Golson's Progress: Part 3

Part 3 of this installment series takes a look at the three most recent games:  BYU, Oklahoma, and Pitt.  Sadly for the comparison (thankfully for the amount of plays I had to review), a concussion kept Golson from playing at all in the BYU game.  The following 2 games were truly something to remember.  First, an epic showdown in Norman, OK in a game that every pundit in the nation had pre-determined the Irish would lose.  Then, a non-intentionally epic game versus Pitt that caused all of us watching to lose a few years of our lives.  Before I get to the numbers, one thing, while my readership is quite minimal, if any of you who read this are the incredibly kind and dedicated people who post condensed games onto Youtube, please get back at it.  Since no condensed video was available, I had to scroll back-and-forth through online full games which just sucks.  Now that my complaining is out of the way, let’s add on Segment 3’s games to the normal statistical breakdown I’ve used to start the last couple of pieces:

Category:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:	Games 7-9:
Attempts:	81	54	67
Completions:	47	32	36
Completion %:	58%	59%	54%
Yards:	611	357	404
TD’s:	3	1	2
INTS’s:	1	2	1
Yards per completion:	13	11.16	11.22
Yards per attempt:	7.54	6.61	6.03

For the most part, everything stayed more or less in line with Segment 2, and slightly down from Segment 1.  On yesterday’s post, commenter “Dan” suggested that the increased difficulty of the defenses played on a game-to-game basis might explain this.  My gut tells me he’s correct.   I think that I may do one “wrap up” piece either Thursday or Friday to explore that more thoroughly by considering Golson’s game-to-game numbers in view of the relative strength of the defense he was up against.

On the surface, one aspect that sticks out to me about the numbers above is the slight drop off in completion percentage.  In theory, a quarterback progressing will get better in this regard as he sees more live action.  Most Notre Dame fans would consider Oklahoma to be Golson’s best all-around game to this point in the season.  Versus a very good secondary, Golson avoided any major mistakes even if he didn’t record a touchdown through the air. He was also 13/25 in that game.  (aside:  I will address his improvements running later.)

In part one of this series, I was critical of Golson’s reluctance to throw the ball away.  His tendency to rely upon his scrambling ability and to attempt to make something out of nothing bothered me.  The area he progressed in the most in games 7-9 was doing just that….throwing the ball away.   I wanted to at least  consider what happens when we take out the throwaways from attempts with respect to completion percentage.  It’s not a good thing that he’s having to throw the ball away, and Golson’s reluctance to make quick decisions certainly plays into the number of times he has to decide between forcing a pass and conceding the play, but for a young quarterback, learning that it’s okay to throw it away is definitely a skill to appreciate:

Category:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:	Games 7-9:
Attempts:	81	54	67
Throwaways:	4	3	6
Effective Attempts:	77	51	61
Completions:	47	32	36
Completion %:	61%	63%	59%

Does Golson make up all of the ground on completion percentage once we take out the throwaways?  No.  However, he does make up a little ground, and should give us some (moderate) hope of improvement in decision-making going forward.  I was happy to see that the number of forced throws was in fact decreasing over time.

Okay, let’s get to the throwing by down breakdown:

Down:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. %:	TD’s:	INTs:
1	30	15	50%	2	0
2	18	14	78%	0	1
3	19	7	37%	0	0
4	0**	0	---	0	0

·         ** Golson did attempt a throw on 4^th down:  The now infamous pass interference against Eifert during the Pitt game.  Of course, it was a P.I., and so no official attempt is recorded.

Rather than explaining this in paragraphs, let’s do the side-by-side comparison in a couple of different ways.  First, by completion percentage by down for each of the 3 segments:

Down:	Games 1-3	Games 4-6	Games 7-9
1	51%	64%	50%
2	68%	62%	78%
3	56%	50%	37%

I’ve highlighted the top performer for each of the 3-downs (excluding 4^th down given that no official attempts have been registered).  I don’t think there’s too much of a takeaway.  Random fluctuation probably matters just as much as anything else.  The only unsettling aspect is Golson’s 20 point drop in completion percentage on third-downs from Segment 1 to Segment 3.  It’s also unnerving that that’s the only category where a downward pattern developed.  More on that shortly.  I also wanted to consider the percentage of attempts that came on each down for each segment:

Down:	Games 1-3**	Games 4-6	Games 7-9
1	46%	46%	45%
2	35%	24%	27%
3	20%	30%	28%

·        ** Rounding errors apply.

One observation about first downs, and then I'm moving to the more important second and third down situations:  It’s interesting how consistent the percentage of Golson’s attempts have occurred on first down across the different game periods.  That said, I think this is just a matter of coincidence.  Even from a schematic standpoint, comparing Segment One and Two’s games which both involved blow outs where Notre Dame’s offense shifted strongly towards the run in the second half to Segment Three where the Oklahoma game was in doubt until the fourth quarter and the Pitt game required a near miraculous come from behind victory is difficult to say the least, and more importantly, somewhat meaningless.

Golson was not asked to pass as much in third down situations in Segment One which makes sense for a young starter.  The standout game was the Dublin opener versus Navy in which Golson had only one throwing attempt on third down (The team only had 10 third downs the entire game).  Though, even in the Purdue game (26%) and Michigan State game (21%) the team did not ask him to make a lot of third down throws compared to what we'd see going forward.

