Seeking Relationships In The Big Ten Passing Game

SEEKING RELATIONSHIPS: PASSING OFFENSE IN THE BIG TEN

INTRODUCTION:

The object of this experiment was to look for highly correlated data within some of the regular season passing statistics. Data from all 144 regular season games within the Big Ten conference was collected from box scores and team sites. What is being sought is to confirm essentially some of the relationships that people notice with the so-called “eye test”, plus potentially find ones that are not so obvious.

METHOD:

A matrix of statistics was created using six variables – passing attempt, pass completions, total passing yards, yards per attempt, yards per completion and completion percentage. For purposes of this diary, interception data was not included, but is part of a future planned diary along this vein of discussion.

So, in all (n=144 for each variable), there were 864 individual values which were either reported or calculated from existing data. The assumption made was that 144 trials would be sufficient to show some interrelationships inside the data.

Fifteen potential relationships were examined and their r-value calculated.

RESULTS:

The six most correlated variables are as follows –

Completions / Attempts - r=0.88

Yards Per Attempt / Yards Per Completion – r=0.82

Completions / Yards – r=0.77

Attempts / Yards – r=0.65

Yards Per Attempt / Comp. % - r=0.57

Yards / Yards Per Attempt – r=0.49

Two relationships showed a relatively meager positive correlation; Completions / Completion % (r=0.37) and Yards / Yards Per Completion (r=0.36)

A few relationships even showed very slight negative correlation; Attempts / Yards Per Attempt (r=-0.29), Attempts / Yards Per Completion (r=-0.29) and Completions / Yards Per Completion (r=-0.26)

 TABLE AND CAT PHOTO:

Below is the table of summary conference statistics (including a thumb of the matrix I used to calculate "r") and a cat photo -