Iowa football: Analytics show Brandon Smith is elite jump ball specialist

Since joining the Iowa football team, Brandon Smith has wowed coaches, teammates and fans with his jump ball abilities. Now analytics prove he’s elite.

At 6’2” and 215 pounds, Iowa football player Brandon Smith isn’t necessarily a threatening figure to outwork Big Ten corners on contested catches. He doesn’t have the height or size of NFL contested contest catch king Calvin Johnson, formerly of the Detroit Lions.

For a wide receiver, Smith is simply of average size. Yet, despite being average sized, he’s got a grandiose sized game.

He’s the kind of player that can bail bad quarterbacks out of bad situations or make good quarterbacks, like Nate Stanley, look great and analytics can prove it.

Out of all returning Big Ten receivers, the junior wide receiver from Mississippi had the second best contested catch percentage in 2018.

According to Pro Football Focus, a contested catch is defined as such:

"Such instances in which the defender contests the catch point with the receiver."

Often times, these type of catches go by the old adage of 50-50 ball, and this shows that those 50-50 balls aren’t so even when Brandon Smith is the target.

After just 3 catches in Smith’s freshman year in Iowa City, he burst onto the scene last year with 28 catches and 361 yards while serving as the 4th and 5th option in the Iowa football team’s passing attack. Now, with Nick Easley, TJ Hockenson, and Noah Fant heading to the NFL, there are going to be many more catches to go around.

59% of last year’s total receptions and 62% of the receiving yards are now vacant and a guy like Brandon Smith can be wildly productive if he continues to form a connection with Stanley.

More importantly, if Stanley begins to trust Smith enough to bail him out of tough situations, we could see quite a few spectacular plays from him on the Iowa football team this season.

Those analytics show its the right choice. The guy makes those contested catches not-so-contested.