There is something about Paul Johnson that I’ve been noticing for a few years now, but just now got around to running the numbers. I believe Coach Johnson to be one of the best X and O schemers out there. Watching our games, I always get the sense that we have the edge in terms of in game adjustments. In general, we do better in the second half than the first. And in particular, we have tremendous success specifically on our first drive of the second half. I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that the first drive of the second half comes immediately after halftime. Halftime is the best time to make in game adjustments, for obvious reasons. There is more time to get the players to understand what adjustments are needed. This effect shows most clearly in the first drive, in my opinion, because as the second half progresses, both teams dilute the significance of the halftime by making further adjustments. Thus, my hypothesis was that, if your coach is a great in game X and O coach, you should do better generally in the second half than the first, and even better still on the first possession of the second half. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to test that hypothesis across a bunch of teams. And there are other conceivable explanations for doing better as the game goes on. For example, you could wear down the defense. If we had Alabama’s O-line, or if we ran a hurry up style like Oregon or Clemson, I would give this possibility more consideration. Also, if we did better in the second half because we wear down the defense, one would think we would do better late in the second half than on the first drive. Anyway, I’m just guessing at what is going on here. But here are the numbers. I call this “the Paul Johnson Effect”.
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All Games
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Points Per Possession (Entire Game)
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Points Per Possession (2nd Half Only)
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Points Per Possession (1st Drive 2nd Half)
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2008
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2.10
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2.13
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2.62
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2009
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3.07
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3.45
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4
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2010
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2.30
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2.47
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2.62
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2011
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3.08
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2.73
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4
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Average
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2.64
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2.70
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3.31
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Now Conference games only.
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Conference Games
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Points Per Possession (Entire Game)
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Points Per Possession (2nd Half Only)
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Points Per Possession (1st Drive 2nd Half)
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2008
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1.91
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1.89
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1.63
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2009
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3.11
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3.69
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4.67
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2010
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2.08
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2.47
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3.38
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2011
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2.53
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1.98
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3.88
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Average
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2.41
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2.51
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3.39
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A couple of things jump out at me. First and foremost, the absurd numbers in the last column. 4.6, 3.3, 3.8? To put that in perspective, the ACC’s best offense this year averaged 2.6 points per possession (for the whole game). Wow.
We are marginally better in the 2nd half than the first half, but incredibly good on the first possession of the 2nd half. In particular, the 2009 group, in conference games, was ridiculous. Averaging 4.67 points per possession? That is not all that far from scoring a touchdown every time (In fact we did score a TD on 6 out of 9 drives...) You can also see that the 2008 group was in fact our worst offense under Paul Johnson. In my experience people tend to forget this, but the 2008 team was successful mostly because it had a good defense. The offense only started to get good towards the end of the year. I expect 2008 will forever be our worst offensive numbers under Paul Johnson (which should excite all GT fans - imagine what we can do if we ever get a defense that good again, since our offense will likely be much better than 2008 was).
Additionally, our four year conference average of 2.4 points per possession is quite good. From the previous blog post, you can get an idea of what the conference average is (roughly 2.1 or 2.2, which also shows exactly how amazing our first drive of the second half numbers are). 2.4 is well above average for that span. Finally, you can also see that the 2011 offense was quite a bit better than the 2010 group. A fair amount of fans seem to think our offense can’t be any good (and was not that good last year) because we lack playmakers. Well, from 2010 to 2011, we lost our best playmaker, Anthony Allen, to the NFL and got much better. (I don’t blame this on Allen, for what its worth). The most important 2 things for our offense, in my opinion, are O-line performance and QB reads, in that order. Having “difference makers” at the skill positions would certainly help, but we will do just fine with “average” players there if we can execute in those two areas. (I think our skill players are better than merely “Average” anyway, but that seems to be the popular perception.)
I’m not sure what exactly to make of the fact that, in 2011, our second half offense was considerably worse than our first half offense. We were still very good on the first drive of the second half. This will be something to watch going forward.
Anyway, for a couple of years now, I’ve expected a TD on our first drive of the second half, and I’m usually not dissapointed.
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