Football: Hec 2010, part 1 (OUA quarterbacks)

Last year, we ran the numbers on the two top OUA quarterbacks, and found that Michael Faulds ended up ahead of Danny Brannagan by quite a bit. To repeat the conclusion, we gave both players the same playing time against the same opponents and Faulds came out on top (9.8 adjusted net yards per attempt vs. Brannagan's 7.6).

Neate not-so-subtly suggested that we (I) should do the same thing with Ottawa's Brad Sinopoli and McMaster's Kyle Quinlan. To quote his prodding e-mail from Wednesday:

"It might be a good post ahead of tomorrow's Hec announcement."

So let's get on it. Teaser: the results here are much, much closer than last year's OUA battle.

First let's just look at the overall stats.
  • Sinopoli: 184 of 301 (61%) for 2,756 passing yards (9.2 per attempt), 22 TDs and 13 INTs, 66 yards lost on 13 sacks, 8.1 ANY/A (adjusted net yards per attempt), 534 rush yards on 42 attempts (12.7 per attempt)

  • Quinlan: 127 of 209 (61%) for 2,018 passing yards (9.7 per attempt), 19 TDs and 6 INTs, 90 yards lost on 18 sacks, 9.0 ANY/A, 479 rushing yards on 60 attempts (8.0 per attempt)
Sinopoli's picks work against him in the raw totals--if he threw half as many interceptions, he'd be tied in ANY/A--but he scrambles for about 50% more yards than Quinlan as well.

Of course, these aren't totally fair comparisons. For one, only eight of their nine opponents are common opponents: Quinlan never played against McMaster, obviously. Also, Sinopoli had more opportunities against Windsor than Quinlan did, racking up more than 100 extra yards in the process.

So just like we did with Brannagan-Faulds, we'll give both quarterbacks the same number of attempts against all their common opponents. Here, we'll take the minimum pass attempts of the two. For example, Sinopoli had 38 pass attempts against the Lancers, and Quinlan had 18, so each QB's stat lines vs. Windsor will be adjusted as if they both had 18 attempts. (The same is done for rushing attempts.) This means that we're ignoring the Mac-Ottawa game for both of these players, which is the proper way to compare two quarterbacks on a similar-opportunity basis.

The adjusted results:
  • Sinopoli: 112 of 183 (61%) for 1648 passing yards (9.0 per attempt), 13 TDs and 6 INTs, 59 yards lost on 11 sacks, 8.1 ANY/A, 417 rush yards on 32 attempts (13.0 per attempt)

  • Quinlan: 112 of 183 (61%) for 1672 passing yards (9.1 per attempt), 12 TDs and 5 INTs, 92 yards lost on 18 sacks, 8.0 ANY/A, 258 rush yards on 32 attempts (8.1 per attempt)

Well, that got a lot closer. Sinopoli's interceptions aren't actually that bad (relative to Quinlan's), once you put them in a similar context. Obviously when you wipe out Sinopoli's four picks from the Mac game, his stats will look better, but it's okay to do that (and throw out Quinlan's 5 TD, 0 INT performance at the same time) because we're only comparing these two players relative to each other.

The entire difference between the two, passing-wise, is 26 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. (To be technically correct, we're really looking at the difference between these teams' pass offences while these quarterbacks were throwing, since it takes a lot more than one player to make a pass play successful.)

The methodology used above is very similar to what I used in the passing, rushing, and receiving leaders for the year, in which these two players were virtually tied in surplus passing (471 to 467 for Quinlan). However, it's rushing where the differences lie. Both were quite good, but only Brad Sinopoli was the No. 1 rusher in the country. Which ultimately makes him the best pivot in the OUA this year.

Not bad for a second-year starting quarterback.

(Part 2, evaluating the four Hec Crighton nominees, will follow later today.)
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1 comment:

  1. All those math means nothing. If you go on, you'll end up telling us that Sinopoli was a great defensive end....

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