An advanced stats look at Jayden Daniels
We still don’t know much about who will start at quarterback for LSU when the season begins in less than a month.
We do know that it is a three-horse race between Myles Brennan, Garrett Nussmeier, and Jayden Daniels.
Of those three, Daniels has the most experience. Brennan has made a few starts and Nussmeier has seen some action, but neither has given us a huge sample size.
Daniels started three years at Arizona State, which means we have a wealth of information.
The situation Daniels is in now is different than the one at Arizona State. He has better wide receivers and the coaching staff isn’t in complete turmoil.
That doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything about who Daniels was as a Sun Devil. Let’s jump right in and see what the advanced stats tell us about his last three years.
Predicted Points Added
(AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
You may have heard of EPA, which stands for expected points added. The predicted points added are similar to that.
This basically estimates how a team improved its chances of scoring on a given play.
For example, if Daniels throws a 20-yard pass to move into the red zone. The chance of the offense scoring increases. This stat just assigns a number to that amount.
In 2021, Daniels was slightly above average. He was better than 60% of P5 QBs.
However, in rushing PPA, he was better than about 87% percent of P5 QBs. Through the air, he was near the bottom, sitting just around the 30th percentile.
QBR
(AP Photo/L.E. Baskow)
ESPN’s QBR metric is a stat meant to grade QBs on a 0-100 scale. EPA is factored into this metric, among other things. It also adjusts for the strength of opposing defenses.
Daniels had a QBR of 67.2. That ranked 43rd out of 125 qualified players.
His number was a little worse than Emory Jones’ and slightly better than Max Johnson’s rating.
Again, we see a dramatic difference between rushing and passing. Daniels ranked seventh in the rushing rating but wasn’t even top 50 when it came to passing.
PFF grades
Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Among P5 QBs who had 300+ dropbacks, Daniels’ offensive grade of 83.2 was good for 21st.
His run grade of 86.0 ranked fifth and his passing grade of 70.7 was 34th and almost identical to Max Johnson’s.
In PFF’s big-time throws metric, Daniels was near the bottom. Their numbers also suggest he could do better at avoiding sacks.
However, he did a good job protecting the football, ranking as one of the top players in the Pac-12 when it came to turnover-worthy plays.
Splits
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Splits can help give us an understanding of situations where a player was at his best as well as situations where he needs some work.
A promising note for Daniels is that he fared about the same against winning teams in 2021 as he did against teams with a losing record. He did not pad his stats against bad teams.
He fared just as well against ranked teams as he did unranked teams. Among P5 and G5 opponents, the numbers didn’t show any meaningful differences either.
On the road, his passer rating was slightly better than it was at home. Daniels seems equipped to handle talented opponents.
[pickup_prop id=”24928″>
