INTRODUCTION:
1. First of all, this isn't a Swoopes-bashing thread. The numbers aren't good, but the point is only to add to the (many) discussions on Swoopes now and into the fall, and to have some context for thinking about last season and also for observing progress in the fall and into the season.
There has been a lot of debate the last few days about Swoopes, and part of my position is that when I started looking back at the season with fresh eyes I had expected to see a BETTER picture of Swoopes than I was left feeling after the Spring Game.
Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Once I began to see the picture as a whole, I felt increasingly that the scouting report is not great on Swoopes and that he is, statistically, not a great candidate for "he's going to have a breakout season". There are things you look for in a breakout--strong leadership, accuracy, decisiveness, etc-- that just didn't produce as well as they SHOULD have. Instead, I see a QB in Swoopes that is struggling heavily against all but the worst defenses.
This does not mean that Swoopes won't come out and light the world on fire. Just because he's not in a favorable statistical category does not mean he won't beat the odds, turn the light switch on, and go set the world on fire. I SINCERELY HOPE HE DOES. I'm anything but a Swoopes hatter. I'm just tired of the emotional conversations that don't look, with clear eyes, into the actual performance we have to see.
I hope this little look is as interesting for Swoopes' defenders as much as his skeptics (where I see myself... not a hatter, but a skeptic who really wants to see him turn around and thrive at Texas). I'm not trying to be single sided here, only to put additional rigor into the emotional conversations that are swirling around on the topic.
2. Looking at Swoopes performance does not mean that Jerrod Heard is the answer. I'm not advocating for one QB or another, only looking at the film and the performance information we have in the can right now. As for me I with Buchele was already on campus as I feel most confident in what he's bringing to the Forty over most other QBs we've had since Gilbert, even if I came to really like Ash and wished I could have seen his performance without his plague of injuries.
3. There are many discussions that this little picture should bring to the front. For example:
a. What role did the OL play in these performances? The DLs we played were, in general, much better than the DBs we faced. So the OL certainly has huge part in this and faced better competition on the ground than Swoopes did with the DBs. But why did one of the best defenses we faced in NT, early in the season, still see a lot of success for Ash (implying that while the OL is to blame, for sure, it doesn't explain it all).
b. How much blame belongs to Shawn Watson? Clearly we played a lot of teams with better run defenses than pass defenses--meaning that the QB was going to be an important part of the gameplan. That's a tricky situation to be in--the young QB MUST, strategically, be a key performer in the offense based upon defensive strength. Seems like a setup for failure.
c. There's more going on here than just mechanics and methodology. There is something deeply competitive--almost spiritual or metaphysical--in this picture. We had a top 25 defense, top 13 pass defense, and played 2/3 of our games against teams with defenses ranked between #80 and #125. With or without a young QB and line issues, I think most analysts would still have called a better than 6-7 for Texas last season, and any program would expect this with two 5* running backs and a host of 4* QBs and Receivers on the roster.
This is not all on Swoopes. His metaphysical issues with "winning" and competitive dynamics go back into High School and deserve some conversation, but the issue was much broader than Tyrone. "Lack of talent on the team in general" doesn't pan out in this picture, and neither does "youth". Something else was at play in this team last year and it ended up simply landing on Swoopes' plate (as, unfortunately, it tends to do with QBs) and he just had no ability to lead his unit through it. Wasn't all his fault, it was just that he was the one most responsible for overcoming it and leading this team out of their spiritual fog and he just couldn't rise to that situation in 2015.
He absolutely, 100%, could do so in 2016. But at least we know what to look for.
So below you'll find Swoopes' numbers against defensive ranks, with particular attention paid to pass defenses, and then TD/INT production compared among different competitive slices.
DEFENSIVE RANKINGS, OVERALL + PASS DEFENSE
1. North Texas: Won 37-8. David Ash. Defense ranked #39 (passing defense #40).
2. BYU: Lost 41-7. Ash/Swoopes. Defense# 52, PD# 110.
3. UCLA: Lost 20-17. Swoopes. Defense# 68, PD# 86.
4. Kansas: Won 23-0. Swoopes. Defense# 110, PD# 87.
5. Baylor: Lost 28-7. Swoopes. Defense# 37, PD# 101.
6. OU: Lost 31-26. Swoopes. Defense# 51, PD# 117.
7. Iowa State: Won 48-45. Swoopes. Defense# 126, PD# 122.
8. Kansas State: Lost 23-0. Swoopes. Defense# 33, PD# 75.
9. Texas Tech: Won 34-13. Swoopes. Defense# 124, PD# 96.
10. West Virginia: Won 33-16. Swoopes. Defense# 57, PD# 60.
11. Oklahoma State: Won 28-7. Swoopes. Defense# 94. PD# 111.
12. TCU: Lost 48-10. Swoopes. Defense# 31. PD# 83.
13. Arkansas: Lost 31-7. Swoopes. Defense# 22. PD# 55.
FYI: Texas Defense# 25. PD# 13.
