Here are the 2024 MAC standings.
So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each MAC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.
College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2024 season, which teams in the MAC met this threshold? Here are MAC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.
Buffalo was the only team that saw their actual record differ from their expected record based on YPP. The Bulls posted a negative per play differential, but finished with a winning conference record and came close to qualifying for the MAC Championship Game in head coach Pete Lembo's first season back in the MAC. The Bulls had a decent, but not especially strong close game record in conference play (2-1), finished with a +6 in-conference turnover margin, and were significantly better on fourth down than their conference opponents. In MAC play, the Bulls converted ten of sixteen fourth down attempt, while their opponents converted just nine of twenty one. That's an additional six hidden turnovers the Bulls netted in those high leverage situations.
A Star is Burns
One of the more thankless and anonymous jobs in college football is probably the head football coach at Kent State. Without Googling, can you recall the current head coach? His name is Ken Burns. Not the documentarian who loves baseball. Different guy. Technically, he goes by Kenni Burns. But you get the idea. He shares a name with an at least somewhat known filmmaker, and you probably had no idea who he was. Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I plan these posts out far in advance, so this is not related to the recent news that Kent State placed Burns on administrative leave. The news broke nearly two weeks ago and I have not seen any follow up reporting. This again speaks to the anonymity of being the head coach at Kent State. Were the head coach at Alabama or Ohio State placed on administrative leave, I would have expected some additional inquiries into the reason. There are some internet rumors involving Burns. I have too much integrity to reprint them in this space, but not enough to not link to them. Enjoy.
Aside from potential off the field issues, Kent State has not enjoyed any gridiron success under Burns. The Golden Flashes are 1-23 in his two seasons in charge and have yet to defeat an FBS opponent. How common is it for teams to win one game or fewer over two seasons? Perhaps a little more common than you might think. In the BCS/CFP era (since 1998), there have been sixteen instances of a school winning one game or fewer over two seasons. They are listed alphabetically below along with their respective head coaches.
Kenni Burns is in pretty rare company. Only three other coaches (Tom Arth, Walt Bell, and Trent Miles) put up such bad numbers in their first two seasons on the job. If Burns makes it to the beginning of the season, he will join those three in being given a third season at the helm despite the deplorable start. Both Arth and Bell were fired before completing their third seasons, but Miles actually got Georgia State to a bowl in his third season before being fired midway through his fourth.
Not to pile on Burns and Kent State, but I want to give some more context as to how bad they have been the past two seasons. Of the sixteen teams on the previous list, fifteen won at least one game (Duke is the only team in the BCS/CFP era to post back-to-back winless campaigns). Of those fifteen, Kent State is one of three to not defeat an FBS team in that span.
Kent State's lone win under Burns came in his third game against Central Connecticut State. The Blue Devils were a bad FCS team in 2023, finishing 3-8. The Golden Flashes also scheduled a bad FCS team in 2024, but did not fare quite as well. St. Francis, recently in the news for opting to drop down to Division III in all sports, defeated Kent State 23-17 this past season. The other colored Flashes (Red in this case) were not a good FCS team, finishing 4-7 on the season. The loss to Saint Francis (who I thought was a big sissy), gives Kent State, along with Georgia State, the ignominious distinction of being the only team with a single win over two seasons that both lost to an FCS team and had their only win come against an FCS team. Georgia State at least has the excuse of being an FBS neophyte during their two year run of futility. The teams from the previous list that lost to FCS teams are listed below.
Things seem pretty hopeless at Kent State at the moment. I don't know what fans expected when Burns was hired, but it was probably better than 1-23 (1-1 versus FCS opponents and 0-22 versus FBS teams). The list of teams that won one game or fewer over two seasons does not offer a lot of hope, at least not for the progenitor of most of the losses. Arizona (Jeff Fisch), Florida International (Mario Cristobal), South Carolina (Lou Holtz), Southern Miss (Todd Monken), and Temple (Al Golden) had success after firing the coaches that started floundering. However, outside of Trent Miles, none of the other coaches that started the skid were able to course correct.
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