Golson's Progress: Part 2

Part 2 focuses on games 4-6 of Golson’s year:  Michigan, Miami, and Stanford.  These were troubling times for our QB.  The Michigan game featured just 8 passes (and 2 INT’s) before Tommy Rees relieved him.  Stanford’s hard hitting defense managed to knock him out in the 4^th quarter with a concussion that would have a lasting impact.  Given both of these circumstances, the number of pass attempts upon which we can evaluate his performance decreased considerably.  Games 1-3, Golson attempted 81 passes.  That number fell to 54 attempts in games 4-6.  Since the goal is to evaluate Golson’s progress, there will be a lot of side-by-side charts intended to reflect the differences between games 1-3 and 4-6.  Let’s start off by looking at the superficial numbers broken up by these games:

Category:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:
Attempts:	81	54
Completions:	47	32
Completion %:	58%	59%
Yards:	611	357
TD’s:	3	1
INTS’s:	1	2
Yards per completion:	13	11.16
Yards per attempt:	7.54	6.61

Completion percentage remained virtually unchanged.  Yet, Golson was less effective in every other category.  He threw fewer touchdowns, more interceptions, his yards per completion dropped, and his yards per attempt dropped.  Even accepting that circumstance and injury limited his attempts, he was not as good on a per attempt basis in any measureable category.  In games 1-3, Golson had 11 passing plays that amassed 20 net yards or more.  In games 4-6, he had just 5.  As a percentage of attempts, that comes out to:  Games 1-3:  13.58%; Games 4-6:  9.26%.  Golson’s longest passing play in games 4-6 was 24 yards.  In games 1-3, he had 7 passes that surpassed that.  We’ll likely get a chance to fill this in better through the remainder of the article, but the net result:  Golson was equally effective at completing passes, but less likely to get a big play.

The next aspect of Golson’s play that I looked at previously was his performance by down.  Here’s the comparison in those categories:

Down:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. %:	TD’s:	INTs:
1	25	16	64%	0	1
2	13	8	62%	0	1
3	16	8	50%	1	0
4	0	0	0	0	0

Golson actually got better on first down completion percentage, but not a lot else.  He declined in completion efficiency both respect to second and third downs.  There was only a slight decrease in the percentage of attempts on first down.  In the first third, 47% of Golson’s attempts occurred on first down.  In the second third?  46%.  CBK seems to have given Golson more leeway on third down to throw the ball.  The number of attempts was exactly the same despite the decreased number of overall attempts.  During the first third, 88% of Golson’s third down passing attempts were on 3^rd and 5 or more.  By contrast, in the second third, the rate of third and longs (defined as 3^rd and 5 or greater) was just 63%.  Kelly, for better or worse, gave more leeway to Golson on the most important down in order to convert pivotal attempts to keep the drive going.  Let’s look at the breakdown:

Down:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s:	INT:
2nd 5+	12	7	58%	0	1
2nd <5	1	1	100%	0	0
3rd 5+	10	4	40%	1	0
3rd <5	6	4	67%	0	0

Just as a matter of comparison, let’s consider the percentage of Golson’s total pass attempts during each segment in relation to these particular down and distance situations.

Down:	% 1-3	% 4-6
2nd 5+	28%	22%
2nd <5	6%	2%
3rd 5+	17%	18%
3rd <5	2%	11%

The small sample-size makes these comparisons somewhat artificial, but the thing that sticks out to me was the increased number of throws Golson was entrusted with on third and short.  Yes, in absolute numbers, 6 compared to 2 is not that significant, but it’s at least something worth noting.  What we’re tracking is Golson’s throws and when they occur. 

While I don’t have the full number of opportunities available, I wish the Irish offense was giving Golson more opportunities on second and less than 5.  6 attempts through the first six games is just not good enough.  One thing that all of us as fans would like to see is Golson get a few more explosive deep plays.  Second and short is the best opportunity to do so.  Be it a lack of opportunities or conservative rush-heavy play calling, averaging just 1 attempt per game in the second and short situation through 6 games does Golson no favors. 

Another interesting observation:  66% (2/3) of Golson’s interceptions have occurred on throws on second and long.  Perhaps this is just coincidence, but second and long is the prototypical time to pass, and in this brief sample, Golson has been more prone to major errors when placed in this situation.

While I was watching the game footage, it seemed to me that Golson was not throwing as many short passes as he had in the first third of games.  Again, excluding throw aways, the numbers came out as follows:

Length:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s	INT:
< 10	26	19	73%	0	0
10+	25	13	52%	1	2

Golson’s completion percentage went up in each subcategory from the same categories in games 1-3.  By the numbers, Golson was basically a 50/50 proposition in terms of whether his throw would travel 10 or more yards through the air or not.  Some of this was self-induced.  Golson displays several pocket tendencies that probably don’t even need to be stated to a Notre Dame fan, but the one in particular I’m thinking of is that amount that he drifts backwards before making a throw.  Sometimes, Golson just overcomplicates things and forces himself to make a much more difficult throw than necessary by expanding the distance between him and the target. 

There was a rather dramatic difference in likelihood of Golson making a throw of 10+ yards between these two groups.  During games 1-3, 66% of his throws were under ten yards in air distance.  Despite 26 fewer qualifying throws, Golson had just one fewer attempts of passes traveling 10+ yards through the air. 

