A Quick Look at Stidham's Numbers

[AURex 1,983]

Jarrett Stidham arrived amidst a huge amount of hype, which is bound to put pressure on the young man. After all, he had few university-level starts in the past and sat out last year.

So, halfway through the season, how's he doing?

He's completed 99 of 139 attempts passing. That's a completion ratio of 71%, best in the SEC. His 9.7 yards per attempt also leads the league in comparison with other starters. And his QB rating of 166 also leads the league among starting QBs.

On the down side, Stidham leads the SEC in a less positive category --  number of sacks. He's been sacked 18 times for -112 yards.

There have been times this season when the offense has not impressed, but IMO, Jarret Stidham has performed quite well. As many of us here have observed over the season so far, more of the difficulty on offense has been due to the OL still trying to gel, gimpy RBs, and some really questionable in-game coaching decisions -- play calling and personnel packages.

I got my QB stats here: https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/stats/

 

[corchjay 5,311]

The first 2 games weren’t very good.  The last 3 outstanding.  Looks like he’s headed in the right direction.  Our OL and QB were just not ready for that Clemson environment.  I think we are now.  

[FoundationEagle 637]

7 minutes ago, corchjay said:

The first 2 games weren’t very good.  The last 3 outstanding.  Looks like he’s headed in the right direction.  Our OL and QB were just not ready for that Clemson environment.  I think we are now.  

Agreed. I think we beat Clemson by 10+ if we played them this week. That may be wishful thinking to have 10 point edge but I truly have very little doubt we would win. I think UGA and bama are both a good bit better than Clemson

[Strychnine 1,802]

38 minutes ago, FoundationEagle said:

Agreed. I think we beat Clemson by 10+ if we played them this week. That may be wishful thinking to have 10 point edge but I truly have very little doubt we would win. I think UGA and bama are both a good bit better than Clemson

 

While you may be right, I have a hard time resolving that logically.  Even here in October, Clemson has proven itself against better opposition that either Alabama or Georgia have faced.  Auburn is the only real close game they have had.

[AURex 1,983]

Auburn offense has improved since the Clemson and Mercer games, but so has Clemson. Their new offensive starters have been getting game reps against solid opponents. It would be tough to face them now.

 

[ertrader 197]

He is also near the bottom of the league in pass attempts/per game. As well as he is playing I'd like to see a little more balance. Maybe now that the schedule is getting tougher.

[AUApostle 7,648]

21 minutes ago, ertrader said:

He is also near the bottom of the league in pass attempts/per game. As well as he is playing I'd like to see a little more balance. Maybe now that the schedule is getting tougher.

I'd be happy with a balance in yardage, not necessarily attempts. Averaging 250 passing / 250 rushing would be great.

[thewhiz7 273]

Clemson has improved a great deal since we played them. I think as of today we would still lose but would be another close one. The intermediate passing is what is lacking. We saw a little bit against OM. Add in a pair of healthy RB's and we could get dangerous.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,641]

14 hours ago, ertrader said:

He is also near the bottom of the league in pass attempts/per game. As well as he is playing I'd like to see a little more balance. Maybe now that the schedule is getting tougher.

I think the way our balance is right now is realistic...~20 attempts and heavy running game. I’d like to see him get close to 30 though, just if it involves more medium passes 

[AUpreacherman22 3,876]

On 10/12/2017 at 12:07 AM, Strychnine said:

 

While you may be right, I have a hard time resolving that logically.  Even here in October, Clemson has proven itself against better opposition that either Alabama or Georgia have faced.  Auburn is the only real close game they have had.

Spot on!  No one has a better resume than Clemson right now.  I think bama is probably better than Clemson atm, but you can’t argue with Clemson’s resume.  

[AuburnArch13 185]

On 10/12/2017 at 7:50 AM, AUDevil said:

I'd be happy with a balance in yardage, not necessarily attempts. Averaging 250 passing / 250 rushing would be great.

It would and is. And it's not like the number of attempts has even been that low for Stidham. He's currently 7th in the SEC in attempts and 5th in yardage. As a team (Stidham 139/ Willis 5) we've still passed the ball a few more time a than Bama (Hurts 111/ Tua 28), and many more times than Georgia (Fromm 95/ Eason 7). 

[AU64 10,122]

19 minutes ago, AuburnArch13 said:

It would and is. And it's not like we are even the number of attempts has even been that low for Stidham. He's currently 7th in the SEC in attempts and 5th in yardage. As a team (Stidham 139/ Willis 5) we've still passed the ball a few more time a than Bama (Hurts 111/ Tua 28), and many more times than Georgia (Fromm 95/ Eason 7). 

Is the success of teams in the SEC in inverse proportion to the number of passes they throw?    Looking like the best 3 teams mostly do it on the ground. ...and do it with defense too perhaps.

[caleb1633 1,418]

On 10/12/2017 at 9:50 PM, AUDevil said:

I'd be happy with a balance in yardage, not necessarily attempts. Averaging 250 passing / 250 rushing would be great.

Right now we average 225 passing and 228 rushing. This is one of the most balanced Auburn offenses I've ever seen. Scary thing is that I don't think we've even begun to come close to the ceiling. Still so much room for improvement. Kind of scary. Hopefully Gus continues to let Chip do his job. We could be putting up video game numbers by season's end.

[McLoofus 35,182]

On 10/11/2017 at 10:54 PM, AURex said:

On the down side, Stidham leads the SEC in a less positive category --  number of sacks. He's been sacked 18 times for -112 yards.

Feeling very lazy, but I'd be curious to see those sacks broken down by game. I know that eleven of them came against Clemson.

