Tavarres King’s step up season

Here’s something I posted about Tavarres King a little over a year ago:

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 were two ways to accomplish that.  One would have been to throw to receivers with better catch rates.  The other would have been for King to step up his game.

Per Bill Connelly, that’s exactly what happened.  If you click on the link that takes you to Bill’s spreadsheet, you’ll find that King improved his catch rate numbers across the board, with his catch rate percentage on passing downs skyrocketing to 57.7%.

Bill’s come up with a new metric to judge receivers.  Here’s how he describes it:

The idea behind RYPR is to figure out who were the most truly dangerous receivers in the country in a given year. (In this sense, “RYPR” is a pretty good, menacing name, huh?) It combines your yards per target data with a look at the frequency with which your team passed and the quality of the passing game as a whole. It isn’t a measure of pure productivity, necessarily, but pure per-target quality.

In other words, the more your team passed, the more your team passed to you and the more yardage you gained on your catches, the better your RYPR.  King’s 2011 RYPR was 109.9, good for 73rd nationally.  His 2012 number was 184.7, good enough to be eighth best in the country.  That’s what you want out of your #1 receiving option.

King is gone, but if you want some good news for Georgia’s passing game in 2013, check out Malcolm Mitchell’s catch rates last season.  Talk about your heir apparent.

Meanwhile in Tuscaloosa, a shocking development

Nope, not that four Alabama players were arrested on charges of second degree robbery yesterday, but that news of the arrests was made public.

Of course, for every door that closes on the team discipline front, another opens on the roster management side.

Vegas is for losers.

Matt Melton takes a look at how every D-1 game in 2012 performed against the point spread.  The results won’t surprise too many of you.

Out of the 697 regular season games involving IA opponents, 261 of them (or 37.45%) finished within one touchdown of the betting line. In other words, more than a third of the time, you’re hard-earned money was one play away from either nearly doubling or floating away. Think about that the next time your buddy has a ‘sure thing’. Overall, over two thirds (67.00%) of the games finished within two touchdowns of the betting line and fewer than one of every five games differed by more than 20 points.

That translates into the average game being roughly twelve points off from the spread.  Not exactly a lock.

A compassionate Jim Delany?

The Big Ten is unhappy about the new liberalized recruiting rules the NCAA has promulgated, but not for the reason you, I or Urban Meyer might think.  Nah, the worry is for the children:

We have serious concerns whether these proposals, as currently written, are in the best interest of high school student-athletes, their families and their coaches…

We look forward to working with the NCAA toward improving the game, the recruiting process and the overall college football experience for all student-athletes.

Ain’t that the sweetest?

John Infante gets to the root of the matter here.

This is really the straw that broke the camel’s back regarding Big Ten claims of moral superiority. The Big Ten has no problem passing rules. It has a conference rule book that rivals the NCAA Division I Manual. But the Big Ten schools are saying they cannot or should not be required to develop either their own rules or their own reasonable model of recruiting. In effect, this statement asks the NCAA to protect the Big Ten schools from the bad influence that is the SEC.

No real surprise, that.  But I do wonder about something – if the big conferences ever decide to abandon the NCAA ship once and for all, exactly how would the Big Ten and SEC plan on adjudicating the inevitable spats between them that would arise?  Or would they really go all law of the jungle-y on us?  That might have enough entertainment value to make up for the depressing fallout from the next round of conference realignment.

Maybe there’s a place for Mark Emmert, warts and all, after all.  Shit.

A coy Bobby Petrino?

Gag me with a spoon…

Take us back in your career a bit. You were at Louisville and then jump to the NFL and the Jacksonville Jaguars. How’d that work?:

“I was sitting in the meeting room with my brother, Paul, and we were watching video from the year before, right around this time. … The secretary came in and said, ‘There’s a guy by the name of Tom Coughlin on the phone,’ and we both kind of laughed and joked, yeah right. … I went and got on the phone and Coach Coughlin told me his offensive coordinator just left and took the head job with the Cleveland Browns and he wanted to hire a young quarterback coach and grow him in to be the coordinator. … I flew down there, went through the interview. … I really didn’t want to take the job. I was real hesitant about taking it, but I didn’t want to look back 10 years from now and say, ‘What if I would’ve done it?’ … Went and did it and had a great experience.”

Seriously, does anybody believe it took Petrino more than a nanosecond to make up his mind on that career move?