WR Catch Percentages

by Hooper on Oct 6, 2008 10:08 PM EDT Comment 4 comments

In response to my post on UT's offensive stats this morning, rblakeh asked: what do the receiver catch rates look like? Here they are:

There's not a whole lot to say because context is so important here. An incompletion could be the fault of the receiver, of the QB, or of both. Or it could be tipped. Or intercepted. You get the idea. Still:

RBs usually have higher completion percentages due to things like screen passes and passes to the flat. They're easier to catch.
10 passes did not have intended targets listed in the NCAA stats, and are noted above under "?".
I went ahead and included the QB sacks since they occurred on pass plays. This means that the only pass plays I don't have listed are QB scrambles. But hey, that would have been a lot of effort.
This does include Gerald Jones's pass attempts.
Cooper is quietly having a nice season as a fullback.
Jones and Warren have the most eye-catching negatives there. Any thoughts on that? Are they the targets of INTs, bad passes, etc.? Or are they butterfingers?
Sorta ditto for Rogers, but a slightly smaller sample size than Warren - just enough to make me skittish about drawing conclusions.

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Thanks!

Thanks for putting these numbers up. I’m going to try to refrain from drawing any conclusions just yet. I’ll wait and see what the numbers look like after the game against UGA. Combining a little experience for Stephens, a full week of practice with the 1st team WRs, and an SEC defense should give us an accurate sample. These numbers will be great to keep in mind as I watch the game.

I would also like to see how these numbers compare to a strong offensive team, like Alabama or Florida.

Do you tabulate these numbers by hand? i.e. Do you read through pages of play-by-play to get these? If your process is that manual, let me know. I would be happy to write some scripts for you to get the data that would make your making of charts (like this one and others) easier.

by rblakeh on Oct 6, 2008 10:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I did them by hand.

I used pages like this and just scanned through. I know that scripts would make life easier on it, but (a) I don’t have any experience with scripts, and (b) it didn’t take me too long to get the data in for these games. I suppose you could add to the list that I don’t always know what data I’m going for when I start, but that’s a small detail. The NCAA data is usually structured well enough to sort first and ask questions later.

But I would certainly be interested in scripts that would handle this kind of stuff. If you don’t mind, I’ll email you at your blog email address (I have it) and fill you in on what I do.

by Hooper on Oct 6, 2008 10:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Don't mind a bit

Just let me know what sort of data you always gather, and at the very least those can be automated. Feel free to include anything you would like to do but don’t have the time to (since you have to generate it all by hand) and maybe we can get those working, too.

by rblakeh on Oct 6, 2008 11:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs