Any stat majors?

[JTrain]

I thought it would be interesting to look at the past 5-10 seasons and see which statistical ranking correlated most closely with final AP poll position. Just glancing at this year's stats, it seems there is a pretty strong correlation to pass efficiency defense:

 

1 Nebraska

2 Alabama

3 Iowa

4 TCU

5 Ohio St.

6 Florida

7 Oklahoma

8 Virginia Tech

9 Utah

10 Texas

11 Mississippi

12 Tennessee

13 Boise St.

14 North Carolina

15 Penn St.

 

Compare with the final AP poll:

 

1 Alabama

2 Texas

3 Florida

4 Boise State

5 Ohio State

6 TCU

7 Iowa

8 Cincinnati

9 Penn State

10 Virginia Tech

11 Oregon

12 Brigham Young

13 Georgia Tech

14 Nebraska

15 Pittsburgh

 

Teams in bold in the first list appear in the top 15 in both. Utah was close at 18th in the AP. That's pretty remarkable. It means if you are great at pass efficiency, there's a very good chance you are also highly ranked. Of course, more than one season's worth of data should be looked at, and I'm sure there is good correlation in other stat categories as well. But it would be really interesting to see all the data analyzed, and see which stats correlate the best and which do not correlate well with final rankings.

[kansas husker]

1Nebraska

2Alabama

3 Penn St.

4 Florida

5 Ohio St.

6 TCU

7 Oklahoma

8 Texas

9 Iowa

10 Virginia Tech

11 Air Force

12 LSU

13 North Carolina

14 Boise St.

15 Mississippi

 

Scorring defense seems to speak to it as well as 10 out of the top 15 scoring d's ended up in the final top 15