The Difference In Yards: Yards Per Play Versus The Final Score
THE DIFFERENCE IN YARDS
Building a little on something Seth put in the last Dear Diary, I went back through the 2011 and 2012 seasons last night and took a look at yards per play and point differential, and as it turns out, they do correspond to each other rather well.
To be fair, 26 games is a somewhat limited sample, but it is telling enough that I think we can show statistically something that you probably would have guessed - if you’re typically gaining more yards per offensive snap than your opponent, the chances are that you’ll win. Further, the bigger that differential between offensive yards per play, the larger the point margin will typically be – good or bad, of course.
How good is the correlation? It is pretty good for football statistics actually. Indeed, the R-value for the correlation between point differential and the yards per play differential turns out to be R=0.85 in this sample. Actually, in these last two seasons, we are averaging 64 offensive snaps per game, which probably ranks towards the bottom of Division I, I would believe, but then again, we do get quite a bit out of them at an average of 6.20 yards per play overall.
A LITTLE SUMMARY ANALYSIS:
Here are a few summary statistics from the two seasons:
|
|
TOTAL PLAYS |
YARDS PER PLAY |
|
MIN |
39.00 |
2.94 |
|
MAX |
82.00 |
9.04 |
|
STD. DEV. |
9.68 |
1.60 |
Of minor note here is that the minimum value for total plays represents the rain-shortened Western Michigan game, and the minimum value for yards per play for Michigan actually is the 2012 Nebraska game, which…well, anyway. We somehow managed to run 82 plays against South Carolina in our latest bowling adventure, and the 9.04 yards per play is the 2011 ND game.
In those 26 games, the median YPP turns out to be 6.59 yards, and performance above and below this line is night and day really. Indeed, in two seasons, we are 5-7 when we fall below the median for yards per play. We have a perfect record when we have achieved better than 6.59 yards per play.
THE RELATIONSHIP CHARTED:
Here is the relationship between yards per play and point differential in graphic form –
CONCLUSION:
So, it is indeed correct that yards per play is a fairly effective indicator of overall success on a game-by-game basis. It will be interesting to see what this season will look like in graph form. I will have them ready at some point.
OBLIGATORY:
