Auburn/Tennessee Metrics in Year 2 Under New HC

[screwtape 16]

7 hours ago, dyehardfanAU said:

There is no difference between 6-6 and 8-4.  If we're not competitive for championships then we're behind.

[TeamZero77 1,786]

12 hours ago, dyehardfanAU said:

We've been UT since 2015, with the exception of 2017.

Going into the Florida game this year, Tennessee had a record of 3-43 their last 46 games played versus Florida, Georgia and Alabama.  

Tennessee's problem has always been that they can win 4 or 5 games in a row and their fanbase immediately begins talking about an SEC Title. Then when they get housed by Bama, Georgia, Florida, etc. they completely lose their minds and want the coach fired. It's a toxic fanbase!! 

When they hired Jeremy Pruitt, the threads on Volnation.com were how he was Saban's protege and how he had won a Natty as Florida State's DC in 2013 but also won at Bama, etc. That led to the Vols fanbase worrying that "As soon as Saban retires, Alabama will be coming for Pruitt and calling him back home to replace Saban and I'm scared he will leave since Bama is his home." They get WAAAY too far ahead of themselves and worry over crap that never comes to fruition. They swore up and down Jon Gruden, Mike Leach, James Franklin, Hugh Freeze, Mike Gundy and Lane Kiffin (yes, Lane Kiffin was for sure coming back to Rocky Top in 2021 to make it right to the fanbase according to the UT fans) were all coming to coach there. They think this crap up and try to wish it into existence. The damn Jon Gruden to Tennessee rumors were all based on his wife graduating from Tennessee. The fans built this up so big that when their President and AD were hiring Greg Schiano, the fanbase protested at the school presidents house. They claimed they didnt want Schiano because he was at Penn State during the Sandusky stuff, yet it was ALL about the fans had truly thought Gruden was coming to Tennessee and were totally deflated when Schiano's name was leaked. That is one VERY delusional fanbase. Go over to the SECRant and read what they're all saying about this year. They've put the SEC on notice that they're elite again and they've got the Heisman wrapped up with Hendon Hooker and will make the playoffs.(They're saying this) And when they don't, they'll all want Heupel fired when, in reality, it's the fans that dream all this crap up and think anything less is a failure. NegaVol's is what they are. 

I will say though, they pack Neyland Stadium for every game during this 15 year drought they've been in. 

Remember last year's game when Lane Kiffin returned to Neyland Stadium and Ole Miss beat Tennessee? They had to stop the game due to Tennessee fans throwing mustard bottles and golf balls at Kiffin and his team. Then the fans got pissed off when they were called out by national media for their stupidity. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by TeamZero77

[TeamZero77 1,786]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:36 AM, woodford said:

All of this data is from collegefootballdata.com. I am not a sports analytics expert, but by God I'm trying to be. So if someone like @StatTiger or @Zeek wants to chime in and help elaborate or correct me I'd more than welcome it!

First, let's look at the current talent composite rankings for reference. Auburn sits at 17 and Tennessee is two below at 19. Pretty similar programs talent wise at the moment.

 

For reference, here are the terms from the glossary on the CFBdata website

• Expected Points (EP) assumes that not all yard lines are created equal. In other words, each yardline is assigned a point value and measures the number of points that would be expected to be scored based on down, distance, and field position. A negative value means that the opposing team would be expected to score the next points in the game.
• Expected Points Added (EPA) uses Expected Points to measure the outcome of a play. It takes the EP value from the beginning of a play (e.g. 2nd and 5 at the 50) and subtracts it from the EP value resulting from the play (e.g. rush for 10 yards results in 1st and 10 from the 40).

Every play is considered with context in mind, meaning down distance and field position are used to evaluate the amount of EPA compared to the actual result of the play. These statistics can be added to create a cumulative EPA over the course of a time period or season, or it can be viewed by EPA/play.

Success rate is an advanced metric in football that measures efficiency, but with the important context of down and distance considered.

Here are the Predicted/Expected Points Added (PPA/EPA) for both teams so far in 2022. 

 

Cumulative EPA below. Tennessee TWICE as much offensive output as Auburn in both offense and defense.

Success Rate

 

What does this mean? Tennessee has a much better chance of scoring on a given play than Auburn does. Tennessee is much more efficient than Auburn on offense. Anyone who has watched CFB this year can tell you that, but these metrics show just how much more efficient/better Tennessee is. Why did I pick Tennessee to compare to Auburn? Simple. They are also in year 2 of their head coach who had to deal with transfers leaving the program and with LESS talent than Auburn (on paper). Auburn is not the only program who has issues. 

My point? Coaching is EVERYTHING in college football. Game planning, scheme, adjustments, and leadership are even more crucial when you don't have blue chippers peppered across your roster. Tennessee has had success because Huepel and co have been efficient on offense thanks to their scheme and game planning. UT is using some duct tape until they pull in top 10 classes. These are only a few data points and there's a lot more to it, but there's no reason why Auburn can't compete. 

 

 

References:

Success Rate Definition | The Action Network

CollegeFootballData.com

What Is EPA? How Expected Points Added Advanced Metric Can Help You with Football Betting (actionnetwork.com)

Advanced Stats in College Football: What They Are, Where to Find Them (actionnetwork.com)

Could you do Missouri and South Carolina compared to Auburn? They've also got coaches that are in year 2. Vanderbilt has a coach in year 2 also.

[ThurstontheWelshCorgi 576]

19 minutes ago, TeamZero77 said:

. The fans built this up so big that when their President and AD were hiring Greg Schiano, the fanbase protested at the school presidents house. They claimed they didnt want Schiano because he was at Penn State during the Sandusky stuff, yet it was ALL about the fans had truly thought Gruden was coming to Tennessee and were totally deflated when Schiano's name was leaked. 

I agree w everything you said but the protesting at the presidents house is pretty awesome and schiano was such a worthless hire and terrible fit so i respected that push back.

[woodford 3,669]

11 hours ago, TeamZero77 said:

Could you do Missouri and South Carolina compared to Auburn? They've also got coaches that are in year 2. Vanderbilt has a coach in year 2 also.

I could. Is that the same South Carolina that's won two straight against us and the Missouri that handed us the game? lol

[Mikey 16,776]

On 10/10/2022 at 10:08 AM, Gowebb11 said:

Good analysis. Side note: UT fans were about as displeased with the Heupel hire as we were the Harsin hire. More proof that you never know with a coaching search. 

They still don't know. What Heupel did was acquire a 24 year old transfer QB who is having a once in a lifetime season. Check out McElwain and Muschamp's first two years at Florida. Each one looked like THE SOLUTION after year two and each was fired after year 4. It will be a while before anyone can say that Tennessee made a good hire.

[AUAlumnTN 211]

51 minutes ago, Mikey said:

They still don't know. What Heupel did was acquire a 24 year old transfer QB who is having a once in a lifetime season. Check out McElwain and Muschamp's first two years at Florida. Each one looked like THE SOLUTION after year two and each was fired after year 4. It will be a while before anyone can say that Tennessee made a good hire.

I think this is doing a disservice to Heupel and Hendon Hooker. Heupel's managed to turn around what was one of the worst rosters in the SEC into something respectable in basically two years, in no small part due to finding guys like Hooker in the transfer portal. Hooker's having a great year but he was arguably All-SEC caliber last year too. I do agree that it's too early to tell if Heupel's the answer long-term but give the dude his props. What he's doing at UT is a much heavier lift than Muschamp and McElwain's efforts at Florida.

[metafour 4,969]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

They still don't know. What Heupel did was acquire a 24 year old transfer QB who is having a once in a lifetime season. 

Excuse me, LOL?

1) Hendon Hooker was one of the Top 3 QB's in the SEC last season as well by every statistical metric, so this isn't "new" nor is it a "fluke".

2) Josh Heupel is a proven offensive genius. Going back to his time at UCF, his teams are in the Top 10 or higher in basically every offensive metric every single year. Look it up. It's actually mind-blowing how consistently elite his offense is.

He took an absolutely horrible offensive team (Tennessee) who's best players all transferred out and he put up a Top 10 offense IN HIS FIRST SEASON. They have only gotten better in year #2 and are currently a Top 2-3 offense.

In this day and age, any coach who can score 40+ points per game (which is what Heupel has proven to be able to do) is going to win ~8-9+ games. Tennessee has the resources and money to recruit a defense to at least slow the opposition enough, which is what he didn't have at UCF.

This is absolutely nothing like Muschamp or McElwain who simply didn't have explosive enough offenses to score points year over year. It's a completely different scenario. When your offense is down or average, you have bad seasons. That's how it goes in today's NCAA Football. Look at Texas A&M: elite defense, but they're struggling because their offense is underwhelming. 

 

[The Freak 2,529]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

They still don't know. What Heupel did was acquire a 24 year old transfer QB who is having a once in a lifetime season. Check out McElwain and Muschamp's first two years at Florida. Each one looked like THE SOLUTION after year two and each was fired after year 4. It will be a while before anyone can say that Tennessee made a good hire.

A transfer QB and a team full of the previous staff's players is all you needed to nuzzle Gus's nueticles for 10 years, lol.

