The Toolbox: Adj. Pace

Since we're constantly referring to Adj. Pace in the daily Summer Vacation pieces, I figured it would probably make sense to dive into both the definition and overall rankings.

I wanted to keep things simple when coming up with a pace figure, but i wanted it to go beyond simply "How many plays did the team run?"  So here's what I did:

We start with the basic plays-per-game measure, but since teams that pass more are naturally going to end up running more plays (more clock stoppages), it was best to factor in each team's run-pass ratio. A simple regression formula was used to determine how many plays a team would be expected to run given their run-pass splits. The teams were then ranked according to the difference between their actual plays and their expected plays.

Of course, there are, as always, mitigating circumstances. If your defense is good and forces quite a few three-and-outs, then that could have an impact on the number of plays you run. (At the same time, if you are allowing a lot of quick touchdown drives, one could say the same thing.) Your field-position advantage, or lack thereof, could also play a role. But the goal was not to complicate matters much, not yet anyway.

Basically, pass-heavy teams like Oklahoma and Tulsa are going to be naturally inclined to run more plays than, say, the Oregons, Air Forces and Georgia Techs of the world, but that doesn't say much about their pace -- it just says they pass a lot.  Factoring in a level of expectations based on run-pass ratio, you get rid of some of that influence.

The full rankings are after the jump, but I wanted to do a little bit of categorization here.  Of the 120 FBS teams, 78 were within one standard deviation of average expectations for plays per game.  That leaves just 42 that were out of the ordinary in some way, and it means that, say, the teams ranking 30th and 70th really weren't that far apart ... while the teams ranked 10th and 30th were to some degree.

Here are the teams who were at least one standard deviation removed from the average pace. First the slower ones; 23 teams played at a pace demonstrably slower than most.  There are, as would be expected, good and bad offenses in this group. This is a stat based on personality and philosophy, not quality.

Minus-1 Std. Dev.: Akron, Boston College, California, Florida Atlantic, Florida State, Hawaii, Iowa, Kent State, Marshall, Maryland, Memphis, Michigan State, Ohio, Oregon State, Pittsburgh, San Jose State, South Florida, Syracuse, Temple, Tennessee, UNLV, Utah, Wyoming.

Hawaii is a bit of a surprise, but few others are, really.

Now, the faster teams.  Fifteen teams were faster than average, but not ridiculously so:

Plus-1 Std. Dev.: Air Force, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, Houston, Louisiana Tech, Michigan, N.C. State, Nevada, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Troy, Tulane, Tulsa.

Again, few surprises here, though you see Air Force and Georgia Tech showing up on the "fast-paced" list; if we used simple plays per game, we wouldn't see them ranking too high.

Plus-2 Std. Dev.: Oregon, Southern Miss, Texas Tech.

Tommy Tuberville swore he would not change too much about Texas Tech's Airraid offense, and while the play-calling (and quality) changed, the pace did not.  They still played at a very fast level of execution, as did the new Pace kings, Oregon.  But Oregon was really only the pace runner up.  The crown did not leave Norman.

Plus-3 Std. Dev.: Oklahoma.

The Sooners were still the standard bearers when it came to pace.  They were, as always, magnificent at cruising along in fourth gear, then shifting into fifth when they moved the chains.

Full rankings after the jump.