Arizona Offense vs. BYU Defense
Smoothed D3.js Radar Chart
Arizona Offense Key Departures: Caleb Jones, Jared Baker, Jerrard Randall, Caymen Bundage, Lene Maiva, Zach Hemmila
Arizona Offense Key Returnees: Anu Solomon, Nick Wilson, Nate Phillips, Samaji Grant. Jacob Alsadek, Layth Friekh
BYU Defense Key Departures: Bronson Kaufusi
BYU Defense Key Returnees: Fred Warner, Harvey Langi, Kai Nacua, Michael Davis
Rankings are funny things. They let us impose order and a sense of precision on how we understand and, often, argue about sports, life, etc. It is useful to not only know what is best, but what is second or third best, but ranking things tends to lead humans into a false sense of linearity. You can see this with Arizona's offense in 2015. Arizona ranked 28th in all of college football Beta_Rank and 5th in the Pac-12, which sounds pretty good, not great, but not bad.
The trouble is that Arizona's offense, .042634 is closer to zero, CFB average, than it is to being a Top 10 offense and that Arizona is ranked 28th in CFB when roughly half of teams are outside the Power 5 conferences and have significantly less resources. In other words Arizona had a Pac-12 average offense in 2015. This was ok in 2014 when Arizona's defense was pretty good and Arizona had some luck, but in 2015 when Arizona's defense was horrific and Arizona seemingly had no luck, you couldn't ignore the unproductive drives the way you could the year before.
Arizona comes into this game with BYU and the season and this game surely depend on the defense not being 2015 level bad, but Arizona's offense has to show improvement this year. Rodriguez hasn't had a genuine great offense since the 2012 Matt Scott led team of Mike Stoops recruits. BYU has the talent and coaching to give fits to an Arizona offense that failed to impress against above average defenses in Pac-12 play last year.
Cat and Mouse
Arizona was a pass first team in 2015; in the 56th percentile of teams who throw the ball; for reference Washington State is 1 on this scale and Army is 0. So Arizona is a fairly balanced team. The most asked question coming into this game for Arizona is who is going to start at QB, but that isn't the most important question in the passing game; the most important question is how can Arizona produce explosive plays without Caleb Jones and David Richards on the outside. Beta_Rank had Arizona ranked 58th in explosive drives in CFB last year and that was with Jones, Jared Baker, and Jerrard Randle. Trey Griffey is getting a lot a praise heading into this season and he has to play well in this game in order to keep the defense honest and keep safeties from cheating too much to the middle of the field, clogging up slot routes and providing run support. Arizona also throws an absurd number of WR screens and all the receivers need to make this play call less regrettable than it has been the last few years.
Arizona probably has the best slot receivers in the country in Grant and Phillips and their route running, experience, and athleticism should provide the QB with a solid targets. Arizona uses its TE's so infrequently in the passing game that I am not even going to write about it.
BYU had a good defense in 2015, ranking 36th in Beta_Rank, ahead of UCLA and USC, but that isn't entirely predictive of what we should see this year. They return a ton of experience up front and in the secondary, but they lost a great pass rusher and are switching to a new scheme under new management.
Arizona was fairly proficient in preventing the defense from racking up disruptive plays, in the 70th percentile, while BYU in 2015 was one of the worst teams at creating them, ranking in the 36th percentile and that was before Bronson Kaufusi went on to the NFL. Sitake has a reputation as an aggressive play caller trying to create disruptive plays, but this also can lead to the his teams getting burned for big plays, as Arizona burned Sitake's Oregon State D last year. BYU has better personnel than Oregon State and they return a ton of experience in the secondary which may work out to being able to gamble effectively. Arizona has to make BYU pay when they gamble though and come up with the kind of explosive plays that were so lacking
Which brings us to the QB; Solomon has been good, but not great the least two years, and has struggled to create explosive plays. His experience should be a major plus in this game in diagnosing what the Cougars are doing. Weirdly whether Solomon finishes the game might have more to do with the Arizona defense than offense. If Arizona gives up a lot of points per drive to this BYU team then Solomon might get yanked; like he was against Colorado and WSU. If Arizona's offense has to be great instead of pretty good then Solomon probably doesn't finish the game.
Though both QBs probably see time against Grambling and Hawaii and whomever starts against Washington probably doesn't finish the game in week 4.
Pound it
Arizona is going to be able to run the football pretty effectively in 2016 with Wilson, Bradford, and freshman J.J. Taylor, but Arizona may miss having the breakaway speed of Baker and Randall from a year ago on the ground. BYU returns a lot of experience up front and that should make this an interesting battle. Arizona tends to set up the run through the pass, but it will be telling to see if Arizona can pound the ball for 3+ yards per carry with Wilson and Bradford or at least use misdirection and QB options to rack up yards off the tackles.
