Passer Rating Differential - Is There Correlation With Wins?

This is what Cold, Hard, Football Facts is all about.  You would think that the common wisdom of running the football and stopping the run would be the most important predictor of success, but in the end, the most reliable predictor of success in the NFL is how well you pass the ball and how well you defend the pass.  In fact, defending the pass may actually be the most important of the two.  The stats all point to the passing game as the most important predictor of success.  My question is whether or not this is the same in college football.

You can look at it in another light. The NCAA passer rating (called passer efficiency) formula is:

(8.4*yards + 330*touchdowns + 100*completions - 200*interceptions) / attempts

Since it's divided by attempts, it basically attempts to measure how good a team/player is per pass, not overall.

A team that runs really well, like Michigan did against UConn may not not have to pass much and may get more "bang for the buck" as it were per pass (Michigan ran about 73.5% of the time that game). Michigan had a positive 79.69 efficiency differential in that game, partly because UConn got caught seriously out of position several times due to the effectiveness of Michigan's run game.

Really, if teams can do what they want to do, they'll be successful (obvious, right). In a really simplistic view, last year's Michigan team wanted to run well to set up huge passes. Texas Tech under Mike Leach wanted to pass and then run as a change of pace. Both philosophies can be successful, it just depends on who's playing who. 

Texas Tech was able to pass for relatively short distances per play, but were almost impossible to stop. For them, it was a relatively low variance strategy that had relatively low risk, but low reward too.

Pretty hard to argue with those numbers. 

Perhaps having the advantage in passing differential is correlated with having the greater share of the big plays?

It is cool to see this play out on a game by game basis.  With the differential being the key, you either have to do one (pass efficiently or defend the pass) or both well enough to create a possitive differential. 

Hopefully we can improve enough this year in pass defense to give the offense enough time to overcome teething pains.

I would be very interested to see if this bears out across the NCAA and whether or not the eventual champions (both conference and national) are all at the top of the statistical heap in terms of passer rating differential.

I'm really hoping (Hokeing?) the TD's don't come down this year. Borges/Hoke put up 35ppg (we had 32.6) last year. Granted, they don't have their personnel all in place, but they do inherit Denard. We could easily be in the black for point differential between 2010/2011 if we can find a feature back and Denard cuts a few of the interceptions like the MSU game.

Probably because it's been listed, but as of now, he's really a 2013 recruit, so it shouldn't as he's not taking a schollie from this class.

This is not my conclusion, it comes from the folks at Cold, Hard, Football Facts.  They have done a tonne of research on this and have made a fairly persuasive case that the most important stat to pay attention to when looking at potential winners is offensive and defensive passer efficiency. 

But what you are saying makes the case for the value of the stat.  If they are efficient because they pass when they choose and thus are more likely to have a high passer efficiency rating, then it is an indicator of overall offensive success.  The same can be said for defense.  If everything you are doing is making it easier for you to defend the pass, then it is an over all predictor of success.  Although they never state it directly, the people at Cold, Hard, Football Facts are implying that if you are looking for one stat to predict how successful a team is over all, that Passer Efficiancy Differential is that one stat with the highest predictive value.  I find the argument compelling and interesting.  They make a persuasive case, especially if you read the longer atricle on their website that they link to in the SI.com article.