Digging Into Details | Play Charting Northwestern vs. Texas Tech

For those of you who are following along, this is the second installment of my look into the play-calling and formations that Texas Tech ran against Northwestern.  My first attempt was against Houston and you can see the data there.  I kept track of the run vs. pass on each particular down and I also keep track of the offensive formation that's being utilized.  I also decided to paste my entire spreadsheet as the last table.  If you don't want me to do that, please let me know in the comments, but I figure it's a blog and you don't care. 

Here's my legend to the spreadsheet just so you know what it all means:

00 - No RB, no TE.
01 - No RB, one TE.
02 - No RB, two TE.
10 - One RB, no TE.
11 - One RB, one TE.
20 - Two RB, no TE.
3 / LT - WR trips left.
3 / RT - WR trips right.
2 & 2 - Two WR on left, two WR on right.

There are a couple of things to note, there was a 02 formation, but no play as Northwestern called a time out before the play was run.  It was a Wildcat formation with Detron Lewis at quarterback and two running backs.  Also, because I'm an idiot, someone had suggested that I add some additional numbers to designate the formation, something like 104 would mean that it's 10 personnel (1 RB, 0 TE) with four WR, but that doesn't designate whether the receivers were trips right or trips left, which I think is an important distinction.  Someone needs to help me figure out if what I'm doing is fine or if they'd like to see some other methodology.

Enough details, onto the numbers.

Run / Pass Ratios by Downs

This is pretty darned close to what OC Neal Brown also did against Houston, although Brown did run at a higher percentage on first down against Houston (55% running rate on first down against Houston).  In both games, either Brown or Tuberville expressed that Texas Tech didn't run the ball particularly well against either opponent and so the offense adjusted and passed more than they would have liked.  I'm sure I've made myself abundantly clear, but I've got no problem running the ball at a minimum 40% rate for reasons that I'll get into in the offseason, but even with large number of running plays at the end of the game, it didn't skew the numbers overall.

And to address the large number of running plays starting at the 5:31 minute mark of the 4th quarter, which was the 13th and final drive of the game.  Defining running success by either gaining 5 yards or more on 1st down, one-half of the remaining yards on 2nd down and gaining all of the yards on 3rd down, of those final 7 running plays, the first 4 were successful.  RB Eric Stephens gained 2 yards on 3rd and 2 on the first running play (success); he gained 6 yards on 1st and 10 (success); he gained 3 yards on 2nd and 4 (success); and he gained 1 yard on 3rd and 1 (success).  I know it's not pretty, and it's not what Texas Tech fans are used to seeing, but this result in Texas Tech running out 5:06 of time and leaving Northwestern with 0:25 remaining.  Does it make me incredibly nervous?  Heck yes, but I also see the utility in being able to run out over 5 minutes of clock.

So much more deep analysis after the jump.

Run Pass Ratios Sorted by Personnel and Formation

A couple of things, when running 11 or 20 personnel, for whatever reason I didn't go track the location of the receivers.  I also don't want to go back and watch the game again, so you'll just have to live without having those details.  Devastating, I know.  Also, it wouldn't surprise me at all if I have some of my numbers off and I'm fully admitting this right now.  I had a tough time sorting this stuff and I ended up having to manually count some of the personnel and formation and when I have to count, I'm prone to make mistakes.  I'll be better next year when I have this thing running like a fine tuned machine.

Now to the actual plays. 

Obviously, I tried to designate the actual wildcat plays (I'm sure I messed up this too) and obviously, that's a guaranteed running play. 

I thought that the mix of 10 personnel with trips left, trips right and two receivers lined up on each side was more even and I'm guessing that the staff thought that the matchup with Lyle Leong on the left side, they wanted to give him a few more plays isolated, which is why there were more more plays where Leong was given single-coverage on the left side of the field and he didn't disappoint on New Year's Day. 

Also interesting is that when Lewis had single-coverage, based on the fact that the receivers were trips left, that Brown ran the ball at a much higher rate than any other personnel and formation grouping.  

Last but not least, is there anything else that you'd like to see?  Receiver targets? 

Game Tracker | Northwestern vs. Texas Tech

This is every play.  Feel free to utilize it as you see fit.