Pace is a big deal these days, but as Bill Connelly points out in his Baylor preview, it ain’t always everything.
Adjusting for run-pass ratio (since runs are less likely to result in clock stoppages), here are the 10 fastest offenses in the country in 2013 according to Adjusted Pace:
- BYU (14.3 plays greater than expected)
- California (plus-12.8)
- Texas Tech (plus-12.5)
- Baylor (plus-11.7)
- Virginia (plus-9.9)
- Nevada (plus-9.9)
- Fresno State (plus-9.4)
- Arizona (plus-8.9)
- Washington (plus-7.8)
- Clemson (plus-7.5)
Here’s the thing about this list: only one of these offenses ranked better than 19th in Off. F/+. Four ranked 48th or worse.
In other words, going fast is just like any other tactical decision you make as an offensive coordinator: it only helps if you know what you’re doing with it.
Get The Picture 
Speaking of this, saw an “Experience AU Fast” billboard yesterday on I-85…
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92 mph
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You think Tom Landry would have gone for this? Remember the days of the meticulously set up huddle? Staubach would call the play once then the center and receivers would break the huddle. He would call the play a second time then the OL and backs would break the huddle. He would then call the cadence at the LOS where the OL would make their up then down motion (perfectly together) to get their hands set on the ground. I bet they used lots of practice time just for this. The evolution of football…
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Landry and Staubach brought the shotgun back to the NFL as its base offense in 1975 after a poor 1974 season.
I think he may have gone for it. He was an innovator.
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Yes, the # of plays run number is annoying. CMB seemed a little fixated with it in some interviews- at the least there should be a stat for efficiency x number of plays run, maybe?
However, you can’t judge its effectiveness based on where those offenses were ranked necessarily, they might have been even worse in a traditional offense!
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I believe if you listen closely to Bobo, his point is not so much running a high number of plays per game, but running more plays gives more chances to score. To me, CMB seems more concerned with scoring than just running plays. You make a good point about a stat for efficiency. I believe avg yards per play and avg points per game would give you a good indicator of offensive efficiency. That’s just my thoughts on this issue.
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Yes, that’s exactly the language he uses – he says running more plays gives you more chances to score. But if you see my post to IL below, the language confuses me – I think you will agree with me based on your post…and I may be a crazy person, but try this on – I’m about to put you to sleep, here.
Running more plays does not increase your chances to score. Increasing your efficiency gives you more chances to score. A team that throws a touchdown pass on first down from its own 20 every time it gets the ball is going to run very few plays but it is going to be insanely efficient and win every game it plays.
Two teams with really stout D’s and two hurry up offenses with horrible efficiency can probably run a ton of plays in a game but the final score could still be 3-0.
Now, Bobo’s grad students may be telling him that when UGA increases its number of plays run, we score more. But the correlation is not the causation, as they say. We’re tiring their defenses out, or confusing them, or doing something that increases our efficiency (which equals scoring), I will wager, and number of plays run is not the goal but a means to the goal.
Again, I may be missing something very important, here, but I believe I’d rather have a coach focused on finding the sweet spot where efficiency YPP is the highest it can be rather than speed.
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“But the correlation is not the causation, as they say” – maybe it is, but it’s not the goal. I would feel better if CMB talked about YPP as the goal instead of # of plays run.
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There’s YPP (yards/play), right?
~~~
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Yes, sorry – I didn’t mean efficiency (YPP) times number of plays run but a stat to monitor how the number of plays run affects efficiency up or down – how changing the denominator in Y/P = YPP affects the result.
The horse I beat to death on this subject here a few months ago is coaches are focused on increasing the P – at least they talk about that – when it doesn’t necessarily make the team more efficient if the Y doesn’t increase accordingly more from where it was when you started hurrying up.
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Note that many of the teams on this list didn’t have very good W/L records. Cal was 1-11 and 0-9 in the PAC-12. UVa was 2-10 and 0-8 in the ACC. The only really successful teams from 2013 on that list are Clemson and Baylor.
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