Pac-12 Receiving Stats: Levine Toilolo Is The Nuclear Option

If you aren't familiar with Bill Connelly's work at Football Study Hall and SB Nation, you do yourself a disservice. Connelly finds some of the best advanced statistics for college football and compiles them in an easily presentable and understandable fashion.

Thanks to Connelly's work in compiling advanced receiving stats and his generosity in sharing football data, I now have an answer to yesterday's question regarding the dominance of Robert Woods. And boy is there some breathtaking dominance on display here ...

Advanced stats and analysis on Pac-12 receivers (how many times they get targeted by their quarterbacks, their catch rate, their yards per target) are after the jump!

(For those who want to play around with Pac-12 data on receivers, click on the following link to download the spreadsheet and play around: Pac-12 Receiving Data Thru Five Weeks)

Top flight Pac-12 receivers

Is it even close when it comes to Woods? He's targeted 20 more times than any other Pac-12 receiver and hauls in nearly three-fourths of those passes, an incredible workload for a sophomore football player. As explained yesterday, those numbers are amazingly impressive considering the slight inaccuracies of Matt Barkley. He's evolved into an elite football player.

The Keenan Allen & Marvin Jones connection with Zach Maynard is equally impressive. Maynard seems to understandably find his brother a little bit more than Jones in terms of explosive football plays, but his accuracy issues have kept the offense from being that much more productive. (Ditto the Paul Richardson & Tyler Hansen relationship problems in Boulder).

Nick Foles shares the wealth, with David Douglas, Juron Criner and Dan Buckner all notching 30 or more targets and 60+% catch rates. Sadly, the Arizona offense always goes methodical in these situations, with no one averaging more than ten yards per target.

The most surprising name is Markus Wheaton. If Sean Mannion can start putting together four quarter performances, Wheaton could be a crucial receiver that stretches things out for other options like James Rodgers and Joe Halahuni. Don't sleep on those Beavers just yet.

Safety valve receivers

Utah tight end Dallin Rogers appears to be unstoppable whenever the Utes get him the ball. Unfortunately, Jordan Wynn can't spread the ball around enough to the other Pac-12 receivers, and the offense goes dead.

Owen Marecic might no longer be present to lead block for the Stanford run game, but Hewitt provides a different potency with his pass-catching ability. Hewitt is Luck's safety valve, and he's just hauling it in. Luck's starting tight end Coby Fleener is the main intermediate weapon, and he's carving up defenses up the middle.

Chris Polk, Marc Tyler and Keola Antolin prove they can fit right into the pass-heavy NFL with their ability to come out of the backfield. Polk certainly has one of the most impressive RB routes on the young season in the Huskies victory over Cal.

Deep threat receivers

Here's where the Pac-12 sizzle happens.

Andrew Luck's deep option is his 6'8" tight end Levine Toilolo. Toilolo hasn't gotten much burn, and most of his big plays came against Arizona, but he's averaged 20 yards per catch when that ball has found the hands.

Wilson might have gotten a bump after his heroics in Boulder, but there's no denying his vertical stretch ability gives WSU's offense a whole 'nother dimension for defenses to think about when digging in.

The scariest thing about the USC offense is that even with Woods's proficiency, they still have an emerging deep threat in Marqise Lee. Lee is also hauling in balls at a rate that's possibly even better than Woods's freshman numbers.

The funniest thing about this info is the presence of TWO UCLA receivers on this list. It makes you wonder why Richard Brehaut hasn't been going downfield even more. The UCLA offense sure could use some explosiveness to avoid plodding their way through the Pistol.

Receivers who aren't receiving anything

Anthony Barr and Randall Carroll were two of the best athletes in the country when they were recruited by the Bruins. They have yet to accomplish anything of note in Westwood, and they are among the conference's least productive when it comes to catching the ball.