Arizona Offense Key Returnees: Anu Solomon, Nick Wilson, Nate Phillips, Samaji Grant. Jacob Alsadek, Layth Friekh
BYU Defense Key Departures: Bronson Kaufusi
BYU Defense Key Returnees: Fred Warner, Harvey Langi, Kai Nacua, Michael Davis
Rankings are funny things. They let us impose order and a sense of precision on how we understand and, often, argue about sports, life, etc. It is useful to not only know what is best, but what is second or third best, but ranking things tends to lead humans into a false sense of linearity. You can see this with Arizona's offense in 2015. Arizona ranked 28th in all of college football Beta_Rank and 5th in the Pac-12, which sounds pretty good, not great, but not bad.
The trouble is that Arizona's offense, .042634 is closer to zero, CFB average, than it is to being a Top 10 offense and that Arizona is ranked 28th in CFB when roughly half of teams are outside the Power 5 conferences and have significantly less resources. In other words Arizona had a Pac-12 average offense in 2015. This was ok in 2014 when Arizona's defense was pretty good and Arizona had some luck, but in 2015 when Arizona's defense was horrific and Arizona seemingly had no luck, you couldn't ignore the unproductive drives the way you could the year before.
Arizona comes into this game with BYU and the season and this game surely depend on the defense not being 2015 level bad, but Arizona's offense has to show improvement this year. Rodriguez hasn't had a genuine great offense since the 2012 Matt Scott led team of Mike Stoops recruits. BYU has the talent and coaching to give fits to an Arizona offense that failed to impress against above average defenses in Pac-12 play last year.
Cat and Mouse
Arizona was a pass first team in 2015; in the 56th percentile of teams who throw the ball; for reference Washington State is 1 on this scale and Army is 0. So Arizona is a fairly balanced team. The most asked question coming into this game for Arizona is who is going to start at QB, but that isn't the most important question in the passing game; the most important question is how can Arizona produce explosive plays without Caleb Jones and David Richards on the outside. Beta_Rank had Arizona ranked 58th in explosive drives in CFB last year and that was with Jones, Jared Baker, and Jerrard Randle. Trey Griffey is getting a lot a praise heading into this season and he has to play well in this game in order to keep the defense honest and keep safeties from cheating too much to the middle of the field, clogging up slot routes and providing run support. Arizona also throws an absurd number of WR screens and all the receivers need to make this play call less regrettable than it has been the last few years.
Arizona probably has the best slot receivers in the country in Grant and Phillips and their route running, experience, and athleticism should provide the QB with a solid targets. Arizona uses its TE's so infrequently in the passing game that I am not even going to write about it.
BYU had a good defense in 2015, ranking 36th in Beta_Rank, ahead of UCLA and USC, but that isn't entirely predictive of what we should see this year. They return a ton of experience up front and in the secondary, but they lost a great pass rusher and are switching to a new scheme under new management.
Arizona was fairly proficient in preventing the defense from racking up disruptive plays, in the 70th percentile, while BYU in 2015 was one of the worst teams at creating them, ranking in the 36th percentile and that was before Bronson Kaufusi went on to the NFL. Sitake has a reputation as an aggressive play caller trying to create disruptive plays, but this also can lead to the his teams getting burned for big plays, as Arizona burned Sitake's Oregon State D last year. BYU has better personnel than Oregon State and they return a ton of experience in the secondary which may work out to being able to gamble effectively. Arizona has to make BYU pay when they gamble though and come up with the kind of explosive plays that were so lacking
Which brings us to the QB; Solomon has been good, but not great the least two years, and has struggled to create explosive plays. His experience should be a major plus in this game in diagnosing what the Cougars are doing. Weirdly whether Solomon finishes the game might have more to do with the Arizona defense than offense. If Arizona gives up a lot of points per drive to this BYU team then Solomon might get yanked; like he was against Colorado and WSU. If Arizona's offense has to be great instead of pretty good then Solomon probably doesn't finish the game.
Though both QBs probably see time against Grambling and Hawaii and whomever starts against Washington probably doesn't finish the game in week 4.
Pound it
Arizona is going to be able to run the football pretty effectively in 2016 with Wilson, Bradford, and freshman J.J. Taylor, but Arizona may miss having the breakaway speed of Baker and Randall from a year ago on the ground. BYU returns a lot of experience up front and that should make this an interesting battle. Arizona tends to set up the run through the pass, but it will be telling to see if Arizona can pound the ball for 3+ yards per carry with Wilson and Bradford or at least use misdirection and QB options to rack up yards off the tackles.
Comments
Post a Comment