So I’m typing in statistics for Stanford’s football team today. I get to the punting statistics, and it lists Eric Johnson as having punted X amount of times for Y yards. Fair enough. The entry right below it says “Team.” What the heck is that? Who is “Team” and when did he start punting? In the same vein, there’s always an entry for “Team” in the tackling statistics. Once again, I can’t make any sense of it. I can’t imagine that involves a gang tackle, because they’ll parcel out credit individually.
r u serious? team … meaning everyone included
so lets say johnson had 4 punts( :wally ) for 200 yards
and his backup … smith had 1 punt for 43 yards …
the stanford(TEAM) would have 5 punts for 243 that day
so team means how many total–in each individual category–stanford had that game; more specifically, the same goes for receiving yards … passing, rushing etc. o, so in terms of tackling, how many total tackles did the stanford team make that game …
is that what you were lookin for?
No, here’s how the stat sheet looked:
Johnson, E. 4 punts, 200 yards
Team 1 punt, 0 yards
Total 5 punts, 200 yards
If there were a backup punter, he would have been listed by his name.
Similarly, in the tackle statistics, the mysterious “Team” always seems to get credit for, like, one or two tackles.
hmm, that’s stranger.
maybe in this case, “TEAM” would indicate all the other players besides the top players who are listed. but that would mean the backup punter got his punt blocked …
If the stats guy was wrong, it could possibly be a fake punt that was botched, or one of those freaky plays where the ball somehow ends up in the wrong guy’s hands and said guy decides to try to kick it anyways.
The ‘team’ stat makes sense elsewhere, but not really for kicking if the backup never came in…
In many stats compilations, only the top X number of players at each position are listed, with the rest being consolidated into “Team.” For example, if 16 players make tackles through the course of the game, maybe the starting 11 will be listed, and the third-string linebacker with 1/2 a tackle will be under “Team” with all the other scrubs.
Obviously, the official statistics have everybody’s numbers.
In this particular case, it strikes me as probable that Erwin Deja Wu is right; the backup punter had it blocked. I wonder if a botched snap on a punt attempt counts as a punt? It couldn’t really be a 20-30 yard rushing loss for whoever recovered the ball, could it? And maybe if it was a botched snap, they don’t assign responsibility to the punter but it does count as a punt.
One other possibility: the team may have tried a “quick-kick.”
There are situations in which an offense will line up as if it’s going to pass (sometimes out of a shotgun formation) and then snap it to the quarterback, who then proceeds to drop kick the ball like a punter. That’s called a “quick-kick.” You almost never see it in pro football, but I see it regularly in the college game.
IF it works properly, the quarterback can catch the defense completely unprepared. The result? If it’s done right, the “receiving” team is pined deep in its own territory.
The downside? Most quarterbacks are not good punters. I’ve seen quarterbacks TRY to do a quick-kick, only to pop the ball straight up into the air! A few times, that punt has actually gone a few yards BACKWARD!
So, MAYBE, just maybe, Stanford tried a quick-kick, and the quarterback muffed it. It happens.
The downside?
Ah, I see we are not the only team that includes the devious quick kick in the playbook. What are we going to do now? How are we going to suprise the defense with a punt on third and two? Nooooo!!!
Sorry, I get lack that during 17 game losing streaks, hopefully we’ll end it tomorrow.
Apparently my spelling is affected too.
This is correct. Especially in college, where they have 80+ players on the roster. You will seldom if ever see it with pros, though.
Also, it’s sometimes used to make the stats add up. i.e., a QB is in the shotgun, the snap goes over his head, the QB falls on it for a loss of 20. It’s not a fumble, it wasn’t a rushing attempt by the QB, but if you just ignore it, at the end the individual and team yards don’t add up.
Hence, “TEAM” gets 1 rush for -20 yards.
That’s my WAG for the punt.
Well, these are the official statistics as compiled by Stanford. Every last dude who got a tackle – even offensive linemen and running backs, who probably got their one tackle hauling down a defensive back who had made an interception – gets credit. In fact, “Team” is not always the entry with the fewest amount of tackles. “Team” might have a couple of tackles to his credit, while Joe Smith might have just one.
Had there been a blocked punt, the guy who tried to punt would have been identified by name with a “1” in the “blocked punt” column.
Can’t a team tackle also one be where there isn’t a tackler at all? Especially in college football if the guy is running in the open field and trips without anyone near him isn’t counted as a team tackle? Stepping out of bounds by yourself might also be a team tackle, but I’m not sure.
I would argue that this is the cause. I don’t know what the NFL’s policy involving running out of bounds is, nor do I know how each college conference handles that silly knee-is-down-player-is-down psuedo tackle.
I think in the NFL a tackle is credited to the player who “forces” the runner out of bounds, even if he’s 5 yards away. College may be the same, but I doubt this is the case when a guy accidentally touches his knee to the ground making a reception. That would be my guess as to the “TEAM” tackle stat.
I can’t find a cite for this at the moment, but I’m pretty sure that in the case you cited it counts as a sack for -20 yards, which is deducted from the team’s and QB’s passing totals.
I’m at a loss on the Punter’s version though. Have you seen it on more than one week’s box scores? I’d guess that it would be a botched snap with no kick. A blokced kick, or a kick by a QB would both be in the stats as such. My only guess is that it was a snap over the punters head.
Wow, I don’t get my name invoked in subject lines often.
As others have stated, “Team” is how you record a blocked punt in college football. It goes down as zero yards for “TEAM”.
“TEAM” also shows up as described earlier on plays with bad snaps where you can’t really say that anyone carried the ball.
For example, a bad snap to the punter that is just fallen on is TEAM and minus whatever yards. If the punter mishandles the snap and then tries to run upfield, then it’s the statistician’s discretion. He can give the punter a rushing loss or go with “TEAM”.
In college football, “TEAM” also gets credit for those times when the quarterback kneels down to kill time and as passing attempts when the QB spikes the ball to kill the clock.
In the NFL, none of these conventions are used. Since you’re getting paid (legally), the NFL feels that someone has to be responsible for everything. The only “Team” losses that show up in the NFL are when QB sacks are taken off of team passing totals, instead of individual rushing totals as they are in college.
I guess I was confused because the stat sheet does credit Eric Johnson with a blocked punt. I figured they would reflect the yardage in his stat line.
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That does make sense, since “Team” always seems to have just a couple of yards here and there. But here’s a brain-teaser for you. In the Washington St. statistics that I’m looking at right now, there is an entry for “WSU TEAM” with two rushes for minus-four yards. Right below it there is ALSO an entry for “TEAM” with two rushes for minus-five yards. What’s going on there? What’s the difference between “WSU TEAM” and plain ol’ “TEAM”?
The difference most likely is that a statkeeper at one game wrote down “WSU TEAM” and a statkeeper at a different game just wrote “TEAM” and whoever inputted the data didn’t realize that they meant the same thing.
Looking at the game logs that WSU sent in to the NCAA, they only have entries for “Team”.