Iowa Hawkeyes Football: Ricky Stanzi Passing Breakdown Through Five Games
A question a lot of Iowa fans have asked me is "How good has Ricky Stanzi been this year? Is he really that much better than he was last year?" It's clear from the easily publicly available stats that he has been very efficient and effective so far this year. His basic stats are below:
| Completions | Attempts | Yards | Comp % | YPA | TD | INT |
| 82 | 121 | 1228 | 67.77 | 10.15 | 10 | 2 |
The first two things that jump out at you are his completion percentage and yards per attempt. Through 5 games last year he was completing 58% of his passes and had a mere 7.07 YPA. In addition to this he only had an 8:7 ratio for TD:INT in 2009 and is clearly improved there this season with a 5:1 in 2010.
He has clearly been a far better quarterback through 5 games. Over the next couple of slides we'll take a look at some metrics and find out how he's managed to do it.
Yards Per Attempt
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On the next few slides you'll see the same table that essentially represents a grid of the football field. Short throws are throws targeted 10 yards or shorter. Medium throws are between 10 and 20 yards. Deep throws are longer than 20 yards. Each metric is based on where a throw is targeted, so if a screen to the middle goes for 25 yards it's still put into the short middle box. Also each area has a sub-total metric that's a composite for each group.
Below is a table showing Stanzi's YPA through 5 games broken down by distance thrown and where at on the field it was thrown:
| YPA | Left | Middle | Right | ___ | Sub-total |
| Short | 6.97 | 8.27 | 7.19 | 7.39 | |
| Med | 10.00 | 10.40 | 18.25 | 13.04 | |
| Deep | 25.86 | 28.33 | 10.25 | 21.93 | |
| Sub-total | 10.40 | 10.60 | 10.25 | 10.15 |
What stands out here is the deep sub-total metric. A 21.93 YPA on deep throws is a circus level number. This is yards per attempt not yards per completion so every time Stanzi drops back and throws a ball 20+ yards down-field he's statistically averaging almost 22 yards. Almost any fan who attends an Iowa game will be impressed with Stanzi's touch on the deep ball. This metric puts an actual tangible value to what many Iowa fans are impressed by.
Completion Percentage
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Below is a table showing Stanzi's Completion % through 5 games broken down by distance thrown and where at on the field it was thrown:
| Comp % | Left | Middle | Right | ___ | Sub-total |
| Short | 71% | 64% | 71% | 69% | |
| Medium | 60% | 50% | 88% | 65% | |
| Deep | 71% | 67% | 50% | 64% | |
| Sub-total | 70% | 60% | 72% | 67.77% |
The staggering number here is that Stanzi completes 64% of his deep passes. 65% is fairly high for a medium depth metric but 64% for deep routes is absolutely sky high. He's attempted 14 passes that fall into the deep category and that equates to around 12% of all his pass attempts.
To give these above numbers a bit of context here is the break down of all pass attempts by distance thrown and where at on the field it was thrown.
| Attempts | Left | Middle | Right | ___ | Sub-total |
| Short | 31 | 22 | 31 | 84(69%) | |
| Medium | 5 | 10 | 8 | 23(19%) | |
| Deep | 7 | 3 | 4 | 14(12%) | |
| Sub-total | 43(36%) | 35(28%) | 43(36%) | 121 |
A pretty typical distribution in terms of distance and a very balanced attack terms of location on the field. Last year Iowa had a tendency to attack the right side of the field more than the left and it appears that has been remedied.
Touchdown and Interception Percentage
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Another important metric to look at is how and when touchdowns occur. By the same token it's valuable to know when and where a QB throws his interceptions. Below are tables broken down by distance thrown and location on the field:
| TD % | Left | Middle | Right | ___ | Sub-total |
| Short | 3% | 5% | 6% | 5% | |
| Medium | 0% | 20% | 13% | 13% | |
| Deep | 14% | 33% | 25% | 21% | |
| Sub-total | 5% | 11% | 9% | 8.26% |
| INT % | Left | Middle | Right | ___ | Sub-total |
| Short | 3% | 0 | 0 | 5% | |
| Medium | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Deep | 0 | 33% | 0 | 7% | |
| Sub-total | 2% | 3% | 0 | 1.65% |
The touchdown percentage is an excellent metric for Stanzi. His interception percentage is also very low and would be even lower if you remove the dropped pass that lead to his first interception of the season. Again the trend that is showing up here is that the deep ball is Iowa's strongest suite. It is also worth noting that the deep post against PSU that resulted in Stanzi's 2nd INT was a great play by FS Nick Sukay. Sukay did an excellent job of tracking that ball in the air and showed pretty good range to intercept that pass.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
How They Did It
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So all the success deep begs the question: "How did they do it?" Iowa did it the old fashioned way, with simple play design, timely play call, great throws and soft hands from WR's. Both Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and Marvin McNutt are big time deep threats. Allen Reisner also has the speed and hands to be a vertical threat defenses must respect.
On the next two slides we'll look at 2 of the simple plays Iowa employs to generate their success deep.
The Scissor Route
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Above is a basic diagram showing a scissor route. Iowa has run this with the PA fake and also as a straight drop. They have also run it without the Z WR Motion. It's designed to take advantage of teams who bring the SS down into the box to stop the run. It leaves the FS with the decision on which route he is going to help on as likely both CB's will be trailing their WR. Iowa has had great success with this look and it's contributed a number of big plays.
The Fade/Go
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Another deep play Iowa employs to deal with 8 man fronts is just a simple old fade or go play. Iowa will call this play explicitly at times and Iowa will also audible to this from all types of formation, even single WR set, making it a single receiver pattern. Stanzi does an excellent job of recognizing when he has a mismatch on the outside and will not hesitate to change the call to the fade. He does an excellent job of ball placement on these outside deep throws and his completion percentage on deep balls outside the hashes back that up.
Summary
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So this is a very technical and in-depth way of answering the question of how good Ricky Stanzi has been so far this season. It's pretty clear from his national ranking in Passer Efficiency that he's having a good season but as we've seen in this closer look he's been down right scary good in what's a fairly conservative run-rooted offense. In closing I can't put it any better than Ricky: "Love it or Leave it!"
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
