30 is the new 20
The red zone is so 2010. Introducing Value Drive, a new stat that reveals the real truth about every team's scoring power.
By Brian Fremeau
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN Insider
This story appears in the August 22, 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
BEFORE THE RED ZONE became known as a deodorant, an NFL television station and an integral part of football's lexicon, the term was simply a motivational tool to get the 1981 Redskins out of last place. Their coach at the time, Joe Gibbs, coined the phrase after realizing his 0-4 team had the league's worst scoring offense inside opponents' 20-yard line. His philosophy, as he explained to his players, was simple: If you can't score deep in enemy territory, you will have a tough time winning. Not for nothing, Washington won eight of its final 12 games that season.
Three decades later, the red zone is hallowed ground, obsessed over by coaches and armchair quarterbacks. Few metrics are cited more by stat geeks than red zone scoring rate, which in college is the percentage of times an offense puts points on the board once it reaches the 20. (NFL teams enter the red zone once they cross the 20.)
Just one problem: The red zone isn't nearly as important as we've been led to think. In fact, when it comes to indicating how well a team closes out drives and keeps opponents from doing the same, red zone stats often deceive more than they illuminate.
So with apologies to a certain Super Bowl-winning coach, we created a new metric called value drive. It eliminates the red zone's fatal flaws while adding a few features that give it real predictive firepower. If you want to know which offenses and defenses have the goods to lead a BCS drive this fall and which are destined to come up short, this is your stat. Allow us to explain how value drive works -- and why it's better.
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SHUTTING DOWN EASY STREET
Why is the 20-yard line so special anyway? It's not the dividing line between an easy scoring opportunity and a tough one. The 20 represents a 37-yard field goal, which FBS teams have converted 66 percent of the time over the past four seasons.
"I don't pay any attention to the 20-yard line," says new West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, the former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator who led the nation's most efficient red zone unit last season. "What I care about is where our field goal kicker can make it, whether it's the 31, 32, 34 or whatever." Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer doesn't give any weight to the 20 either. "We've tracked the red zone for a number of years, and I've always equated it with the 30-yard line," he says. "That's where field goal possibilities begin."
<OFFER>
For most offenses, the 30-yard line is the most significant cutoff point for various strategic options. On average in college football, a field goal attempted from the 30-yard line (a 47-yarder) is a 50-50 proposition. The 30 also represents the point at which punting is off the table. Last season, no punts were kicked from at or inside the 30, while 47 punts were kicked from between the 31- and 35-yard lines. So as the first step to creating our value drive metric -- to truly separate good offenses and defenses from bad ones -- we expanded the scoring zone from the 20 to the 30.
But distance isn't the only flaw of red zone stats ...
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THE DRIVE TO DO BETTER
Early in the second quarter against Oregon State on Dec. 4, Oregon corner Talmadge Jackson picked off QB Ryan Katz and returned the ball to the Beavers' 12-yard line. On the ensuing drive, Ducks QB Darron Thomas threw incomplete on first and third downs, and running back LaMichael James lost seven yards on second down. Kicker Rob Beard nailed a 36-yard field goal on fourth down, putting Oregon ahead 9-7. That offensive possession (four plays, minus-7 yards, three points) counted as a successful red zone conversion for Oregon. Does that make sense to you?
The bottom line: Even the sorriest offense -- which, for the record, Oregon is most certainly not -- can usually convert three points when its defense or special teams places it on its opponent's doorstep. Likewise, even the stingiest D is mostly helpless in these situations. That's why value drive counts possessions that start on the offense's side of the 50-yard line only. In other words, the offense must move the ball from outside scoring range to inside scoring range to register a value drive.
So there you have it: A value drive is simply any possession that begins on the offense's side of the field and reaches at least the opponent's 30-yard line. Ahh, not so fast. After all, this sample Ducks drive revealed the folly of rewarding a team equally for a field goal or a touchdown, as red zone scoring rate does.
