2024 Yards Per Play: ACC

We are into February now. While real football is still far away, take solace in the fact that spring games start in less than a month. Let's reminisce about what happened in the ACC in 2024. 

Here are the 2024 ACC 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 ACC 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 ACC met this threshold? Here are ACC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Syracuse significantly exceeded their expected record based on YPP while newcomer Cal underperformed. The college football regular season ended on November 30th. However, the College Football Playoff did not officially crown a champion until late in the evening on January 20th, nearly two full months later. Syracuse played just one game after finishing the regular season with an upset of Miami, a Holiday Bowl blowout against undermanned Washington State, so you may have forgotten the Orange closed the regular season on a three-game win streak and actually finished 20th in the final AP Poll. That was a great showing for the Orange in their first season under Fran Brown, but they were not quite as good as their record indicated. Go back and look at the per play numbers. The Orange had the second worst per play defense in the ACC (ahead of only Stanford). Syracuse finished 5-2 in one-score conference games (7-2 overall in such games). With Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord taking snaps, the Orange converted nearly 49% of their third down attempts on the season (eighth nationally). With McCord gone, I expect serious regression from the Syracuse offense in 2025. Meanwhile, Cal had a slightly positive per play differential, but won just two conference games. The Bears were 1-5 in one-score ACC games and were most unfortunate in fourth down variance. ACC opponents converted 18 of 23 fourth down attempts against the Bears (78%). Had they managed to kill a few more drives with stops on fourth down, the Bears first foray into the ACC would have gone much better. 

The Polls Got It Wrong

Heading into 2024, Florida State was the ACC favorite, at least as determined by the Stassen Preseason Consensus. The Seminoles were far from a prohibitive favorite, as some other magazines and projection systems picked Clemson or Miami to win the crown, but they were the consensus selection to repeat as ACC champs. That prediction ended up being about as accurate as a respected Iowa presidential poll. I'm not here to clown on the prognosticators. Florida State won the ACC in 2023 and it was reasonable to expect them to contend once again in 2024. However, the Seminoles not only finished with a losing conference record, they finished dead last in the ACC. And with conference expansion coupled with no divisions, that did not mean they finished eighth or ninth. No. They finished seventeenth! This was easily the biggest whiff by the preseason consensus over the past twenty years. But as we are want to do around here, let's take a stroll down memory lane and look at some other major misses by college football soothsayers. 

North Texas had won or shared the Sun Belt championship in the first four years of the conference's existence, so it was no surprise they were the consensus pick to win it again in 2005. The Mean Green won their Sun Belt opener, but won just a single game the rest of the way and finished tied for last. They would not post another winning campaign for the remainder of their time in the league (left after the 2012 season). 

Nebraska played in the Big 12 Championship Game in 2006. Why would they not represent the weaker North division once again in 2007? The Cornhuskers opened the season 4-1 with a non-conference loss to an elite Southern Cal team, but in a portent of things to come, allowed 40 points and nearly lost at home to Ball State. They closed the year on a 1-6 run and finished tied for last in the division. 

Auburn was actually tied with LSU as the consensus favorite to come out of the SEC West in 2008. Auburn had a hyped offensive coordinator and a head coach that couldn't lose to Alabama. That offensive coordinator was fired halfway through the season and the head coach is now the dumbest senator in US history (previous statement may be slightly hyperbolic, but not much). Also in 2008, UCF was coming off a Conference USA title, but their All-American running back was selected in the NFL Draft and the Knights struggled to score on their way to a disappointing finish. 

Kansas finished with a 20-6 combined record in 2007 and 2008. With attrition at Missouri, Kansas was the logical choice to serve as the Big 12 North's sacrificial lamb in the league's title game. Kansas opened the season 5-0, but dropped their final seven games. The losing streak coupled with allegations of player abuse ended the Mark Mangino era in Lawrence. 

Texas played in the BCS Championship Game in 2009, so even with the loss of Colt McCoy, it was time to reload in Austin. While he held on for a few more years after 2010, this was the beginning of the end for Mack Brown as an elite college coach (or at least coach of an elite college team). 

In their first ten years in the ACC, the Hokies posted a 62-18 conference record, so it was no surprise they were favored to appear in another ACC Championship Game in 2014 (albeit only slightly). Their 3-5 finish was not horrible, but with the general competitiveness of the ACC, they were tied for last in the Coastal.

Georgia Tech represented the Coastal in the 2014 ACC Championship Game and beat two SEC teams on their way to a top ten finish in 2014. They sputtered horribly in 2015, winning just a single league game. Although it did come in dramatic fashion. 

Between 2013 and 2015, Marshall won 33 games. That trend was expected to continue in 2016, but the Thundering Herd won just two league games that season. 

