Legal Commentary

Which NCAA Division I-A FBS college football coaching staffs have done a great job this year and which have not? Which head coaches, or offensive and defensive coordinators are rightly on the hot seat and who has done a good job even if it is not reflected in the won-loss record?

The won-loss record of a team does not always reflect whether a team is improving or declining and it sometimes takes a couple of years for improvement to become visible in the won-loss column. You could, for example, lose all 10 games by an average of 21 points one year but lose 10 games by only 7 points on average the next year, so the improvement would be tremendous at 2 TDs per game. Temple is a good example of that phenomenon this year, as clear improvements in previous years finally came to bear on the won-loss record. Better than the won-loss record in assessing a team's performance are in fact the yards per play statistics, which give an immediate year-to-year insight into a teams improvement or decline, and show where a team is improving or declining in terms of offense and defense.

The average yards per play component in NCAA Division I-A FBS college football has been remarkably constant for all the years we have kept track of it - this year showing a median for 120 teams of 5.5 yards per play gained on offense and 5.4 yards per play permitted on defense. There is at most a 1/10th yard variation (.1) any season. This is in spite of continuous tweaking of offenses and defenses. For an average schedule: a team averaging less than 5.5 yards per play on offense has either a subpar offense or a subpar offensive coordination, while a team averaging more than 5.4 yards per play on defense has either a subpar defense or a subpar defensive coordination. One must of course adjust those stats by the difficulty of schedule for each team.

NCAA DIVISION I-A (FBS)
COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM IMPROVEMENT
from the 2008 to the 2009 football season
as based on NAYPPA (net yards per play advantage)
through November 21, 2009, after Week 12 of regular season games.

Average yards per play stats are based on figures published at cfbstats.com. Teams with a plus net 2009 change (greater than 0.0) have improved in NAYPPA while teams with a negative net 2009 change (less than 0.0) have gotten worse in NAYPPA (net yards per play advantage, i.e. net yards gained per play on offense - minus - net yards allowed per play on defense = NAYPPA.

TEAM NAYPPA Improvement Rank	After 12th Week	NET 2009 CHANGE		YPP OFF 2009		YPP DEF 2009		YPP OFF 2008		YPP DEF 2008		YPPSYS Overall Rating
1	North Texas	+2.4		6.0		5.8		4.9		7.1		-2.9
2	Idaho	+2.2		6.9		6.3		4.8		6.6		-1.3
3	Louisiana-Monroe	+2.1		5.9		5.1		5.2		6.5		-1.5
4	Cincinnati	+1.8		7.4		4.7		5.6		4.7		2.2
4	Virginia Tech	+1.8		6.0		4.6		4.5		4.9		0.8
6	Pittsburgh	+1.5		6.6		4.9		5.1		4.9		1.0
6	Washington	+1.5		5.5		6.6		4.0		6.6		-2.7
8	Auburn	+1.4		6.2		5.2		4.5		4.9		-0.1
8	Central Michigan	+1.4		6.0		5.0		5.7		6.1		-0.5
8	Michigan State	+1.4		6.3		5.3		4.9		5.3		-0.9
8	UCF	+1.4		5.2		4.9		3.6		4.7		-1.3
12	San Diego State	+1.3		5.2		5.3		4.8		6.2		-2.5
12	SMU	+1.3		5.8		5.6		5.4		6.5		-1.7
12	UAB	+1.3		6.7		6.4		5.6		6.6		-1.9
15	Alabama	+1.2		6.2		3.8		5.5		4.3		2.4
15	Buffalo	+1.2		6.0		5.3		5.4		5.9		-1.8
15	Middle Tennessee	+1.2		5.7		4.8		5.1		5.4		-1.2
18	Arkansas	+1.1		7.0		6.0		5.5		5.6		-0.1
19	Hawai'i	+1.0		6.8		5.9		5.4		5.5		-1.5
19	Temple	+1.0		5.4		4.8		4.8		5.2		-0.9
19	Texas	+1.0		5.8		3.6		6.5		5.3		1.9
19	Texas A&M	+1.0		5.7		5.8		5.3		6.4		-1.7
23	Michigan	+0.9		5.6		5.6		4.4		5.3		-2.3
23	N.C. State	+0.9		5.7		5.4		5.1		5.7		-1.7
23	Stanford	+0.9		6.6		5.9		5.4		5.6		-0.4
23	UCLA	+0.9		5.2		5.2		4.2		5.1		-1.4
27	Nevada	+0.8		7.6		6.2		6.5		5.9		-0.4
27	Syracuse	+0.8		5.0		5.4		4.7		5.9		-2.4
29	Duke	+0.7		5.1		5.4		4.4		5.4		-2.0
29	Miami (Florida)	+0.7		6.0		5.1		5.1		4.9		0.1
29	Mississippi State	+0.7		5.4		5.6		4.2		5.1		-1.7
29	Nebraska	+0.7		5.5		4.1		6.4		5.7		0.4