[metafour 4,969]

Josh Heupel as a HC:

 

2018 UCF

• 6th in Scoring Offense (43.2 PPG)
• 5th in Total Offense (522.7 YPG)

2019 UCF

• 4th in Scoring Offense (43.4 PPG)
• 2nd in Total Offense (540.5 YPG)

2020 UCF

• 8th in Scoring Offense (42.2 PPG)
• 2nd in Total Offense (568.1 YPG)

2021 Tennessee

• 7th in Scoring Offense (39.3 PPG)
• 9th in Total Offense (474.9 YPG)

2022 Tennessee

• 2nd in Scoring Offense (46.8 PPG)
• 1st in Total Offense (547.8 YPG)

 

Anyone who wants to think that this is a "fluke" should pick a new sport to follow. Any team that can score points like that is going to be extremely dangerous. Heupel looks like everything that Malzahn was SUPPOSED to be: extremely fast offense that just dominates game after game. It's funny, Malzahn inherited his 2020 UCF offense with Gabriel at QB and they immediately fell by like 15+ PPG scored in 2021. That's the difference in coaching and offensive scheme.

Edited October 13, 2022 by metafour

[AUAlumnTN 211]

1 hour ago, metafour said:

He took an absolutely horrible offensive team (Tennessee) who's best players all transferred out and he put up a Top 10 offense IN HIS FIRST SEASON. They have only gotten better in year #2 and are currently a Top 2-3 offense.

He did this as a coordinator too. Missouri was PUTRID on offense in 2015 (bottom 5 nationally in total and scoring offense; averaging 280 ypg and 13 ppg). Heupel arrives in 2016 and they IMMEDIATELY got better (#13 total offense and #48 scoring offense). In 2017 they were a top 15 squad in both total and scoring offense and Drew Lock set the (since broken) single season SEC record for TD passes. Dude knows what he's doing where offense is concerned.

[Mikey 16,776]

11 hours ago, metafour said:

2018 UCF

• 6th in Scoring Offense (43.2 PPG)
• 5th in Total Offense (522.7 YPG)

2019 UCF

• 4th in Scoring Offense (43.4 PPG)
• 2nd in Total Offense (540.5 YPG)

2020 UCF

• 8th in Scoring Offense (42.2 PPG)
• 2nd in Total Offense (568.1 YPG)

2018, Inherited a team that has been 13-0 and coached them to 12-1

2019, record slipped to 10-3

2020, record slipped again to 6-5, after which he bailed out for Tenn.

This is why everybody should hang on a bit before declaring UT's coaching problem solved. His trajectory at UCF was downhill every year.

[metafour 4,969]

On 10/13/2022 at 11:33 PM, Mikey said:

2018, Inherited a team that has been 13-0 and coached them to 12-1

2019, record slipped to 10-3

2020, record slipped again to 6-5, after which he bailed out for Tenn.

This is why everybody should hang on a bit before declaring UT's coaching problem solved. His trajectory at UCF was downhill every year.

21 points on BAMA in the FIRST QUARTER.

His teams at UCF lost because his defense couldn't keep up with his offense. Just not enough talent. Again, at Tennessee they have the money and resources to field a good enough defense. I don't think you understand how hard it is to play against this Tennessee offense.

[AUwent 3,777]

1 minute ago, metafour said:

21 points on BAMA in the FIRST QUARTER.

His teams at UCF lost because his defense couldn't keep up with his offense. Just not enough talent. Again, at Tennessee they have the money and resources to field a good enough defense. I don't think you understand how hard it is to play against this Tennessee offense.

It's crazy...looking at Frost and Heupel's resumes at UCF, everyone would pick Frost. Heupel in just his first year won more games than Frost did any season.

[metafour 4,969]

See? When you can score 50+ you can beat anyone.

[AUINSY 2,228]

Tennessee and Auburn. Completely. Different. Directions. War damn Vols!

[metafour 4,969]

dO YoU wAnt tO bECOmE TeNNeSSEe? 😆

[AUwent 3,777]

18 minutes ago, metafour said:

dO YoU wAnt tO bECOmE TeNNeSSEe? 😆

Still don't want to spend the next decade in the wilderness. This next hire, AD and coach, are super important to that. I trust those who say there's a plan, but if Rich is the plan would he get the job done? GT made an inspired AD hire so we need to realize it's a business.

Edited October 16, 2022 by AUwent

[ThurstontheWelshCorgi 576]

On 10/13/2022 at 9:13 AM, Mikey said:

They still don't know. What Heupel did was acquire a 24 year old transfer QB who is having a once in a lifetime season. Check out McElwain and Muschamp's first two years at Florida. Each one looked like THE SOLUTION after year two and each was fired after year 4. It will be a while before anyone can say that Tennessee made a good hire.

