Josh Hancher takes an extensive look at returning offensive production and how it impacts teams’ playoff chances.
First, here’s a handy summary of offensive YPP during the Smart era.
Let us give pause for a moment to reflect upon Jim Chaney’s offensive genius in 2018. But I digress.
Josh then gives us a picture of what returning offensive production means for a team in the national championship hunt.
Both of those suggest that Georgia’s offense, especially considering the continuity at offensive coordinator and quarterback, is well situated for this season. But that’s not the total picture to contemplate. I take you back to something I posted last year when I explained why I would track conference net YPP all season.
As a general rule of thumb based on the last four seasons, you’d better create a net YPP of 2+ if you want a realistic shot at the CFP (the four-team version, that is). And if you want to win, you’d better wind up north of 2.5. It doesn’t matter how you get there — track Alabama’s numbers over those four years, for example — just that you do get there.
This is why I like net YPP best, when it comes to advanced stats. It may not be perfect, but it’s relatively easy to understand and it’s a good judge of a team’s overall quality.
Realistically speaking, then, Georgia probably has to bump its offensive YPP up a full yard over the 2020 number to make the CFP field this season, assuming it can maintain its defensive excellence. Is that doable? Well, put it this way: a 7.21 ypp would be the best in the program’s history. That is the world Kirby Smart now coaches in.
Georgia, you might note from Josh’s first chart, didn’t improve its offensive YPP by a full yard last season. It turned out, though, that the increase was more than adequate because defensive YPP improved. The Dawgs finished last season with a net 2.83 YPP figure (6.98 o; 4.15 d), which certainly met the parameter I referenced.
So, if you assume, as most do, that Georgia’s defense will retreat somewhat from the level of last season’s production, how much does offensive YPP need to increase from last season’s amount to offset that and keep the net figure over 2.5? Will Monken’s offense need to set a program best mark to accomplish that? Hard to say, but it wouldn’t hurt.
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UPDATE:
Get The Picture 
I still can’t wrap my head around 2018 offense being better than last year’s offense. While we moved the ball in 2018, I also remember some very frustrating failures along the line of scrimmage trying to man-ball our will on our opponents.
This season, I think we’ll still get the net YPP of 2+ because I think the offense improves a touch, and I don’t think the defense will take as far of a step back as most seem to think. But then, I think we’re going to win the NC every year.
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2018 had the goalline fail against Florida and then another one against Missouri but that was largely it. That team could move the ball.
’18’s fatal flaws were that the run defense wasn’t great and the effort waned at times.
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On those two goal line stops in 2018 did we ever find out if that was Chaney’s play calling, or Kirby’s desire stubborn his way to victory? Overall, I always thought Chaney was good at what he was hired to do, but perhaps not always allowed to do what he wanted.
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I think we had 3 shots on the goal line at Kentucky when Kirby blew up (at Chaney?) on the headset. As explosive as that offense could be, it could also be frustrating.
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Ah yeah, can’t believe I forgot that. “No no no. Field goal. FIELD GOAL. I SAID KICK IT, GODDAMMIT!”
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We also had 3rd and one time after time get stuffed! That was hard to take after the year Nick Chubb had in 2017! He was a first down machine!!
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Not many times in the 2nd half this year did we have to move the ball…the MNC game come to mind, we got it done.
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It’d be interesting to see what our first half success rate was. Most of our games were over by then so the O just needed to milk clock and avoid mistakes in the second half.
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Huh. The lack of major discrepancies is surprising.
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Maybe the EPA (formula on a play’s result based on down distance field position) adds a little more context. Five yard run on 1st down and 37 yard reception on 3rd and 6 are both successful plays. The 37 yard pass play is obviously the more “valuable” play and would have a higher EPA
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I can’t warp my head around the 2018 offense outperforming 2017’s squad. Maybe my memory favors Kirby’s revenge-fueled coming out party. 2018 is clouded with needless Justin Fields drama and crapping the bed in Baton Rouge.
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Same. Lol
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Doesn’t a whole lot of the size of YPP depend on how a coach does or doesn’t lay off of an already vanquished opponent in the fourth quarter?
I’d say CKS is relatively “easy going” when that’s the case.
I wonder how much the YPP figures would change if you just did the first half of each game. Would that be a more useful figure?
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Thank you as always for sharing my junk with GTP.
I will have a defensive follow up later in week. But, I think most agree that continuity is important, but the average returning production is 60% – so championship quality teams have turnover.
Retuning a high percentage doesn’t make a championship team. But, seems though an experienced team can improve win percentage.
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If I am reading this correctly then Alabama only returns 33% for this coming year but LSU returned 82% going into 2020?
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I think you’re off by 1 year in each case. LSU returned 82% going into 2019, and the Gumps returned 33% going into last year.
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Thanks.
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I wonder how much Jordan Davis skewed these returning “production” numbers? Amazing how much he dominated the game without putting up stats.
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Offensive And Defensive Line are valued the least by Connelly.
So, yeah, he and Wyatt aren’t easily measured
What his research points to is that Passes Defended and TFLs are more valuable than tackles.
If you look at what Georgia had to replace that makes sense for it to be a low number.
JD and DW were game changing outliers.
And also remember that JD was banged up in 2020 and didn’t have as many opportunities to put up TFLs
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Not to Dawgrade Davis’ contributions, he is a true freak, but I think it’s more the Dawgs scheme and substitutions of blue chip players on the D line which leads to such success. We will see going forward.
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The offense has to be very good, but it isn’t like the D is falling off a cliff. And any offense nowadays needs to be very good. Statistically, it doesn’t matter if we hold the bad teams to an average of 10 points or 5. We just can’t crack against the few great teams we’ll play. Individual matchups and individual drives/plays in those biggest games are what we need from the D.
If the D can’t hold up when it counts in those games… then yes we need the offense to be a generational squad to accomplish anything significant this year.
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What MGW said.
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I worry about not factoring in Jake flipping the field or pinning them inside the 10 game after game (especially NC game) Bad field position then allowed us to release the Hounds of Hell upon them!
45+ yards and a fair catch may be boring to some but it is a thing of beauty to me! Just like a kickoff through the end zone!!
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It seems to me that when you have great players everything smells better. GA has the players and with this coaching staff, I am not too worried. OK, maybe a little worried. I have been more worried in the past. OH hell I don’t know.
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It’s alright to be a bit worried, WHB209. Beats the hell out of how the Dawgs opponents must be feeling knowing what they have to face. I can assure you that you’re in a better place.
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Excited about the returning production, apprehensive about the OL. And seeing LSU up there by us reminds me of going to Red Stick with offensive talent and an OL comprised of all guards with busted shoulders and we couldn’t get a red zone TD for anything. Billy Bennett simultaneously breaks records and chokes clutch FGs.
I do think we’re currently better on the OL but we’ll see how it plays out.
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At least what we have on the O line is a strong base of returning starters and lots of competition and options to try! Too many times in the past there was absolutely no depth. One injury and we are moving D linemen to the other side of the ball!!
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Chaney was fantastic considering how prolific amount of spread game these days favors downfield passing & chunk plays. 2021 ypp tremendous results considering our defense gave the ball back with only half of the typical field to work with.
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