| |
Power Rating Week 4 Hall County Football 2007 Power Rating
End of Week 4
At the end of week 4 the Hall County football players have created the following power ratings. As the season goes on I take into consideration the following criteria: 1) Head to head competitions; 2) win/loss record; 3) ratio of points scored vs. points allowed; 4) opponents win/loss %... But this is week 3, just a small part on what the splendid young men who represent their schools on Friday night might do.
Up until now, I have let the power numbers create the rankings, but after next weekend head to head competition will be given much stronger consideration
Each week I look inside the stats of all teams, read newspaper accounts and talk to football people who have seen teams I have not seen yet and I always see at least one game.
Two great contexts tomorrow night as undefeated and unscored upon North Hall comes south to play the undefeated Red Elephants and the undefeated War Eagles play undefeated Flowery Branch. Next week’s power ratings could be turned upside down.
After studying football stats for 15 seasons in the National Football League and 8 seasons at Ohio State and William Mary we found some stats were more important than others. Let me give you yards per pass attempt stats which will put this stat in prospective as you read about the Hall County passing games. As of right now Tom Brady leads the NFL with an average of 10.07 yards per pass attempt, the Atlanta Falcons Joey Harrington has an average of 7.91 per pass attempt and the Dawgs Mathew Stafford is averaging 6.8 per pass attempt. In order to be a play off caliber QB, we felt a QB should average better than 8 yards per attempt.
1. North Hall (3-0-0) Average Points Scored 42: Average Points Allowed 0: Power Rating 126: The Trojans unscored upon defense has the advantage of having an offense which has proven to be the most difficult offense to get off the field. Against West Hall last Friday night North Hall had a total of 521 total yards of offense. The Trojan’s “big Guys” have been in almost complete control of the line of scrimmage, while Hunter Wolf, Dylon Wolf and Tyler Browning exploded through the holes and averaged 7.35 yards per carry against the Spartans. The 2007 Trojans have a much more productive passing game than they did last year. Fabian Jackson averaged a very impressive 16.21 yards per pass attempt while spreading the ball around to 5 different receivers. Jackson did not run the ball against the Spartans, but he can and will on critical downs in big contests. Tomorrow night at Bobby Gruhn will be one of those great contests. The Trojan defense is a very disciplined defense, everybody does their job and than flies to the football, they will bend, but don’t break. Leading this unscored upon defense are Jackson Griffen, Bobby Epps Colin Alford and at Free Saftey Fabian Jackson. Gainesville will present this fine defense it’s biggest challenge so far this season. The Red Elephants have two big play receivers and a QB who week in and week out keeps putting up winning numbers. Plus they always have the threat of an explosive running game. Better get to Bobby Gruhn early, this one should be as exciting a game as last years was. Both teams will leave it all out of the field.
2. Flowery Branch (4-0-0) Average Points Scored 31: Average Points Allowed 5.17: Power Rating 5.17: The Falcons beat a much improved East Hall Vikings last Friday night 27-7. They did this while compiling winning numbers in almost all phases of the game. This very balanced Falcon offense ran the ball 27 times and averaged a very respectable 5.26 yards per rush. Completing 82% of their passes, they averaged a dominating 14.76 per pass attempt. A balanced offense is increasingly harder to defend. Defenses have learned to load the box getting more defenders near the line of scrimmage to stop the run, however, if you do that all receivers are basicly covered one on one. I believe that Jaybo Shaw probably makes the run/pass decision, some of the time, after he sees how the defense is lined up, allowing the Falcons to run the play which can take advantage of the defense’s weakness. If you run a good play you must still execute, players must still block, throw, catch or run in order to have a successful play. Games are won in the end by players winning individual battles and doing their very best to help their teammates. The Falcons play extremely well together as a team, they make few mental errors and you almost never see a breakdown in the discipline. They really play well on both sides of the ball as a team.
