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.