Husky Omnibus Statistics Post (Offense)

I wanted to take a few minutes to examine some statistics from the UW's games so far in order to help highlight trends worth noting and to provide non-nerds with a little added insight into the Huskies' statistical "footprint". Generally I like to rely more on statistics that are adjusted to account for strength of schedule, but after two weeks, there isn't any meaningful way to do that, so the stats I discuss below are all raw. Hopefully this will be a regular feature.

PACE OF PLAY The UW's adoption of the Hurry Up, No Huddle (HUNH) philosophy makes pace of play one of the most interesting things to examine through the first two games of the year. I have already provided a quick overview of the Huskies' pace in Game 1 and Game 2. Rather than rehash it, allow me to summarize: they are playing fast.

How fast? Through two games the Dawgs are averaging 85 plays per game, or one play for every 21.4 seconds of possession time. That is an increase in pace of about 21% from the average over the first four years of Steve Sarkisian's regime in Seattle. It also ranks them #19 nationally in pace of play, per my own calculations. Just to wrap some other numbers around it, nationally the average amount of clock time elapsed per play is 25.2 seconds this season. The standard deviation is about 3.2 seconds, so the Huskies' current pace is a little more than one standard deviation from the mean.

That number also understates just how briskly the Huskies have moved over most of their possessions, since it includes several drives where the team has clearly been in a bit of a milk the clock mode when it held sizable leads in the second half. Excluding six possessions where it appeared to me clear that the intent was to take a little bit more time off the clock, the Huskies averaging 19.1 seconds per play over 17 possessions comprising 137 live snaps.

EXPLOSIVE PLAYS Other than the volume of plays the Huskies have been running, the other result of the new offense that is most striking is the number of "explosive" plays it has generated. Definitions of what exactly an explosive play is vary, but I have chosen to use the definition that Pete Carroll uses: rushing plays of 12 or more yards and passing plays of 16+ yards. The Huskies managed 14 offensive plays that met that criteria in the BSU game and 13 explosive plays in the Illinois game. Comparing those totals to last year is eye opening. The Huskies averaged 7.8 explosive plays per game last season and took five games to reach 27 at the beginning of last year.

This is particularly encouraging since Austin Seferian-Jenkins has yet to contribute one in 2013 and in 2012 he was probably responsible for the most on the team, though I didn't track them individually. I do recall seeing a lot of explosives on passes to him though.

RUN-PASS MIX If you have noticed something different about the UW offense besides the pace of play and can't quite put your finger on what it is, I'll give you a hint: the Dawgs are running the ball. A lot. Okay, that wasn't a hint. I provided you with the answer. Guessing games aren't that much fun, especially in written form. Anyway, yeah, Sark is calling lots of running plays.

The Huskies' Run-Pass mix is currently about 60/40 with the precise percentage of running plays being 60.12%. That is good for 31st in the country, per this handy site. Last season, the Huskies Run-Pass mix was 48/52 and looking at the rankings there were several Air Raid teams that rushed the ball more often than the UW did last season, including Lousiana Tech, Oklahoma State, and Texas A&M.

While I expect this skew to moderate somewhat over the remainder of this season, I do think that Sark recognizes that passing as much (from a proportion standpoint, the UW offense is going to pass and run more this season, due to the pace of play) as the Huskies did last season isn't desirable. At least that is my fond hope. I suppose we'll see when the games get more challenging.

The combination of running a lot of plays and calling a lot of rushing plays has the Huskies currently averaging 52 rushing plays per game, good for 9th nationally in that category. Fifty two carries per game means a lot of opportunities for UW running backs, which provides a nice segue...

BISHOP SANKEY We all knew that Mr. Sankey was a very good back, but I don't think many of us expected this or this through two weeks of the season. For those of you with a phobia of clicking through links, those show that Sankey is currently leading the nation in rushing yards per game and in yards from scrimmage per game. However, while Sankey has been outstanding, he is appearing at the top of those lists mainly because of the heavy workload he has had to shoulder through two games. He ran the ball 35 times against Illinois and is averaging 30 carries per game so far this season.

At his current pace, he would certainly shatter all of UW's meaningful single season rushing records and he would put himself in position to ecliplse Chris Polk's career record during his senior year. He would also be on pace to carry the ball almost 400 times over the season, assuming the Huskies don't reach the Pac-12 championship game. Sankey has shown himself to be a durable workhorse back, but that is just too many carries any way you slice it.

The best case scenario would be for Jesse Callier to continue to do what he did last Saturday and for Dwayne Washington to reestablish the trust of the coaches and be another viable ball carrier, giving the Huskies a trio of backs to shoulder the workload.

With all that said, it is fun to see Sankey at the top of the national lists and for him to be getting some deserved recognition. I also would like to think that it is the kind of thing that talented recruiters (and UW has some of those) can spin in way that is advantageous when it comes to recruiting running backs. I know the Dawgs are considered out of the running for his services, but I can't help but think just how good Joe Mixon would look in this offense.

THIRD DOWN CONVERSIONS I have touched on this a couple of times in other places this season, but one of the things that is particularly enabling the UW offense has been a sky-high 3rd down conversion rate in both games. It sure is a refreshing change from last season, when the UW ranked 95th in the country at just under 36% of opportunities converted on third down. The Huskies are currently rated #3 in third down conversion rate nationally at 67.74% (officially). I actually have the Huskies successfully converting 70% of third down opportunities. It looks like the discrepancy has to do with how 3rd and Goal situations are handled. It looks like TDs on third down situations aren't counted in the third down calculation officially, either in the numerator or denomintor. Weird, but good to know.

But while the Huskies may remain significantly improved over the course of 2013, it seems highly unlikely that their current pace of third down conversions will hold up for a couple of reasons. First of all, the national leaders in 3rd down conversions over the course of entire seasons generally have a 55-57% third down conversion rate, so pure reversion to the mean is likely to lower the UW's conversion rate as the season wears on.

The other reason the 3rd down conversion rate is likely to fall is that the Huskies haven't faced particularly short third down situations, on average. In the BSU game the average yards to go on third down were a daunting 7.1 yards. The Dawgs still managed to convert on 10-of-13 opportunities. In the Illinois game, the average yardage needed on third down was a less challenging 5.0 yards and the Huskies converted on 11-of-17 opportunities. But the fact remains tha through two games the average yards to go on third down has been 5.9 yards, which really isn't conducive to continuing to convert at such a high rate.

FIELD POSITION The Huskies really haven't been winning the field position battle so far this season.The average field position at the start of a possession through two games (23 total possessions, with two possessions where the UW's primary intent was to kill clock) is the Huskies' own 22 yard line. For the individual games, it breaks down as the Huskies' 25 yard line for the Boise Game and the Huskies' 20 yard line in the Illinois game.

This points to a lack of turnovers in opponents' territory and not really winning the field position battle as deficiencies to this point in the season. Penalties to start possessions and in the ST game have also been an issue. That's the bad news.

The good news is that the Huskies have still managed to score on 57% of drives where they were actively trying to do so (12 scoring drives out of 21 where they were trying to). And of the scores, 75% of them have been TDs.

The average starting field position on the Huskies' 9 drives that ended in TDs was their own 27 yard line, and their average starting field position on all scoring drives was the 26 yard line, neither of which is significantly different (statistically speaking) from their average starting field position in all drives. So they have been successfully driving long fields to score.

That's all for now.