A Comparative Look at Every Miami Hurricanes Football Season Since 2000

On to the overall team records:

FYI: The category WonLoss_Rank is the final ranking of the team out of all D1 football teams, calculated by CFR which closely mirrors the college football rankings

Let's break it down by coach:

• Butch Davis had a great last year in 2000 while facing a hard schedule
• Larry Coker started out so strong (given the talent Butch had recruited on the roster) but declined every single year during his tenure
• Randy Shannon's first year as head coach is Miami's worst year in the past 19 (just barely doing worse than Al Golden's fourth year). Randomly his 2009 team was decent by Canes standards with a 0.817 rank score
• Al Golden started out horribly but admittedly deserved to be brought back for a third year because of what he guided the program through in regards to investigations, the resulting purgatory, and subsequent sanctions. His third year things started to turn around a little bit but then the Canes stumbled again in his fourth year. He should not have seen a fifth year
• Mark Richt immediately turned around certain parts of the team (and won a bowl game) and after his second year things were looking very good. The 2017 season would remind Canes fans of the "just out of reach of greatness" 2004-05 Canes teams. The 2019 Canes would be hyped up to the max if the 2018 team would've turned out closer to the 2003 team instead of the 2006 team

Now let's look at offensive and defense overall stats:

• Butch Davis' 2000 team (and Ken Dorsey's 2nd year and Ed Reed's 3rd year) was great on both sides of the ball, with Coker and Greg Schiano not getting in the way of their talented players
• Coker's first two years continued the offense's greatness, conveniently also Dorsey's last two years as a started. This is not a coincidence as the drop in offense performance was directly related to a drop in QB play. After Dorsey left, our offenses have been relatively similar since 2003 in terms of points per game, except for a couple horrible years
• Shannon's years were bad on both sides of the ball but we should appreciate his mastery as a defensive coordinator. His defenses from 2001-06 were all great, with a slight dip the year after Ed Reed graduated when we were young (though a young Sean Taylor rose quickly). Shannon may have a suspect NCAA legal background with his GA days and the Nevin Shapiro scandal that was partly under his watch, but the man can coordinate a defense. Look at the drop in performance immediately after he stopped calling defensive plays. As bad as it was to give up the reins as DC, his OC hires were HORR-I-BLE
• Speaking of bad hires, Al Golden should not have been able to keep Mark D'Onofrio as defensive coordinator for five (5!!!) years -- that's coaching malpractice. Knowing that he was his good friend, it's also pretty bad nepotism (cough Richt and his son cough). Look how BAD their defenses are. The explanation is easy: Golden and D'Onofrio tried to make the Canes -- a team of typically reliant on smaller, faster, and attacking defenders -- and make them adapt to a 3-4 defense that typically calls for bigger and stronger players that hold their blocks, sit, read, and react. This absolutely bombed
• Luckily, Richt realized that Miami needed to change defensive styles and brought in Manny Diaz to overhaul that side of the ball. And Diaz and Co. produced immediate results, dropping the  pts per game that the defense gave up by over 1/3. While the defense has improved greatly since Diaz took over (with a DefPts/G Rank comparable to some of the Randy Shannon-coordinated defenses), the defense still has a ways to improve as it's about 1/3 worse than Shannon's defenses on average

Looking at the offense's stats a tiny bit closer:

• The early 2000's teams scored A LOT of pts per game plus they gained a lot of yards per game since they averaged a lot of yards per play and ran a lot of plays per game (it's that simple). This resulted in a lot of first downs per game -- and when combined with the offense talent we had -- it produced a lot of touchdowns per game. However, those offenses surprisingly had a lot of penalties called against them and turned the ball over slightly more than average
• [The Canes should care less about an expected increase in penalties and turnovers and play faster and more aggressive as our talent level will usually make up for the mistakes that will happen]
• Once Ken Dorsey left, the offense stumbled as they still ran the same number of high plays a game but gained a yard less on average on them. This combined with the same carelessness on turnovers and penalties as before with less yardage resulted in a pts per game drop of 40 to 27, or about 1/3 worse 
• [Moral of the story so far = if you are going to play loose and fast, you better gain a lot of yards on each play to make up for it. It helps to have outstanding offensive talent]
• Coker's last year as head coach (with Rich Olson as OC) and Shannon's first year as HC (with Patrick Nix as OC) were BAAAAAAD on offense. Both only scored about 20 pts per game (half of what they did per game from 2000-02) and were slooooow, with only 60-64 plays per game instead of the 70 per game from 2000-02
•  [Personally, I attended undergrad at Miami during the 2005-08 years, so I got to witness our historically bad offenses in person. YAYYY!]
• Very surprisingly, Al Golden had almost-championship level offenses mostly during his tenure. Yeah, I'll say that again. Miami had offenses comparable to the championship 2000-02 teams from 2012-14 under Jedd Fisch and James Coley as OCs. And they play safe and smart offensive football too, with fewer penalties and turnovers. However, one big difference resulting in the 10 pts per game they had: they didn't run as many plays per game, probably as a result of their defenses being so bad that they didn't get those extra plays. It's a shame, if only Al Golden would've combined his OC hiring prowess with an appropriate DC hiring prowess, we could've competed for ACC championships and potentially more (except for that whole postseason ban thing)
• Also surprising, the first two years of Richt's offense were also just barely below championship level, at 6.3-6.4 yards a play per game. If only they would've played a little faster and gotten off the extra 5-6 plays a game they could've scored as many points as the championship teams before. But WOOF that last year of Richt's on offense was bad. Like "low yards per play, low number of plays per game meaning low number of first downs a game" bad

