2022 Yards Per Play: SEC

Only two conferences left in our offseason sojourn. After a month spent out west, we return to the south and the place where college football is king. 

Here are the 2022 SEC 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 SEC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by division 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 2022 season, which teams in the SEC met this threshold? Here are SEC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

LSU and Vanderbilt both significantly overachieved relative to their expected record based on YPP. For LSU, that earned them some fringe playoff chatter late in the season and a spot in the SEC Championship Game. For Vanderbilt, it got them to five wins for the first time since 2018. LSU and Vanderbilt both won the close ones in 2022. LSU was 3-0 in one-score conference games, beating Alabama, Arkansas, and Auburn by a combined eight points. The Tigers were also waxed in both of their conference losses, losing to Tennessee by 27 and Texas A&M by 15. Vanderbilt was 2-1 in one-score conference games, beating Kentucky and Florida in back-to-back weeks for their first league wins in more than three years. While the Commodores won multiple SEC games, that does not mean they played well. In fact, their YPP was actually worse than it was in 2021. Aside from the aforementioned bright spots against Kentucky and Florida, Vanderbilt lost three conference games by at least fifty points!

Biggest Mismatches in Conference Title Games Part I

For the second straight year, Georgia rated out as the top SEC team in Yards Per Play. And for the second consecutive year, the Bulldogs won the East with no problem. If you were paying close attention, you may have noticed their opponent in the SEC Championship Game, the venerable LSU Tigers, were pretty mediocre by YPP standards. The Tigers finished eighth in the SEC and were actually underwater with a negative YPP. This piqued my curiosity. Was this the largest mismatch in any conference title game, at least based on YPP difference? I have been collecting YPP data since 2005, so all the nineties and early aughts title games are not included, but we can still see where this game ranks in recent history. 

I was initially only going to include the top ten and then I was going to separate out BCS/Power Five and non-BCS/Group of Five leagues, but there were only thirteen instances with a difference of at least two yards per play, so I included them all. Surprisingly, Georgia and LSU only rank as the eighth largest mismatch in terms of YPP disparity. The ACC holds the top two spots and has the most total appearances on this list with four. All four occurrences feature good to great Clemson and Florida State teams taking on relative also-rans that spun and won the ACC Wheel of Destiny. 

Of course, what examination of mismatches would be complete without a quick look at how each conference title game played out, both straight up and against the spread. After compiling these numbers, I realized it would be prudent to separate them into BCS/Power Five and non-BCS/Group of Five conferences for reasons you will soon understand. 

The BCS/Power Five mismatches ended about how you might have expected. Eight of the nine mismatches involved double digit point spreads, with five coming in at 24 points or more. The favored team won all nine games and covered in seven of nine. Only one game, the 2012 ACC Championship Game, was decided by single digits. Intuitively, this makes sense. Outside of that 2012 Florida State team (which posted fantastic YPP numbers), the other eight teams on this list all eight made the College Football Playoff or played in the BCS National Championship Game. Four won national titles and two others played for national titles. They were supremely talented and its no shock they dispatched their conference title game opponents with relative ease. For the non-BCS/Group of Five teams, well that's another story. 

Granted, its a small sample size, but the four mismatched favorites at the non-BCS/Group of Five level went 1-3 against the spread and one actually lost the game outright. Unlike their brethren at the BCS/Power Five level, these spreads were more compressed. Half were single digits and only one was more than twenty points. If you think about it a little, this makes sense. While the BCS/Power Five mismatches often featured teams with massive talent disparities. For example, based on the 247 composite ratings, Florida State was eleventh in roster talent in 2013. Duke was 71st. This is often not the case at the non-BCS/Group of Five level. While Buffalo played much better than Ball State in 2020, the Cardinals actually had more underlying talent. 

You may have noticed this piece was titled Part I. That often means a Part II is in the works. I'm not Mel Brooks, so there will not be a big gap before Part II drops. Look for it in the SEC APR write up next week.