For You Folks Who Like Stats...

imaloyalone · Jan 7, 2019

IMO, there are some tellings stats that lean the game in our favor tonight. Consider these...

We've played six of the current top 25 teams in CFB (4,5,11,18,19,23) and beaten them by an average of 36-16. Clemson has played three of the current top 25 teams (3,19,20) and beat them by an average of 28-17. In Clemson's defense, their games versus TAMU and Syracuse were without a full dose of Lawrence... but Notre Dame was NOT the #3 team in the nation, UA's stats also include a UGA where Tua wasn't at 100%, and our offense usually pulled back in the 4th quarter of all these games except UGA/OU.

We have faced passing teams like Clemson this season whereas Clemson has not faced a passing team like us. According to passer ratings, Clemson has faced three top 50 passers (Book - 18, Finley - 28, Bentley - 38). Alabama, on the other hand, has faced five top 50 passers (Murray - 2, Fromm - 5, Tamu - 19, Locke - 29, Guarantano - 48). In addition, the two QB's from the stronger SEC who played Clemson torched them - with Bentley having 500+ yards and Mond having 400+ (Mond is #66 on the list). Tua is ranked #1 and Lawrence is ranked #15 in passer ratings. If Tua's healthy, he'll likely have a monster game and if Lawrence performs to his "normal", he'll more closely resemble Tamu than Fromm.

On the defensive side of the ball, we have faced a team like Clemson this year whereas they have not faced one like us. Mississippi State is ranked 1st in points allowed and 3rd in total yards surrendered... and we also faced a #16/13 team in UGA and a #22/30 team in LSU. The best defenses Clemson has faced are Notre Dame (#9/22) and GSU - that's GEORGIA STATE (#27/44). Alabama is 4/10 on these rankings and Clemson is #2/4... so this is essentially another MSU defense for us. BTW, because of the superior league and their lack of offensive firepower, I think a strong case can be made that MSU's defense is a good bit better than Clemson's.

rgw · Jan 7, 2019

We played our two best defensive opponents with our most banged up QB situation. Especially MSU where I feel like we would've given them a dose of Hurts if he was able to go. Tua was still in the brace and that limited his mobility and MSU took advantage. Georgia is a well chronicled situation too. He basically played the whole game injured.

TIDE-HSV · Jan 7, 2019

rgw said:
We played our two best defensive opponents with our most banged up QB situation. Especially MSU where I feel like we would've given them a dose of Hurts if he was able to go. Tua was still in the brace and that limited his mobility and MSU took advantage. Georgia is a well chronicled situation too. He basically played the whole game injured.

Few of the talking heads have taken that into account or even mentioned it. I guess it damages their narrative...

RTR91 · Jan 7, 2019

rgw said:
We played our two best defensive opponents with our most banged up QB situation. Especially MSU where I feel like we would've given them a dose of Hurts if he was able to go. Tua was still in the brace and that limited his mobility and MSU took advantage. Georgia is a well chronicled situation too. He basically played the whole game injured.

With State, Alabama got over half of its yards in the first two drives before Deonte Brown went out. Then things changed. Granted, DB isn't playing this game, but Lester did pretty well last week.

TIDE-HSV · Jan 7, 2019

RTR91 said:
With State, Alabama got over half of its yards in the first two drives before Deonte Brown went out. Then things changed. Granted, DB isn't playing this game, but Lester did pretty well last week.

I hardly even noticed him, which is fantastic for an OL...

imaloyalone · Jan 7, 2019

TIDE-HSV said:
Few of the talking heads have taken that into account or even mentioned it. I guess it damages their narrative...

Hurts the number of folks that will watch the game... they want it to be "a tossup".

selmaborntidefan · Jan 7, 2019

BAMARICH said:
Hurts the number of folks that will watch the game... they want it to be "a tossup".

If you look at the basic points for and against - it IS a toss-up.

The stats model shows it as a 31-31 tie, and Clemson gets the lean.

Clemson also appears to have one turnover more than we do tonight (stats model).

The real question as far as doing that is - how MUCH of a delta is to be used for the schedule difference? Sagarin has us at 28 and them at 45.

And that leads to other questions:

How much weight should be given to the fact the SEC is 6-3 against the ACC this year?

2015 - SEC wins, 6-4, Alabama wins title
2016 - ACC wins, 10-4, Clemson wins title
2017 - SEC wins, 7-5, Alabama beats Clemson to play for the title
2018 - SEC wins, 6-3, ?????

Based on that data point, it looks like the 2015 game, which was not really as close as folks remember it just looking at the scoreboard. (It wasn't a blowout, but it wasn't like 2016).

The SoS AND the conference head to head AND the "Clemson has had trouble with QBs that can pass" all figure into it.