3. Gainesville (4-0-0) Average Points Scored 40.75: Average Points Allowed 4.79: Power Rating 4.79: Gainesville once again has a powerful offense, but is much different from the one we have been become accustomed to seeing. This is a pass first and run second team. The offensive line, which is made up of 4 sophomores, is not as physical as last year’s line, but so far this season has proven to be very effective. Against a pretty good Lumpkin County team Friday night the Red Elephants threw the ball 37 times and averaged 10.68 yards per pass attempt, completing over 70% of their passes. When Gainesville ran explosive Kendrick Harris he averaged 8.7 yards per attempt. Gainesville’s spread offense got their three fine receivers out in space and Tyler Adetona caught 11 passes for 127 yards, Gerald Ford caught 6 passes for 77 yards and tight end Robby Hefflinger caught another two passes for 27 yards. The Red Elephant defense keeps putting up winning numbers, having held the Indians last Friday night to 3.6 yards per rushing attempt and 1.3 yard per pass attempt. Gainesville’s 3-4 defense presents their opponents a unique challenge, this if a new defense for the Red Elephants and each week they seem to get more effective.
4. Chestatee (3-0-0) Average Points Scored 43.67: Average Points Allowed 21: Power Rating 2.08: Chestatee’s triple option running game was impressive, they averaged 9.14 yards per rushing attempt on 37 running plays. Ethan Souther, from the QB position, ran the ball 15 times and averaged 11.2 yards per attempt. Jo Jo Sweet had another fine night averaging 9.66 yards per rush on 12 carries. This running was behind the terrific blocking of the War Eagle offensive line. The Chestatee passing game had very average stats, with only a 37.5% completion percentage and they averaged an ok 7.38 yards per attempt. The War Eagle defense had some big plays, particularly from Chase Vasser, the very aggressive inside linebacker, but the Chestatee defense allowed 23 points partly because of the fine play of the Johnson passing game and the running of Freshman Mantevius Rucker. Tomorrow night these War Eagles travel to Flowery Branch with probably the best football team in the young history of the school. This will be a battle of two splendid football teams.
5. Johnson (2-2-0) Average Points Scored 18.5: Average Points Allowed 19.25: Power Rating 19.25: The Chestatee offense was just too much for the Johnson defense. The large line split triple option attack is tough to defend for any defense and these Knights, who played hard, could never seem to get into control. The Johnson offense on the other hand played pretty well. Bobby Wirsing is turning into a fine passing QB and turned in winning numbers. He averaged a very good 10.7 yards per pass attempt and completed 67% of his passes. The War Eagle defense could not cover Chris Cannon and Brandon Head, while sophomore Tre Dudley had some timely catches. It was the Johnson Knights’ running game which unveiled a future star in Freshman Mantevius Rucker, who averaged 7.82 yards per carry on 23 carries against a War Eagle defense which had held Dawson County to minus yardage running the week before. Johnson hosts a fine White County team tomorrow night, this should be a fine contest.
6. West Hall (0-4-0) Average Points Scored 15.50: Average Points Allowed 37: Power Rating 0.42: West Hall ran into a buzz saw last Friday night when they played the North Hall Trojans which have not given up a single point so far this season. When you look inside the stats you can see this is an improving Spartan football team. Marquez Stephens averaged a very respectable 4.65 yards per carry against statistically Hall County’s finest defensive football team. Shunquez Stevens, the Spartan QB, connected on some big pass completions to Rodney Gibson, Will Edge and Jake Copeland. Stevens averaged 8.23 yards per pass attempt, that is a winning number. Tomorrow night is going to be a big one for this improving football team. I predict a win against the Gilmer Bobcats.
7. East Hall (0-3-0) Average Points Scored 2.33: Average Points Allowed 39: Power Rating 0.06): This very young football team showed great improvement this past Friday night against undefeated Flowery Branch. Their improving offense was able to average. 3.91 yards per carry running into one of the county’s very best defenses. QB Desmon Gardner completed 8 out of 9 pass attempts for a respectable 7.33 yards per attempt (remember the Dawg’s Mathew Stafford is averaging 6.8 per attempt). Nobody, so far this year, has been able to slow down the Falcon’s offense, but in regards to run defense, the Vikings were as effective as anybody else the Falcons have played holding their rushing average to 5.26 yards per attempt.
| |
