So, some big news! Rivals.com and Pro Football Focus have officially teamed up meaning there will be plenty of information at my fingertips and fun new stats I can bring you guys because of it. It is a partnership that just started today and there is a ton of information within the PFF database that will bring a different level of information about the Wildcats.
To start I thought I would relay the grades for both the top offensive and defense players from Saturday's game against BYU. There were certainly some surprises for the players at the top, in my opinion, and it is some great insight into a number of different elements of the game. As you can imagine it wasn't exactly a fantastic night for any player, but the stats are interesting nonetheless and give a different look into the team.
Here is an explanation from Pro Football Focus on how the grades are compiled: "On every play, a PFF analyst will grade each player on a scale of -2 to +2 according to what he did on the play.
"At one end of the scale you have a catastrophic game-ending interception or pick-six from a quarterback, and at the other a perfect deep bomb into a tight window in a critical game situation, with the middle of that scale being 0-graded, or ‘expected’ plays that are neither positive nor negative.
"Each game is also graded by a second PFF analyst independent of the first, and those grades are compared by a third, Senior Analyst, who rules on any differences between the two. These grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network, a group of former and current NFL coaches with over 700 combined years of NFL coaching experience, to get them as accurate as they can be.
"From there, the grades are normalized to better account for game situation; this ranges from where a player lined up to the dropback depth of the quarterback or the length of time he had the ball in his hand and everything in between. They are finally converted to a 0-100 scale and appear in our Player Grades Tool.
"Season-level grades aren’t simply an average of every game-grade a player compiles over a season, but rather factor in the duration at which a player performed at that level. Achieving a grade of 90.0 in a game once is impressive, doing it (12) times in a row is more impressive.
"It is entirely possible that a player will have a season grade higher than any individual single-game grade he achieved, because playing well for an extended period of time is harder to do than for a short period, Similarly, playing badly for a long time is a greater problem than playing badly once, so the grade can also be compounded negatively.
"Each week, grades are subject to change while we run through our extensive review process including All-22 tape runs and coaching audit, so you may notice discrepancies among grades published in earlier articles compared with those in the Player Grades tool until grade lock each week."
Without further ado here are the grades for the top offensive and defensive players from Saturday's game against BYU.
Offense (players who played more than 45 snaps)
1. Shawn Poindexter - 76.9 (63 snaps)
2. Cody Creason - 71.5 (75 snaps)
3. Khalil Tate - 68.6 (75 snaps)
4. Tony Ellison - 68.1 (47 snaps)
5. JJ Taylor - 62.9 (54 snaps)
6. Bryson Cain - 61.6 (75 snaps)
7. Cedric Peterson - 60.2 (57 snaps)
8. Donovan Laie - 58.5 (75 snaps)
9. Josh McCauley - 58.3 (75 snaps)
10. Tshiyombu Lukusa - 58.1 (75 snaps)
11. Shun Brown - 56.1 (56 snaps)
Defense (players who played more than 25 snaps)
1. Colin Schooler - 72.3 (69 snaps)
2. Isaiah Hayes - 71.8 (68 snaps)
3. Dereck Boles - 69.9 (47 snaps)
4. Finton Connolly - 69.4 (33 snaps)
5. Kylan Wilborn - 66.9 (35 snaps)
6. Lorenzo Burns - 66.4 (69 snaps)
7. Tony Fields II - 65.1 (69 snaps)
8. Tim Hough - 63.4 (70 snaps)
9. PJ Johnson - 63.0 (56 snaps)
10. Lee Anderson III - 61.6 (36 snaps)
11. Justin Belknap - 59.2 (61 snaps)
12. Tristan Cooper - 54.3 (32 snaps)
13. Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles - 48.2 (73 snaps)
14. Dayven Coleman - 47.0 (25 snaps)
Final thoughts
* Offense: Shawn Poindexter at the top makes a lot of sense considering he was they guy Khalil Tate targeted quite a bit in the opener. I was a little surprised to see Cody Creason on the list at No. 2, but he was the lone veteran of the offensive line group so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. Shun Brown being as low as he ended up was a bit of a surprise. Kevin Sumlin mentioned this week he is someone who needs to be targeted more but there was clearly something the folks at PFF wanted to see from the veteran receiver that they didn't. The two players not listed but who were at the bottom of the list were interesting as well. Of the 18 offensive players who were on the field Saturday, Gary Brightwell and Bryce Wolma finished with the two worst grades – 52.6 and 52.5, respectively. Each played just over 20 snaps in the game.