[AuburnArch13 185]

4 hours ago, AU64 said:

Is the success of teams in the SEC in inverse proportion to the number of passes they throw?    Looking like the best 3 teams mostly do it on the ground. ...and do it with defense too perhaps.

My suspicion is that the reason you see this trend might be that the top teams are more often playing from ahead and running more at the end of the game, where as the weaker teams are playing from behind and have to abandon the run for the sake of time. I'd have to look at more specific breakdowns to confirm that though.

[AURex 1,983]

On 10/12/2017 at 8:28 AM, ertrader said:

He is also near the bottom of the league in pass attempts/per game. As well as he is playing I'd like to see a little more balance. Maybe now that the schedule is getting tougher.

Well, not really "bottom." Stidham is 7th. But how much of that is due to his completion ration? Just speculating that, when you are throwing incompletions, you tend to have to throw again on subsequent downs. And when you have no running game, you are more inclined to pass.  If you complete 1st and 2nd down passes, leaving short yardage for a first down, or average 9 yards per completion, meaning a lot of those attempts go for first downs, then the tendency is to run on the next down -- especially the way Auburn coaches call 1st down plays.

 

[LKEEL75 2,566]

18 minutes ago, AuburnArch13 said:

My suspicion is that the reason you see this trend might be that the top teams are more often playing from ahead and running more at the end of the game, where as the weaker teams are playing from behind and have to abandon the run for the sake of time. I'd have to look at more specific breakdowns to confirm that though.

That may be the case for AU but I do not believe that is the case for the other two as much.  You or someone could disprove me by looking at just first half stats when the game was not completely out of reach, but...  UGa has a FR QB that they are not 100% behind.  They have built that team in the image of the old UAt teams where you run the ball down the opponent throat.  They have 2 great RBs and they are going to ride them until their legs fall off.  UAt still has issues passing.  The WRs are not the superstars they thought and their QB does not have the accuracy to throw into tight coverage.  Now, don't get me wrong Hurts is a good QB and very likely will win the Popularity Trophy so that UAt can have another to their trophy case.  But he is not the polished passer that you really need to throw against good DBs and he is a great runner.  As many have said, he is probably the best RB on that team right now.

"of course that is just my opinion.  I could be wrong."

[ertrader 197]

He is 7th in attempts, but Dormady, Fitzgerald, and Allen have only played 5 games. They have higher att/game. 

 

If you look at stats, we actually are throwing the ball about as often as last year. (22 attempts per game last year, 24 this year). We are just a lot more efficient when doing it (more completions, more yards per completion). We also aren't running the ball as well as last year (4.9 ypc this year vs 5.5 last year). This just makes me think passing is a real strength of this team, and maybe we should be throwing it a little more. I can't help but feel we have some weapons that are underutilized so far.

Of course, we've had three straight lopsided games, so that effects everything. It will be interesting to see what happens moving forward.   

 

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

44 minutes ago, ertrader said:

This just makes me think passing is a real strength of this team

Nope. More important that we make sure that our best crop of WRs possibly ever is blocking for our injured RBs. 

[FoundationEagle 637]

On 10/11/2017 at 11:07 PM, Strychnine said:

 

While you may be right, I have a hard time resolving that logically.  Even here in October, Clemson has proven itself against better opposition that either Alabama or Georgia have faced.  Auburn is the only real close game they have had.

Clemson downed by SYRACUSE ?????

They just flushed their season down the drain!

[Strychnine 1,802]

1 minute ago, FoundationEagle said:

Clemson downed by SYRACUSE ?????

They just flushed their season down the drain!

 

With their QB out?  They survived losing at home to Pittsburgh last year.  They are now simply in the same position as we are, they can make no more mistakes and must win out.

[FoundationEagle 637]

8 minutes ago, Strychnine said:

 

With their QB out?  They survived losing at home to Pittsburgh last year.  They are now simply in the same position as we are, they can make no more mistakes and must win out.

2 different losses. Pitts worst lost last year was VT. Syracuse lost to Middle Tennessee State already this year.  I see your point, but this a BAD loss. They now need there to be no more than 3 one loss teams. This loss will hurt them (but they will get a small pass based on qb)

[Strychnine 1,802]

Just now, FoundationEagle said:

2 different losses. Pitts worst lost last year was VT. Syracuse lost to Middle Tennessee State already this year.  I see your point, but this a BAD loss. They now need there to be no more than 3 one loss teams. This loss will hurt them (but they will get a small pass based on qb)

 

When you have 5 conferences and only 4 slots, someone's conference champion is always going to be watching from home.  Clemson will get a break losing a road game without their QB.  That said, Clemson now has a bigger problem than losing a game.  They have 2 weeks to get their QB back.  Losing him is much like what would have happened to us if we lost Nick Marshall in 2013.

[AU64 10,122]

4 minutes ago, Strychnine said:

 

When you have 5 conferences and only 4 slots, someone's conference champion is always going to be watching from home.  Clemson will get a break losing a road game without their QB.  That said, Clemson now has a bigger problem than losing a game.  They have 2 weeks to get their QB back.  Losing him is much like what would have happened to us if we lost Nick Marshall in 2013.

At this point Clemson has to have a lot of balls fall into the right slots to have a chance.  A number of pretty good undefeated teams out there still and some might go all the way....or only have one loss to a good team. 

Meanwhile WSU trailing 3-0 but a long way to go against Cal. .

[Strychnine 1,802]

2 minutes ago, AU64 said:

At this point Clemson has to have a lot of balls fall into the right slots to have a chance.  A number of pretty good undefeated teams out there still and some might go all the way....or only have one loss to a good team. 

Meanwhile WSU trailing 3-0 but a long way to go against Cal. .

 

Undefeated Washington, Penn State, and TCU would make for an interesting decision between one-loss conference champion Clemson or Auburn.