is saving his qb.

20        Really tough ball to catch, no coverage.

31        Ball outside the strike zone, tight coverage

30        Ball outside the strike zone, no coverage

41        Ball on the money, tight coverage

40        Ball on the money, no coverage

In this system I don’t know where to put the interception so it’s not included, neither is either throw away or the batted pass.  For the three of you who read these please let me know what you think of this new chart.  I think it gives a great picture of the day when combined with the first table on the page.

The 10’s were the first throw, plus the mix up with Posey on the post.  The 21 was Sanzenbacher leaping over the middle.  20’s include a diving catch by Saine behind the line of scrimmage, an underthrow to Corey Brown and the quick pass thrown in front of Herron.  31 is the ball thrown to Corey Brown in tight coverage in the end zone that may have been knocked down before it got to him.  41 was dead on to Sanzenbacher in the endzone, then lots of 40’s.

This just gives catches/opportunities by receiver.

Pryor Big Ten 2010

Throwing

Probably the most useful information from this table is that I haven’t ruled a single completion as inaccurate or used the pressure category.  This means the data is most likely skewed towards the catchable category.  A more useful manipulation of the data can be found below.

Dead on and catchable have been formed into a single category, then each listed as its percentage of total attempts.  It doesn’t add up to 100 percent because of the throwaway, batted and pressure categories.  The inaccuracy category is unbelievably consistent, probably more a reflection of how I score the game than how Pryor plays.  The bad reads are what separate the good games from the bad, and in this sense Pryor has had no average games this season.  Indiana, Purdue, at Minnesota and at Iowa Pryor was at or below half his average proportion of bad reads.  At Illinois, at Wisconsin and against Penn State he averaged twice his average proportion of bad reads. 

Just insane numbers for Pryor running the football, at least from a yards per carry view.

A reminder these numbers are for when Pryor is in the game only.  Your number one and number two receivers are getting nearly half the targets this season.  Of the 14 total drops on the season, 8 came at Iowa.  I have no context for this statement, but this seems like a remarkably small number of drops over the course of a conference season.  Over a third of the total receiving yards are coming after the catch, though many of those are Saine and Herron on screens/outlets.

[Ed: Bumped by popular demand.  Excellent work on these, Fry. Hopefully some context for Saturday's performance.]

Something we are not familiar with this season happened in Iowa City, drops by wide receivers.  8 drops on 33 attempts, nearly 1 out of every 4 throws ended in a dropped pass.  The 2 most glaring were on Pryor’s best throws, a 50 yard pass dropped on a dime in the endzone to Posey as well as a 40 yard pass to Corey Brown who was pulled down by his facemask 5 yards in front of the backjudge (who sees nothing wrong) after dropping the ball.

Five inaccurate throws on the day, the worst at the end of the first half throwing late and well behind Washington leading to Pryor’s first interception of the day.  On 3^rd and 6 with 8:33 left in the first half, Clayborne gets Pryor's legs causing a high late throw.  Posey is knocked off his spot by the defender well early of the ball getting there.  It's hard to know if the ball was catchable due to the contact on Posey.  Pryor began the fourth quarter on the wrong foot delivering low and wide of Sanzenbacher on the sideline.  On Ohio State’s final scoring drive of the day, Pryor delivered two inaccurate passes to Stoneburner before the dead on pass intended for Posey.

Pryor’s only bad read was disastrous for Ohio State as it set up Iowa’s go ahead touchdown.  Pryor tries to split the zone to Sanzenbacher on 3^rd and 10, Iowa’s linebacker makes an excellent play on the ball knocking it away resulting in an interception.

Completely ripped off from MGoBrian.  He explains his terms here http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/hennechart-legend.html

Terrelle Pryor

Not a lot of throws this week, the defense scored twice and Boom had the game of his life at the collegiate level.

