Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
You make good points about the predictive quality of yards surrendered, but I'd still argue that yards per play, yards per attempt and yards per rush are better indicators than just total yards. Those things will hold up regardless of number of possessions and total plays.
For example, what's better:
A defense that faces 85 offensive plays per game (40 pass, 45 run) and surrenders 450 total yards (5.3 YPP) or a defense that faces 70 total plays and surrenders 400 total yards (5.7 YPP)?
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That's fair, especially given that the defense that faces more plays is likely to be more tired and therefore the lower YPP is even more impressive.
In the end, my point remains that yards are more static and predictive than points, but yards even further distilled on a per play basis should be better still.
Though pretty much any stat you try to assign a predictive weight to in college football is going to be prone to pretty wild variances given the massive differences in competition level.