ProfessorBriggs.com
THE Sports Authority in Mercer County!

Note: This does not reflect the opinion of Grove City College, WSAJ-FM, The Herald, or their respective sponsors and supporters.

Fun With Numbers -- January 12, 2010

It's been a while since Professor Briggs took a look at some numbers on the local sports scene. This time, I decided to take a look at some local high school and collegiate football numbers to check out a theory that has been floated by the folks at Cold Hard Football Facts.

I came across this in an article about Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and how he rates as one of the all-time greats in National Football League history. The theory is that yards per pass attempt is a tremendous indicator of team success. In fact, CHFF feels that no stat in sports is more directly correlated to winning.

With that in mind, how does that stat theory apply to local small colleges and our area high schools? For this, I'll be using the Mercer County area stats through November 20. The reason I use those is simple: I cannot find any more up-to-date numbers through The Herald's digital edition search. Still, they are complete regular-season stats and are more than suitable for this exercise. The numbers are based on the individuals listed in the passing stats. So, attempts and yardage may not be totally accurate due to a halfback option pass, fake punt pass, etc. -- but it's going to be close enough.

ANALYSIS: The one surprise that jumps out is Waynesburg's proficiency through the air, averaging 8.10 yards per attempt. So how did Waynesburg end up 5-5? The Jackets allowed a PAC-high 260.2 passing yards and 25 pass touchdowns this year ... Playoff stats are included in this, thus W&J's numbers are affected by playing Mount Union in the opening round ... W&J's average is 7.42 through 10 regular season games ... Geneva and Saint Vincent are provisional members of NCAA Division III but played full league schedules ... Including those two, here's the final league ledger: Thomas More, W&J, Geneva, Grove City, Waynesburg, Westminster, Bethany, Thiel, Saint Vincent ... Thiel's running game averaged just 53.6 yards per game and 1.9 yards per carry.

Moving to NCAA Division I, here's the Big Ten:

ANALYSIS: Order of finish: Ohio State, Iowa, Penn State, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan ... Surprisingly, Michigan State and Wisconsin are in the middle of the standings ... It would be interesting to see how much teams benefit from playing so-called "money" games against I-AA teams and how that affects these numbers.

The entire National Football League team statistics for this figure are here. As you will note, San Diego led the league in yards per pass. The top 12 teams are all playoff teams or tied for the last playoff spot, save for the New York Giants, whose defense gave up parcels of yardage in the latter portion of the season.

CONCLUSION: Yards per pass does seem to be a pretty good indicator of team success in football. Seemingly, this is the case in which teams play a schedule against opponents within the same level of competency. By that, I mean the teams are on even footing. In the NFL, all teams are under the same framework. Generally in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (and other small college leagues), the teams are relatively similar. I would bet an examination of the Ohio Athletic Conference, North Coast Athletic Conference and other Division III leagues would result in similar findings.

Even in local high schools, teams are playing by the same standards, etc. Wilmington right now has a much stronger program than Reynolds. However, the teams play on the same "level" -- Class AA football.

The only level of football that displays an anomaly is NCAA Division I football. Professor Briggs feels that this exists for two reasons. First, usually every Division I-A team plays at least one or more vastly inferior team over the course of a season, such as a I-AA team or a I-A team from the lower division of a "non-power conference." A team can fatten up its stats against an undermanned foe quite easily. For example, Michigan State threw for 701 yards on 70 attempts in wins over Montana State and Western Michigan. Taking those out of the final stats gives Michigan State a yards-per-attempt figure of 7.93, a reduction of 0.35.

Secondly, many college offenses now rely on horizontal passing out of spread formations. While the "West Coast" style of offense helped usher in an increase of short passing in lieu of the run, college spread attacks have taken that a step further. In 1998, teams averaged 7.19 per attempt in NCAA Division I-A. In 2008, that figured had dropped to 6.99.

Overall, it does seem that yards per attempt is a good way to determine a team's success. However, it seems as if defensive yards-per-attempt would go hand-in-hand with this to make the variable complete.

Turnover margin seems to be a big factor in determining wins and losses. In Division I-A this year, Alabama and Boise State both went 14-0. They finished in the top four nationally in turnover margin. Look at the top 10 teams in that category. All had very good seasons.

> Questions? Comments? Something in between? Send a note to ryanbriggs@zoominternet.net.

Return To Main Page