Time To Share Some Data: 2005-11 Targets And Catches

Back in January, I shared a Google Doc containing all 2011 targets-and-catches data. Between March Madness and, now, the 124-part 2012 college football preview series, I have neglected Football Study Hall quite a bit more than I anticipated, but here's my "Let me make it up to you" present: the same targets data, only for 2005-11.

In the Google Doc below, you can find the link to a rather large document containing all players targeted at least 10 times in a season for the last seven years. Some notes from last time?

Here are some quick definitions for you:

Targets = receptions plus incompletions targeting a given receiver. (NOTE: there is no target data for passes that were intercepted or for some throwaways. In the end, about 85-90 percent of passes have target data. I thought about adjusting for that in some way, but since it is the same for every team, I did not. Just keep that in mind.)

Catches = receptions.

Yards = receiving yards

Catch Rate = catches / targets

Yards Per Target = yards / targets

Target % = the percentage of a team's passes targeting a given receiver.

Target No. = the rank of a given player in terms of his team's targets.

%SD = the percent of a players targets that came on standard downs. As you'll see, this varies greatly from player to player.

The possibilities for this data are enormous. Two goals for the offseason are 1) processing previous years of data in this regard (I only have 2010 and 2011), and 2) creating a sort of Adj. POE for receiving data that takes both opponent and, in some way, quarterback into account. But for now, have fun with a load of real data.

Some more notes:

• You'll notice no Air Force receivers are on there from before 2005-10. I made some mistake when querying the data, and they were not included. I will add them at a future date, but since Air Force passes about three times per game (slight exaggeration), I didn't want to let that slow me down here.
• The naming conventions for 2007-08 data were a little odd because I pulled together the play-by-play data from those years myself (using my own abbreviations and such), and Marty from the great cfbstats.com has done the rest for me. I tried to match up all the names properly, but there's a chance you might find a random "J. Smith" or just "Smith" in there. Let me know if you find some strange example like that, and I will clean it up. It took long enough to get to this point that, again, I didn't want to let a random naming issue keep me from posting this.
• Danario Alexander's 2009 season was every bit as incredible on paper as it was experienced live.
  
  Players Averaging At Least 10.0 Yards Per Target (min. 150 targets)
  1. 2010 Greg Salas, Hawaii (11.8 yards per target, 160 targets)
  2. 2009 Danario Alexander, Missouri (11.2 yards per target, 159 targets)
  3. 2007 Michael Crabtree, Texas Tech (10.7 yards per target, 183 targets)
  4. 2009 Greg Salas, Hawaii (10.3 yards per target, 154 targets)
  5. 2008 Austin Collie, BYU (10.2 yards per target, 151 targets)
  6. 2007 Jordy Nelson, Kansas State (10.0 yards per target, 159 targets)
  
  Expand to >140 targets, and you suck in 2010 Justin Blackmon (Oklahoma State), 2009 Jordan Shipley (Texas), 2011 Kendall Wright (Baylor), 2005 Mike Hass (Oregon State) and 2008 Dezmon Briscoe (Kansas). If you are a high school receiver, why would you ever go to a school outside of the (current or former) Big 12?

Anyway, here's a link for download. No window for quick perusal this time because the file is large enough that, well, there is no such thing as "quick perusal."