Most Important Football Statistics

NUance

NUance

Assistant Coach
Coaches pick the most important statisticTom Dienhart Rivals.com College Football Senior Writer

Arizona State's Dennis Erickson

"The biggest thing with winning and losing is turnover margin. We lost that last year. With what we do on offense, we may turn it over a little more. So you have to take that into consideration."

Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald

"The tell-tale one for me is turnover ratio.

Nebraska's Carl Pelini

"Lost-yardage plays are huge. These are the things we look at, in addition to points allowed. You have to be great on third downs, so we will look at our defense's third-down success rate, too. Anything under 30 is pretty good. When you start getting 25, 26 percent, you're a damn good defense. No matter how long a drive is, no matter how much success an offense is having, you are going to have two or three opportunities during the course of a drive to get off the field. If you are hitting those 66, 70 percent of the time, you have a great shot of getting the ball back even though you are giving up some yards. We also look at explosive plays vs. lost-yardage plays. We want to have two lost-yardage plays for every explosive play we allow. For us, explosive plays are runs over 12 yards and passes over 17. And turnovers. There was a study years ago in the NFL that I have bought into: If you win the turnover battle, you have more lost-yardage plays than the other team's defense and good starting field position, if you can win two out of three, you win something like 95 percent of your games."

LINK
Click to expand...
 
We didn't have a lot of lost-yardage plays last year. Our D Line wasn't nearly as aggressive as we've been in years past, and that led to a drop in our Run Defense ranking.

 
Turnovers and penalties, how many games have we lost off those. I would say the majority of them.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Turnovers, penalties, way below average offensive out-put, spotty offensive line play, inconsistent QB play there are plenty of reasons.

 
So the most important stat is lost yards...err I mean lost yards vs Explosives....err I mean third down efficiency....errr I mean turnovers. That's three or four indicators. Proving once and for all...there is no magic bullet. And statistics are worthless most of the time.

 
tmfr15 said:
So the most important stat is lost yards...err I mean lost yards vs Explosives....err I mean third down efficiency....errr I mean turnovers. That's three or four indicators. Proving once and for all...there is no magic bullet. And statistics are worthless most of the time.
Click to expand...
Yep, line up, hold onto the ball, go forward, do it within the rules.

 
Obvious but best one.

Auburn's Gus Malzahn

"I'm an offensive guy, so for us, being a run-play action team, yards per rush is pretty important to us. When it is up, we are good. When it is down, we aren't as good. We have to be able to run the ball successfully to open up everything else that we do."

 
Blaze1up said:
Obvious but best one.

Auburn's Gus Malzahn

"I'm an offensive guy, so for us, being a run-play action team, yards per rush is pretty important to us. When it is up, we are good. When it is down, we aren't as good. We have to be able to run the ball successfully to open up everything else that we do."
Click to expand...
Short, sweet, and to the point. Might be an obvious one, but it is the truth.

 
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
kchusker_chris said:
pretty well follows the "bend but don't break" concept we've been seeing for the last few years.
Click to expand...

Pretty much only the last year. That '09 defense did no bending and no breaking.
Click to expand...
'09 actually did a lot of bending as I recall, just a lot less breaking. The Oklahoma game is a prime example. The D played a ridiculous amount of snaps that game, and gave up hardly any points.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
LANEKIFFIN250_516USPW.JPG


I like how Rivals uses the picture of the coach with the most knowledge and wisdom among the 30 they quoted. :sarcasm

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top