Wins:
A. Kansas 23-0, #87 Pass Defense. 2TD, 0INT, 56 QBR.
B. Iowa State 48-45, #122 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 81 QBR.
C. Texas Tech 34-13, Starting QB out, #96 Pass Defense. 1TD, 0INT, 58 QBR.
D. West Virginia 33-16, #60 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 50 QBR.
E. OSU 28-7. Starting QB out, #111 Pass Defense. 2TD, 0INT, 79 QBR.
Losses:
A. BYU 41-7, #110 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 26 QBR.
B. UCLA 20-17, Starting QB out, #86 Pass Defense. 2TD, OINT, 54 QBR.
C. Baylor 28-7 #101 Pass Defense. 0TD, 2INT, 5 QBR.
D. Kansas State 23-0, #75 Pass Defense. 0TD, 0INT, 30 QBR (13 passes completed, total).
E. TCU 48-10, #83 Pass Defense. 1TD, 4INT, 19 QBR.
F. Arkansas 31-7 #55 Pass Defense. 0TD, 1INT, 18 QBR.
G. OU 31-26, #117 Pass Defense. 2TD, 1INT, 61 QBR.
PASS DEFENSE IN ORDER FROM BEST TO WORST:
1. Arkansas #55. Loss. 0TD, 2INT, 18QBR.
2. West Virginia #60. Won. 1TD, 1INT, 50 QBR.
3. Kansas State #75. Shut out. 0TD, 0INT, 30 QBR.
4. TCU #83. Loss. 1TD, 4INT, 19 QBR.
5. UCLA #86. Loss. 2TD, 0INT, 54 QBR.
6. Kansas #87. Won. 2TD, 0INT, 56 QBR.
7. Texas Tech #96. Won. 1TD, 0INT,58 QBR.
8. Baylor #101. Loss. 0TD, 2INT, 5 QBR.
9. BYU #110. Loss. 1TD, 1INT, 26 QBR.
10. OSU #111. Won. 2TD, 0INT, 79 QBR.
11. OU #117. Loss. 2TD, 1INT, 61 QBR.
12. Iowa State #122. Won. 1TD, 1INT, 81 QBR.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE AND OVERALL QB RANK:
1. Texas SOS (Sagarin): #14
2. Swoopes QB Rank (by rating): #90
TOTAL PERFORMANCE AGAINST SIMILAR PASS DEFENSES:
1. Teams ranked in the 50s: 0TD, 2INT, 0-1 record.
2. Teams ranked in the 60s: 1TD, 1INT, 1-0 record.
3. Teams ranked in the 70s: 0TD, 0INT, 0-1 record.
4. Teams ranked in the 80s: 5TD, 4INT, 1-2 record.
5. Teams ranked in the 90s: 1TD, 0INT, 1-0 record.
6. Teams ranked 100-125: 6TD, 5INT, 2-3 record.
PERFORMANCE GROUPING:
1. Against teams better than #80 Pass Defense: 1TD, 3INT, 1-2 record.
2. Against teams from #80 to #110 Pass Defense: 7TD, 7INT, 2-5 record.
3. Against teams from #110 to #125 Pass Defense: 5TD, 2INT, 2-1 record.
THOUGHTS:
1. The best pass defense we faced all year was North Texas. Interesting. And Ash handled them pretty completely. Makes you wonder what was possible if he had stayed healthy.
2. We played a lot of teams that were much better at stopping the run than the pass, and all in all, played some really poor pass defenses. Makes a little more sense why the RBs struggled, at times.
3. The only pass defense grouping in which Swoopes had a favorable TD/INT ratio or winning record against the group was in defenses ranked #110 to #125. I liked these groupings because they make sense and provide some pretty decent strategic groupings, but I could also have gotten him to 2-2 against teams in the "80s and 90s", but then I would have grouped "teams over #100 in Pass Defense" and he would drop to 2-3 for that group, and I didn't think that was as reflective of the overall patterns.