"I've been involved in a game where both teams scored on four first-half possessions, and the score at halftime was 24-12," says Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen. "So percentage of potential points is what we care about."
That insight pointed us to a whole new stat, points per value drive. It rewards offenses for closing drives with TDs rather than field goals, and defenses for the reverse.
Hallelujah. We are full of genius. And it gets better.
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BIG PLAYS MATTER TOO
On Oct. 30 against Texas Tech, Texas A&M lined up on its own 40-yard line, leading 24-14 in the third quarter. Running back Cyrus Gray carried it twice, gaining six yards on first down and exploding for a 54-yard score on second down. You can't close out a drive more emphatically than that. Yet the red zone conversion rate gives the Aggies no credit for that score. The stat would have, though, had the order of the two plays been reversed.
To value drive, the order of those two plays doesn't matter. If an offense scores on a methodical 65-yard drive or a 73-yard bomb, it gets credit for it. Likewise, if a defense can't stop its opponent from marching down the field or from sprinting down the sideline for a quick score, it gets punished equally.
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THE FUTURE HAS SPOKEN
A quick scan of recent red zone leaders reveals the category's inherent flaws. In 2009, Alabama dominated during its undefeated title run, beating four top-10 teams (Virginia Tech, LSU, Florida and Texas) by an average of 13.5 points. Yet the Crimson Tide's offense ranked a terrible 107th in red zone TD percentage. The next year, 5-7 Cal ranked seventh among all FBS teams in red zone TD percentage yet was held to 14 or fewer points six times. Our value drive stats capture these two teams much more accurately. Alabama averaged 5.2 PPVD in 2009, the 22nd-best rate nationally. Cal ranked just 45th with 5.0 PPVD the next year.
Okay, maybe you think we're cherry-picking. But when we ran the numbers for every red zone opportunity and for every value drive opportunity since the 2007 season, it turned out that PPVD correlated more strongly with winning percentage than any red zone stat. There's a good reason for that: There's a larger sample of value drive opportunities than red zone chances in any season. As any statistician will tell you, the more data you have to crunch, the more likely it is that you'll see strong teams separate themselves from weak teams.
Not coincidentally, one of the most significant drawbacks of red zone success is its inability to provide quality projections. From season to season, teams' red zone production wildly fluctuates. Again, it's a sample size problem. While there is some variability with value drives, teams are much more consistent offensively and defensively in this metric.
So let's look at what value drive means for the 2011 contenders. We used Football Outsiders' season projections to calculate the expected offensive PPVD, defensive PPVD and net PPVD (offensive minus defensive) for each of the top 10 teams from the ESPN Power Rankings.
Our top three, Oklahoma, Alabama and LSU, should be mildly concerned with the results. The Tigers feasted on opportunistic short-field drives last season (24.3 percent of their possessions didn't qualify as a value drive); Bama couldn't get its opponents off the field, allowing two drives of 70 or more yards in each of its three losses; and the Sooners were good at creating value drive opportunities (44 percent of drives, 24th nationally) but must convert those into touchdowns more frequently.
Value drive also points to a couple of teams outside our top 20 that could end up in the BCS discussion. No. 24 Missouri and No. 23 Mississippi State rank eighth and 10th, respectively, in projected net PPVD. In fact, the Tigers (0.83) and Bulldogs (0.78) fare better than six teams in our top 10, including No. 1 Oklahoma (0.69). Utah (0.70) also bested the Sooners in this category yet failed to crack our experts' top 25. The Pac-12 should be afraid of its new member.
When it comes to judging our new stats, though, it's not how teams project that matters -- it's how they finish. That's why we'll be keeping tabs on value drive all year long, then do a final review in January.
If it's as good as we think it is, we won't be seeing red.
The red zone is so 2010. Introducing Value Drive, a new stat that reveals the real truth about every team's scoring power.