* Defense: Some of these numbers were more surprising to me as a few of the names at the top I wasn't expecting to see. Colin Schooler and Isaiah Hayes having the best grades on defense was not a surprise but seeing Finton Connolly in that fourth spot was certainly surprising. He didn't have any tackles in the game, but as Sumlin said during his press conference this week just because the defensive linemen are racking up stats doesn't mean they are failing at their job. Connolly is a perfect example of that coming in just behind Dereck Boles on the defensive list. The big negative one that stuck out to me was Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles sitting in the 23rd spot out of 24 players who got in the game on defense Saturday. I didn't think he was anywhere near as good as he can be but it was surprising to see him that low.
* Here is how Arizona graded out nationally after the first game of the season. For comparison and context, Alabama was No. 1 on offense with an overall grade of 92.1 while Clemson was the top defensive team with a grade of 90.7.
- Offense: 65.8 (No. 94)
So, to Sumlin's point about the offensive line not being too bad in certain area he was definitely in line with the PFF crew. Arizona's pass blocking was its best grade and considering the Wildcats only gave up one sack and didn't have many penalties it made sense. The sack was more of a coverage sack than anything and that was the top area for UA in the first game. On the other side of things Arizona's run blocking, pass rush and coverage were all among the worst grades for the team.
* On special teams the players with the top two grades were Nick Reinhardt (77.2) and Chacho Ulloa (73.1) with the rest of the team all falling below a grade of 62.
To start I thought I would relay the grades for both the top offensive and defense players from Saturday's game against BYU. There were certainly some surprises for the players at the top, in my opinion, and it is some great insight into a number of different elements of the game. As you can imagine it wasn't exactly a fantastic night for any player, but the stats are interesting nonetheless and give a different look into the team.
Here is an explanation from Pro Football Focus on how the grades are compiled: "On every play, a PFF analyst will grade each player on a scale of -2 to +2 according to what he did on the play.
"At one end of the scale you have a catastrophic game-ending interception or pick-six from a quarterback, and at the other a perfect deep bomb into a tight window in a critical game situation, with the middle of that scale being 0-graded, or ‘expected’ plays that are neither positive nor negative.
"Each game is also graded by a second PFF analyst independent of the first, and those grades are compared by a third, Senior Analyst, who rules on any differences between the two. These grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network, a group of former and current NFL coaches with over 700 combined years of NFL coaching experience, to get them as accurate as they can be.
"From there, the grades are normalized to better account for game situation; this ranges from where a player lined up to the dropback depth of the quarterback or the length of time he had the ball in his hand and everything in between. They are finally converted to a 0-100 scale and appear in our Player Grades Tool.
"Season-level grades aren’t simply an average of every game-grade a player compiles over a season, but rather factor in the duration at which a player performed at that level. Achieving a grade of 90.0 in a game once is impressive, doing it (12) times in a row is more impressive.
"It is entirely possible that a player will have a season grade higher than any individual single-game grade he achieved, because playing well for an extended period of time is harder to do than for a short period, Similarly, playing badly for a long time is a greater problem than playing badly once, so the grade can also be compounded negatively.
"Each week, grades are subject to change while we run through our extensive review process including All-22 tape runs and coaching audit, so you may notice discrepancies among grades published in earlier articles compared with those in the Player Grades tool until grade lock each week."
Without further ado here are the grades for the top offensive and defensive players from Saturday's game against BYU.
