The consensus concerning turnovers is that they are bad when you commit them and great when you get them. The more difficult question is how can you measure their impact?
Coach Saban's answer to this is to itemize every one of Alabama's turnovers -- both those gained and lost -- then examine the outcome of the drive that resulted. By dividing the resulting points by the number of turnovers a "scoreboard value" per turnover can be derived.
In an attempt to replicate this analysis, we have gone through the play-by-play accounts of every game over the past five seasons and listed every interception and fumble turnover. We then noted the outcome of the drive that change of possession produced. This has been split into turnovers Alabama gained and those that the Crimson Tide lost (which, obviously, were those "gained" by the opponents.)
The charts with all of this information can be found after the jump but, for right now, we'll look at a few graphs that show what that data reveals year-to-year.
Source: RollTide.com
|
Last season, the value of each Alabama turnover was 2.5 points more than those of the Crimson Tide's opponents. It was the largest margin of difference during Coach Saban's tenure in Tuscaloosa and the only time since his arrival that the value exceeded 2 points. Obviously, a key reason for this disparity in 2011 was the relatively low numbers of turnovers committed by the Tide -- which is exactly the point of the exercise.
The only season the Tide's margin of difference was negative was in Coach Saban's inaugural season but, since then, the gap between the value of Alabama's turnovers and the opposition has remained fairly constant. One interesting tidbit this data reveals is that a quarter of all Alabama's points scored in 2008 came on possessions started by turnovers. That figure hasn't topped 20% in any other season over the past half decade.
Now lets break the data down by the type of turnover. Here is a chart of the point values for fumble turnovers.
Source: RollTide.com
|
The gap in point value for Alabama's fumble turnovers and the opposition has remained positive over the past half decade but the margin of difference did dip to less than a point in 2010 and 2008. Last year the difference between the value of the Crimson Tide's fumble turnovers and those gathered up by opposing players was 2.75 points, the best tally since 2009 when just one of Alabama's seven fumble turnovers translated into opponent scores.
This chart also dramatically shows how the bad fumble "luck" we've discussed at some length this week hit Alabama in the scoreboard. Fumble turnovers produced just ten points in 2010 -- less than half of any of the past five seasons. Even though the Crimson Tide secondary reeled in 80 points worth of interceptions (as we'll see in the next chart) it wasn't enough to overcome the drought of points from fumbles.
Now for the interceptions:
Source: RollTide.com
|
All during this week we've noted how, on the face of things, it would seem the Alabama secondary has something of a lackluster year. But while total number of interceptions were down from seasons past the value of those picks were extremely high -- 3.71 points to be exact. That was bolstered even further as the Crimson Tide's dominant defense limiting opponents from cashing in on the relatively few picks they were able to amass. The value difference between turnovers gained and lost was 2.46 points in 2011, by far the best under Coach Saban.
Conversely, it's pretty clear to see why Major Applewhite was invited to leave town after the 2007 season. Not only did Alabama's quarterback corps deliver more footballs into the waiting arms of opposing defenders, those teams tended to turn those turnovers into points. Opposing teams cashed in Crimson Tide picks for a whopping 45 points that season -- more than double any season since (welcome to Tuscaloosa Kirby Smart!). The lesson here? Rack up a -2.16 point margin of difference in turnovers gained and lost and you'll find yourself coaching running backs somewhere in the Big XII.
The charts below list each turnover in every Alabama game over the past five seasons as well as the outcome of the ensuing drives. They do not include fumbles that were recovered by the team which had possession of the ball. Touchdowns do include the points after when they were made (because that's the way Coach Saban does it). The source of this information are the play-by-play accounts of Alabama games available on RollTide.com. A list of the abbreviations used is at the bottom of the post.
Turnovers GAINED | Turnovers LOST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Turnovers GAINED | Turnovers LOST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Turnovers GAINED | Turnovers LOST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
* The Alabama interception in the Auburn game was on a two point attempt
after the touchdown and isn't included in the overall stats.
Turnovers GAINED | Turnovers LOST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Turnovers GAINED | Turnovers LOST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Statistical note: For much of these more in depth analyses we are relying on the numbers provided by Alabama Athletics on RollTide.com. We have used the NCAA numbers available on CFB Stats to compare Alabama's performance across college football but those are not as detailed as the UA information. In addition, there are slight discrepancies between the two sets of data.