4. While it's quite likely true that Swoopes will improve this year, it's also true that we will likely see a lot of improved defenses. ND was in the 80's, Cal was dead last in pass defense, and Rice was actually in the 60's. But the point is that Swoopes' numbers weren't against juggernaut teams, but instead against a lot of struggling defenses. And the team with the best pass defense--a top 25 defense at Arkansas and the #55 pass defense--was our most embarrassing loss at the end of the season (not the beginning).
5. Swoopes definitely had times where he moved the ball. He has pools of very decent QB ratings, but they are surrounded with deeply sub-par performances as well. And it wasn't just "better defenses game him trouble". The pattern is more erratic than that, which is interesting.
6. Wins are a big issue for Swoopes. Something is just wrong here, and it goes back into High School. But at the end of the day, Ash ended up beating a very decent defensive school in NT (I know, right?), and Swoopes beat dead last Iowa State, two teams without their starting QB, Kansas, and WVU.
As it turns out, his best win was against West Virginia, and this was a game in which, by the end, he almost looked as if he might sputter and roll backwards a bit and Trickett just could not make progress against our defense. But credit where credit is due for Swoopes, and I think WVU was his marquee win for the season.
7. Our defense was very good last year, and if I would have told you we'd have a top 25 defense, a top 13 pass defense, and would play 2/3 of our games against teams with a worse than #80 pass defense, would you have felt that we were looking at a 6-7 record?
That said, we did play some very good run defenses. VERY good (several top 10, and 4 in the top 25).
8. Against pass defenses rated better than #80--not even the top 50% of pass defenses in college football-- Swoopes threw the ball for 7 total points and gave up 3 INTs to do it.
9. Yes, there are many issues with looking at defensive rankings, and I am aware of them all. I'm not suggesting this is anything decisive--only that it has the ability to lead to insight for those wanting to look deeper. It is not prescriptive for the next season--too much will change, overall, between now and then.
It is only something to add to the thinking of those who want to go deeper than emotional reactions, but that's all the value it really holds.
1. First of all, this isn't a Swoopes-bashing thread. The numbers aren't good, but the point is only to add to the (many) discussions on Swoopes now and into the fall, and to have some context for thinking about last season and also for observing progress in the fall and into the season.
There has been a lot of debate the last few days about Swoopes, and part of my position is that when I started looking back at the season with fresh eyes I had expected to see a BETTER picture of Swoopes than I was left feeling after the Spring Game.
Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Once I began to see the picture as a whole, I felt increasingly that the scouting report is not great on Swoopes and that he is, statistically, not a great candidate for "he's going to have a breakout season". There are things you look for in a breakout--strong leadership, accuracy, decisiveness, etc-- that just didn't produce as well as they SHOULD have. Instead, I see a QB in Swoopes that is struggling heavily against all but the worst defenses.
This does not mean that Swoopes won't come out and light the world on fire. Just because he's not in a favorable statistical category does not mean he won't beat the odds, turn the light switch on, and go set the world on fire. I SINCERELY HOPE HE DOES. I'm anything but a Swoopes hatter. I'm just tired of the emotional conversations that don't look, with clear eyes, into the actual performance we have to see.
I hope this little look is as interesting for Swoopes' defenders as much as his skeptics (where I see myself... not a hatter, but a skeptic who really wants to see him turn around and thrive at Texas). I'm not trying to be single sided here, only to put additional rigor into the emotional conversations that are swirling around on the topic.
2. Looking at Swoopes performance does not mean that Jerrod Heard is the answer. I'm not advocating for one QB or another, only looking at the film and the performance information we have in the can right now. As for me I with Buchele was already on campus as I feel most confident in what he's bringing to the Forty over most other QBs we've had since Gilbert, even if I came to really like Ash and wished I could have seen his performance without his plague of injuries.