By Brian Fremeau
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN Insider
This story appears in the August 22, 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
BEFORE THE RED ZONE became known as a deodorant, an NFL television station and an integral part of football's lexicon, the term was simply a motivational tool to get the 1981 Redskins out of last place. Their coach at the time, Joe Gibbs, coined the phrase after realizing his 0-4 team had the league's worst scoring offense inside opponents' 20-yard line. His philosophy, as he explained to his players, was simple: If you can't score deep in enemy territory, you will have a tough time winning. Not for nothing, Washington won eight of its final 12 games that season.
Three decades later, the red zone is hallowed ground, obsessed over by coaches and armchair quarterbacks. Few metrics are cited more by stat geeks than red zone scoring rate, which in college is the percentage of times an offense puts points on the board once it reaches the 20. (NFL teams enter the red zone once they cross the 20.)
Just one problem: The red zone isn't nearly as important as we've been led to think. In fact, when it comes to indicating how well a team closes out drives and keeps opponents from doing the same, red zone stats often deceive more than they illuminate.
So with apologies to a certain Super Bowl-winning coach, we created a new metric called value drive. It eliminates the red zone's fatal flaws while adding a few features that give it real predictive firepower. If you want to know which offenses and defenses have the goods to lead a BCS drive this fall and which are destined to come up short, this is your stat. Allow us to explain how value drive works -- and why it's better.
<CENTER><HR style="WIDTH: 50%"></CENTER>
SHUTTING DOWN EASY STREET
Why is the 20-yard line so special anyway? It's not the dividing line between an easy scoring opportunity and a tough one. The 20 represents a 37-yard field goal, which FBS teams have converted 66 percent of the time over the past four seasons.
"I don't pay any attention to the 20-yard line," says new West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, the former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator who led the nation's most efficient red zone unit last season. "What I care about is where our field goal kicker can make it, whether it's the 31, 32, 34 or whatever." Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer doesn't give any weight to the 20 either. "We've tracked the red zone for a number of years, and I've always equated it with the 30-yard line," he says. "That's where field goal possibilities begin."
<OFFER>
For most offenses, the 30-yard line is the most significant cutoff point for various strategic options. On average in college football, a field goal attempted from the 30-yard line (a 47-yarder) is a 50-50 proposition. The 30 also represents the point at which punting is off the table. Last season, no punts were kicked from at or inside the 30, while 47 punts were kicked from between the 31- and 35-yard lines. So as the first step to creating our value drive metric -- to truly separate good offenses and defenses from bad ones -- we expanded the scoring zone from the 20 to the 30.
But distance isn't the only flaw of red zone stats ...
<CENTER><HR style="WIDTH: 50%"></CENTER>
THE DRIVE TO DO BETTER
Early in the second quarter against Oregon State on Dec. 4, Oregon corner Talmadge Jackson picked off QB Ryan Katz and returned the ball to the Beavers' 12-yard line. On the ensuing drive, Ducks QB Darron Thomas threw incomplete on first and third downs, and running back LaMichael James lost seven yards on second down. Kicker Rob Beard nailed a 36-yard field goal on fourth down, putting Oregon ahead 9-7. That offensive possession (four plays, minus-7 yards, three points) counted as a successful red zone conversion for Oregon. Does that make sense to you?
The bottom line: Even the sorriest offense -- which, for the record, Oregon is most certainly not -- can usually convert three points when its defense or special teams places it on its opponent's doorstep. Likewise, even the stingiest D is mostly helpless in these situations. That's why value drive counts possessions that start on the offense's side of the 50-yard line only. In other words, the offense must move the ball from outside scoring range to inside scoring range to register a value drive.
So there you have it: A value drive is simply any possession that begins on the offense's side of the field and reaches at least the opponent's 30-yard line. Ahh, not so fast. After all, this sample Ducks drive revealed the folly of rewarding a team equally for a field goal or a touchdown, as red zone scoring rate does.
