That was a long break

It's been over a year, but I think I'm finally ready to pick this thing up again and give it a second shot. Hopefully this time I'll actually be able to keep up with it. That said, I saw something on MGoBlog's Mailbag today that sparked my interest. Apparently, one of Brian's friends did a comparison of teams in the Big Ten where he looked at their net yards per play average (YPPA). I thought it would be interesting to do the same for the Big XII. Here is the basic premise from that e-mail:

Net YPPA [Yards Per Play Average] so far this year are remarkable. It is the only singular team quality measure that I have ever found. As I have mentioned, I think the number shows more about “how good a team is” than wins and losses. Plus 3 is a possible NC team. Plus 2 is a top 15 team. Minus 2 is a complete patsy.

I'm not quite sure how Craig adjusted for sacks. Actually, I'm not sure how Craig even did the calculation at all. After looking at Ohio State's statistics and running through all the formulas I could come up with, I couldn't replicate his numbers. So, I just faked it and got rough estimates by dividing the total offensive and defensive yards by the total number of offensive and defensive plays, respectively. If you have a suggestion about how to make this more accurate, I'm all ears. I took statistics twice and didn't learn a damn thing either time. So then, how does the Big XII look? Here's a breakdown by division. I've also included over-all conference rank and threw in the rest of the top 5 (Alabama and Florida) for argument's sake.

North Division
Team	Off. YPPA	Def. YPPA	Net YPPA	Conf. Rank
Missouri (8-2)	7.31	5.11	2.20	2
Kansas (6-4)	6.13	5.49	0.64	6
Nebraska (6-4)	6.47	5.99	0.48	8
Kansas St. (4-6)	5.84	5.92	-0.08	9
Colorado (5-5)	4.47	5.36	-0.89	10
Iowa St. (2-8)	5.27	6.63	-1.36	12
South Division
Team	Off. YPPA	Def. YPPA	Net YPPA	Conf. Rank
Texas Tech (10-0)	7.49	5.18	2.31	1
Oklahoma (9-1)	7.01	4.88	2.13	3
Oklahoma St. (8-2)	7.19	5.40	1.79	4
Texas (9-1)	6.57	5.41	1.16	5
Baylor (3-7)	5.79	5.29	0.50	7
Texas A&M (4-6)	5.29	6.21	-0.92	11
Other Top 5
Team	Off. YPPA	Def. YPPA	Net YPPA	Conf. Rank
Alabama (10-0)	5.69	4.23	1.46	--
Florida (8-1)	6.72	4.55	2.17	--

I know that comparing across conferences is difficult at best, but it is interesting to note that Alabama ranks below both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State on this chart while Florida ranks just above Oklahoma and barely behind Missouri. It would be interesting to see what other things could be counted in to this to make it a more accurate representation of a team's quality. Right off the top of my head, I want to try an add special teams and turnover margin, but I'm not sure how you would do that. I'll ponder on it and hopefully have another post about this next week. Look for a preview of the Texas Tech game later next week and maybe reviews of the State vs. Tech and OU vs. A&M games this weekend.