Apparently the quarter mark of the season might be renamed
“Ordaining the Reesus” week. Many of the
ND Bloggers have already written their pieces on Tommy Rees’ emergence this
season. Twibby
at Her Loyal Sons pointed to the differences between 2011 Turnover Tommy
and the shiny, polished 2013 version.
Much to the chagrin of the Rees detractors, there was an emphatic
defense of Rees and why we should like him by Aaron Horvath. Keith Arnold got into the act by focusing on Tommy
becoming a leader. Fair to say, the
market has been saturated by Rees commentary.
Whether you’re all Rees’d out or not, here’s my review of Tommy at the
quarter mark.
As always, let’s start with the stat line season-to-date:
Att: 107
Comp: 65
Comp. %: 60.75
Yards: 967
TD: 7
INT: 2
Sack: 3
Yards/Game: 322.33
Att/Game: 35.67
Yds/Att: 9.04
Yds/Comp.: 14.88
Okay, raise your hand if you predicted “Tommy Rees will
throw for at least 300 yards in each of the team’s first 3 games.” Yeah…me neither. How about, raise your hand if you had Tommy
Rees would have twice as many touchdown passes of 30 yards or more
as he would interceptions at this point?
Seriously, from a productivity standpoint, Tommy Rees has gone well and
above any reasonable expectation. He’s
been smart, efficient, and comparably mistake free. The detractors will certainly point to the
one horrendous decision made in the Michigan game. Not only was it an incredibly poor choice,
but from a timing perspective seemed more important in the overall review of
the loss at Michigan.
Rees has done a great job of getting the ball out quickly
reducing the number of sacks he’s taken (in fact, I’m not sure we can pin any
of the sacks on Rees’ mistake) and has reduced the number of awkward throwing
on the run attempts. That’s a good
thing.
Given that so many words have already been written, I’m
going to select some areas of Rees’ performance to consider, but not everything. Read some of the articles written above to
fill in the gaps if you so choose.
Otherwise, please, just read mine and say “damn, you did it right.”
The first thing I was curious to explore was Rees’
performance by down:
1st Down:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
TOTAL:
|
48
|
28
|
58.33
|
494
|
17.64
|
3
|
RZ:
|
5
|
1
|
20%
|
20
|
20
|
1
|
Own:
|
24
|
18
|
66.67%
|
369
|
20.5
|
2
|
Opp:
|
24
|
10
|
41.67%
|
125
|
12.5
|
1
|
Analysis: If you wanted to select a sub-set of Rees’
performance to have an idea of how his season’s gone, you’d be best selecting
first down. Completion percentage,
yards, TD/INT ratio are all right about where we’d expect them to be as a
sub-set of performance. I thought the
most interesting aspect was the breakdown between Rees on his side of the field
as opposed to the opponent’s side. Given
the defense's sub-par performance thus far, Tommy Rees’ efficiency moving the
ball on his own side of the field is an area of hidden value that he’s
created. By completing 2 out of every 3
passes thrown on first down and averaging a staggering 20.5 yards per completion,
Rees has generally done a good job of moving the chains early and keeping the
team from getting pinned deep in their own zone consistently. Oh yeah, he’s also thrown touchdown passes of
82 yards and 66 yards from his own side of the field on first down. By contrast, Rees took a nose dive on first
down passes when entering enemy territory.
Rees’ completion percentage dipped considerably, and when he did
connect, it was for less average yardage. Yes, I’m aware a shorter field and
lack of 82 and 66 yard passes will suppress that average.
2nd Down:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
TOTAL
|
28
|
19
|
67.86
|
251
|
13.21
|
2
|
< 5 to go
|
5
|
3
|
60
|
56
|
18.67
|
1
|
Pass 10+
|
10
|
5
|
50
|
147
|
29.4
|
2
|
Opp:
|
17
|
13
|
76.47
|
173
|
13.31
|
2
|
Analysis: I’ve always considered 2nd down to
be moving down. Conventional attack
wisdom suggests picking up nice yardage on first down and then getting an
opportunity to be more aggressive on second and shorts. I was surprised to see that Rees has only had
5 opportunities to throw the ball on second and 5 or less. Well, I was surprised until I looked back at
some of my Golson data. It turns out
that when the team picks up good chunk yardage on first down, Kelly likes to
run the ball on second and simply pick up the first down rather than taking a
more aggressive chance down field.
