here's something ive been working on for the past 2 weeks or so
got kinda rustled by the "thorne will be a 3000 yard passer" or "can cam coleman be a 1000 receiver" stuff so i started makign this
as a big "fantasy football" guy due to
@Mikecb22 's leagues, ive listened to a bunch of podcasters over the years who do preseason rankings projecting offenses + ranking players and so on. people always misstep when going to "yards" first for projections when they should be trying to figure out "attempts" and "target share" and work your way outwards
so thats where i started on auburns theoretical offense for next season
SEC PASS% vs RUN%
2023 ATTEMPTS by qb
so wanted to show this to show opportunities + attempts. bama, auburn, arkansas are at the low end because high run%. olemiss and mizzou have a high run% but get more attempts off because of pace of play
TOP 30 Receivers 2023
each team has 2-3 guys that have 45+ targets at least (auburns last year = fariweater at 53 and fair at 45). the best offenses get their playmakers the ball more. that simple
so my assumption next season= 2 guys for sure are coleman and fairweather at 45+ targets and then maybe lewis or maybe perry thompson sneaks up there?
how many targets does cam coleman get? luckily theres a team who got a really good 5* elite wr freshman introduced to a struggling offense in the SEC
burden is a very different style receiver (played outside freshman year and struggled a bit, but is more of a slot guy who thrived at his natural position year 2)
i think this is a good baseline for coleman though. 75-80 targets which wouldve been top 10 in the SEC last year
then expect about 50-55 from fairweather (about same as last year) and 45-50 for lewis/thompson whoever emerges
so the rest of the offense? is usually pretty similar across the SEC. the more deep teams (bama/uga/lsu) perform a little better but the game = get the ball to your playmakers. whoever does that the best does well on offense
for "other receivers/ <45 targets" + your rbs projection
rec% is pretty important if you go outside your playmakers (auburn and kentuckys "backups" struggled to catch the ball + they were a high % of the passing offense. not a good combo)
really want to avoid putting a high% of targets on "bench players" especially with talent deficiencies. something mizzou/ole miss are really good at. bama + uga can get away with it cause their "bench" is so good
typically want your rbs to have a 10-12% target share of passing offense. higher is not good.
AUBURNS 2024 OFFENSE:
THE MAIN ASSUMPTIONS = yellow highlight
heres where i got auburns offense for next season with these assumptions
put thorne at 330 attempts (might be a little low. 330-360 is the range but the more rpo style qbs in the league lean towards the lower end. if we play a lot faster pace this year can probably see 350 being more likely)
70% catchrate is pretty standard so i just went with it as a baseline. the high target share guys usually float around that 68-72% unless they are 1.) on a pretty bad team with bad qb 2.) super elite/experienced player (definately biggest fluctuation comes here)
yards per attempt is a little more difficult. 14 is pretty high for cam and giving him the benefit of the doubt
for comparison heres freshman (based on draft year) y/rec for past 3 seasons
2023
2022
2021
so 750+ yards, 70% catch rate, and 14 y/rec would definately make cam an anomaly/outlier compared to past 3 sec seasons. big expectations... evan stewart at tamu (low catch rate) and barion brown (low catch rate) are the closest one to meeting those standards his first year. btw there have been 13 1000yard receivers in the SEC over the past 3 seasons (7 in 2021, 2 in 2022, 3 in 2023). all of them have 85+ targets, 70% catch rate, 12+y/rec. polk in 2021 is an exception at super high volume + air raid offense but usually those are your baseline markers.
wrapped it up a bit earlier
@ricedp105
let me know what yall think
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