An attempt to quantify HC Candidates' philosophies and their fit with LSU

Preface: this post is long, but I'm bored at work

tldr: New hire better keep Aranda


If anyone's ever read Football Study Hall on SBNation, they do an awesome job of compiling in-depth stats, and a couple years ago the main guy came up with the "The Five Factors". The basis is that there are five major factors on both offense and defense (four of which teams can control in addition to one wild card) that are very strong indicators of success in the game of CFB:

Efficiency
Measured by Success Rate, which is exactly what it sounds like. Measures the rate at which a team can stay "on schedule" during a drive (read: 50% of needed yards on first down, 70% of needed yards on second down, or 100% of needed yards on third or fourth down). This one is fairly straightforward, and teams winning this factor also won the game 86%of the time.

Explosiveness
One of the higher-level metrics used (isoPPP), this tracks the equivalent points per play on the above "successful" plays. Teams in the Big-12 tend to have high numbers here, as opposed to more methodical Big-10 offenses.

It attempts to distinguish a difference between similar yards/play values achieved from different results, such as the following:

Case 1: 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-50 (7.7 ypp)

Case 2: 10-7-4-12-14-3-5-10-3-9 (7.7 ypp) [much more explosive overall]

Teams winning this factor won the game 83%of the time.

Field Position
Easily quantifiable and technically a result of the other side of the ball, this is probably one of the better ways of measuring Special Teams. Values aren't terribly skewed, but according to the studies, teams that won the field position battle also won the game 72% of the time.

Finishing Drives
This factor measures the points scored per trip inside the opponent's 40. Anybody watching the LSU-UF game last week should know the importance of this one. Teams that won this factor also won the game 75% of the time.

Turnover Margin (Luck)
Presented in Points Per Game fashion, Turnover Luck looks at the difference between a team's Turnover and Adj. TO Margins and, using the average point value of a turnover (~5.0 points), projects how many points a team gained or lost per game last season. Teams winning the Turnover Luck factor also won the game 73% of the time.

With all this in place, I compiled the stats of the teams with potential/most talked about HC candidates (whether you like them or not). I also included LSU's stats as a reference. Without further ado...



As we can see, LSU has been erratic as shite this season.

I think there's a lot to like from FSU's offense here. Maybe they aren't as explosive as the other teams, but are incredibly adept at moving the chains, scoring when it counts, and not turning the ball over. Good work, Jimbo.

Mike Gundy has done very well finishing drives at Ok. State, something I believe we would enjoy a lot. They've also been decent at protecting the ball.

Literally any change seems beneficial from the Five Factors standpoint.



THIS is why letting go of Aranda would be dumb. He has been great disrupting opposing offense's schedules (4th best in efficiency), and in the rare event they do get inside our 40, they averaged a little over a field goal (5th best in the nation). The eye test obviously agrees with the numbers here, and if Aranda gets away there'll be hell to pay. I think any potential coach would look at these numbers and decide it'd be prudent to keep him.

Gundy and Fedora play wide open and teams are very successful at keeping the chains moving on them.

Thoughts? I'm guessing a lot is probably already in place with our decision, but figured this would be a nice change of pace for the CCB.