However, the Irish got aggressive 10 of 28 times attempting passes that
went at least 10 yards through the air, and when they connected averaged 29.4 yards
per completion. I also wanted to see
whether Rees picked up the slack on second down in enemy territory. Simple math suggests that 58% of the time
that Rees passed on first down on the opponent’s side of the field, he left the
team in a second a long. To Rees’
credit, he completed 76% of his pass attempts on second
down in the opponent’s territory!
3rd Down:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
Conv. %
|
TOTAL
|
29
|
18
|
62.07
|
222
|
12.33
|
2
|
48
|
+5 to go
|
17
|
9
|
52.94
|
116
|
12.89
|
1
|
35
|
< 5 to go
|
12
|
9
|
75
|
106
|
11.78
|
1
|
66
|
Trailing
|
21
|
14
|
66.67
|
154
|
11
|
2
|
52
|
Analysis: To date, the Irish have converted
approximately 54% of third downs overall.
When Tommy’s passed the ball, they’ve converted 48%, which is perfectly
fine. Third and long passing is never a
pretty place to be, and the stats are what you’d expect. More successful on third and short when the
defense has to defend the run as well, and less effective on third and
long(er). I also took a look at how he
faired on third down passes when the team was trailing (a position that’s
happened too frequently for most of our liking). While his conversion percentage was right in
line with the overall average, he did demonstrate a slight uptick in completion percentage and has yet to throw a pick.
Red Zone:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
TOTAL
|
16
|
7
|
43.75
|
49
|
7
|
2
|
Analysis: It took until the Michigan game for Rees to
attempt a red zone pass. The numbers are
less than spectacular, and if there’s one area more than others that I hope to
see improvement from in quarter 2 of the season it will be in converting red
zone opportunities and pass attempts.
Game Score Within 7 Points:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
INT
|
TOTAL
|
42
|
25
|
59.52
|
518
|
20.72
|
5
|
1
|
Analysis: Pressure situations are always an area most
scrutinized by fans. Not all situations
are created equal, and when the game is within a touchdown one way or the
other, scrutiny will be at its highest.
I find it encouraging that 5 of Rees’ 7 touchdown passes to date have
come in these close situations. He’s
also thrown for 54% of his total passing yards in 39% of his total pass
attempts under these circumstances.
Unfortunately for him, that “1” in the last column will be remembered by
the detractors more than the 25 completions
for 5 touchdowns will be.
By Area of Field Thrown To:
Category:
|
Attempts:
|
Completions:
|
Completion %
|
Yards:
|
Yards/Comp.
|
TD:
|
> 10 Com %
|
Left
|
47
|
29
|
61.70
|
367
|
12.66
|
1
|
38.89
|
Middle
|
25
|
15
|
60
|
305
|
20.33
|
3
|
62.5
|
Right
|
35
|
21
|
69
|
295
|
14.05
|
3
|
41.66
|
Analysis: I had contemplated looking at Rees’ numbers
by individual targeted, but I decided to focus on area of the field thrown to
regardless of what body happened to be in that area. The completion percentages are fairly even
across the board. The two things that
stick out: 1) Rees has been most
effective throwing to the middle of the field on passes through the air of 10
yards or more. It’s currently the only
area of the field where on such passes he’s throwing over 50%. As we proceed forward, it will be worth
noting whether he finds a way to exploit Notre Dame’s talented wide outs to the
sidelines in a more efficient manner. 2)
When Rees is making his quick reads, clearly he has a left to right progression
and is told to take the quick hit if it’s there. Kelly lines Jones up to Rees’ left a good
amount of the time, but if I was scouting the Irish, I’d be moving my corners up
to Rees’ left to take away that quick strike and make him prove that he can
extend the field. The question will be
whether this route continues to be there or whether the opposition starts to
creep up on the left side to take away Rees’ primary read on a more frequent
basis.
Alright, now let’s take out Sparty!
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