Offense (players who played more than 45 snaps)
1. Shawn Poindexter - 76.9 (63 snaps)
2. Cody Creason - 71.5 (75 snaps)
3. Khalil Tate - 68.6 (75 snaps)
4. Tony Ellison - 68.1 (47 snaps)
5. JJ Taylor - 62.9 (54 snaps)
6. Bryson Cain - 61.6 (75 snaps)
7. Cedric Peterson - 60.2 (57 snaps)
8. Donovan Laie - 58.5 (75 snaps)
9. Josh McCauley - 58.3 (75 snaps)
10. Tshiyombu Lukusa - 58.1 (75 snaps)
11. Shun Brown - 56.1 (56 snaps)
Defense (players who played more than 25 snaps)
1. Colin Schooler - 72.3 (69 snaps)
2. Isaiah Hayes - 71.8 (68 snaps)
3. Dereck Boles - 69.9 (47 snaps)
4. Finton Connolly - 69.4 (33 snaps)
5. Kylan Wilborn - 66.9 (35 snaps)
6. Lorenzo Burns - 66.4 (69 snaps)
7. Tony Fields II - 65.1 (69 snaps)
8. Tim Hough - 63.4 (70 snaps)
9. PJ Johnson - 63.0 (56 snaps)
10. Lee Anderson III - 61.6 (36 snaps)
11. Justin Belknap - 59.2 (61 snaps)
12. Tristan Cooper - 54.3 (32 snaps)
13. Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles - 48.2 (73 snaps)
14. Dayven Coleman - 47.0 (25 snaps)
Final thoughts
* Offense: Shawn Poindexter at the top makes a lot of sense considering he was they guy Khalil Tate targeted quite a bit in the opener. I was a little surprised to see Cody Creason on the list at No. 2, but he was the lone veteran of the offensive line group so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. Shun Brown being as low as he ended up was a bit of a surprise. Kevin Sumlin mentioned this week he is someone who needs to be targeted more but there was clearly something the folks at PFF wanted to see from the veteran receiver that they didn't. The two players not listed but who were at the bottom of the list were interesting as well. Of the 18 offensive players who were on the field Saturday, Gary Brightwell and Bryce Wolma finished with the two worst grades – 52.6 and 52.5, respectively. Each played just over 20 snaps in the game.
* Defense: Some of these numbers were more surprising to me as a few of the names at the top I wasn't expecting to see. Colin Schooler and Isaiah Hayes having the best grades on defense was not a surprise but seeing Finton Connolly in that fourth spot was certainly surprising. He didn't have any tackles in the game, but as Sumlin said during his press conference this week just because the defensive linemen are racking up stats doesn't mean they are failing at their job. Connolly is a perfect example of that coming in just behind Dereck Boles on the defensive list. The big negative one that stuck out to me was Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles sitting in the 23rd spot out of 24 players who got in the game on defense Saturday. I didn't think he was anywhere near as good as he can be but it was surprising to see him that low.
* Here is how Arizona graded out nationally after the first game of the season. For comparison and context, Alabama was No. 1 on offense with an overall grade of 92.1 while Clemson was the top defensive team with a grade of 90.7.
- Offense: 65.8 (No. 94)
- Passing: 63.0 (No. 101)
- Pass blocking: 86.4 (No. 25)
- Receiving: 64.2 (No. 88)
- Rushing: 64.6 (No. 86)
- Run blocking: 55.1 (No. 130)
- Defense: 66.5 (No. 112)- Pass blocking: 86.4 (No. 25)
- Receiving: 64.2 (No. 88)
- Rushing: 64.6 (No. 86)
- Run blocking: 55.1 (No. 130)
- Rush defense: 75.8 (No. 78)
- Tackling: 71.9 (No. 56)
- Pass rush: 57.0 (No. 130)
- Coverage: 56.7 (No. 142)
- Special Teams: 62.6 (No. 61)
- Tackling: 71.9 (No. 56)
- Pass rush: 57.0 (No. 130)
- Coverage: 56.7 (No. 142)
- Special Teams: 62.6 (No. 61)
So, to Sumlin's point about the offensive line not being too bad in certain area he was definitely in line with the PFF crew. Arizona's pass blocking was its best grade and considering the Wildcats only gave up one sack and didn't have many penalties it made sense. The sack was more of a coverage sack than anything and that was the top area for UA in the first game. On the other side of things Arizona's run blocking, pass rush and coverage were all among the worst grades for the team.
* On special teams the players with the top two grades were Nick Reinhardt (77.2) and Chacho Ulloa (73.1) with the rest of the team all falling below a grade of 62.
