Let's do the numbers, shall we?

[MJWilliamson]

In another thread, we are *still* having a debate about the offense under Grier vs the offense under Harris. The genesis of the arguments seems to revolve around the notion that even though most everyone agrees that Grier was the better QB of the two, the offense was not appreciably better. That the offense sucked with both OBs

One of our more respected posters did an analysis to demonstrate that. I think oozie did it before the season ended? Now, I have enormous respect, for oozie. (Yuuugeee, if you will.) Both for his football acumen plus the kind of person he seems to be. He is a straight up guy. But I think his analysis was too limited and drew the wrong conclusions.

Underlying this view is the deluded assertion that there is a fundamental problem with both McE and Nussmier. That neither man are capable to fielding a competent offense. I don't think oozie is saying that, (correct if I am wrong buddy) but there are several vocal posters that do feel that way, and constantly tell us so.

So, let's do a complete analysis. Let's break down each facet of the offense and try and draw an objective conclusion about the matter, shall we?

So, lets take each of the areas of offense and break them down between each QB. Let's start with the most important one first. Let's start with scoring, in the next post.

 

[MJWilliamson]

The first thing to notice is that Harris started 8 games and Grier in only 6 games. Yet under Grier, the offense scored 8 more TDs in 2 fewer games. Plus under Grier the offense scored 3 more FGs in two fewer games. Total points under Grier was almost double total points under Harris.

I could just put the mike down right now and walk off the stage, given that scoring is the single most important measure of any offense. But there might be mitigating factors.

Grier only faced two ranked opponents while Harris faced four of them. So, half of the opponents faced by Harris were ranked, while a third were ranked when facing Grier. Grier face one top ten opponent and Harris faced one.

So, against ranked opponents, Grier's offense 33 points per game while Harris had 13 points. Again, let's drop the mike and walk off the stage.

We could stop here, but let's not. Let's look at yardage next.

 

[MJWilliamson]

BTW, while Grier faced two bad IA teams, neither were as bad as the Fla Atlantic team Harris faced. I can demonstrate that , if it is necessary

 

[MJWilliamson]

So, lets look at total offense. Let's adjust for ranked teams too;

Again, there is no comparison between the two where it looks like the offense is the same between the two, like at least three posters asserted earlier.

 

[MJWilliamson]

Do we really need to go on? We can look at third down conversions, red-zone efficiency, passer ratings and the like. But on balance, they will say the same thing. Under Grier, the offense was a decent offense. Not so much under Harris. THIS IS NOT A DEBATE WHICH QB WAS BETTER. The is an analysis of how the McE offense works with a decent QB. I assert it would be a decent offense


How decent? Well, let take some of those numbers and see where they would rank nationally

 

[MJWilliamson]

Under Grier, the offense scored 32.2 points per game and scored 4.33 TDs per game. Nationally, that would rank the Gator offense at #45 for score and # 29 for TDs scored (assuming the 4.33 TDs were over 14 games)

Under Grier, the offense totaled 384.7 yards per game. That would rank it #74 nationally. Not nearly as good as scoring, but still much, much better than it looked by year end.

We will be interested to read the rebuttals.

 

[oozie7]

There are few analysts who would point to points per game as one of the bigger factors when judging the effectiveness of an offense. Special teams scores, defensive scores, and field position all affect how well an offense scores. The best metric you could use is yards per play because it snaps shot each play.

And simply citing 'ranked teams' is misleading for numerous reason. Why does the ranking of a team matter when trying to judge one side of the ball? For example, last year we were ranked highly because of defense only, that's not a reflection of how good our offense is. Likewise a team can have a terrible defense and be ranked, yet your analysis would give the offense credit for moving the ball against them because they were ranked. If we're judging the offense then the best thing to do is to take the rankings of the opponents defense. I'm gonna give you credit and assume you didn't purposefully choose to go that route with your analysis to mislead. Tennessee was ranked for example but had a shitty defense. Taking quality of opponent defense into account only Harris faced 5 defenses ranked in the top 25, Grier faced 1. There is no comparison in terms of who faced more quality defenses.

YPP is 4.7 for Harris, little more than 5 for Grier. There's no difference essentially. And why is Grier being given credit for the New Mexico St. game offensive totals? He did not start that game, Harris did. So your stats are off from the beginning. It would be best to separate out the drives each were responsible for in that game if you want to use it.

 

[oozie7]

You should run an analysis with adjustments for strength of defense rather than just 'ranked teams' and see what those results are.

 

[MJWilliamson]

Yards per play for Grier; 5.60 - National Rank #69
Yards per play for Harris; 4.71 - National Rank #118

Yards per play for Grier against ranked teams - 5.57 National Rank #70
Yards per play for Harris against ranked team - 4.36 National Rank #126

:drops mike and walks off stage:

Anything else?

 

[BringBackBonner]

MJ, Oozie educated you in his post on the severe limitations of your analysis, yet you ignored the parts inconvenient to whatever it is you are hoping prove to yourself.

If you are going to simply have a conversation with yourself, Insta style, what is the point of this thread?

The original argument wasn't that the offense under Harris was good or better than under Grier, but that the offense under Grier was bad. You lost sight of that amidst your rants.

 

[oozie7]

LOL, see comments about 'ranked teams' it's purposefully misleading and not relevant for the analysis you're attempting to perform. I'm convinced now you're not wanting to look a the ranks of the defenses because it doesn't support your argument at all. 5.6 ypp vs 4.70, a difference 0.90, less than a yard. And one guy faced 5 top 25 defenses. Are you really trying to make the point there some noticeable difference?

 

[oozie7]

MJ, Oozie educated you in his post on the severe limitations of your analysis, yet you ignored the parts inconvenient to whatever it is you are hoping prove to yourself.

If you are going to simply have a conversation with yourself, Insta style, what is the point of this thread?

The original argument wasn't that the offense under Harris was good or better than under Grier, but that the offense under Grier was bad. You lost sight of that amidst your rants.

Right. The offense under Grier was 74th in the country at the time he went out...against the worst defenses on the schedule including two teams that finished with more than 7 losses. We hadn't even faced the best defenses yet and we're still in the bottom half of the country on offense. Which supports my argument that the offense was bad with both QB's. The argument was never that the offense was better or even equal with Harris. The argument was that the offense was bad with both and every metric out there supports that.

 

[MJWilliamson]

MJ, Oozie educated you in his post on the severe limitations of your analysis, yet you ignored the parts inconvenient to whatever it is you are hoping prove to yourself.

No. I addresed his concerns

If you are going to simply have a conversation with yourself, Insta style, what is the point of this thread?

Yet here you are.

The original argument wasn't that the offense under Harris was good or better than under Grier, but that the offense under Grier was bad. You lost sight of that amidst your rants.

I addressed that. You are just unwilling or unable to understand that

 

[MJWilliamson]

You should run an analysis with adjustments for strength of defense rather than just 'ranked teams' and see what those results are.

I think what I did does that. But if you have a better way, I will invite you to do that to support your analysis.

It is easy to throw rocks. What is hard to do is to introduce facts to support a point of view.

 

[MJWilliamson]

I'm convinced now you're not wanting to look a the ranks of the defenses because it doesn't support your argument at all. 5.6 ypp vs 4.70, a difference 0.90, less than a yard. And one guy faced 5 top 25 defenses. Are you really trying to make the point there some noticeable difference?

The difference of .9 yards is a difference between being ranked #69 and ranked #118. You don't find that difference significant?

:drops mike and walks off stage:

Now, if YOU are asserting that adjustments of ranked vs unranked is not a good way to parse the matter, then by all means, introduce the way you want to do it. You have describe it. Now do it. Otherwise I will assume you either are incapable of doing it, or are unwilling to do it because it doesn't support your argument at all. .

You are making the assertion. It is up to you to support your assertion

 

[oozie7]

The difference of .9 yards is a difference between being ranked #69 and ranked #118. You don't find that difference significant?

:drops mike and walks off stage:

Now, if YOU are asserting that adjustments of ranked vs unranked is not a good way to parse the matter, then by all means, introduce the way you want to do it. You have describe it. Now do it. Otherwise I will assume you either are incapable of doing it, or are unwilling to do it because it doesn't support your argument at all. .

You are making the assertion. It is up to you to support your assertion

I'll gladly do it. As I already mentioned just choosing 'ranked opponents' is flawed because there's no adjustment for relative strengths of each unit. Ole Miss for example was ranked but had a pass defense of 100, your analysis gives our offense more credit for moving the ball against them than you would against a hypothetical team that was non ranked with a better defense. That makes no sense, especially since you're trying to judge one side of the ball and not the team as a whole.

 

[MJWilliamson]

I'll gladly do it. As I already mentioned just choosing 'ranked opponents' is flawed because there's no adjustment for relative strengths of each unit. Ole Miss for example was ranked but had a pass defense of 100, your analysis gives our offense more credit for moving the ball against them than you would against a hypothetical team that was non ranked with a better defense. That makes no sense, especially since you're trying to judge one side of the ball and not the team as a whole.

I will look forward to seeing the results of that analysis. The results are going to have to be very compelling to overcome the information already provided.

Just out of curiosity, how do you plan to do it?

Here is the way I would do it. Take a measure. Use your favorite, yards per play. Look at what Florida did, and then compare that to what that defense gave up all year, not including the Florida results.

So for example, Florida had 6 yards per play against the defense of X team. Not including Florida that defense usually gave up 5 yards per play. Therefore, Florida was 1.2 percent better than the average. Give Florida 1.2 points.

Now, the converse. Florida had 5 yards per play against the defense of Y team. Not including Florida, that defense usually gave up 6 yards per play. There, Florida was 1.2 percent worse than the average.. So give Florida minus (1.2) points.

Hell, this looks interesting. I might do this particular analysis, no matter how you plan to do it. Then we shall see what we see with both analysis.

 

[oozie7]

Here are the teams we faced with Top 25 defenses:
1. Alabama (3)
2. Michigan (4)
3. Missouri (6)
4. UGA (7)
5. FSU (19)
6. LSU (25)

Grier started against one of those, Mizzou at #6. The totals for that game are as follows:

Total Yards: 337
YPP: 4.4
YPA: 6.3
YPC: 2.9
Points: 21 (Offense responsible for 14)

Here are our offenses averages against the other 5 top 25 defenses.

Total Yards: 290.8
YPP: 4.78
YPA: 6.64
YPC: 3.1
Points: 15.8

Note: Averages tend to fall the more variables you introduce, tell me if you see a glaring difference.

In the one game under Grier we got 47 more yards. Under harris we had a higher yards per play average, a higher yards per attempt average, and a higher yards per carry average. Points advantage goes to Grier BUT did the research and we had more FG attempts (and misses) in the games Harris started, which essentially makes up the difference in scoring. We also had worst field position, likely because defenses had figured out by then we couldn't score and tried to make us drive the field.

MJ, you yourself have said that the coaches didn't adjust the offense for Harris (and they admitted to not doing the same themselves.) Yet the offense performed on par, and in some areas better, against ranked opponents with Harris. So how do you reconcile your belief with those facts? There really isn't an argument to be made...the offense was bad under Grier, bad under Harris. The only difference is you guys got blinded by the cupcakes we feasted on to start the year. If you want to say it was slightly less bad under Grier, then fine. I've never argued against that though. Being slightly less terrible doesn't interest me, terrible is terrible.

 

[oozie7]

I will look forward to seeing the results of that analysis. The results are going to have to be very compelling to overcome the information already provided.

Just out of curiosity, how do you plan to do it?

Here is the way I would do it. Take a measure. Use your favorite, yards per play. Look at what Florida did, and then compare that to what that defense gave up all year, not including the Florida results.

So for example, Florida had 6 yards per play against the defense of X team. Not including Florida that defense usually gave up 5 yards per play. Therefore, Florida was 1.2 percent better than the average. Give Florida 1.2 points.

Now, the converse. Florida had 5 yards per play against the defense of Y team. Not including Florida, that defense usually gave up 6 yards per play. There, Florida was 1.2 percent worse than the average.. So give Florida minus (1.2) points.

Hell, this looks interesting. I might do this particular analysis, no matter how you plan to do it. Then we shall see what we see with both analysis.

I did something similar in an old thread, but that one is more time consuming. IIRC we actually averaged less yards per game than what defenses typically gave up. Idk if I have the energy to look again but maybe I will.

 

[miksta]

The first thing to notice is that Harris started 8 games and Grier in only 6 games. Yet under Grier, the offense scored 8 more TDs in 2 fewer games. Plus under Grier the offense scored 3 more FGs in two fewer games. Total points under Grier was almost double total points under Harris.

