(05-19-2014, 10:01 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/5/...ck-returns
Stanford did less well in 2013 than I expected -- but it's an efficiency measure, so Montgomery's TDs are discounted relatively. Still, I had assumed we'd be regressing to the mean; it's good to know there's room for improvement here.
Interesting to think about what should be a proper measure of kickoff or kickoff return efficiency.
I think the kickoff discussion has at least approximately the right metric in comparing everything to a 40 yd net position gain - i.e. compared to a touchback. It might be better to flip the measure as "opponent's starting field position versus their own 25". The two would differ by how they handle a kickoff from anywhere other than the 35 - i.e. the impact of a penalty. Most likely the issue of whether one of those approaches is better than another was dwarfed in making this list by what information is available in box-scores.
It's sort of interesting that Stanford is tied for #2 in most net yards in unsuccessful kickoffs. I guess that sort of means that when we screwed up, we didn't screw up all that much.
It is slightly odd that kick returns are not treated on the same basis - i.e. they are using kick return yardage (and # of kicks returned) rather than any sort of net field position. The two approaches factor in the length of one's opponents kickoffs in very different ways. Again, I think the reason is that they are looking for stats that are available in a common box-score. Fair enough, there's no use coming up with a conceptually brilliant statistic if you cannot find the numbers.
A bigger issue is whether percent of successful kickoffs or kickoff returns is a better measure of efficiency than average values. It does serve to illustrate something different - but I am not sure that the difference is efficiency.
And, as others have noted Stanford comes in at #4 in average net yardage gained on kickoffs and #2 in average kickoff return yardage. That implies Stanford's special teams were very good - and there are some limits on room for improvement.
