Looking at the point production of Matt Canada’s past offenses

On the most recent episode of the Steelers Stat Geek podcast, I was asked to report on the point production of past offenses of new Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Even though all of Canada‘s previous experience as a coordinator comes from the college level, seeing how his offenses fared could give an indication of what to expect with the Steelers in 2021.

When it came to reporting the data, I stuck with the various stops were Canada was the offensive coordinator beginning in 2003 with Northern Illinois. Canada did have one previous stop as an offensive coordinator in 1997 at Butler University, but I kept the data to FBS schools.

Without further ado, here are the points per game average for all of Canada‘s collegiate stops as offensive coordinator. The number in parentheses is how much of a change there was from the previous season before Canada arrived.

Northern Illinois

2003 32.2 ppg (+0.9)

Indiana

2007 31.7 ppg (+8.6)
2008 20.5 ppg
2009 23.5 ppg
2010 27.2 ppg

Northern Illinois

2011 38.3 ppg (+0.3)

Wisconsin

2012 29.6 ppg (-14.5)

NC State

2013 22.8 ppg (-5.3)
2014 30.2 ppg
2015 33.2 ppg

Pittsburgh

2016 40.9 ppg (+12.7)

LSU

2017 27.2 ppg (-1.1)

Maryland*

2018 28.5 ppg (+4.4)

*Became interim head coach

This data does not take into account changes in head-coaching or other issues going on at each school. Instead, it is merely a report of how Canada’s offenses have performed over the years.

For reference sake, the Pittsburgh Steelers scored 26.0 points per game in 2020 which was a solid increase from their 18.1 points per game in 2019. In Canada’s 13 years as an offensive coordinator throughout the FBS division of the NCAA, in only three seasons did he have a lower points per game average than what the Steelers had in 2020. But this is also comparing apples to oranges when looking at college output versus professional.

Exactly how many points Canada‘s offenses averaged is really not going to affect the Steelers offense in 2021. But looking a little bit more at the résumé of the Steelers newest offensive coordinator can perhaps paint somewhat of a picture of expectations entering the season.