re: Net Yards Per Play ranks for SEC...

The numbers illustrate the parity that the NIL/transfer portal era has ushered in.

Stockpiling and hoarding all the talent was what the 4 team playoff era teams did. And that just isn’t as prevalent now…

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The numbers illustrate the parity that the NIL/transfer portal era has ushered in.

Stockpiling and hoarding all the talent was what the 4 team playoff era teams did. And that just isn’t as prevalent now…

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That may be true for the SEC. That's not true for Ohio. At least not last year. Still were trucking. So was Oregon.

Gotcha, I didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification.

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If Auburn were .3 better they would go from the bottom to middle of the pack, and likely would have seen some on-field results from that. So it kind of does seem like it means at least a little.

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Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. We're trying to win games here and for some of us, a national title. At least make a good run in the CFP.

To do that, historically you've needed to be very, very good in this stat. No one is that now. Oregon and Ohio State still have a shot at it though. Unless these teams find another complete gear, not gonna happen for anyone here.

So if that doesn't happen and one of these SEC teams wins it all, would be a huge outlier. And outliers are outliers for a reason.

Net Points Per Drive

Final Four Teams

2024
1. Ohio State (+2.29) (National Champ)
5. Notre Dame (+1.75)
6. Texas (+1.61)
7. Penn State (+1.55)


2023
2. Michigan (+2.50) (National Champ)
10. Texas (+1.34)
14. Washington (+1.16)
17. Alabama (+1.02)

2022
1. Georgia (+2.43) (National Champ)
2. Michigan (+2.10)
3. Ohio State (+2.08)
28. TCU (+0.71)

2021
1. Georgia (+2.70) (National Champ)
3. Alabama (+1.54)
4. Cincinnati (+1.53)
5. Michigan (+1.52)



Net Points Per Drive 2025 (Schedule Rank)
1. Oregon (+2.67) (46)
2. Ohio State (+2.55) (35)
3. Indiana (+2.35) (30)
4. Texas Tech (+2.01) (52)
5. Vanderbilt (+1.91) (42)
6. Alabama (+1.65) (4)
7. Oklahoma (+1.64) (24)
8. Georgia (+1.51) (7)
9. USC (+1.50) (33)
10. Notre Dame (+1.48) (6)

14. Missouri (+1.36) (27)
15. Texas A&M (+1.35) (13)
16. Texas (+1.35) (18)
17. Ole Miss (+1.27) (19)
38. Tennessee (+0.63) (11)
43. Auburn (+0.54) (2)
45. Mississippi State (+0.51) (26)
49. LSU (+0.45) (20)
85. Arkansas (-0.30) (5)
87. Kentucky (-0.35) (10)
90. Florida (-0.43) (3)
100. South Carolina (-0.72) (9)


Others
20. BYU (+1.10) (64)
24. Louisville (+1.03) (56)
25. Cincinnati (+1.03) (60)
26. Miami (+1.02) (15)
28. South Florida (+0.99) (55)
31. Georgia Tech (+0.98) (86)
37. Virginia (+0.66) (70)

This one would give you points for a kick return and a pick six. Some of that is just chance. Turnovers generally regress to the mean and are not something you can count on year to year in terms of being heavily plus in the stat. Those would give you much shorter drives. So, NYPP matches up to me better because it's really measuring how well you are controlling the game from the LOS.

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Those are not included in Pts Per Drive. Points per drive is strictly the number of points scored (allowed) by the offense/defense vs # of drives run/defended.

YPP is a good stat and generally shows when a team is dominant, but the more parity that shows up the more games are won on the margins with things like 3rd down conversion rate, red zone conversion rate, pts per drive, yds per point, success rate, etc.

A team can give up 1 explosive play TD (80 yd pass, 1 play) and force 4 punts on the other drives in a half (75 yds, 24 plays) and still have a not great YPP defense (6.2 YPP) when, in fact, they won 4 of the 5 drives and gave up 7 pts in a half - which against most offenses would be viewed as a success.

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But what happens when you get a punt return to the five yard line and score and you get an int return to the five yard line and score. Have about 100 total yards and the other team fumbles and you do nothing with it and kick a FG because you were in FG range. The other team has three drives where they drive a totall of 200 yards and end up with 13 points and 330 yards total. The score is 17-13, but it's highly unlikely this can be repeated game to game.

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Classic. Hogs are running away with the lead for YPP and for the lead in most yards given up per play.

I suspect the delta is an all time record.

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Arkansas' offense with Auburn's defense might be the greatest team in SEC history. And the inverse might be the worst.

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I think you would agree with me that there has been no team really close to winning a national title that had a negative NYPP vs. their conference in the last two decades. And I'll go ahead and say that's pretty much the same for Georgia at positive .50. It just hasn't happened.

So what you present says that these teams are not far off. Maybe in unison if both are really good that tells you a little more. But NYPP again is saying we're not as good as the media is telling us we are.

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I agree. We're also at that point where some teams have played mostly difficult games (Bama, UGA) and others have played a relatively easy stretch. Also, the league is just a lot more balanced this year, and so with that the numbers aren't going to be as high at the top or low at the bottom as past years. I think it's likely because the top teams aren't quite as good and the middle/bottom is better, but you never know.

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I'm sorry, but it's worked really well for awhile. Teams with low ones don't win championships. Teams with high ones do.

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Couple things.

1) You're comparing end of the year stats to midseason stats. Its fair for you to point out the end of year YPP seems to correlate historically with championships. With more data to normalize what you're showing it would be more relevant
2) You're quoting YPP without adjusting for opponents. For this to work it requires you to accept that a drive against Arkansas is the same as Texas driving against OU. They aren't.
3) You aren't excluding blowout drives. Teams playing prevent or with backups dont put up drives relevant to predicting future results.

Taking half season stats in a time when teams are playing imbalanced schedules in mega conferences just isn't that meaningful relevant to other data points IMO.

If you want to do YPP at least take FEI adjusted numbers which factors in opponent and removes blowout data.

FEI NET YARDS PER PLAY
Rk Team NPP OPP DPP
1 Oregon 4.16 7.78 3.62
2 Indiana 2.61 7.14 4.53
3 OSU 2.39 6.29 3.9
4 ND 2.16 7.4 5.24
5 TX Tech 2.12 6.24 4.12
6 USC 2.01 8.3 6.29
7 Vandy 1.96 7.53 5.58
8 ODU 1.88 7.4 5.52
9 Michigan 1.85 6.86 5.01
10 Toledo 1.81 6.39 4.58
13 A&M 1.64 6.59 4.95
17 OU 1.42 5.42 4
18 Missouri 1.41 6.35 4.94
20 TENN 1.32 6.85 5.53
27 LSU 1.14 5.81 4.67
30 Georgia 1.03 6.33 5.3
31 Ole Miss 1.01 6.87 5.86
34 Alabama 0.97 6.37 5.4
42 Texas 0.79 5.25 4.45
46 Arkansas 0.68 7.74 7.06
61 Auburn 0.27 5.14 4.87
78 Miss St -0.28 5.18 5.46
83 Florida -0.41 5.01 5.43
85 Kentucky -0.44 5.17 5.61