Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Numbers Crunch

Below is a display of statistics that compare the past 9 BCS champions to Virginia Tech's past 9 seasons. We took total offense (yards), scoring offense (points), total defense (yards allowed), and scoring defense (points allowed).

[If you're wondering...we used the past 9 seasons because that was the data readily available by way of some quick internet searches. Also, the 2 VT averages are for 9 years and 7 years (under our current offensive coordinator's tenure).]

As you could have imagined, the 1999 Virginia Tech team stats are very much in line with the BCS champion averages. Which should only support the discussion and numbers below.

Also, you can see that our total defense and scoring defense average for the past 9 and 7 years are very much in line with BCS champion averages. See "Difference" row, below.

Total scoring offense is "somewhat" in the same ballpark (average 17 spots or about 14% deficient) as BCS champion averages and it should be noted that this is an important statistic that deserves a lot of attention. As you can see, every BCS champion's scoring offense was ranked higher than its total offense (Florida was exception in 2006).

However, all of the past 9 BCS champions have averaged around 22nd in total offense. Clearly Ohio State was a statistical outlier in 2002, but most are in top 20. Even with Ohio State's 70th ranking in 2002, you can see that it took a total offense that ranked in the top 25 (approximately) for 8 of the past 9 BCS champions.

What does this tell us? That our defense is what we thought, consistently good enough to compete and win BCS championships.

Our offense? Also tells us what we thought, that it is a WORLD away...as in that over 50% of other Division 1A teams have averaged better total offense stats for the past 7 years.

It is clear that total offense does matter (coupled with scoring offense of course) in winning BCS championships. We are 50 spots away (on 7 year average) from that championship average.

We hear our offensive coaches say that "statistics don't mean much around here". As you can see by the stats, that statement has been pretty accurate for the past 7 years.

But, if we want to win BCS championships then these statistics cannot be ignored.







1 comment:

mainaman said...

Yes the numbers do not lie, and I am pretty sure that the coaching staff is aware of the statistics and they do know the meaning of it. I am curious, however, if they actually read those blogs? I mean otherwise its just a bunch of angry fans posting on blogs, I think its imperative that all those posts are made known to the appropriate Tech football people, are they?