The first chart in this article though indicated that Golson actually averaged fewer yards per completion in games 4-6 than he did in games 1-3.  This seemed odd to me.  He (very) modestly increased his completion percentage in total throws as well as throws of less than and more than 10 yards through the air.  Additionally, he was throwing a greater percentage of his passes a longer distance through the air.  How can this be?  The next chart shows Golson’s average gain per completion for the types of throws mentioned separated by segments:

Throw Length:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:
< 10	8.89	7.526
10+	25	16.46

The result is that Golson averaged more yards per completion in each subset during games 1-3 than he did for games 4-6.  This is some function of both actual pass distance as well as yards after catch.  No matter the reason, the truth is that when Golson completed passes in the first three games, Notre Dame was gaining a more significant benefit than what he was able to accomplish in games 4-6. 

Finally, let’s take a look at Golson’s choice in target selection and result:

Target:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s:	INT:
WR:	29	17	59%	0	2
RB:	12	9	75%	0	0
TE:	10	6	60%	1	0

Much of Golson’s preference in style of target remained similar.  Wide receiver targets accounted for 56% of Golson’s throws.  He was slightly less successful at hooking up with his receivers (59% compared to 69% in games 1-3), but he increased his completion percentage to both running backs and tight ends.  Teams seemed to continue to buckle down on Eifert as Golson targeted tight ends at a reduced rate (20% compared to 30%), but he was more effective at getting a completion when he targeted his tight ends. 

Golson also improved on his check down and short distance routes to running backs.  Several of Golson’s “pass attempts” to running backs came in the form of chest passes that are similar to toss plays but because the trajectory of the ball was forward from release Golson was given credit for a pass.  If you want to know when this play is unveiled, wait for GA III to take the field because there's a pretty strong correlation.

I’d also thought that Golson would continue to make use of the slip screen/bubble screen plays that he used so well during the first few games.  Boy was I wrong!!  The WR screens were hardly used at all in games 4-6 (something that I think the team would be wise to get back into the normal rotation given its effectiveness).  Golson’s pass distance breakdown to wide receivers follows:

Target Dist.:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s:	INT:
+10	18	9	50%	0	2
< 10	11	8	73%	0	0

As opposed to games 1-3 where 70% of his passes intended for receivers travelled less than 10 yards through the air, games 4-6 saw only 38% of his passes to wide receivers travel less than 10 yards.  The designed screen and quick hit plays that Golson thrived on during his first few games were abandoned.  The result was more interceptions and fewer explosive plays.  BH posited that spread offensive schemes like to use these quick hit plays, and I agree.  I’m not entirely sure why these plays were abandoned in games 4-6.  For all of us watching Golson drop back, I think we’d all appreciate a few more designed quick hit plays where the ball gets out of his hands much faster than the “school yard” tactics that frustrate and stress all of us.

I don’t want to make too many observations about this game period outside of what I’ve already said.  Golson had a horrendous game versus Michigan, but if we’re fair, the entire offense had a horrendous game even after Rees came in.  Stanford also frustrated EG’s efforts greatly.  Hopefully progress will exhibit itself when I get to games 7-9 (and yes, I’m aware he didn’t play versus BYU). 

As a means of closing, I’m going to do the same thing I did last article by providing some more general observations, this time with a heavier emphasis on the article subject:

1.  It probably doesn’t take a review of every throw to notice, but EG has a habit of drifting to his right on every play.  We saw BK and Chuck Martin facilitate this tendency in the Pitt game where during OT the ball was consistently placed on the left hash to give him more room to negotiate.  They also do this on kickoffs where a touchback gives them the opportunity to place the ball where the team sees fit.  Golson’s drift limits his ability to utilize the left side of the field, and on more than one occasion eliminated a big play opportunity to the middle or left side of the field.  That said, some of his longest passing gains of the year have directly resulted from him rolling out to the right.

2.  There is a silver-lining to Golson’s scrambling and happy feet aside from the scrambles that sometimes result:  Through the first six games,  I am nearly positive that I haven’t seen a single pass deflection or batted ball at the line of scrimmage. 

3.  The offense began to utilize more designed quarterback runs in games 4-6, and Golson was freed up slightly more to make option plays.  He was not particularly good at it, but that wrinkle was added to the offensive scheme.

4.  Lastly, in yesterday’s article I was pretty critical of Neal’s punt returns in the early going.  I’d like to back off of that a bit.  I’m going to do the (gasp) unthinkable and put a little bit of our punt return troubles on the defense.  Our defensive philosophy of bend but don’t break is not leading to a lot of three and outs.  Our opponents seem to routinely get to at least their 40 yard line or thereabouts before drives stall.  When we add in the routine failures on kick return coverage on poor punting by Ben Turk, I’m more willing to say now that Neal’s not been given a whole lot of opportunities for a clean return.  ND’s opponents are frequently in a position to kick the ball sky high and surround Neal even if we had good returns on.  The few times that Neal’s been given to take a boomer punt back he’s looked considerably more dangerous.

I’ll be back tomorrow with part 3.  Thanks for reading.