Daily Blog • April 15, 2011	Blog Archives

I am always looking for new stats and new ways to analyze teams each and every year. In my last blog I gave you some information on how YPP (yards per point) affects a team’s record from season to season and a lot of that information will be featured in my upcoming college preview magazine.

This year I expanded this same type of concept by taking a look at points per play. Generally, you would think that the teams’ with the top scoring offenses in ppg would be ranked at the top but there are some noticeable differences.

First, I think it is amazing to see off efficient Wisconsin’s “run-oriented” offense was a year ago. Most teams that usually put up a lot of points have strong passing attacks but the Badgers’ ground game was clearly explosive this past year as they scored an average of .63 points per play

Another couple of run-oriented teams that were efficient last year was Michigan St which was just #47 in the NCAA in scoring offense averaging 29.46 ppg but the Spartans did it on just 817 offensive plays which placed them #27 in the country in yards per play. Ohio actually finished with the best difference in this category as they scored 27.46 ppg (#55) on just 768 plays finishing #31 with 0.46 points per play which was 24 spots higher. Iowa also did well placing 21 spots higher.

Teams that placed lower in the list were actually high scoring teams like Oklahoma (#14 scoring offense NCAA, #45 points per play) and Texas Tech (#23 scoring offense NCAA, #56 points per play) but there “poor” points per play rating is due more to their “hurry up” style offenses in which they run as many plays as possible and while both teams were successful averaging more than 33 ppg, it did take them a lot more plays to accomplish it.

Here is the list of the 120 teams with their points per play from last season.

Points Per Play

Rank	School	Points	Plays	Pts/plys
1	Boise St	586	910	0.64
2	Wisconsin	539	860	0.63
3	Auburn	577	948	0.61
4	Hawaii	554	926	0.60
5	Oregon	611	1024	0.60
6	Oklahoma St	575	982	0.59
7	Northern Ill	532	910	0.58
8	TCU	541	931	0.58
9	Stanford	524	914	0.57
10	Ohio St	504	896	0.56
11	Alabama	464	829	0.56
12	Nevada	574	1044	0.55
13	Arkansas	474	886	0.53
14	Tulsa	538	1006	0.53
15	San Diego St	455	865	0.53
16	Utah	430	826	0.52
17	Virginia Tech	474	913	0.52
18	Kansas St	437	847	0.52
19	Georgia	417	814	0.51
20	Maryland	419	822	0.51
21	Houston	452	894	0.51
22	UCF	449	898	0.50
23	Florida St	439	897	0.49
24	East Carolina	478	990	0.48
25	South Carolina	433	911	0.48
26	Nebraska	432	916	0.47
27	Michigan St	383	817	0.47
28	Illinois	423	903	0.47
29	Iowa	376	806	0.47
30	Southern Miss	479	1030	0.47
31	Ohio	357	768	0.46
32	LSU	386	839	0.46
33	Navy	386	849	0.45
34	Michigan	426	941	0.45
35	Western Michigan	388	860	0.45
36	Kentucky	406	910	0.45
37	Troy	443	997	0.44
38	Mississippi	367	826	0.44
39	Arizona St	387	877	0.44
40	Fresno St	377	858	0.44
41	Florida	388	885	0.44
42	Air Force	401	916	0.44
43	USC	403	930	0.43
44	Baylor	405	939	0.43
45	Oklahoma	521	1211	0.43
46	Tennessee	351	827	0.42
47	Toledo	363	860	0.42
48	Arkansas St	360	856	0.42
49	Missouri	388	929	0.42
50	Mississippi St	377	907	0.42
51	FIU	374	906	0.41
52	Temple	300	727	0.41
53	Pittsburgh	342	830	0.41
54	North Carolina St	414	1006	0.41
55	Louisville	343	835	0.41
56	Texas Tech	430	1054	0.41
57	California	310	760	0.41
58	Rice	344	854	0.40
59	UTEP	338	844	0.40
60	Connecticut	343	858	0.40
61	Army	346	866	0.40
62	Texas A&M	406	1034	0.39
63	SMU	360	920	0.39
64	Cincinnati	325	837	0.39
65	South Fla	313	810	0.39
66	Oregon St	293	759	0.39
67	Arizona	367	959	0.38
68	Notre Dame	342	895	0.38
69	North Carolina	329	865	0.38
70	Indiana	326	861	0.38
71	Middle Tenn	344	909	0.38
72	Idaho	346	922	0.38
73	Georgia Tech	338	921	0.37
74	Penn St	319	873	0.37
75	Miami, Fl	342	937	0.36
76	Northwestern	343	942	0.36
77	Louisiana Tech	321	890	0.36
78	Clemson	312	866	0.36
79	West Virginia	327	908	0.36
80	BYU	340	946	0.36
81	UAB	316	882	0.36
82	Wake Forest	273	762	0.36
83	North Texas	287	805	0.36
84	Syracuse	288	812	0.35
85	Virginia	304	862	0.35
86	Ball St	264	754	0.35
87	Duke	303	872	0.35
88	WKU	274	795	0.34
89	Colorado	290	847	0.34
90	Central Michigan	293	860	0.34
91	Minnesota	278	825	0.34
92	Wyoming	230	691	0.33
93	Tulane	299	899	0.33
94	Washington	284	857	0.33
95	Kent St	256	773	0.33
96	Marshall	250	766	0.33
97	Rutgers	250	769	0.33
98	Texas	285	878	0.32
99	Miami, Oh	302	941	0.32
100	Louisiana	268	850	0.32
101	Iowa St	260	828	0.31
102	Bowling Green	255	820	0.31
103	Utah St	264	852	0.31
104	UCLA	242	802	0.30
105	UNLV	239	805	0.30
106	Purdue	236	796	0.30
107	Boston College	240	815	0.29
108	Washington St	235	801	0.29
109	Eastern Michigan	228	793	0.29
110	ULM	250	874	0.29
111	FAU	202	741	0.27
112	San Jose St	209	788	0.27
113	Vanderbilt	203	781	0.26
114	Colorado St	198	785	0.25
115	Akron	187	742	0.25
116	Kansas	205	823	0.25
117	Memphis	173	718	0.24
118	New Mexico	190	805	0.24
119	New Mexico St	188	825	0.23
120	Buffalo	170	850	0.20