Sep 19, 2013

Rees Hits the Quarter Post


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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