"I've been involved in a game where both teams scored on four first-half possessions, and the score at halftime was 24-12," says Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen. "So percentage of potential points is what we care about."
That insight pointed us to a whole new stat, points per value drive. It rewards offenses for closing drives with TDs rather than field goals, and defenses for the reverse.
Hallelujah. We are full of genius. And it gets better.
<CENTER><HR style="WIDTH: 50%"></CENTER>
BIG PLAYS MATTER TOO
On Oct. 30 against Texas Tech, Texas A&M lined up on its own 40-yard line, leading 24-14 in the third quarter. Running back Cyrus Gray carried it twice, gaining six yards on first down and exploding for a 54-yard score on second down. You can't close out a drive more emphatically than that. Yet the red zone conversion rate gives the Aggies no credit for that score. The stat would have, though, had the order of the two plays been reversed.
To value drive, the order of those two plays doesn't matter. If an offense scores on a methodical 65-yard drive or a 73-yard bomb, it gets credit for it. Likewise, if a defense can't stop its opponent from marching down the field or from sprinting down the sideline for a quick score, it gets punished equally.
<CENTER><HR style="WIDTH: 50%"></CENTER>
THE FUTURE HAS SPOKEN
A quick scan of recent red zone leaders reveals the category's inherent flaws. In 2009, Alabama dominated during its undefeated title run, beating four top-10 teams (Virginia Tech, LSU, Florida and Texas) by an average of 13.5 points. Yet the Crimson Tide's offense ranked a terrible 107th in red zone TD percentage. The next year, 5-7 Cal ranked seventh among all FBS teams in red zone TD percentage yet was held to 14 or fewer points six times. Our value drive stats capture these two teams much more accurately. Alabama averaged 5.2 PPVD in 2009, the 22nd-best rate nationally. Cal ranked just 45th with 5.0 PPVD the next year.
Okay, maybe you think we're cherry-picking. But when we ran the numbers for every red zone opportunity and for every value drive opportunity since the 2007 season, it turned out that PPVD correlated more strongly with winning percentage than any red zone stat. There's a good reason for that: There's a larger sample of value drive opportunities than red zone chances in any season. As any statistician will tell you, the more data you have to crunch, the more likely it is that you'll see strong teams separate themselves from weak teams.
Not coincidentally, one of the most significant drawbacks of red zone success is its inability to provide quality projections. From season to season, teams' red zone production wildly fluctuates. Again, it's a sample size problem. While there is some variability with value drives, teams are much more consistent offensively and defensively in this metric.
So let's look at what value drive means for the 2011 contenders. We used Football Outsiders' season projections to calculate the expected offensive PPVD, defensive PPVD and net PPVD (offensive minus defensive) for each of the top 10 teams from the ESPN Power Rankings.
Our top three, Oklahoma, Alabama and LSU, should be mildly concerned with the results. The Tigers feasted on opportunistic short-field drives last season (24.3 percent of their possessions didn't qualify as a value drive); Bama couldn't get its opponents off the field, allowing two drives of 70 or more yards in each of its three losses; and the Sooners were good at creating value drive opportunities (44 percent of drives, 24th nationally) but must convert those into touchdowns more frequently.
Value drive also points to a couple of teams outside our top 20 that could end up in the BCS discussion. No. 24 Missouri and No. 23 Mississippi State rank eighth and 10th, respectively, in projected net PPVD. In fact, the Tigers (0.83) and Bulldogs (0.78) fare better than six teams in our top 10, including No. 1 Oklahoma (0.69). Utah (0.70) also bested the Sooners in this category yet failed to crack our experts' top 25. The Pac-12 should be afraid of its new member.
When it comes to judging our new stats, though, it's not how teams project that matters -- it's how they finish. That's why we'll be keeping tabs on value drive all year long, then do a final review in January.
If it's as good as we think it is, we won't be seeing red.
