Catch it while you can.

Bill Connelly has done yeoman’s work (always liked that phrase) in compiling D-1 receiver targets and catches for this past season.  kleph has thoughtfully winnowed out the non-SEC data here.

While it’s fair to say that Georgia’s receiving corps turned out to be a pleasant surprise in 2011, Bill’s info reveals there’s plenty of room for improvement this year.  Start with kleph’s first chart:

Top SEC players by Catch Rate (min 50 targets)

No. Team Player Targets Catches Catch Rate Target % 1 Alabama Brad Smelley 51 41 80.40% 14.00% 2 Georgia Malcolm Mitchell 61 45 73.80% 14.80% 3 LSU Odell Beckham Jr. 61 44 72.10% 21.90% 4 Arkansas Joe Adams 76 54 71.10% 17.10% 5 Georgia Orson Charles 67 45 67.20% 16.30% 6 Arkansas Chris Gragg 63 41 65.10% 14.20% 7 Alabama Marquis Maze 87 56 64.40% 23.80% 8 LSU Rueben Randle 87 56 64.40% 31.30% 9 Arkansas Jarius Wright 103 66 64.10% 23.10% 10 Auburn Emory Blake 60 36 60.00% 22.00% 11 Miss. State Chris Smith 59 35 59.30% 17.80% 12 Tennessee Da’Rick Rogers 115 67 58.30% 31.40% 13 Kentucky Matt Roark 62 36 58.10% 19.70% 14 Miss. State Arceto Clark 53 30 56.60% 16.00% 15 Vanderbilt Chris Boyd 55 31 56.40% 17.40% 16 S. Carolina Alshon Jeffery 88 49 55.70% 29.90% 17 Florida Jordan Reed 51 28 54.90% 17.40% 18 Tennessee Mychal Rivera 53 29 54.70% 14.50% 19 Georgia Tavarres King 88 46 52.30% 21.40% 20 Kentucky La’Rod King 79 40 50.60% 25.20% 21 Ole Miss Donte Moncrief 63 31 49.20% 22.70% 22 Vanderbilt Jordan Matthews 84 41 48.80% 26.50% Targets = receptions plus incompletions targeting a given receiver. Catches = receptions. Yards = receiving yards Catch Rate = catches / targets Yards Per Target = yards / targets Target % = the percentage of a team’s passes targeting a given receiver. %SD = the percent of a players targets that came on standard downs.

Helluva year, Malcolm Mitchell.

Georgia had three receivers who had the ball thrown at them more than 50 times.  Of those three, one was a true freshman who may have turned out to be the biggest Dream Team success story, one of whom has left early for the NFL and Tavarres King, Georgia’s #1 receiving target.

King’s numbers are interesting.  His catch rate is barely above 50%, but some of that can be attributed to the number of deep routes he ran.  What’s really noteworthy is the breakdown of his catch rate between standard downs (63.3%) and passing downs (38.5%).  Despite that disparity, he was actually targeted more on passing downs than on standard downs.  For comparison’s sake Charles’ standard down catch rate was 72.7% and passing down catch rate was 56.5%; Mitchell’s respective rates were 71.4% and 78.9%.  Both Charles and Mitchell were targeted less on passing downs than on standard downs.

Of course, I can’t say whether that was by design (i.e., the play call) or the way that Murray let the play develop, but either way, it seems there should be some focus on making the passing game more efficient with the targeting of the big (in terms of numbers) receivers.

There’s another area worth focusing on.  If you look at kleph’s second chart, which lists the top 100 catch rates in the SEC (minimum 10 catches), you’ll see that Mitchell, Georgia’s leader, ranked only 22nd in the conference.  What that tells you is that there were other programs which made more efficient use of their receivers and running backs in supporting roles.  (As a totally irrelevant aside, you know who’s got some really scary numbers on that chart?  Check out Justin Hunter’s.)

Again, it’s hard to say how much of this was structural and how much can be blamed on fundamentals.  And in fairness, much of Georgia’s receiving corps was pretty green.  But there’s information here that’s worth taking some lessons from, if you want bigger things from the passing game.