I could just put the mike down right now and walk off the stage, given that scoring is the single most important measure of any offense. But there might be mitigating factors.

Grier only faced two ranked opponents while Harris faced four of them. So, half of the opponents faced by Harris were ranked, while a third were ranked when facing Grier. Grier face one top ten opponent and Harris faced one.

So, against ranked opponents, Grier's offense 33 points per game while Harris had 13 points. Again, let's drop the mike and walk off the stage.

We could stop here, but let's not. Let's look at yardage next.

Didn't Harris start against New Mexico? The snaps were basically split in half in those first two games, if I recall correctly, at least until Grier separated himself against ECU.

 

[SKSnole]

Didn't Harris start against New Mexico?

Yes.

 

[PacoGator19]

The offense was much better with Grier than Harris. Was the offense under Grier good? No but was it much better than anything we had seen under Muschamp? Yes.

A 75th ranked offense or wherever it was ranked with Grier at QB is much better than the previous 4 years under Muschamp. The offense was trending in the right direction and the offense had hope. Once Harris took over the offense obviously regressed and hope was lost.

 

[MJWilliamson]

OK, this was fun. So, I took the total defensive yards per play for each Florida opponent. I adjusted for the Florida performance in the totals. I compared what the Florida offense did in each game to what the opponent defense gave up in all games save against Florida. I did a percentage comparison and also straight addition and subtraction.

The results not only confirms my original assertion, it blows any other possible conclusion out of the water. (ed note. I also read other posts where two people noted that both Grier and Harris played approx an equal number of snaps in the first game, so I did not include those numbers for either player. Good catch guys. Thanks)

Here they are.

Some things jump right off the page.

1.) Grier outperformed the average defensive performance in every game except one. Against UK. For you math majors, that is four out of five. He was horrific in the UK game. Or better said, the offense was. Yet that was a game Florida won.

2.) Harris outperformed the average defensive performance in only three games out of eight. That is awful. In only one game was he significantly above average. That was the UGA game.

Hell, we could stop right there and declare victory. But let's not. Let's keep going.

Now, how good was Grier vs the average? Cumulatively, he was about average, even though he out performed the average in four out of five game. How can that be? Again, he was sooo bad in the UK game, it really drug down his overall performance.

Him being average kinda supports oozie point. But only very mildly. Consider this; if an McE offense performs average, using this measure, against every opponent next year, that means the Florida offense will be ranked about #60 or so. That is fine with me. We won 10 games ranked down around 115 or so.

So, in conclusion, one cannot say the McE and Nussmeier offense is terrible, no matter the QB. In fact we have to say an McE offense with decent QB is pretty damn good.

Now, for those of you that want to make criticize this staff for not getting more out of Harris, I will agree. Especially in the Michigan game. But oddly enough, that was one of Harris' better games, using this particular measure.

 

[MJWilliamson]

In the one game under Grier we got 47 more yards. Under harris we had a higher yards per play average, a higher yards per attempt average, and a higher yards per carry average. Points advantage goes to Grier BUT did the research and we had more FG attempts (and misses) in the games Harris started, which essentially makes up the difference in scoring. We also had worst field position, likely because defenses had figured out by then we couldn't score and tried to make us drive the field.

MJ, you yourself have said that the coaches didn't adjust the offense for Harris (and they admitted to not doing the same themselves.) Yet the offense performed on par, and in some areas better, against ranked opponents with Harris. So how do you reconcile your belief with those facts? There really isn't an argument to be made...the offense was bad under Grier, bad under Harris. The only difference is you guys got blinded by the cupcakes we feasted on to start the year. If you want to say it was slightly less bad under Grier, then fine. I've never argued against that though. Being slightly less terrible doesn't interest me, terrible is terrible.

This is a fine analysis. But I think the one I did is a bit more complete and revealing. My analysis demosntrates we were SIGNIFICANTLY better with Grier.

I also agree that this coaching staff could have done more with Harris. That is a legit complaint.

 

[93nole99]

:drops mike and walks off stage:

Anything else?

 

[sadgator]

No numbers needed for the proper analysis:

Harris: Refused to throw ball.
Grier: Learned to throw ball in 4th quarter of third game...but was a dumb ass.

 

[MJWilliamson]

How did you know that I am African American?



















(ed note; I was born in Africa. My race is white)