Pryor started off the game hitting Posey right on the money into tight coverage.  He followed that up by throwing one away after avoiding pressure on second down and then dumping off a two yard pass on 3^rd and 9.  The next two possessions included two incredibly overthrown short passes and Herron dropping a 3^rd down pass after Pryor avoided the blitz and rolled out to his right.

Three bad reads, the first is on 3^rd and 5 with 8:25 left in the first half.  Ohio State goes with a 5 wide formation, Penn State countered with a linebacker blitz that Pryor fails to read as Sanzenbacher is wide open in the middle of the field at the first down marker.  The defensive end coming inside and linebacker looping outside leads to confusion at the line of scrimmage and a sack is the end result.  The second bad read is on 2^nd and 12 from the Penn State 25 yard line, Sanzenbacher is open for 6 early, Pryor delivers late for the interception.  The third bad read is the first bad read for a touchdown that I have seen this season.  Pryor throws deep into double coverage (this is actually the middle and short side deep coverage in the cover three).  Pryor has two short recievers he could have taken for a safe 4-8 yard gain (It was 2nd and 23).  The third deep man for Penn State (the one on the wide side of the field) is even with Sanzenbacher but is closing on Brown short of him to the sideline.  Throwing to Sanzenbacher wide of the opposite hash towards the endzone is most likely the correct read here if you are set on the deep throw.  An excellent effort by Posey who still manages to jump for the tip even with the Penn State defender climbing his back is matched by the effort by Sanzenbacher chasing a pass that is not intended for him.

Pryor had an additional big gain on a designed run taken away on a holding call, one of the scrambles was for 7 yards and a first down.

Not a lot of targets to go around, but Sanzenbacher getting one target that is late when a good throw gets him a touchdown has to be frustrating for all involved.

Pryor put it in the air 13 times, with 8 catchable or dead on, and gets bailed out in a big way by great effort from his top two wideouts on a game changing play.

Completely ripped off from MGoBrian.  He explains his terms here http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/hennechart-legend.html

Terrelle Pryor

Throwing

Pryor hit Sanzenbacher with a perfect throw on a post pattern with 10:50 left in the first half.

After writing too many times about Pryor taking sacks, or mishandling the two minute drill at the end of first halves, I had to include the two play sequence at the first half in this one.  First and 10 from the 47 an excellent job by Pryor, sees the 7 man rush and buys enough time with his feet for Sanzenbacher to come out of his break to find the football on him for a nine yard gain ending out of bounds.  The very next play, again large blitz coming (offensive line picks up the blitz perfectly) Pryor hangs one deep for Posey (running an excellent route) who somehow does not draw a flag for offensive pass interference on the play resulting in a 38 yard touchdown.

Four inaccurate and one bad read.  The bad read was first and goal from the 2 after the poor tackling by Minnesota special teams lead to a big return.  Ohio State runs play action with a 2 man route, Stoneburner and Boren going to the end zone towards the short side of the field.  Stoneburner's timing gets off due to a check at the goal line, Boren is open early towards the pylon.  One of the three guys covering Stoneburner decides to get to Boren (the defender makes his break before Pryor decides to throw the ball).  When Pryor begins to run he sees the linebacker originally covering Boren has committed to stopping Pryor from running the football.  Pryor releases the ball believing he has thrown to an uncovered receiver, hence the lack of pace on the throw, only to find out that the lack of spacing in the routes has allowed one player to cover his only two targets.

The first inaccurate pass is the first throw of the game, an overthrow of a well covered Posey 15 yards downfield.  The second inaccurate pass was the backwards pass intended for Sanzenbacher with 12:48 left in the first.  I know this is technically recorded as a fumble, but I’m writing this and can put it wherever I please.  Inaccurate pass number three is on 2^nd and 13 to begin the second half when Pryor horribly overthrows an open Sanzenbacher running a crossing route.  The final inaccurate pass was on 2^nd and 9 at the end of the third quarter when Pryor overthrew a well covered Sanzenbacher running a crossing route 5 yards downfield.

The designed run was a pass/run option in the red zone.