Perhaps if we go to the “money down” down and distance chart for Segment Three we’ll get something better:

Down:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s:	INT:
2nd 5+	11	8	73%	0	1
2nd <5	7	6	86%	0	0
3rd 5+	12	5	42%	0	0
3rd <5	7	2	29%	0	0

I’ve highlighted second and short for a very particular reason:  In Part 2 of this series, I said it was absolutely imperative that Golson get more opportunities to pass in that situation.  He finally did.  In case you’re wondering, yes, the incredibly important play action 50 yard strike to Chris Brown in the Oklahoma game occurred on 2^nd and short.  The regret?  Golson’s other 5 completions on second and short amassed 27 yards combined.  Sadly, his increased opportunities were generally used for short completions to move the chains, which he mostly did well.  Given his third down numbers in these games, maybe Kelly was on to something, but I’d still like to see 2^nd and short be used more aggressively going forward.

I also wanted to touch on Golson's drop off in third down success rate.  I'd thought that perhaps he just didn't do as well on third and long plays, but that wasn't true.  His completion numbers on third and long remained fairly similar, but his decline in performance on third and short was awful. Through the first 6 games of the season Golson was a combined 5/8 on third and less than 5 which comes out to a 63% completion rate.  In the last two games, he's been in third and short situations more frequently, and has not faired as well.

So why  has Golson been in more second and short and third and short situations?  The first chart above demonstrates that Golson continued to see a decline in yards per completion and yards per attempt, and I think when we consider the travel distance of passes through the air, the reason reveals itself:

Length:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s	INT:
< 10	39	27	69%	2	1
10+	22	9	41%	0	0

Let’s review the comparisons by Segment.  First, completion percentage for each:

Length:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:	Games 7-9:
< 10	68%	73%	69%
10+	46%	52%	41%

And then, percentage of pass attempts travelling each distance:

Length:	Games 1-3:	Games 4-6:	Games 7-9:
< 10	66%	51%	64%
10+	34%	49%	36%

Golson’s pattern reverted (not necessarily regressed) to Segment 1 in terms of breakdown between passes travelling less or more than 10 yards through the air.  However, he was worse in terms of completing plays down the field than at any other time.  Part of this is explained by the Pitt game where in the scramble to come back, the team took more shots for the big play (very rarely successfully).  I liked to see, particularly in the Pitt game, that the use of the bubble screen and slip screen to wide receivers came back into use more prevalently, but the team was not very effective at breaking away (aside:  with the exception of the great slip screen to T.J. Jones in the Pitt game that went for an 11 yard touchdown at as pivotal a moment as can be imagined).  Golson’s longest completion on a pass travelling less than 10 yards through the air was just 14 yards.  17 of Golson's 39 attempts of short passess occurred on first down, and only 4 gained 10 or more yards.  While he wasn’t much better in the previous periods, the lack of short-pass, big-play yardage bothers me.  It’d be nice to see our passing game execute on a short pass and make a much larger play to take some pressure off of EG. 

Additionally, the passing game continued to be generally ineffective even when Golson completed the ball deeper.  Yes, he converted on two remarkably important plays:  The 50 yard strike to Brown previously mentioned, and the 45 yard jump ball to Daniels in the Pitt game, but Golson had only one other play on passes of ten yards or greater through the air that netted 20 yards.  Amassing just 3 plays of 20+ yards in the passing game was his fewest for any of the three Segments.

Finally, before I get to the general observations section, I want to make sure I cover targets by position:

Target:	Attempts:	Completions:	Comp. Percent.	TD’s:	INT:
WR:	37	24	65%	1	0
RB:	7	4	57%	1	0
TE:	17	8	47%	0	1

Not much changed on this front.  Receivers still led the way in targets, and all three categories remained fairly static.  Running backs were targeted slightly less, but not in any meaningful manner.  We’re basically talking about a target or two between all of the subsets to put the numbers directly in line with previous Segments. 

Like I said, I’m going to do a wrap-up where I’ll take some additional space to think things over and provide a few more incites into what I’ve watched.  The tight end completion percentage number continued to fluctuate.  The team’s goal of getting Eifet touches sometimes plagues their decision-making.  Golson’s one interception from this Segment came on a pass to a tight end…only it wasn’t Eifert.  On the fateful play that most of us thought would derail Notre Dame’s season, Golson overlooked an open Eifert over the middle and instead released a horribly underthrown ball to Troy Niklas in the corner of the end zone which was picked. 

I’ll do a larger general breakdown on Golson for Friday, so I’ll keep my general observations very short:

1.  Golson appears much more comfortable in the empty backfield set when he sets up to pass.  He scrambles less and seems less anxious.  My general impression in this respect is that he is very uncomfortable either dropping back or having to do play action fakes.  In general, his drop back footwork is lazy.  The empty backfield, shotgun formation alleviates all of these issues.  He doesn’t have to drop back and simultaneously get himself into a good throwing position, and he doesn’t have to worry about the play fake.

2.  Golson can throw the left side of the field.  His biggest issue in this respect is that unless the play is a quick strike designed to go to the left side, he just generally ignores what’s going on over there.

3.  I’ll have more to say about this in the wrap-up, but I fully appreciate that I’ve ignored Golson’s running ability to this point in my analysis.  Partly, this is intentional.  I wanted to focus on his passing.  Many of Golson’s runs through the first set of games were the result of scrambles on broken plays.  In both the OU and Pitt games, the number of designed QB runs increased, and it played to perhaps Golson’s greatest strength.

Can’t wait to do the wrap-up as that’s what all of this research was intended to generate anyways.  If there’s anything specific you’d like to see covered, hit me up at JLDthoughts@gmail.com.