Statistical Analysis Shows Alabama Gets Screwed By Holding Calls More Than Any Other Team

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As a follow up to my earlier thread here, I performed a deeper dive on offensive holding. In the initial thread, I found that in 2014-2017, Michigan's defense had only drawn 10 offensive holding calls, significantly less than all other B1G teams.

Defensive line performance is a poor predictor of offensive holding calls, but Michigan and Alabama both draw holding at a much lower clip than other NCAA teams.

I downloaded the 2010 – 2017 Play by Play data from the ESPN API. This contained 1,234,271 plays, during which, 82,570 penalties were called. Additionally, I correlated this data with Football Outsiders’ Offensive Line and Defensive Line statistics, found here.

Each of the 1.2M plays has a “free text” field which describes the play, and if there is one, the penalty and whom it was called on. As an example, this means Michigan could be referred to as Michigan, UM, UofM, Mich, etc. I very carefully developed an algorithm to assign the penalty called, and who it was called on and drawn by, based on this field for all NCAA games involving an FBS team. While I’m sure it wasn’t 100% accurate, I do think I did a pretty good job and designed some good tests to check this process. Probably 99%+ accurate.

Are there any good predictors of Offensive Holding being called?

Honestly, none that I could find. I found evidence that holding calls are generally random…with a slight edge given to the underdog team or team currently losing. This means the argument “Michigan’s D-Line has been amongst the best in the country, we should be getting more holding calls than everyone else” probably lacks merit based on the data.

As it turns out, Michigan and Alabama are in a special kind of unlucky streak, stretching for many years. The below is a graph of all FBS teams 2012- present (B1G teams are represented by their logos) for all games played. Michigan is towards the top right – in the “we’re getting screwed” category. The only team that has fared worse is Alabama. A lot worse. Since 2012, Alabama has drawn a holding once every 260 plays. That is nearly 2.5 times the average.

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