Graphing the Tide at Vandy: Well, the charts look fine except for the scoreboard

I’m traveling this week and was hoping for an easy breezy graphs article. But it’s college football, and things happen.

For what it’s worth, this “strange and rare” upset — I can’t believe I’m saying that about the Vanderbilt game — was truly an unusual result when looking at the advanced metrics.Before I ran the charts this morning, I was tipped off to this theme by Bill Connelly’s postgame win expectancy numbers, which had Vandy with only a 1.8% likelihood of winning this game based on their (relatively lacking) efficiency and other factors:

And, yeah, I know that they got the points and the yards, played hard, had a good game plan, and pulled off the big upset. They deserve to have those goalposts in the river. But it’s remarkable how they just barely clung on with middling efficiencies (lots of 3rd down conversions), low explosiveness, but just enough bounces and breaks to do it.

It doesn’t change the result, but as for how to judge Alabama here, it’s fair to say that it’s a little more complicated than it looks.

Box score

The box score is the least friendly to the Tide here — and it doesn’t represent the “advanced metrics” set I refer to most often in this column — but the basic numbers bely the Commodores’ win: they got more yards, higher TOP, (many) more third down conversions, fewer turnovers, and … more points.

Alabama was more efficient and explosive, with a higher YPR and YPP, but neither is a big breakaway metric and doesn’t show the balance (i.e., rush rate for an option offense) of the down-by-down offenses overall. I.e., the teams got their yardage in very different ways (and you’d usually prefer to get them how Alabama did).

The big kickers, to me, were turnovers, penalties (“only” 6, but compared to Vandy’s 3), and third down efficiency. That Vanderbilt’s offense converted twelve third down conversions (and a 4th, too) suggests an exhausting day for the Tide defense.

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Team Success Rates over time (cumulative)

And … yep, if I hadn’t seen this game and hadn’t peeked at the box score, I would’ve seen this chart and guessed it was a solid (and expected) Alabama win. Things started slowly in the first half, but the offense was moving in the second, with a Success Rate (SR) that ended up a pretty high cumulative 55% to Vanderbilt’s respectable (but not high) 42%. The explosiveness gap is similar, with Alabama basically doubling Vanderbilt’s Explosiveness Rate (XR) even after some big 4th quarter plays for the ‘Dores.

Yeah, it’s a meager consolation, but it’s legitimately quite rare that we’d be looking at these gaps in down-by-down performance and expect the team with the lower metrics to win it. That’s the 1.8% likelihood that Bill gives it in his numbers. (But we just happen to be on that teeny little dark timeline).

Rushing and Passing Success (cumulative)

Vandy started red hot, with 4 successful passes breaking up a highly efficient rushing attack. They drove the field, then got a lucky bounce pick-6, and they were rolling. Alabama started righting the ship late in the quarter, stopping the ‘Dores rushing attack for 7 plays in a row, and eventually we pulled down their passing SR as well.

That passing efficiency was pesky, though. For an option offense that mostly ran the ball, that was their “change of pace” play and it worked a damning amount of the time, especially late. Heck, this team barely got a single explosive play for 2.9 quarters of football, then ended the game with 6 successful passes in a row, with four of those being explosive. This is the smelly little chamber where upsets live.

On the Alabama side of the chart, it’s obviously vaguely the opposite: the offense was dying in the rush game early so had to sling a few explosive passes to keep things even somewhat respectable. The averages started shooting up in the 2nd quarter — especially the rush game — but in retrospect, we couldn’t afford to toss almost that entire 1st quarter in the trash … we had to catch up, and we hadn’t given ourselves enough time to do it.

Once again, passing was more efficient than the rush — this is a bonafide trend with this Milroe offense now, not just a blip over a handful of games — and late in the game it started working more as designed, with 4 explosive passes late, amongst a few other successful catches and rushes.

Rushing rate (cumulative)

I’m showing the Vanderbilt charts here first because they’re more remarkable: in this case, this option offense runs the ball most of the time, never slipping below a 70% Rush Rate for more than a few plays early on. Alabama got better at stopping these eventually, but not better enough, and per my earlier note, that change-of-pace passing game was deadly.

Alabama’s chart shows a team that wants to run but ends up down multiple scores to the Vanderbilt friggin’ Commodores. We maintained some balance the rest of the game but drifted into a passing first offense as the game clock drained and the panic level rose.

Something especially remarkable in this chart, I think, is how many plays Vandy ran vs. Alabama. That Alabama line is downright thin when charting out the entire game … Bama only ran like 45 plays to the Commodores’ 74.

Success and Explosiveness by Play Type

Alabama was solidly more efficient running the ball (plus had some explosive plays mixed in there), but Vanderbilt managed to still just barely convert when it counted. Alabama’s passing was again more effective than rushing on average — that passing XR remains pretty sky high and a >60% passing SR is really strong — but Vandy outperformed both after that big push in the 4th quarter.

Play Map: Yards and Result by Play

I guess this is just how Alabama’s Play Maps are going to look most of the time this season: spare drives with lower play counts but high explosiveness. Aside from some 3-and-outs and turnovers, Alabama had explosive plays on every drive in this game. Which is awesome, but it definitely reads differently after a shocking loss to a massively overmatched team.