Fresno State played in back to back Mountain West Championship Game in 2017 and 2018. The Bulldogs were unable to make it three in a row as they finished tied for last in the West division despite beating eventual division champ Hawaii. Also in 2019, perennial MAC power Toledo posted their first losing conference record in a decade as they finished tied for last in the MAC West.

And finally, the creme de la creme. Florida State somehow finished below 16 other conference teams in 2024. Again, I am not throwing shade at those that predicted another Florida State conference title. Even the most pessimistic observers would not have predicted this level of futility. However, those in the prediction business will be hard pressed to whiff this badly ever again. 

2024 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: AAC

Last week we looked at how AAC teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2024 AAC standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, AAC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Florida Atlantic was the only AAC team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR, and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

Group of Five Championship Participants

In their first season as a member of the AAC, Army ran roughshod over the conference, finishing unbeaten in league play (almost) and winning their first ever conference title. With Army's appearance in the AAC Championship Game, that means just two AAC members have yet to play in a conference title game as an FBS program. That got me to thinking about the entirety of the Group of Five and which teams have yet to play in a conference title game. Let's roll through them alphabetically by conference.

Charlotte and South Florida have yet to play in a conference title game. Charlotte has finished bowl eligible just once in their history and that season the 49ers were still two games behind eventual league champ Florida Atlantic in Conference USA. South Florida was in contention for the AAC crown for three straight seasons, but finished a game behind Temple in 2015, lost the tiebreaker to Temple in 2016, and finished two games behind unbeaten UCF in 2017. 

Conference USA has three FBS newcomers that were either very bad in their FBS maiden voyage (Kennesaw State) or will be playing their first season of FBS ball in 2025 (Delaware and Missouri State). Florida International finished a game behind Middle Tennessee State in 2018 while winning a school record nine games. In the division-less Conference USA of 2024, Sam Houston finished tied for second with Western Kentucky, but lost the head to head matchup with the Hilltoppers. UTEP had the inside track to the inaugural Conference USA Championship Game in 2005, but dropped their final two regular season games to finish one game behind Tulsa. 

The MAC instituted a conference championship game in 1997 and Eastern Michigan is the only team that has been a member since that season that has yet to play in it. Prior to Chris Creighton's arrival, the Eagles oscillated between bad and horrendous, but finished tied with Toledo for the division crown in 2022. Massachusetts will rejoin the MAC in 2025 and was a MAC member for four seasons (2012-2015), but never finished with more than three league wins. 

Nevada, along with Colorado State and New Mexico, are the only three current Mountain West teams that have never played in the league's title game. However, the Rams and Lobos played in the short lived WAC Championship Game, facing off against each other in the 1997 edition). 

The Sun Belt has a relatively new title game (first contested in 2018) and several teams that have been in FBS for only a decade or so which explains why it has the most current members that have never played in a conference title games. Arkansas State lost the tiebreaker to Louisiana-Lafayette in 2018. Georgia Southern finished a game behind Appalachian State in 2018 and a game behind Marshall in 2024. Georgia State finished a game behind Appalachian State in 2021. James Madison technically won the Sun Belt East in both 2022 and 2023, but were ineligible for the conference crown due to transitioning from FCS. Louisiana-Monroe's best finish since the Sun Belt instituted the conference title game was in 2018, when they went 4-4 and were a game behind both Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State. Old Dominion lost the tiebreaker to Western Kentucky in the 2016 Conference USA East division. South Alabama lost the tiebreaker to Troy when both finished 7-1 in 2022. And finally, Texas State finished with a winning Sun Belt record in 2024 for just the second time since joining the conference in 2013. 

While they have not played in a conference for a few years and are mostly a national afterthought, I would be remiss if I left out Connecticut. To be fair, they have played in two bowls in three seasons under Jim Mora Jr. However, as members of the AAC, they did not finish with a winning conference record in any season, topping out at 4-4 in 2015. 

Which teams are most likely to play in their first conference title game in 2025? I would direct your attention to the Sun Belt. Its a strict numbers play as eight teams in the league have yet to appear in a conference title game. I think two teams from that conference have a great shot at moving off of this list in early December. Put me down for a James Madison/Texas State title game. 

2024 Yards Per Play: AAC

The college football season is over and the longest offseason in sports begins. To help you get through, we'll revisit all ten nine conferences as we have for the past seven years via conference only Yards Per Play numbers and the Adjusted Pythagorean Record to see which teams may have been better or worse than their actual record. We'll begin as we always do with the American Athletic Conference. 

