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Hidden Points- Punting

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D RevLee said:
The board is going to go nuts when the "Hidden Points - Passing" drops and they learn we could have won 3 more games with an average QB.
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We could have won more games with better qb play?

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I'm confident that Hedley has the leg and kicking talent to be a quality punter. What I need to see is that he can handle punting the same quality in the shortened timeframe that a P5 punter has to catch the snap and boot the ball with intention. IMO that was Feagles fatal flaw. It will make or break Hedley.
 
D RevLee said:
The board is going to go nuts when the "Hidden Points - Passing" drops and they learn we could have won 3 more games with an average QB.
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Pretty sure most of the board knows that poor QB play cost us games last year.

The pathetic mess of an offense we had last season only magnified the importance of a good punting game.
 
Just mentioned this yesterday in the Hedley thread. Yuge asset if he can consistently get off at least average punts (no shanks) and flip the field.
 
Two random punting memories: One from a father, one from his son.

1). Worst: The LSU game in 2018. Our punter opened the game with 20, 25, & 28 yards punts. That absolutely killed the momentum of our team. He took our team's best weapon away (the defense).


2). Best: I forget if it was the 86 regular season game or the 1987 national title game against Oklahoma. OU came out playing FAST. They were outplaying the Canes in the first quarter. After the first couple drives OU had flipped field position and had the Canes punting from deep in their own territory. OU had all of the momentum, then it happened. Jeff Feagles got loose with like a 70 yard punt that completely re-flipped field position pinning OU back in their own territory. From that point forth the Canes took control of the game. I have always referred to that as the 'Greatest Punt in UM History.'


Solid piece as always, Lance.
 
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This is awesome! I fully expect an article like this our passing game like mentioned above.

I think it’d interesting if you did one in relation to penalties- how we benefited, how it hurt us, and then put a value on the criticalness of the situation when a penalty occurred!

@Lance Roffers please consider this.

Maybe factor in if refs actually called holding calls in favor of our d-line too lol.
 
Lance Roffers said:
Probably poorly worded. My intention was to express that you're adding the 1.5 wins over only a 10-game sample (because I am talking only about the P5 games there).

The "win expectation" was stating a "win expectation over 10 games" essentially.
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Don't concern yourself on wording too much - we got guys here so picky - they aren't happy just picking their own nose - they look for others to be picky on.

Good analysis - and I'm looking forward to your future breakdowns - which I think many of us really don't think about until it's pointed out!
 
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I think a good punting game is even more valuable for Miami than other teams. The 2018 defense hovered around the top 20 in opponent long scrimmage plays and obviously is one of the best at creating disruption with TFLs and sacks and generating turnovers. So forcing opponents to drive a long field with a high volume of plays against a defense that doesn't concede many big plays should increase the opportunity for drive-killing negative plays and turnovers.

Conversely if it was the D'Onofrio defenses then long fields would just delay the inevitable.
 
Go Canes!! said:
Imo punting on this team over the last two seasons cost us more than 1.5 wins per season.

Starting with the LSU game it's felt like we've started 90% of our drives on our own 5 while other teams started theirs at the 50,
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Great point. I don't remember much from bad losses like the LSU Game (I didn't even remember how good of a game Jeff Thomas had until someone posted his highlights recently)..but two things I will always remember that made that game unbearable was AR82 ending his career on that field due to injury and the fact that it always seemed like LSU was starting that trash offense at midfield every **** possession and how we always started our trash a$$ offense inside our own 20. Smh. Just a slow death.
 
Lance Roffers said:
Welcome to the first installment of a new series that tries to identify areas Miami can improve over last year where I quantify "hidden points."

While the focus of the 2019 offseason has been on coaching changes, what will the offense look like under Coach Enos, and who will be the QB, I wanted to focus on some areas where Miami can impact games outside of offensive philosophy.

Those who read my work know that I tend to dip into the numbers to better understand what is happening or how to evaluate different outcomes within a given game/season/recruit. I decided to try something a little different in this study and try to quantify several areas that Miami struggled with last season outside of overall offensive rank and place a number on where Miami can make drastic improvements with merely average play during the 2019 football season.

Methodology
It is no secret that many of my readers just want to see the results so, if that is you, feel free to jump down to the results. For the rest of you, here is how I went about my study:

I looked into the concept of “expected points” that was made famous in the NFL by Brian Burke, who joined ESPN on the basis of his excellent work with statistics. Taking each drive starting position for CFB you get a cluster of outcomes, to get a smooth line you can run a LOESS regression and have a line like this:

View attachment 85908

I plotted each yard line with a corresponding point value and it turns out to be an expectation of 5.50 points at the 1-yard line (no extra point included) and, conversely, you are expected to lose 0.50 points from your own 1-yard line.

From here, I looked at several different areas of the teams’ performance and plotted their expected points and worked to analyze how different levels of outcome could contribute to Miami scoring or allowing fewer points over the upcoming season.

Punting
I’ve long wanted to try and quantify the impact of Miami’s punting last year and what sort of impact average punting could have on the team. Out of 66 teams in Power-5 conferences (I’m including Notre Dame), Miami finished #62 in terms of net punting. That drops to #64 if you exclude the Savannah State game.

