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Published Sep 6, 2018
Inside the Numbers: Miami (OH)
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Chris McLaughlin  •  HerdNation
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We are excited to announce that the Rivals network has teamed up with Pro Football Focus, the go-to site for player grades and advanced analytics in both college football and the NFL. We will incorporate PFF data into stories regularly going forward, and one thing you can look forward to each week is a grade for all Marshall players from the previous game as well as snap counts.

Below is a grade card showing how offensive and defensive players fared during the team's 35-28 win over Miami (OH). But first, an explanation from PFF on how the grading scale works:

On every play, a PFF analyst will grade each player on a scale of -2 to +2 according to what he did on the play.

At one end of the scale you have a catastrophic game-ending interception or pick-six from a quarterback, and at the other a perfect deep bomb into a tight window in a critical game situation, with the middle of that scale being 0-graded, or ‘expected’ plays that are neither positive nor negative.

Each game is also graded by a second PFF analyst independent of the first, and those grades are compared by a third, Senior Analyst, who rules on any differences between the two. These grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network, a group of former and current NFL coaches with over 700 combined years of NFL coaching experience, to get them as accurate as they can be.

From there, the grades are normalized to better account for game situation; this ranges from where a player lined up to the dropback depth of the quarterback or the length of time he had the ball in his hand and everything in between. They are finally converted to a 0-100 scale and appear in our Player Grades Tool.

Season-level grades aren’t simply an average of every game-grade a player compiles over a season, but rather factor in the duration at which a player performed at that level. Achieving a grade of 90.0 in a game once is impressive, doing it (12) times in a row is more impressive.

It is entirely possible that a player will have a season grade higher than any individual single-game grade he achieved, because playing well for an extended period of time is harder to do than for a short period, Similarly, playing badly for a long time is a greater problem than playing badly once, so the grade can also be compounded negatively.

Each week, grades are subject to change while we run through our extensive review process including All-22 tape runs and coaching audit, so you may notice discrepancies among grades published in earlier articles compared with those in the Player Grades tool until grade lock each week.

Skill Position Grades
PlayerSnapsGrades

Tyre Brady

78

81.9

Tyler King

37

72.1

Isaiah Green

79

70.4

Keion Davis

44

70.3

Obi Obiallo

50

64.9

Anthony Anderson

8

64.6

Devin Miller

1

60.0

Marcel Williams

56

56.2

Cody Mitchell

43

54.7

Xavier Gaines

21

54.7

Willie Johnson

26

54.3

Armani Levias

31

51.6

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PBLK: PFF Grade for Pass Blocking
RBLK: PFF Grade for Run Blocking

Offensive Line and TE Blocking Grades
PlayerSnapsPBLKRBLK

Alex Mollette

79

77.7

66.3

Tarik Adams

79

71.4

57.8

Armani Levias

17

69.3

52.7

Jordan Dowrey

79

66.5

56.4

Cody Mitchell

31

65.1

58.8

Levi Brown

79

57.7

67.1

Will Ulmer

79

47.8

70.0

Xavier Gaines

10

15.5

57.2

Devin Miller

1

-

60.0

RDEF: PFF Grade for Run Defense
TACK: PFF Grade for Tackling
PRSH: PFF Grade for Pass Rush
COV: PFF Grade for Defensive Coverage

Defensive Grades
PlayerSnapsRDEFTACKPRSHCOV

Malik Gant

68

81.6

84.5

71.2

67.4

Juwon Young

45

74.5

77.8

61.9

61.5

Chase Hancock

73

75.0

83.5

56.8

65.1

Chris Jackson

77

68.1

79.6

-

66.1

Jaquan Yulee

5

61.4

73.6

-

60.6

Kereon Merrell

52

65.8

77.8

56.9

62.6

Ty Tyler

67

56.5

73.4

64.8

60.1

J. McClain-Sapp

57

71.9

78.5

-

60.4

Frankie Hernandez

68

62.6

76.7

51.8

63.2

Rodney Croom

6

60.3

-

58.3

-

Malik Thompson

61

62.7

-

57.2

-

Sam Burton

1

-

-

59.7

-

Milan Lanier

4

-

-

57.6

-

Joey Maddox

13

56.6

-

58.1

-

Channing Hames

71

56.1

16.6

56.0

-

Artis Johnson

47

50.3

26.0

55.2

60.2

Nazeeh Johnson

45

44.1

79.7

-

55.0

Marquis Couch

50

57.9

34.2

52.5

61.7

Omari Cobb

22

58.7

74.3

58.4

49.5

Brandon Drayton

37

61.3

80.4

-

52.9

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