This Week in Data, produced by Eleven Warriors and 614Analytics, explores the numbers behind Ohio State athletics through data visualization.
The question we wanted to answer this week is: Who contributes the most to Ohio State's offensive production.
Okay, the easy answer is J.T. Barrett. But aside from Barrett, who's contributing the most towards Urban Meyer and Tom Herman's rapid-firing unit? As it turns out, the answer to that question is everyone.
The Buckeye offense is once again rewriting the Ohio State record books, averaging nearly 510 yards per game, with their high point an astonishing 710 yards against Cincinnati. And the amazing thing about this offense is that it comes from so many contributors. Fourteen different players have caught a pass and 12 Buckeyes have rushed for positive yards on the season.
Here's a Sankey diagram – the Michael Thomas of diagrams, often overlooked, but more on him later – which demonstrates where and how yards flow from run/pass plays through each opponent to end with the player responsible for the yards. The size of the connecting band is correlated to the accumulated yardage in between any two points.
You can click the diagram for a larger view, but we recommend you check out this interactive version that you can play with.
Looking at the data from another angle, we wanted to know how the rush/pass mix was distributed between each player directly, so we split out the player and game totals separately.
Here's a diagram that shows that relationship:
Ohio State is getting the perfect mix of run/pass this year and the diagrams certainly illustrate that point. In a season dominated by the strong passing game of Heisman candidate J.T. Barrett, the fact that 51.6% of the total offense comes from rushing (2,631 yards) can be overlooked. Ezekiel Elliot has 959 of those yards – on the cusp of becoming Meyer's second 1,000-yard back – and he's also quietly amassed another 162 receiving yards, for 1,116 from scrimmage this season.
Another unsung hero of production: Michael Thomas. He currently leads the team in receiving with 583 yards and is the only Buckeye to catch a pass in every game.
614analytics, based in Columbus, provides analytic content for the everyday person, with unique perspectives and concrete analysis for Ohio-based sports along with takes on data visualization. You can follow them on Twitter, @614Analytics.