Some housekeeping on how I conducted my study: I split results into “Average,” “Good”, “Great” net punts. Average is the average of all teams, good is one standard deviation above the mean, great is two standard deviations above the mean. For directional punting, I applied an average punt as the 15-yard line, a good punt as to the 10-yard line, and a great punt as the 5-yard line. This means that my results are quite conservative compared to what a great directional punter would add to Miami’s expected points.

Since the entire play is driven by the punter, I hold returns against the punter (net punting). The punter can legally kick the ball out-of-bounds, kick the ball high into the air and force a fair catch, or directionally kick as well, so even if there was poor coverage, the return yards are held against the punter.

In 2018, Miami punted the ball 59 times (excluding Savannah State game), with only 16 of the punts even reaching “average” status (27%) and only 10 punts reaching “great” status on the season (17%). This means that 73% of the punts Miami had on the season actually cost the team expected points.

The totals come out this way:
View attachment 85912

With just an average punting game (38 net yards a punt), Miami would save eight points on the upcoming season. With a good punting game (40 net yards a punt), Miami would save fourteen points. With a great punting game (42.4 net yards a punt), Miami would save twenty-four points! Because you cannot score fractional points, the figures are rounded up and include extra points.

Keep in mind this was with a conservative designation on directional punting. Essentially, if Louis Hedley can come in and provide us with a good punting game, he will represent an addition larger than any other position has to gain outside of the QB position.

Results
If you looked simply at the Pythagorean expectation of Miami's win-loss record last year, you'd see a winning percentage of .716. This number is heavily skewed by the fact that Miami beat up on Savannah State, FIU, and Toledo. If you take only the results against P5 opponents last year, you see that Miami was expected to have a .500 winning percentage (actual record was 4-6). Giving Miami just an "average" punting game last year would have added a half win to their total expectation. Giving Miami a "good" punting game last year would have added an entire win to their total expectation. Giving Miami a "great" punting game last year would have added an entire win and a half to their total expectation without changing any other item within the program.

Adding 1.5 wins to a 10-game win expectation (P5 opponents) is a massive change and helps to illustrate how much Miami can improve simply by finding hidden points on the football field. Here's hoping Louis Hedley can provide us with a boost this year in the punting game.

Next week I will bring part two of "Hidden Points" and will explore another area where Miami can make huge gains with simply average performance. If you like my work, please give me a follow on Twitter @HurricaneVision.
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putting aside the issue of using non parametric smoothing (your LOESS line) to determine the parametric strength of the relationship in the data set ....which we can debate ....

this is good stuff.

as i said in another post, the target is "Net 40" ... if we can average net 40 this season, that could translate into multiple victories from the point differentials that you show. well done!
 
gcane44 said:
I'm confident that Hedley has the leg and kicking talent to be a quality punter. What I need to see is that he can handle punting the same quality in the shortened timeframe that a P5 punter has to catch the snap and boot the ball with intention. IMO that was Feagles fatal flaw. It will make or break Hedley.
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no doubt.

if you watched feagles in practice? he'd boom 50 yarders like it was nothing. beautiful release, hang time, distance.

his entire problem was mental. he lost it between the ears when the bullets went live.
 
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Go Canes!! said:
Imo punting on this team over the last two seasons cost us more than 1.5 wins per season.

Starting with the LSU game it's felt like we've started 90% of our drives on our own 5 while other teams started theirs at the 50,
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Interesting to see how better punting wouid translate if applied to the expected points chart......Take each of our punts last year, apply distance for good/great, and see where the corresponding opponent field position falls within the expected point graph.
 
And ole Richt was still whistling his way past the graveyard... can't think of a worse coaching job for canes in recent history
 
SFbayCane said:
Two random punting memories: One from a father, one from his son.

1). Worst: The LSU game in 2018. Our punter opened the game with 20, 25, & 28 yards punts. That absolutely killed the momentum of our team. He took our team's best weapon away (the defense).


2). Best: I forget if it was the 86 regular season game or the 1987 national title game against Oklahoma. OU came out playing FAST. They were outplaying the Canes in the first quarter. After the first couple drives OU had flipped field position and had the Canes punting from deep in their own territory. OU had all of the momentum, then it happened. Jeff Feagles got loose with like a 70 yard punt that completely re-flipped field position pinning OU back in their own territory. From that point forth the Canes took control of the game. I have always referred to that as the 'Greatest Punt in UM History.'


Solid piece as always, Lance.
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that game you are talking about was the 87 championship game. (I was there).

we were leading at the time, and had actually controlled the game, (OU never led at any point in the game), and needed a trick play funblerooski to score .... but OU was able to get field position towards the middle of the third quarter when it started to rain. in the midst of a typical south florida downpour, jeff feagles rips off a 65+ yard kick into the wind.

never saw anything like it in my life
 
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We knew it was bad, and we knew it was contributing to points for the opposition - but we couldn't quantify it. Great stuff.
 
I thought I read somewhere that using this new punters average last year, would have only moved up us 2 spots in punt raking.
 
Great job Lance, thanks. ST until recent years, has been an advantage for us and has won us a lot of games. Amazing our D did so well, will being on the field so long and always having their backs against the wall. I’m looking forward to Hedley and new coaching...need STs to look like a U product again🙌🙌🙌
 
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