In the June 19-20 blog I discussed my power ratings system, which lets me analyze at what level each team played during an individual game. This “game grade” takes into account the yards rushing, yards passing, points scored, rushing yards allowed, passing yards allowed and points allowed and factors them in against the opponent played and even factors in the site the game was played at.

One of the main factors in this “game grade” deals with total ypg differential (total off-total def). Naturally, a team that outgains their opponents by a large margin over the course of the season will receive a higher game grade average. While this is just one factor that goes into my overall game grade it got me wondering what were some of the best seasons in the last decade for teams outgaining their opponents.

Here are the best 50 seasons in the last decade (’00-’09) for outgaining opponents on the season.

Florida St outgained their opponents in 2000 by an amazing 3,264 yds or 253 ypg on the season! The Seminoles avg 530 ypg on offense and gave up just 277 ypg and were dominant all year long until they came up short in the national title game against Oklahoma.

The 2008 USC Trojans had arguably the best defense of the last decade allowing just 9.0 ppg and 222 ypg. The offense was equally potent avg 37.5 ppg and 455 ypg and outgained their opponents by 3,028 yds on the season. However, an early loss to Oregon St kept the Trojans out of the national title game.

While the Gators came up short in the SEC Title game last year, they did outgain their opponents by 2,874 yds which was #1 in the country with their amazing 659-246 yd edge over Cincinnati in the Sugar bowl putting them over the top.

Here are the teams that had the most appearances in the top 50

USC 5
Florida 4
TCU 4
Oklahoma 4
Texas 3
LSU 3

On the opposite side here the worst 50 seasons in the last decade for teams getting outgained by their opponents on the season.

As you can see Washington St has really struggled the last couple of years being outgained in ’09 by 3,161 yards and 2,630 yards in ’08. Altogether the Cougars have been outgained by 5,791 yards the last two years or an avg of 241 ypg!

Temple also had two of the worst seasons of the last decade. In 2006 they were outgained by 2,841 yards in ’06 and by 2,348 yards in ’05. However, those days look to be far behind them under HC Golden as the Owls won 9 games last year and were only outgained by 7 total yards!

Duke had five of the worst seasons this past decade as far as getting outgained by opponents, which was three more than any other program. However, like Temple HC Cutcliffe has turned them around and the Blue Devils were only outgained by a single yard last year!

Here are the teams that had two bottom 50 performances….Army, Baylor, Buffalo, FIU, Kansas, New Mexico St, Rutgers, Stanford, Syracuse, Temple, Utah St and Washington St.

I will be back tomorrow with a look at how the conference polls are coming along on the homepage. Remember this is a great way for me to gauge how the public views each game. When you vote you have the entire conference schedule in front of you and the home team is capitalized. Get your votes in today and see how the fans think the big games like Oklahoma-Texas, Ohio St at Iowa, Florida St at Miami, Fl and West Virginia at Pittsburgh are going to shake out! To vote you do have register your e-mail address but this is just to make sure there is no stuffing of the ballot box.