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Alabama's Running Back Success Rates vs Ole Miss

As was mentioned yesterday, we're going to start keeping up with the "running back success rate" metric again.  I worked up the Ole Miss game Wednesday night, and I'll start in on the rest of the season to give a game by game and cumulative look at the season so far.  As for the metric itself, it's a pretty simple tool that gives us a measure of how well a running back is doing beyond the "total yards/ypc" numbers that are usually used, since those are heavily affected by big run outliers and aren't necessarily an accurate picture of a back's performance. To come up with these numbers, each individual rush is considered on it's own, and measured by it's "success."  A run is considered successful if it gets 40% of the yardage needed to move the chains on first down, 60% of the yardage needed on second down, and 100% of the yardage needed on either third or fourth down.  So it's pretty simple, but is a much more accurate overall picture of how well a running back does in a game than total yards, since a back can bust off a 90 yard TD run and then never average more than 2 yards a clip the rest of the way and still look like he had a great game.  First up, we have Mr. Glen Coffee:

Glencoffeerbsuccessratevsolemiss_medium
click to enlarge

As you can see from the overall numbers, it was not a very successful day for Coffee, getting a very poor 46% rate.  What's most damning though, is that he was having a pretty good day during the first half with 67%, but had ZERO successful rushes in the second.  After his fumble in the fourth quarter, he never carried again, giving way to Mark Ingram:

Markingramrbsuccessratevsolemiss_medium
click to enlarge

Ingram had a much more successful day, with a 65% rating, but you can see his production dropped off in the second half as well, going from a very good 78% to only 50% after the half.  Some of that is a function of our simply pounding the ball to keep the clock rolling and Ole Miss stacking the line to stop it, but the 3rd and 1 stop was not good, and after he came in in relief of Coffee he only had two successful rushes (the 7 yard run on 1st and 10 and the 12 yard run on 1st and 10), but gained little elsewhere.  Either way, Ingram, at least last week, was the most successful back in the game, and once I get the rest of the season worked up we'll be able to judge even further who is having the better year.

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This is awesome, Todd.

This is a much clearer metric for gauging a runner’s effectiveness. Can’t wait to see the season stats. Did you come up with this?

by Bubba Chang on Oct 24, 2008 9:10 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I wish I could take credit for it, but...

…this is something OTS started after last season. He’s chained to a library table right now (law school will do that for you), so since this is probably the easiest metric he’s ever done and could explain to a math challenged individual like myself, I’m carrying it on during the season.

by Todd on Oct 24, 2008 10:05 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

WONDERFUL

As a stat dork, I really appreciate you enlightening us and I apologize for the repeated requests over the last few weeks.

by DJackson on Oct 24, 2008 9:46 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I'm glad you requested it...

…I generally shy away from the serious stat wonkery and leave that to OTS, but since this one is easy and even I can keep up with it, it’s good to have.

by Todd on Oct 24, 2008 10:06 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

Todd

this is awesome

Hell, no! A tie is like kissing your sister!

by comer4tide on Oct 24, 2008 9:49 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

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