Charting Data Used to Compare Offenses

In these parts we've provided quite a bit of content on the hire of Shannon Dawson to replace Neal Brown as Kentucky's offensive coordinator. Greenwell previously broke down West Viriginia's scheme, and community member Hoboat33 wrote a fantastic Fan Post on Dawson's passing game distribution. Both those posts do a good job highlighting Dawson's possible schemes and tactics at UK. Now, let's take a brief look at the formations WVU ran this year.

Below is an interactive chart done by Colin Davy of Football Study Hall at my request, and it compares UK formationally to West Virginia formationally. All this information comes from the charting data SB Nation did for the 2014 season, but keep in mind that the data on West Virginia was not as complete as the data for UK. The results could be skewed in other words.

Clicking on the "Kentucky" tab reveals a few things. UK's most common alignment was four wide receivers and one running back while in Shotgun. The second most common alignment was three receivers and two running backs, and that formation was mostly run out of Shotgun, but with heavy doses of Wildcat and Pistol. These were the dominant formations.

West Virginia didn't have a dominant formation as you can see by clicking on its tab. Three receivers and one back in Shotgun was the most common formation (it would be UK's fourth or fifth), but that's quickly followed by a three receiver two back, and two receiver three back looks.

West Virginia mostly operated out of Shotgun (no Wildcat there), but WVU quarterbacks were even under center quite a bit in the "three receiver and two back" look. WVU also ran a bit more "5 receivers and empty backfield" looks.

Dawson may or may not run similar looks next season given it will be his first season as an official play-caller; meanwhile, he'll be adapting his principles to UK's personnel. It'll be interesting to see how that combination works itself out.