Posey had a monster game, including some great downfield blocks.

Pryor put it in the air 24 times, with 19 being catchable, for nearly 10 yards per attempt.

Everything in this post should be taken in context of the schedule played so far. 

With that in mind here are the offensive yards per carry (YPC) and yards per attempt (YPA) through week 4.

Last week Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin looked to be the most well rounded offenses in the big ten this season.  This week Ohio State looks almost as good as MSU and Wisconsin after taking out a year’s or a week’s worth of frustration on Purdue.  Wisconsin is done with the portion of their schedule where they play competent defenses with just Purdue, Indiana, Michigan and Northwestern left to play.

The Iowa defense has had back to back dates with two of the Big Ten’s best offenses and came out of it looking very much like Michigan State did.  Ohio State’s rush defense answered the bell, holding Purdue to just 1.1 yards per carry last Saturday.  Illinois is very quietly putting up a solid defensive season. 

This analysis likes Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio State.  Iowa has a questionable running game, Wisconsin’s pass defense looks vulnerable.

Completely ripped off from MGoBrian.  He explains his terms here http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/hennechart-legend.html

Terrelle Pryor

Throwing

What a difference a week makes.

Two inaccurate and one bad read.  Pryor and Ohio State paid a heavy price on nearly every one of his mistakes.  First inaccurate pass was with 10:20 left in the first half intended for Saine out of the backfield, who was never given a chance to make the catch.  Shortly after this was the lone bad read of the game when Pryor was faced with a charging Kerrigan and forced the ball into double coverage.  Brown didn't put his body between Pryor and the defender and lost the fight for the ball.  On Pryor’s lone attempt of the second half I'm going with inaccurate instead of bad read because the route looks open if Pryor gets the ball ahead of Sanzenbacher.  He definitely stares the slant down and the linebacker underneath getsthe interception.

Pryor threw the ball away twice, the first while running towards the sideline Pryor throws it away instead of stepping out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage.  The second time was on first down with a little over a minute left in the first half.

One catchable ball went uncaught, Pryor’s first throw of the day was slightly underthrown to Posey down the sideline allowing the corner to get back into the play and get a hand on it.  Posey does get two hands on the ball and could have brought it in.

Both designed runs were quarterback draws.

Big day for the wide receivers, maybe the Corey Brown for 3^rd wideout campaign begins.

Pryor put it in the air 22 times, with 17 being catchable, for a season high 12 yards per attempt.

Everything in this post should be taken in context of the schedule played so far. 

With that in mind here are the offensive yards per carry (YPC) and yards per attempt (YPA) through week 3.

Purdue has gashed Northwestern and Minnesota on the ground, but four of their next five are Ohio State, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan State.  Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin look to be the most well rounded offenses in the big ten this season.  Wisconsin plays at Iowa this week and then finishes their season with four of the softest big ten defenses. 

Indiana is horrible on defense, or maybe we should remember that their two games are against former Heisman trophy candidates.  Iowa has played against the best and worst offenses in the big ten and came out looking good, it will be interesting to see how they hold up against Wisconsin’s running game.  Michigan State’s defense continues its march towards the lower left hand corner of the chart by holding Illinois to 2.7 yards per carry. 

This analysis likes Purdue, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio State.  Iowa has a questionable running game and a tough schedule ahead.  Michigan State has to like their position right now.

You might be wondering why Ohio State’s defense looks so good in this picture after what you saw last Saturday night.  Looking at the rushing defense, Wisconsin ran the ball 43 times at 4.3 yards per carry (which is not nearly as ugly as I expected after watching the game).  Those numbers get balanced out by the 36 carries at 3.3 ypc for Illinois and Indiana running 29 times at 2.4 ypc.  Now if these numbers paint too sunny a picture for you, Wisconsin averaged 5.4 ypc against Minnesota, while Purdue average 5 ypc.  Without Homan in the middle it is not outside the realm of possibility that we see a game much like Illinois 2007.