I like you Mikey but im going to go ahead and say

 

Horse sh*t

 

They made a great hire

[aubiefifty 17,029]

On 10/10/2022 at 10:08 AM, Gowebb11 said:

Good analysis. Side note: UT fans were about as displeased with the Heupel hire as we were the Harsin hire. More proof that you never know with a coaching search. 

there were a couple of guys on here claimed Heupel was not a good coach and did not want him but they wanted frost. looking back that did not age too well.

[AUwent 3,777]

21 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

there were a couple of guys on here claimed Heupel was not a good coach and did not want him but they wanted frost. looking back that did not age too well.

Just about *everyone* would look at the two until they left UCF and would pick Frost. It is truly shocking how that worked out.

[aubaseball 2,663]

On 10/13/2022 at 10:33 PM, Mikey said:

2018, Inherited a team that has been 13-0 and coached them to 12-1

2019, record slipped to 10-3

2020, record slipped again to 6-5, after which he bailed out for Tenn.

This is why everybody should hang on a bit before declaring UT's coaching problem solved. His trajectory at UCF was downhill every year.

I know nothing about UCF and what kind of team he had 2020 plus it was Covid year and does anyone know if all the starters played, or if any starters got hurt?   Saying this to say, sometimes records don’t indicate the total picture of what happened.   When history is written for this year, Auburn beat Mizzo, but everyone who watched knows that mizzo gave the game away.   

[Hank2020 3,222]

4 hours ago, metafour said:

21 points on BAMA in the FIRST QUARTER.

His teams at UCF lost because his defense couldn't keep up with his offense. Just not enough talent. Again, at Tennessee they have the money and resources to field a good enough defense. I don't think you understand how hard it is to play against this Tennessee offense.

I don’t know what his team will be like next year but they are rolling this year.

[RunInRed 16,512]

 

[jptiger 481]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:36 AM, woodford said:

All of this data is from collegefootballdata.com. I am not a sports analytics expert, but by God I'm trying to be. So if someone like @StatTiger or @Zeek wants to chime in and help elaborate or correct me I'd more than welcome it!

First, let's look at the current talent composite rankings for reference. Auburn sits at 17 and Tennessee is two below at 19. Pretty similar programs talent wise at the moment.

 

For reference, here are the terms from the glossary on the CFBdata website

• Expected Points (EP) assumes that not all yard lines are created equal. In other words, each yardline is assigned a point value and measures the number of points that would be expected to be scored based on down, distance, and field position. A negative value means that the opposing team would be expected to score the next points in the game.
• Expected Points Added (EPA) uses Expected Points to measure the outcome of a play. It takes the EP value from the beginning of a play (e.g. 2nd and 5 at the 50) and subtracts it from the EP value resulting from the play (e.g. rush for 10 yards results in 1st and 10 from the 40).

Every play is considered with context in mind, meaning down distance and field position are used to evaluate the amount of EPA compared to the actual result of the play. These statistics can be added to create a cumulative EPA over the course of a time period or season, or it can be viewed by EPA/play.

Success rate is an advanced metric in football that measures efficiency, but with the important context of down and distance considered.

Here are the Predicted/Expected Points Added (PPA/EPA) for both teams so far in 2022. 

 

Cumulative EPA below. Tennessee TWICE as much offensive output as Auburn in both offense and defense.

Success Rate

 

What does this mean? Tennessee has a much better chance of scoring on a given play than Auburn does. Tennessee is much more efficient than Auburn on offense. Anyone who has watched CFB this year can tell you that, but these metrics show just how much more efficient/better Tennessee is. Why did I pick Tennessee to compare to Auburn? Simple. They are also in year 2 of their head coach who had to deal with transfers leaving the program and with LESS talent than Auburn (on paper). Auburn is not the only program who has issues. 

My point? Coaching is EVERYTHING in college football. Game planning, scheme, adjustments, and leadership are even more crucial when you don't have blue chippers peppered across your roster. Tennessee has had success because Huepel and co have been efficient on offense thanks to their scheme and game planning. UT is using some duct tape until they pull in top 10 classes. These are only a few data points and there's a lot more to it, but there's no reason why Auburn can't compete. 

 

 

References:

Success Rate Definition | The Action Network

CollegeFootballData.com

What Is EPA? How Expected Points Added Advanced Metric Can Help You with Football Betting (actionnetwork.com)

Advanced Stats in College Football: What They Are, Where to Find Them (actionnetwork.com)

Well done. Stat would be proud.