Here are the 2024 AAC 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 AAC 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 AAC met this threshold? Here are AAC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Memphis and Tulsa exceeded their expected record based in YPP while the trio of North Texas, Rice, and Florida Atlantic underperformed. Memphis had a solid close game record in AAC play (3-1) and also posted the second best in-conference turnover margin (+9). Tulsa was not exceptionally fortunate in close games (1-1 in conference play) and the Golden Hurricane actually had the worst in-conference turnover margin (-9). Tulsa exceeded their expected record based on YPP thanks to getting their ass beat so bad and so often, the regression analysis thought they should have won negative games. More on their historically bad per play performance in a bit. North Texas was not especially unfortunate in close games (2-2 in AAC play) and forced just as many turnovers as they committed in conference play. However, the Mean Green had 19 hidden turnovers. Head coach Eric Morris was aggressive, going for it on fourth down 32 times in eight conference games. Unfortunately, the Mean Green only converted 13 times. This blog respects and admires bold coaches (and the math is usually in their favor), so this is by no means a criticism of Morris. It is merely an explanation for why North Texas won fewer games that we might otherwise expect from their solid per play numbers. Rice was also mediocre in close conference games (2-2 record), but the Owls had a poor in-conference turnover margin (-8) and despite not being nearly as aggressive as North Texas, were even worse on fourth down conversions. The Owls converted just four times on 15 fourth down attempts in conference play. Florida Atlantic finished 0-2 in one-score conference games and the Owls could not get opponents off the field as they allowed 11 conversions on 16 fourth down attempts in conference play. 

Worst Per Play Differentials

Tulsa was bad in 2024. That is neither a controversial statement nor is it groundbreaking analysis. The Golden Hurricane finished 1-7 in AAC play, with six of their seven losses coming by double digits. Their lone conference win required a miraculous comeback against UTSA. Rinding high off that resurgent victory, Tulsa fell behind 45-0 to UAB in their next game. Head coach Kevin Wilson was eventually fired and Ryan Switzer coached Tulsa (or is at least credited for on the official ledger) in their regular season finale against Florida Atlantic. At this blog we like to celebrate outliers and the Golden Hurricane were that in 2024. They were not just bad, they were historically bad. Among non-power conference teams since 2005, they posted the third worst in-conference per play differential of any team. And they are one of just eight teams since 2005 to have an in-conference per play differential worse than negative three. Let's meet these non-elite eight. 

Among those eight teams, Tulsa joined Washington State (2008) and Vanderbilt as the only teams to actually win a conference game despite egregious per-play numbers. Washington State won their infamous Crapple Cup game with Washington while Vanderbilt actually beat a ranked (at the time) Missouri team to give their fans some false hope that things were not as dire as they appeared. Surprisingly, only three of the teams got their respective coaches fired during their runs of futility. Wilson joins power conference coaches David Cutcliffe (Duke) and Les Miles (Kansas) in getting pink slipped. Outside of Cutcliffe, the rest of the teams on this list enjoyed little to any success with their respective head coaches. Mike Neu (Ball State) had the best non-Cut run, leading the Cardinals to a MAC title in the pandemic shortened 2020 season, but he still finished with a winning percentage below .400 at his alma mater. 

Strangers in the Field Part IX: How'd We Do?

Another football season has come and (almost) gone. All our bets from the summer have been finalized. The college bets were pretty good. The NFL bets...not so much. 

Games of the Year

We started out hot with covers in the first three games including two outright wins (arguably should have been three). Fading an improved Colorado team was not a good play, but we were a little unlucky in two of the non-covers. By kickoff, UCF was laying double digits to Utah, meaning we had roughly two touchdowns of closing line value. Similarly, North Carolina ended up going off as a favorite against NC State, but the Tar Heels gave up a late touchdown to blow the cover. 

College Football Win Totals

The overall record wasn't that great, but we nailed our two biggest bets rather easily (Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt). We were also a little unlucky as the Liberty win total was graded as a push even though they went under thanks to their game with Appalachian State being canceled. 

NFL Win Totals

Yikes. Maybe time to reconsider betting NFL win totals. We were a little unlucky however as neither the Saints nor the Patriots could win a close game. Probably should have gotten one or two of these with a little better luck. 

Miscellaneous

Another o-fer on the miscellaneous bets. James Madison was arguably the best team in the Sun Belt, but the Dukes dropped several close games and could not win the division in their first year of eligibility. 

Money Wagered: $2,315

Money Won: $2,696.95

ROI: 16.49%

Not a bad return on investment. As I mentioned, we were probably a bit unlucky and deserved a few more covers and win total cashers. Plenty of motivation to go back again this summer. 

The college football season does not end until January 20th, so our offseason recaps are still nearly three weeks away. We'll get started as we always do on the Thursday after the title game (January 23rd). Hope you'll come back then.