3. There are many discussions that this little picture should bring to the front. For example:
a. What role did the OL play in these performances? The DLs we played were, in general, much better than the DBs we faced. So the OL certainly has huge part in this and faced better competition on the ground than Swoopes did with the DBs. But why did one of the best defenses we faced in NT, early in the season, still see a lot of success for Ash (implying that while the OL is to blame, for sure, it doesn't explain it all).
b. How much blame belongs to Shawn Watson? Clearly we played a lot of teams with better run defenses than pass defenses--meaning that the QB was going to be an important part of the gameplan. That's a tricky situation to be in--the young QB MUST, strategically, be a key performer in the offense based upon defensive strength. Seems like a setup for failure.
c. There's more going on here than just mechanics and methodology. There is something deeply competitive--almost spiritual or metaphysical--in this picture. We had a top 25 defense, top 13 pass defense, and played 2/3 of our games against teams with defenses ranked between #80 and #125. With or without a young QB and line issues, I think most analysts would still have called a better than 6-7 for Texas last season, and any program would expect this with two 5* running backs and a host of 4* QBs and Receivers on the roster.
This is not all on Swoopes. His metaphysical issues with "winning" and competitive dynamics go back into High School and deserve some conversation, but the issue was much broader than Tyrone. "Lack of talent on the team in general" doesn't pan out in this picture, and neither does "youth". Something else was at play in this team last year and it ended up simply landing on Swoopes' plate (as, unfortunately, it tends to do with QBs) and he just had no ability to lead his unit through it. Wasn't all his fault, it was just that he was the one most responsible for overcoming it and leading this team out of their spiritual fog and he just couldn't rise to that situation in 2015.
He absolutely, 100%, could do so in 2016. But at least we know what to look for.
So below you'll find Swoopes' numbers against defensive ranks, with particular attention paid to pass defenses, and then TD/INT production compared among different competitive slices.
DEFENSIVE RANKINGS, OVERALL + PASS DEFENSE
1. North Texas: Won 37-8. David Ash. Defense ranked #39 (passing defense #40).
2. BYU: Lost 41-7. Ash/Swoopes. Defense# 52, PD# 110.
3. UCLA: Lost 20-17. Swoopes. Defense# 68, PD# 86.
4. Kansas: Won 23-0. Swoopes. Defense# 110, PD# 87.
5. Baylor: Lost 28-7. Swoopes. Defense# 37, PD# 101.
6. OU: Lost 31-26. Swoopes. Defense# 51, PD# 117.
7. Iowa State: Won 48-45. Swoopes. Defense# 126, PD# 122.
8. Kansas State: Lost 23-0. Swoopes. Defense# 33, PD# 75.
9. Texas Tech: Won 34-13. Swoopes. Defense# 124, PD# 96.
10. West Virginia: Won 33-16. Swoopes. Defense# 57, PD# 60.
11. Oklahoma State: Won 28-7. Swoopes. Defense# 94. PD# 111.
12. TCU: Lost 48-10. Swoopes. Defense# 31. PD# 83.
13. Arkansas: Lost 31-7. Swoopes. Defense# 22. PD# 55.
FYI: Texas Defense# 25. PD# 13.
Wins:
A. Kansas 23-0, #87 Pass Defense. 2TD, 0INT, 56 QBR.
B. Iowa State 48-45, #122 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 81 QBR.
C. Texas Tech 34-13, Starting QB out, #96 Pass Defense. 1TD, 0INT, 58 QBR.
D. West Virginia 33-16, #60 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 50 QBR.
E. OSU 28-7. Starting QB out, #111 Pass Defense. 2TD, 0INT, 79 QBR.
Losses:
A. BYU 41-7, #110 Pass Defense. 1TD, 1INT, 26 QBR.
B. UCLA 20-17, Starting QB out, #86 Pass Defense. 2TD, OINT, 54 QBR.
C. Baylor 28-7 #101 Pass Defense. 0TD, 2INT, 5 QBR.
D. Kansas State 23-0, #75 Pass Defense. 0TD, 0INT, 30 QBR (13 passes completed, total).
E. TCU 48-10, #83 Pass Defense. 1TD, 4INT, 19 QBR.
F. Arkansas 31-7 #55 Pass Defense. 0TD, 1INT, 18 QBR.
G. OU 31-26, #117 Pass Defense. 2TD, 1INT, 61 QBR.
PASS DEFENSE IN ORDER FROM BEST TO WORST:
1. Arkansas #55. Loss. 0TD, 2INT, 18QBR.
2. West Virginia #60. Won. 1TD, 1INT, 50 QBR.
3. Kansas State #75. Shut out. 0TD, 0INT, 30 QBR.
4. TCU #83. Loss. 1TD, 4INT, 19 QBR.
5. UCLA #86. Loss. 2TD, 0INT, 54 QBR.
6. Kansas #87. Won. 2TD, 0INT, 56 QBR.
7. Texas Tech #96. Won. 1TD, 0INT,58 QBR.
8. Baylor #101. Loss. 0TD, 2INT, 5 QBR.
9. BYU #110. Loss. 1TD, 1INT, 26 QBR.
10. OSU #111. Won. 2TD, 0INT, 79 QBR.
11. OU #117. Loss. 2TD, 1INT, 61 QBR.
12. Iowa State #122. Won. 1TD, 1INT, 81 QBR.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE AND OVERALL QB RANK:
1. Texas SOS (Sagarin): #14
2. Swoopes QB Rank (by rating): #90
TOTAL PERFORMANCE AGAINST SIMILAR PASS DEFENSES:
1. Teams ranked in the 50s: 0TD, 2INT, 0-1 record.
2. Teams ranked in the 60s: 1TD, 1INT, 1-0 record.
3. Teams ranked in the 70s: 0TD, 0INT, 0-1 record.
4. Teams ranked in the 80s: 5TD, 4INT, 1-2 record.
5. Teams ranked in the 90s: 1TD, 0INT, 1-0 record.
6. Teams ranked 100-125: 6TD, 5INT, 2-3 record.
PERFORMANCE GROUPING:
1. Against teams better than #80 Pass Defense: 1TD, 3INT, 1-2 record.
2. Against teams from #80 to #110 Pass Defense: 7TD, 7INT, 2-5 record.
3. Against teams from #110 to #125 Pass Defense: 5TD, 2INT, 2-1 record.
THOUGHTS:
1. The best pass defense we faced all year was North Texas. Interesting. And Ash handled them pretty completely. Makes you wonder what was possible if he had stayed healthy.
2. We played a lot of teams that were much better at stopping the run than the pass, and all in all, played some really poor pass defenses. Makes a little more sense why the RBs struggled, at times.
3. The only pass defense grouping in which Swoopes had a favorable TD/INT ratio or winning record against the group was in defenses ranked #110 to #125. I liked these groupings because they make sense and provide some pretty decent strategic groupings, but I could also have gotten him to 2-2 against teams in the "80s and 90s", but then I would have grouped "teams over #100 in Pass Defense" and he would drop to 2-3 for that group, and I didn't think that was as reflective of the overall patterns.
4. While it's quite likely true that Swoopes will improve this year, it's also true that we will likely see a lot of improved defenses. ND was in the 80's, Cal was dead last in pass defense, and Rice was actually in the 60's. But the point is that Swoopes' numbers weren't against juggernaut teams, but instead against a lot of struggling defenses. And the team with the best pass defense--a top 25 defense at Arkansas and the #55 pass defense--was our most embarrassing loss at the end of the season (not the beginning).
5. Swoopes definitely had times where he moved the ball. He has pools of very decent QB ratings, but they are surrounded with deeply sub-par performances as well. And it wasn't just "better defenses game him trouble". The pattern is more erratic than that, which is interesting.
6. Wins are a big issue for Swoopes. Something is just wrong here, and it goes back into High School. But at the end of the day, Ash ended up beating a very decent defensive school in NT (I know, right?), and Swoopes beat dead last Iowa State, two teams without their starting QB, Kansas, and WVU.
As it turns out, his best win was against West Virginia, and this was a game in which, by the end, he almost looked as if he might sputter and roll backwards a bit and Trickett just could not make progress against our defense. But credit where credit is due for Swoopes, and I think WVU was his marquee win for the season.
7. Our defense was very good last year, and if I would have told you we'd have a top 25 defense, a top 13 pass defense, and would play 2/3 of our games against teams with a worse than #80 pass defense, would you have felt that we were looking at a 6-7 record?
That said, we did play some very good run defenses. VERY good (several top 10, and 4 in the top 25).
8. Against pass defenses rated better than #80--not even the top 50% of pass defenses in college football-- Swoopes threw the ball for 7 total points and gave up 3 INTs to do it.
9. Yes, there are many issues with looking at defensive rankings, and I am aware of them all. I'm not suggesting this is anything decisive--only that it has the ability to lead to insight for those wanting to look deeper. It is not prescriptive for the next season--too much will change, overall, between now and then.
It is only something to add to the thinking of those who want to go deeper than emotional reactions, but that's all the value it really holds.
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