I'll post a stat prediction when I get home.

EnterBama · Jan 7, 2019

BAMARICH said:
IMO, there are some tellings stats that lean the game in our favor tonight. Consider these...

We've played six of the current top 25 teams in CFB (4,5,11,18,19,23) and beaten them by an average of 36-16. Clemson has played three of the current top 25 teams (3,19,20) and beat them by an average of 28-17. In Clemson's defense, their games versus TAMU and Syracuse were without a full dose of Lawrence... but Notre Dame was NOT the #3 team in the nation, UA's stats also include a UGA where Tua wasn't at 100%, and our offense usually pulled back in the 4th quarter of all these games except UGA/OU.

We have faced passing teams like Clemson this season whereas Clemson has not faced a passing team like us. According to passer ratings, Clemson has faced three top 50 passers (Book - 18, Finley - 28, Bentley - 38). Alabama, on the other hand, has faced five top 50 passers (Murray - 2, Fromm - 5, Tamu - 19, Locke - 29, Guarantano - 48). In addition, the two QB's from the stronger SEC who played Clemson torched them - with Bentley having 500+ yards and Mond having 400+ (Mond is #66 on the list). Tua is ranked #1 and Lawrence is ranked #15 in passer ratings. If Tua's healthy, he'll likely have a monster game and if Lawrence performs to his "normal", he'll more closely resemble Tamu than Fromm.

On the defensive side of the ball, we have faced a team like Clemson this year whereas they have not faced one like us. Mississippi State is ranked 1st in points allowed and 3rd in total yards surrendered... and we also faced a #16/13 team in UGA and a #22/30 team in LSU. The best defenses Clemson has faced are Notre Dame (#9/22) and GSU - that's GEORGIA STATE (#27/44). Alabama is 4/10 on these rankings and Clemson is #2/4... so this is essentially another MSU defense for us. BTW, because of the superior league and their lack of offensive firepower, I think a strong case can be made that MSU's defense is a good bit better than Clemson's.

I might add that Trevor Lawrence Played in the A&M game but got pulled for Bryant who led them to two TD's. Altogether Lawrence didn't do badly he just wasn't as effective as Bryant in that game. I believe Bryant accounted for 3 of Clemson's 4 TD's in that game.

imaloyalone · Jan 7, 2019

selmaborntidefan said:
If you look at the basic points for and against - it IS a toss-up.

The stats model shows it as a 31-31 tie, and Clemson gets the lean.

Clemson also appears to have one turnover more than we do tonight (stats model).

The real question as far as doing that is - how MUCH of a delta is to be used for the schedule difference? Sagarin has us at 28 and them at 45.

And that leads to other questions:

How much weight should be given to the fact the SEC is 6-3 against the ACC this year?

2015 - SEC wins, 6-4, Alabama wins title
2016 - ACC wins, 10-4, Clemson wins title
2017 - SEC wins, 7-5, Alabama beats Clemson to play for the title
2018 - SEC wins, 6-3, ?????

Based on that data point, it looks like the 2015 game, which was not really as close as folks remember it just looking at the scoreboard. (It wasn't a blowout, but it wasn't like 2016).

The SoS AND the conference head to head AND the "Clemson has had trouble with QBs that can pass" all figure into it.

I'll post a stat prediction when I get home.

Good notes... I think conference strength means a lot. However, there's two ways to look at it. On one hand, a team that has a much greater SOS is one which has likely taken a lot more punishment - there may be more nagging injuries and players who are significantly hindered. It would seem in that situation that the "fresher team" would have the advantage, but not so fast. A team that's played a harder schedule and is 5-6 weeks beyond the bulk of that schedule has recovered to an extent. Also, in that more difficult stretch there's likely the development of better depth simply because you had to. Thus, in would seem to be a positive in that regard.

As far as SOS of conferences goes, it's not an exact science. In part, it's due to the bowl season. UGA - UT is a good example. Is the SEC, for example, a weaker conference that the Big 12 because its one-loss team lost to their four-loss team? I doubt severely that anyone would read it that way - although when we're just looking at numbers it would seem to be true. Regular season games IMO are a little better base to use - but even then there are other things which can cloud the picture (i.e. rivalry games).

As far as the stats go, I think Alabama wins convincingly tonight. I believe they won't be able to stop us defensively (primarily via the pass) and I think we present Lawrence with enough difficulties that they can't keep up with us. Question - is this Clemson team better than the ones we faced in 2015/2016? Is our current team better than the ones fielded in 2015/2016? I think the answer to the first question is "no" and the answer to the second is "yes". We essentially played to a tie both of those two years - and these answers point to Alabama winning IMO.

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