QB Comparison - Passing Charts and Other Metrics

Since my "team talent by class" thread went over so well, I figured I'd continue to nerd out instead of being productive. Luckily, this one was a little easier to pull together..

There's been a ton of talk lately about the future of the QB position at LSU, and I think passing charts are a huge help when trying to look at differences in playcalling, strengths, weaknesses, etc. between the quarterbacks.

All of this data (including passing charts) is from SECStatCat. If you're interested in advanced metrics, you should definitely check out their site. They have a ton of awesome data available.

With that out of the way, here are the full-season passing charts for each LSU quarterback:

LEGEND




MYLES BRENNAN




TJ FINLEY




MAX JOHNSON




ADDITIONAL QB STATS BY TARGET AREA:

EDIT: Someone requested some additional SEC comparison data points. I have updated the table below to add three rows for each target area:

- SEC Median: This is the median for SEC quarterbacks with minimum 100 passes attempted.
- SEC Weighted Average: This is an attempt-weighted average for SEC quarterbacks with minimum 100 passes attempted. Since some QBs have attempted 400+ passes while others have been in and out of starting lineups, the mean/median may not be representative of the true state of the league. The weighted average is basically the overall statistic per passing attempt for the league as a whole.
- Kyle Trask: I added Trask as a datapoint for a "good" SEC quarterback. I went back and forth between using Trask vs. Mac Jones, and ultimately decided Trask was a better comp. Either way, they're both Heisman finalists.





A NOTE ON SUCCESS RATE:
Success rate is a metric that takes down and distance into account in order to determine if a play was "successful" or not. Many folks see it as a much better indicator of offensive performance than yards per play because it accounts for situational football. Ultimately the goal is to keep getting first downs and touchdowns. If you get a turnover on the 1 yard line and punch it in to score, that should be viewed as a win - even if it results in fewer yards per play. Similarly, if it's 3rd/20, and you throw a 12 yard pass, that's not exactly a win.

Here's how SECStatCat calculates success rate - a play is considered successful if it gains:
- 50% or more of yards to gain on 1st down.
- 70% or more of yards to gain on 2nd down.
- 100% or more of yards to gain on 3rd/4th down.

Bill Connelly is a big proponent of success rate, and it factors heavily into his S&P+ calculations.

So what does the success rate look like for each QB? The numbers are in the table above, but I'm a fan of bar charts:



EDIT: I've updated the bar chart above to include SEC comps as requested in this thread. The methodology is the same as described previously in the "additional QB stats by target area" part of this post.


TAKEAWAYS:
One thing that strikes me about the passing charts is just how different the playcalling was between Brennan and the freshmen. You can really see how the coaches relied more on the short passing game with Finley, and especially with Johnson. You can also see that the deep, middle-field throws were almost non-existent with the freshmen. This was an area of the field where Brennan had a lot of success - he was 6/7 with 230 yards, 3 TD, and 0 INT when he threw it >20 yards between the hashes.

That's not to say we didn't throw it deep with Finley and Johnson, but you can tell that the deep balls were almost all on the sidelines. My suspicion is that the coaches viewed a low-percentage throw down the sideline as a "safer" play call with a freshman than anything deep over the middle.

OTOH, I found it interesting that both Finley and Johnson were more efficient than Brennan on the intermediate (11-20 yards) routes.

Ultimately I still think Brennan is our best QB if healthy - if nothing else, just for the way he can hurt the defense anywhere on the field. I think the coaches leaned way too heavily on his deep ball, which put us in some difficult down/distance situations early on. However, I do believe both of the freshmen have tremendous ceilings so who knows what that QB room looks like in the Spring.

Thoughts from tRant?