Success and Explosiveness by Quarter

The quarters chart reflects the line charts, per usual, but really puts a cherry on top of the “we lost it in the 1st quarter” theme. Alabama basically won every quarter on efficiency and explosiveness, but that first quarter tumble — or maybe, that first quarter ass-beating by the Vanderbilt Commodores — was too much to make it all add up on the scoreboard.

Maybe this is what we deserve after doing the same thing to Georgia last week by basically winning a game in a single quarter (plus a single play in the 4th). And, honestly, if you only gave me one of these wins in advance and let me choose, I’d choose to beat the Dawgs and get upset by Vandy.

SR, XR, and Play Count by Drive

This boom-or-bust offense marches on: Alabama spent most of the game either putting up 3-and-outs or drives with star studded numbers. Double-digit play count drives aren’t the most common thing to see in games, but it’s pretty remarkable that Alabama this season has almost zero double-digit drives (due to a combination of both under and over performance).

Meanwhile, on the Commodores’ side of this chart, Vandy had a 10-play drive to start (with an 80% SR, wow), then a 16 (!), plus a 9, 8, and two 7-play drives late. I am seeing zero 3-and-outs on this side of this chart.

Success and Explosiveness by Down

Bama won on efficiencies in the early downs — explosiveness too — but Vanderbilt won this thin on third downs with an excellent 65% SR. “Milroe Magic” had it’s moment in the sun here, with Alabama’s only successful 3rd down plays being explosive, too. But otherwise it looks like the “Magic” was happening on the other sideline.

That’s frustrating, but, hey, at least Alabama matched their 1/1 4th down conversion rate! What’s that you say? Vanderbilt’s one 4th down conversion was a backbreaking explosive TD pass? Well, never mind then.

Success and Explosiveness in the Red Zone

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Alabama’s upset loss was not because Bama was less efficient or explosive, but rather it was because our good plays just happened in less critical moments.

Same, same. That’s how upsets often work: the ‘Dores were much better on 3rd and 4th down than other downs, and they were much more efficient in the Red Zone than on the rest of the field. Their average down-by-down performance numbers do not suggest that this is a winning combination very often (there’s that 1.8% win expectancy again), but when it does, everyone (except us Gumps) gets to giggle all the way home.

Success and Explosiveness by Distance to go

Both teams were more effective given short yardages to gain. That shouldn’t be surprising for an option team, I think, but Alabama has been following this curve trend as well. Jalen Milroe likely opens up options considerably at short yardage, and KDB’s offense seems to thrive there too.

Otherwise, that 7-9 yard range seems to bug us: if we get stopped early on in a drive, it seems like we just deflate and, often, 3-and-out insteda.

Photo by Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Top Rushers

I mean, just look at these play counts: Alabama barely ran at all, relatively speaking. Justice Haynes got the most carries, with 6, but Jam Miller was slightly more effective due to that one explosive rush we got on the game.

It’s good to see the WR’s get some success on their attempts as well. I feel like we were missing that late against Georgia but maybe that’s simplistic thinking.

Jalen Milroe didn’t run much at all here. Is that actually the number we should be looking at when pondering how we’d lose this game?

Top Passers

Photo by Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

For once, Milroe ended this game with more passing attempts than the opponent (given Alabama’s fairly high rush rates this year). And he was actually very efficient, with only 5 incompletions, 2 unsuccessful completions, and an interception that was (again) probably not really his fault. Compared to those counts, having 7 explosive passes plus 9 other successful passes is a good line.

Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

Top Receivers

There are some nice things in this receivers chart. Lots of receivers (9) got touches, which means this team can attack in lots of ways:

• Germie Bernard was the leading WR to me, given his 2 explosive catches of 3 total, but Ryan Williams was good again. Cole Adams and Kobe Prentice showed up as the other WRs here.
• The tight ends are still showing up! Josh Cuevas had an explosive catch and another successful one, but CJ Dippre is getting the image feature for his 2 explosive catches from the TE position. Robbie Ouzts did his thing where he shows up for a catch a game and we all remember that he’s here and pretty dang good.
• Justice Haynes had two successful catches, but unfortunately Jam Miller’s 2 attempts didn’t get the yards they needed to count the same.

Unfortunately, even option offenses also get to play WRs and throw the ball to them: Eli Stowers was Vandy’s standout wideout (3 explosive catches, and 3 other successful ones), but it’s remarkable that quarterback Diego Pavia also found three other receivers for explosive gains through the air.

Ugh. Triple ugh. I know that the context is different now: we’ve got a bigger playoff, more parity, more money, and our comments on this here site are full of talk about NIL and things that … frankly I suspect are at least partially misdirected angst about a plain ol’ crappy loss. We all want the team to try hard, to be focused and humble, and to beat the teams they’re supposed to beat 100% of the time. But, honestly, this team did play well enough to win this game like ~98% of the time! It just usually happens that way and we get to maintain at least a shred of our collective pride.

So maybe my angle here won’t age well. Maybe this is indeed a loss that predicts other losses; that KDB doesn’t have control over this team; that these young athletes are sissies that care more about their NIL money than beating this debate team from Nashville. Maybe we’ll these sores again against South Carolina next weekend.

But given the underlying numbers, I bet we don’t. I bet we’re still good (if not perfect), and that we’ll still be pretty pleased with this season — the first after Saban — come the cold winter months. On to the Gamecocks, Roll Tide anyway.