Looking at the passing game:

• While Ken Dorsey didn't lead the pack in completion pct, he averaged A LOT of yards per pass attempt and touchdowns per game mostly because he managed the game well, didn't turn the ball over, and distributed it to his talented playmakers. Plus it helps to have future NFL stars Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Jeremy Shockey, Andre Johnson, and Kellen Winslow to throw to
• The 2003-11 years were pretty bad in terms of QB play, except for a decent year in 2009 from Jacory Harris with future NFL starters (not necessarily stars) Leonard Hankerson, Travis Benjamin, and LaRon Byrd. That's likely the reason for the main difference in passing performance: there wasn't starting NFL WR/TE talent in those years except Greg Olsen and Allen Hurns. The worst years were 2006-08 with Kyle Wright and Kirby Freeman at QB, when they averaged less than 200 passing yards a game
• Dare I say that Stephen Morris and Brad Kaaya were comparable QBs statistically to Ken Dorsey? I believe if you could've substituted either in for Dorsey in 2000-02, we would've been comparably good on offense. Each of Morris/Kaaya has comparable (or better) yards per game, yards per pass attempt, and interception turnover numbers as Dorsey. Plus all had pretty similar nondescript NFL careers in the end
• This last year (the 2018 season) was an all-time bad one in QB play of Malik Rosier and N'Kosi Perry, comparable to the worst Kyle Wright and Kirby Freeman years. However, this is not indicative of Perry's future as hopefully this is fixed by Dan Enos and Co. playing faster and more aggressive offensive football

Continuing on the offensive side, let's look at our past running game:

• The U is also unquestionably RB U. NFL starters include Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore, Lamar Miller, Mike James (ehh), Duke Johnson and hopefully Mark Walton and Travis Homer in the near future
• The best teams were those 2000-02 rushing attacks. A high rush yards per attempt average coupled with a lot of rushing attempts per game equals A LOT of rushing yards per game and rushing touchdowns per game. It also helps if you have Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore. Somewhat surprisingly, these years also had a lot of fumble turnovers per game as well, but running more plays per game and being aggressive will likely do that to you 
• [Takeaway lesson here: Worry less about not fumbling and creating turnovers and be aggressive with RB talent]
• An argument can be made that the Canes had just as good rushing attacks with the 2014 and 2018 seasons, with 180+ rushing yards per game and 5+ yards per attempt. However they ran the ball about 4-5 times less per game than in 2000-02, likely resulting in the slightly lower rushing touchdowns per game seen. It's too bad 2018 had such a bad passing attack, as that would've made 2018's offensive production vastly better

Now it's time for an overall defensive breakdown:

• Randy Shannon was a great Defensive Coordinator for Miami. The South Florida area has never lacked talented players on defense, just like it will always produce great RBs and WRs, but those defenders are usually of a certain breed: they're smaller, feistier, and faster than the average high-level college football prospect. These defenders feast on being aggressive and make up for minor mistakes with their athleticism and closing speed. They are NOT sit-and-read-and-react big plodders that you'd find elsewhere, that's why they fared so poorly when asked to sit back in Golden/D'Onofrio's defense rather than attack in Shannon/Diaz'
• Shannon's defensive scheme heavily emphasized a smaller and faster attacking front seven backed by a Cover 2 Man pass coverage. The front seven attacked and gave the offense little time, the corners manned up underneath and the safeties flew to the ball from over top in a preventative pass coverage that was bend but don't break. These defenses didn't give up many yards per play, kept everything in front of them on pass plays, and attacked running plays. Obviously the talent level on that 2001 defense was otherworldly, but 9.8 pts per game given up is insanely good. They also had a lot of penalties called on them, giving further credence to the fact that the amount of penalties isn't as important as one would expect. Lastly, we thought the turnover chain worked in 2017 with an average of 2.4 turnovers a game -- comparable to the 2003-05 defenses -- but the 2001 defense averaged 4.1 turnovers a game!
• There's a drastic drop off from when Randy Shannon was DC in 2006 to when he was head coach in 2007: we gave up 10 more pts per game, 90 more yards per game, and 10 more offensive plays per game
• The Al Golden/Mark D'Onofrio defenses are barely shells of typical Miami Hurricanes defenses. Case in point is that atrocious 2012 defense: they gave up over 30 pts per game (3X what the 2001 defense gave up and 2X the average Shannon defense), over 480 yards per game (almost 2X Shannon defenses), and averaged over 6 yards per play given up (50% more than the best Canes defenses). 2013 and 2015 were also horrible as well. Miami should NEVER EVER run a 3-4 defense again
• The 2018 Canes defense really was a championship level defense and resembled our 2000-06 defenses in production. It's a shame the Canes didn't have a good offensive passing attack in 2018 (whether because of playcalling, flip-flopping QBs, or talent) as we had a championship level rush game and defense
• Other than that, the 2016-17 defenses are relatively bad when compared to the Shannon years. They weirdly compare to the defenses from when Shannon was head coach

Diving deeper into pass coverage stats:

• The Cover 2 Man scheme fits Miami pass defense so well. During the Shannon years we averaged only about 150 pass yards per game, only about 5.5 pass yards per attempt per game, and less than a 50% completion pct
• No surprise here, but Al Golden's teams were very bad at pass defense. Particularly those 2012-13 pass defenses: they gave up over 250 yards per game (100 more than Shannon's), 7.5 yards per pass attempt per game (2 yards more per attempt than Shannon's), and over 60% completion pct. Woof
• Surprisingly the first two years of Diaz' defense were pretty bad at pass defense, comparing to the Golden/D'Onofrio years, giving up a over a 58% completion pct over over 34 pass attempts per game
• The 2018 defense turned it around as their pass defense compares very favorably to the 2001-03 pass defenses, except for a slightly higher completion pct given up and less interception turnovers forced per game

Finally, a look at run defense stats:

• The fast and aggressive Shannon defensive front seven's were pretty good against the run from 2001-05. On average they gave up about 135 yards rushing a game and 3.4 yards per rush attempt, good team numbers. But the 2006 rush defense was on another level as they only gave up 68 rush yards a game (half of the typical Shannon defense) and 2.3 yards per rush!
• Again... the Golden/D'Onofrio defensive years were horrible, this time against the run. Look at those 2012 and 2015 numbers, giving up over 200 yards rushing a game at over 5 yards a carry. That's Miami defense malpractice. #34DEFENSENEVERAGAIN
• Manny Diaz turned around the rush defense immediately, moving back to a fast and attacking front seven scheme. All three years under his leadership the rush defense got back to those early 2000's defenses, giving up about 135 yards a game and 3.5 yards a carry. Canes fans should expect the same going forward

One last thing that I wanted to explore were which team stats correlate well with winning teams. 

Now, let me preface by saying CORRELATION IS NOT EQUAL TO CAUSATION, meaning these aren't the CAUSES of good Canes teams. But correlation DOES equal association, meaning the stat categories that are correlated with good team performance are associated with winning. Take it for what it's worth.

Running a simple correlation matrix in R with every category against every other category, let's look at the correlations of each team stat category with the WonLoss_Rank score:

FYI: A correlation value per category of close to +1 indicates the category is heavily associated with winning Canes football teams. Note that the categories highlighted in yellow had their correlation value signs changed because instead of "more is better for winning" it's "less is better for winning"

• Unsurprisingly, winning Canes teams are most associated with high offensive pts per game scored and low defensive pts per game given up. Shocker. More interesting is that higher ranked offensive teams relative to the rest of college football is more associated with winning than lower scoring defenses relative to others, with an offensive rank correlation of 0.765 and a defensive rank correlation of 0.479
• On offense, it seems that running more plays is more associated with winning than averaging more yards on those plays. This is one reason Canes fans have been clamoring for an up-tempo offensive scheme, since the talent level should overwhelm most other teams over the more plays that are run
• Surprisingly, committing LESS penalties isn't not associated with more winning, actually the opposite. Maybe the best Canes teams played fast and aggressive on both sides of the ball, thus making more mistakes in penalties, but that was worth it in the end because they were playing to their style. 
• [My advice would be worry less about penalties and play more aggressive on both sides of the ball]
• Continuing on offense, more of both passing and rushing touchdowns is more associated with winning, not surprisingly. But it seems more passing yards per game when compared to our historical average is slightly more associated with winning (corr = 0.370) than more rushing yards than our historical average (corr = 0.290). Also, completion pct doesn't really matter that much, but winning Canes teams are more associated with throwing more times a game and a higher yards per pass attempt, likely indicating more deep throws. More pass attempts and more rushing attempts are almost equally important, but more passing yards per attempt is better than more rushing yards an attempt
• Last thing on offense, less interceptions per game is more associated with winning but the opposite is true with fumbling the ball more (?)
• On defense, it's very important (high association with winning) to give up as minimal yards per play (corr = 0.479), and more important to focus on keeping the pass yards per attempt (corr = 0.621) compared with the Canes average lower than the rush yards per attempt (corr = 0.266). 
• [The Canes should continue to advocate staying aggressive on the front seven but they HAVE TO keep pass attempts in front of them (maybe more zone coverage?)
• It doesn't matter how many pass attempts opposing teams have per game (corr = -0.181) but they should have a low completion pct (corr = 0.587) and when they do complete them to keep the yards down. This should focus us on keeping the passing yards per attempt down
  
• Keep putting the emphasis on creating turnovers, as forcing more of them is highly associated with winning Canes teams (corr = 0.563), whether interceptions (corr = 0.548) or fumble recoveries (corr = 0.416)

The upcoming 2019 season will be the 20th year in this team stats historical look. 

My question to the Canes team is this: when we look back on the 2019 season, where do you want it to rank among our program's best?