A Friday in the fall without Hanna football feels about as natural as a week without a Friday in general, but a bye week does hand out one small gift, a little extra time. So I went back through everything we've tracked in the first half of the season and dug further than a normal week allows. This special edition of Statistically Speaking is what came out of that, and it turns out a look at the season's first half may give us a glimpse into this season's second half.
Halftime Adjustments
If you've watched this team on a Friday night, you've probably felt it. Hanna seems to find another gear after the break, whether you credit halftime adjustments, poise under pressure, or something harder to name. This season the stats show it more clearly than ever, and it shows up on both sides of the ball.
Defense
Hanna has allowed 11 touchdowns, only two have been scored after halftime.
Opponents have rushed 60 times for 300 yards in the first half, which is 5.00 yards per carry. After halftime they've rushed 52 times for only 102 yards, which is 1.96 per carry.
Opponents are 7-for-26 on third down in the first half (26.9%) and just 4-for-26 after halftime (15.4%).
Opponents have produced 9 true gains of 30+ yards in the first half and only 2 in the second half. None of those long gains have come in the fourth quarter.
More than half of second-half opponent snaps have gained zero or negative yards — 53.6% — compared with 40.4% in the first half.
Offense
Hanna has outscored opponents 57-13 in the second half. The first half has been nearly a coin flip, 65-63. That means 44 of Hanna's 46-point scoring margin has come after halftime.
The offense goes from 728 yards on 151 first-half plays (4.82 per play) to 925 yards on 158 second-half plays (5.85). Success rate, the share of snaps that keep the offense on schedule, climbs from 35.8% to 44.9%.
The second quarter has been Hanna's offensive low point, with 308 yards on 82 plays (3.76 per play), 2 touchdowns and a 29.3% success rate. Then the third quarter flips it, with 491 yards on 78 plays (6.29), 6 touchdowns and a 47.4% success rate. That's a jump of more than 2.5 yards per play across one halftime.
Hanna's 28 first-half drives average 5.39 offensive plays and 26.0 yards. Its 26 second-half drives average 6.08 plays and 35.6 yards.
Only 4 of 28 first-half drives reach 8+ offensive plays (14.3%), compared with 7 of 26 after halftime (26.9%). Drives lasting at least three minutes rise from 5 of 28 (17.9%) to 9 of 26 (34.6%). In the second half, Hanna stops trading possessions and starts owning them.
Explosive Plays
Coaches talk constantly about creating explosive plays on offense and limiting them on defense. This season the opponent's big play has been the one real bugaboo for the Yellow Jackets. On the other side, Hanna's offense has shown it doesn't need chunk plays to be productive.
Of 216 opponent snaps, 23 have gained 20+ yards. Those plays account for 926 of the 1,267 yards opponents have gained, or 73.1%. On the other 193 snaps, opponents average just 1.77 yards per play. Roughly one snap in nine is doing almost three-quarters of the damage.
10 of the 11 opponent touchdown drives included at least one true 20+ yard play, and 9 of the 11 touchdowns came on plays longer than 20 yards.
Opponents have had 54 total drives this season. The 17 drives with an explosive play produced 10 touchdowns (58.8%). The 37 drives without one produced a single touchdown (2.7%). Make an opponent drive the field the long way, and it almost never gets there.
Hanna has 12 gains of 20+, accounting for only 23.2% of its 1,653 offensive yards. Drives with a 20+ play have ended in touchdowns 9 of 11 times (81.8%), but Hanna also has 6 touchdown drives without one.
Remove every 20+ gain and Hanna still averages 4.28 yards per offensive play, while opponents average 1.77. On the ordinary snaps, Hanna holds a 2.51-yard edge every time the ball is snapped.
Player Usage
Football is a team game, but a lot of it comes down to who gets the ball and who wins the one-on-one battles. Hanna has had some outstanding individual performances this season, and these numbers show who's handling the workload and who's making plays when they count.
Brock Cole and Esaias Carroll account for 141 of 291 assignable rush and target opportunities (48.5%), 946 of Hanna's 1,653 offensive yards (57.2%), and 11 of 15 offensive touchdowns (73.3%).
Carroll goes from 29 first-half opportunities for 120 yards and 1 touchdown to 43 second-half opportunities for 331 yards and 6 touchdowns. He has scored 75% of Hanna's second-half offensive touchdowns.
Cole has taken the first offensive touch on 16 drives and gained 145 yards on those plays (9.06 each). Carroll has opened 14 drives for 78 yards. Between them, they start 30 of Hanna's 54 possessions.
Carroll has 15 red-zone opportunities and 5 touchdowns, and Cole has 14 and 4. Together they account for 29 of 43 red-zone opportunities (67.4%) and 9 of Hanna's 11 red-zone touchdowns.
Zy West accounts for 24 of Hanna's 125 expanded havoc events by himself, or 19.2%. (Expanded havoc counts tackles for loss, sacks, pass breakups, interceptions, forced fumbles and quarterback hurries.)
Widen the lens to the three starting down linemen, Zy West, Terrell McRae and Braylen Gaines, and that group accounts for 53 of the 125 havoc events, or 42.4%.
Greg Tatum leads Hanna with 7 tackles for loss, which is 21.9% of the team's 32.
Zy West and Connor Ash have 3 sacks apiece, accounting for 60% of Hanna's sacks.
Greg Tatum has 28 total tackles and leads the team with 21 solo stops, meaning 75% of his tackles come unassisted. Connor Ash has 20 total tackles, 16 of them solo, for an 80% solo rate.
Darius Hanna and Jamarion Williams each have two interceptions. Together they own 4 of Hanna's 7 picks, or 57.1%.
Down & Distance
Every drive is a running negotiation between down and distance, and the team that wins the small ones usually wins the night. Hanna's two sides tell the same story from opposite ends. The defense keeps pushing opponents into long third downs and getting off the field, while the offense has learned that its whole possession tends to hinge on what happens on first down.
Opponents are only 11-for-52 on third down (21.2%). Hanna has gotten off the field on 41 of those 52 snaps, or 78.8%.
35 of 52 opponent third downs (67.3%) have come with 7+ yards to go, and opponents are just 5-for-35 in those spots (14.3%). Even on third-and-6 or shorter, they're only 6-for-17.
On offense, Hanna is 10-for-15 on third-and-1 to 3 (66.7%) and 11-for-18 on third-and-4 to 6 (61.1%).
On second-and-7 or longer, Hanna has run the ball 51 times in 56 snaps (91.1%). Those runs have produced 256 yards, or 5.02 per carry. It's no secret what's coming, and it keeps working anyway.
When Hanna's first-down play is successful, the offense eventually converts the series 47 of 55 times (85.5%). After an unsuccessful first down, that drops to 38 of 74 (51.4%). Of the failed first downs followed by a normal second down, 50 of 66 left Hanna in second-and-7 or longer, with an average of 9.4 yards to go, which is exactly where that 5.02-per-carry run game has been bailing the offense out.
Wrap Up
Stack all of this together and you get the same picture from every angle. On an ordinary snap, Hanna has been the better team, usually by a lot, and that edge only grows as the night goes on. Most of the damage opponents have done has come from a few long plays, mostly early, which goes a long way toward explaining why first halves have felt like a fight and second halves have felt like a formality.
Here's the thing that ties every number in this post together. This is a team that gets better the longer it plays, one that settles in, figures you out, and takes over once the game has had time to breathe. Well, the season just reached halftime. If the Jackets treat the rest of the fall the way they've treated every third and fourth quarter so far, the best part hasn't even started yet. Enjoy the bye week, because when Hanna comes back, it's coming out of the locker room to make a statement.