To Punt or Not To Punt?

by bluebland on Dec 2, 2008 2:48 PM PST Comment 10 comments

On the strength of the great and useful detailed football discussions on BN in the last few weeks, I'd like to ask the more pigskin-savvy members of this site about the most controversial call on gameday. Namely: to punt or not to punt?

The decision to go for it on 4th down is usually classified as a question of confidence. Confident, cocky coaches like Carroll do it all the time; timid, tepid coaches like Dorrel don't. But emotion and arrogance shouldn't have everything to do with it. The new wave of offensively aggressive coaches are going for it on 4th down more and more frequently as a matter of sober strategy. The decision is central to the most crucial football rift of the day: the value of possession versus field position.

I think an objective formula should be possible. The odds of making it or getting stuffed should be the easiest to figure out given the quality of the offense. To grossly simplify: Let's say that an offense facing 4th and 2 on the opposing team's 40 can be expected to score an average of 3.5 points on that drive. Punting will therefore cost 3.5 points. Is that worth 30 yards to the other team, whose drive value will be reduced from X to X?

As you can tell, I've pulled these numbers from a hairy place, but a real formula along these lines shouldn't be too hard to devise. Yet I haven't been able to find one anywhere I've looked. Does anybody here know of one, or is any number-cruncher willing to take a crack?

The hardest variable to figure out will be field position, which remains the vaguest value in football today.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

0 recs | Comment 10 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Gregg Easterbrook of the WWL...

covers this pretty well in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column (see this column and this column), and a Berkeley economist wrote a paper showing that a team that did not punt would improve their odds of winning.

The statistics used were for the NFL, but they probably apply the same to college and high school (here Easterbrook discusses the success of Pulaski Academy, a high school team that doesn’t punt).

My preference is to punt when deep in your own half, go for it on fourth and short near midfield, and almost always go for it in the opponent’s half.

However, that assumes the coaching staff has enough confidence in the offense to get the few yards they need for the first.

This year, it would be a pretty terrible idea to go for it on fourth down consistently, since the offense is inept, and it’s hard enough for our defense already, without putting them in short field situations not caused by offensive miscues.

Next year, though, and the following years, I would say go for it aggressively.

by cupanther on Dec 2, 2008 3:40 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

Particularly since we have no easy way of gaining short yardage. The unfathomable is when high-powered offenses, who obviously have a very high chance of converting, give away the ball.

Thanks for the links.

by bluebland on Dec 2, 2008 5:26 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I like going for it on the short side of the field

But it does not always make sense. Football is a game of matchups and you have to keep that in mind when making brave/foolish decisions.

If you have a dominant run blocking offensive line, you would be an idiot to not go for it on 4th and 1 anywhere past your own 40 yard line. If you have our offensive line, going for it on 4th is generally not very smart at all.

In the end, success on 4th down comes down to execution and, to some extent, creativity. The play called should not go at the heart of the defense (running up the middle against 10 men in the box against Notre Dame, sorry bad memories) and the play should be relatively low risk (trick plays rarely work on 4th down). I personally prefer to see the team I am rooting for run a qb sneak, off tackle run (the defense generally jams the line in the middle), and short playaction passes.

by Rhapsode on Dec 2, 2008 6:08 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Why I hate punting on 4th and short, oversimplified

Obviously, there are exceptions.

But if you punt, you don’t score, and the other team might score.

If you don’t punt, you might score, and the other team might score.

Most teams (other than ours) can consistently convert a 4th and short. Most teams should almost always go for it in that situation.

by gilbert on Dec 2, 2008 7:03 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

The Punting Problem

The Boy over at Rock M Nation has written a bit about this topic. If you look at the chart just a little way down the page, you will see a chart of data collected for the points per play from a given yard line. You would then have to make an assumption about the quality of your teams offense relative to the opposing teams defense with respect to the average across all teams depicted in the graph. Next, you will need to look at a teams average yards per play over the season on a game by game basis and calculate the standard deviation on yards per play from the season average. If we then assume that the data fits a normal distribution we can figure out the probability that a team will convert on a 4th down given any distance. In addition, it would also be necessary to calculate the expected field position of the opposing team after the punt. By then following the same process to figure for expected points from the opposing teams beginning field position after the punt we then know whether the team should punt or not, which would be:

If [Probability of converting on 4th]*[Expected points from that field position] > [Expected points from opponents field position after punt] then you should not punt and just go for it. Otherwise the team should punt.

by Laughing Stock on Dec 3, 2008 12:57 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Whoops

After all of that writing I forgot the link:

http://www.rockmnation.com/2008/1/5/221318/8044

You know, I might actually try to figure a solution to this problem. It would take a little time, but its not terribly difficult.

by Laughing Stock on Dec 3, 2008 1:09 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

One question for you

You usually come here with some good points and are generally respective.

Could you tell us what you mean by your ID nickname? Just curious.

But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.

by tasser10 on Dec 3, 2008 4:00 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Nickname

Its just a screen name that I had used for awhile. As a nickname its kind of amusing for me because of the slight self-deprecation, although the jokes about “BWAHAHA YOU SURE DO LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME IN THAT POST” get kind of old. Anyways, the ID/pic combo it is not meant to convey that SC is a Laughing Stock if that is what you are getting at as I am actually a student at USC.

Also, something a littlemore on topic, I emailed The Boy, and hopefully i will get a response back on whether I can use the data set he used to generate that graph.

by Laughing Stock on Dec 3, 2008 9:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs