Notre Dame Football: Passing Inefficiency by the Numbers

Omahadomer has finally put some numbers behind my dead horse beaten argument that Notre Dame threw the ball far too much that last few years despite a sieve of an offensive line. If you add sacks in, Notre Dame completed... just 48% of passes attempted in 2007. More than half of our attempts went for zero or negative yards and 56 of those went for negative yards and another 9 gave the ball to the other team. What was even more shocking to me was how dreadful 2006 was in adjusted yards per attempt. Add back in sacks, and Quinn's completion % was 57% in 2006. Here's OD's analysis.

"The "raw" yards per passing attempt is simply yards gained passing divided by passing attempts. An average figure for a college team is usually about 6.9 yards per attempt.

These figures are always higher than average yards per rushing attempt, which might lead one to wonder why teams ever run the ball. But running is a lower-risk proposition (lost fumbles on true running plays occur with only about 1/3 the frequency of turnovers on passing plays if one includes fumbles on snaps), the risk of a zero gain is lower and yards per passing attempt overstates the net benefits of passing.

In 2007 N.D. averaged 5.2 yards per passing attempt, which was one of the worst in the nation. But really it was worse than that. In 2006 N.D. averaged 7.3 per passing attempt (which was good) and in 2005 N.D. averaged 8.7 per passing attempt, which was excellent.

However, even those big differences understate how much better the passing attack was in 2005 and 2006 than it was in 2007. Sacks are really passing attempts too, so they should be counted as passing attempts and the negative yardage subtracted from the passing total. Moreover, interceptions should be counted as about negative 50 yards. Of course, not all interceptions are created equally. Some are basically harmless (e.g., a Hail Mary at the end of the half that's intercepted instead of being knocked down), once in awhile they're actually helpful (e.g., on 4th down the defender reflexively catches the ball instead of knocking it down which would actually result in better field position) and sometimes they're positively devastating (e.g., an interception returned 100 yards for a touchdown). But on average they deprive a team of a chance to advance the ball and at least to punt and change field position. So let's use negative 50 as a rough approximation.

So let's calculate a "net" yards per passing attempt as follows: (gross passing yardage - sack yardage - (interceptions x 50 yards))/(passing attempts plus sacks).

In 2005, Quinn's true yards per passing attempt was 7.3 yards per passing attempt and in 2006 it was 5.7. I'm not quite ready to say that these figures are the equivalent of rushing the ball for 7.3 or 5.7 per attempt, but they do suggest that a team that can put up numbers like that legitimately might favor the pass.

In 2005, N.D.'s "true" yards per rush was about 4.6 because that's what N.D.'s tailbacks who saw significant action (Walker and Thomas) averaged between them. So the 2005 might have rightfully been one where the play calls should have favored the pass.

In 2006 it was a more even proposition because N.D.'s tailbacks who got more than a few carries(Walker, Aldridge and Thomas) averaged about 4.9 per carry.

Now, if we turn to 2007, it's actually hard to see why N.D. rationally tried to throw the ball at all, except perhaps to keep teams from just playing the rush. N.D. averaged a pitiful 2.5 per passing attempt (there was no meaningful difference between Clausen and Sharpley; Clausen averaged 2.5 and Sharpley 2.6). However, while N.D.'s rushing attack was not as good per carry as it was in 2005 and 2006 it didn't see nearly the collapse that the passing game did. The five N.D. tailbacks who got carries last year (Aldridge, Allen, Hughes, Thomas and Jabbie) averaged just a hair over 4.0 per carry.

It's probably not news to anyone, but N.D. really would have been much better of running the ball more last year. I, for one, however underestimated just how much better off N.D. would have been being a run heavy team. However, if sacks are counted as passing attempts, N.D. actually attempted to pass on 54% of the plays from scrimmage, which was similar to prior years under Weis (56-44 passing in 2006 and 50.3-49.7 passing in 2005).

I hope the basic message of it from last year has gotten home to Weis and Haywood. I expect that N.D. will be more proficient passing the ball than it was last year. But N.D. needs to commit to the run and probably be a run-heavy team for next year. Unless the "true" yards per passing attempt at least doubles to the low 5's, N.D. is likely to be much better off keeping the ball on the ground for a large majority of the plays.
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One hopes this two year trend is a "passing" one.

Notre Dame Football, Charlie Weis, Sugar Bowl