Combined offensive and defensive yards per play since 2012

Thought it would be interesting to see who has been the most efficient offenses and defenses since the latest expansion (2012).

I chose yards per play since it is the easiest number to digest without the need to dive into some formulaic pairing of values that would lend to us having to dissect why certain numbers are more important than others.

I tallied up all plays and yards both offensively and defensively since 2012 and got an overall yards per play value for each team. Here's what we have:

Offensive Yards per Play since 2012
1. Alabama: 6.76
2. Georgia: 6.55
3. Ole Miss: 6.41
4. Texas A&M: 6.36
5. LSU: 6.13
6. Mississippi St: 6.09
6. Auburn: 6.09
8. Missouri: 5.91
9. Arkansas: 5.85
10. South Carolina: 5.82
11. Tennessee: 5.57
12. Kentucky: 5.50
13. Vanderbilt: 5.34
14. Florida: 5.30

Defensive Yards per Play since 2012
1. Alabama: 4.43
2. Florida: 4.86
3. LSU: 4.88
4. Georgia: 5.01
5. Missouri: 5.35
6. Mississippi St: 5.39
7. Auburn: 5.41
8. Vanderbilt: 5.51
9. South Carolina: 5.53
9. Ole Miss: 5.53
11. Texas A&M: 5.69
12. Tennessee: 5.74
13. Kentucky: 5.76
14. Arkansas: 6.03

For some reason, I wasn't expecting Arkansas to be so low defensively. Thought they would be somewhere in the middle. I did dive a little deeper and realized their defense has allowed 8.0+ YPP 3 of the last 4 seasons.

Florida's offensive woes could be over, as Mullen had them in the middle of the pack last year in YPP.

Wasn't expecting LSU's offense to be as high. 2013 and 2016 definitely boosted the numbers for them.