Evans Hall: 3rd Down is (also) Definitely Not Ours
Why do I let this upset me.
3rd down is the most important down in football. Each offense wants to avoid it and every defense relishes the chance to shut down a drive on this down. There is a reason why it is called “the money down” in the NFL, it is when players on both sides of the ball make the money.
If Cal were to be in the NFL we’d be making no money on offense.
Before that let’s look at the overall offensive and defensive per down data we have on hand.
Note: Starting this week I am folding in all games by P5 teams and not just against non-P5 because:
Cal is in the P5 slate.
Every P5 team has begun playing P5 and teams and their 2-3 non-P5 teams.
PPA by Down and Distance
Trends begin to emerge for Cal, we’re a mediocre passing offense on 1st and 2nd downs and a bad passing offense on 3rd downs. That can be attributed to the sacks the OL gives up those downs. The only mildly bright spot on the chart is the slightly above average 2nd down rushing offense and some uptick on the 1st down explosives. Overall it looks really bad.
Cal defense struggled to do well on 3rd downs against the run. This makes sense since the DL still struggles to gain penetration on the point of attack giving up 2-3 yards on 3rd and short. Otherwise, again we’re pretty middle of the road with no big plays given up again, but we’re giving up the small gains especially on 2nd down in the run game.
Looking at PPA distribution by quarter it remains that 3rd quarter is not ours. Something worth noting is that Cal offense livens up on Q2 only to really stall on Q3 and Q4. We’re just continuing to fail to do anything coming out of the half and now we’re tacking on negative PPA on offense. Basically, the offense is so bad in Q4 is that we’re actively detracting from the points added.
By down we can see that we’re just not getting it done on offense on 1st and 2nd downs forcing Cal to make 3rd down conversions. The first down plays are what is concerning. On defense 2nd down is the Achilles heel, we give up just too much on the ground that it sets up the 3rd down and shorts for a lot of teams.
Yards Gained by Down and Distance
Here we have a look at the last 3 games by down. We can see here that in a lot of cases we’re relying on getting explosive plays on 2nd and 5-10 and not much on 1st down. We’re reliable to get just over 10 on 1st down, but as a defense seeing this I would not feel threatened by Cal’s explosive play on 1st down.
The issue with trying for 3rd and short in the passing game is that if it fails we’re gaining nothing and only did the game against UC Davis did we get some explosives in on 3rd down.
Cal defense is hellish on any offense to operate against. We’re not letting many explosive plays, however, we’re severely lacking in pass rushing and TFLs in the run game. We’re containing opposing offenses to the 0-20 yard band. So Wilcox ball!
3rd Down Futility
So how does this look when we’re on downs. Well… Things are bad. Cal is top of the P5 ranks when it comes to the average distance to go on 2nd and 3rd downs. In a lot of ways this is the effect of an offense that relies a lot on explosive plays on the ground and air. When those don’t happen we’re faced with very long 2nd and 3rd downs and this is why defenses are able to sack Jack on 3rd downs, because we’re on average on 3rd and 8.8. Which is bad, like 5th in P5 bad.
Why do I let this upset me?
Some folks might note that maybe Cal faces 3rd and longs a lot but it is a rare occassion. Like USC that has an average 3rd and 7.7. Sadly…
Cal also in the top of the P5 in the amount of 2nd and 3rd downs in the country. So we’re not just getting long 2nd/3rd downs but we’re getting them really often. Just like last year the offense just feels labrorious. Just every drive feels like a challenge for the team to do. And this isn’t just a function of a handful of long 3rd downs.
Cal has half of 2nd and 3rd and short compared to the rest of the nation and nearly double of the 3rd and 5 to 10s. This is just a systemic issue with the offense not getting the yards on 1st and 2nd to make 3rd downs more manageable.
Conclusion
This is the same offense we have seen during the Wilcox era with just a different path. The offense really needs to understand that we’re making it very hard on ourselves to play by failing to make late downs managable. I think the focus on the team coming into Pac-12 play is to make life easier for themselves by opting into shorter passing concepts on 1st down or really putting some beef on the OL to run the ball.
So Cal faces longer distances on 3rd down than on 2nd down? What a crazy stat. Has Musgrave considered skipping 2nd down?
Curlee Thomas is going to help that pass Rush soon