Pac 12 Football Stats – 2020 Through Games of Jan 6, 2021

[WhitewaterUte]

The Pac 12 stats Sacks Against
                  G      No.      Yrds      Avg/G
1. Wash      4       1         2           0.25
2. Az. St.    4       6        43          1.50
3. Utah       5       7        49          1.40
4. Co.         6       7        40          1.17
5. Wash. St. 4      9        66          2.25
6. Stan.       6      10       60         1.67
7. Oregon    7      11       56         1.67
8. Or. St.     7      12       82         1.71
9. UCLA      7      12       79          1.71
10. USC      6      15       108        2.50
11. Cal.      4      15        81         3.75
12. Az.       5      18        118       3.6
I an not sure what calculation the league uses.  They rank the Utes as 3rd best in the League at giving up sacks.
Pretty good for a team the emphasizes the run.  Which is more difficult to block for than pass blocking.
When Coach Harding leaves it will be for an offensive cooridinator or head coaching job.
Stat. source.     https://pac-12.com/content/football-statistics      Open the PDF
Oregon

[Tony (admin)]

A team that emphasizes the run should have less sacks because they pass less!

[Dallas]

WhitewaterUte- are you Harding?

[pedro]

I’m not mathmatician, but when you look at average number of sacks per game, Utah is the 2nd lowest.  Still not good enough for some fans I guess.

[Ute Dub]

But. muh. O-line! muh. Harding! Angry fist shake!

[chinngiskhaan]

You have to consider two factors when looking at average sacks per game. 

1. how many times are we throwing the ball compared to other teams? Sacks per game is useless.

2. You also have to take into account that Bentley had 1 strong skill, getting away from pressure. 

put this all together and you see that the stat you need is pressures per pass play. This would give you a much better idea of our pass blocking prowess.

[pedro]

Bently could find an open receiver to save his life.  Thus the pressure from the Dline.  In Ludwigs offense, you have to make the read and get rid of the ball.  The wheels are in motion and you’ve got to keep your timing.  B sucked at all of the above.  What I am saying is yes, the first few games your point is accurate.  Once they got some gel going, any pressure Bent received was almost entirly his fault.  Go re-watch the games and you’ll see what I mean.  

[UTE98]

This is not directed at WhitewaterUte, as this topic has been coming up quite often.

 

Sacks alone is an inadequate way to look at the OL. I don’t have an equation to figure it all out, but without factoring in QB hurries, QB throw aways, time the QB didn’t step up in the pocket and ran, times the QB didn’t hit the hot receiver it is all a matter of opinion.

Would we all like to see less of these? Yes, but are we really as bad as it seems? Don’t know. The games I can definitely say the OL and QB didn’t do a good job of picking up the blitz and adjusting? USC, Oregon, and Texas come quickly to mind.

Does it need to improve? Sure, but are we that far off? I don’t think so. Brewer may be much better at aiding his OL with the blitz pickup. If the defense sends seven and the OL only keeps 5 in to block because the QB missed the blitz how is that on the OL? But if the OL only faces 6 rushers and the blitz successfully comes up the middle, the OL needs to do a better job. There are so many factors I think it difficult to boil it all down to the OL. WR not running the hot route? RB not picking up the right rusher, not chipping, or just plain running a route…

I hate seeing the OL exposed like the last two games two years ago, that was embarrassing, but probably still not all on them.

[MacKidsAlumn]

Adding more run-pass-option is going to make the line look so much better.  If you have watched any Baylor the past few years, this was a part of their offense and Brewer executed those plays well, much better than Huntley. In that Oregon game, if RPO had been more part of our offense, I think there would have been some big plays, and their defense would played on their heels.

[Ute Dub]

Your post is reasonable, well balanced, open to both sides, and fair, in my opinion. 

[Staples]

Looks like the rankings were based on total number of sacks allowed, which seems like the absolute worst way to base it given that there was nothing approaching a uniform number of games for everyone. Sack rate (% of pass attempts that end in a sack) in my opinion is a much better overall look at something like this without getting crazy complicated figuring in pass pressure and the like. Utes would still be third based on that at 4.3% but Arizona State plummets from 2nd to 11th at 6.7%.

[ironman1315]

There should be a better stat that accounts for time spent holding onto the ball rollouts etc. Like the OL not holding a block for 2-3 seconds or whatever is an OL problem. A an notvv be running or not throwing after that is a an problem