I mentioned in another thread that Phil Steele used to show in his preseason magazine what the average yardage margin was for each team in their conference games. The idea was that a team with a winning conference record outgains its opponents on average, a team with a losing record gets outgained on average, and a .500 team has a margin around zero. The better your record, the more you probably outgain your opponents by and vice versa.
If a team that got outgained by 40 yards per game for example ended up with a 6-3 record, they overachieved and might have have had some bounces go their way. If a team that outgained its opponents by 40 yards per game went 3-6, they were probably more capable than their record suggests but they underachieved and maybe had some bad luck.
Through eight games, these are the records and yardage margins in this year’s Big 12:
TCU 8-0 +77.5
K-State 6-2 +49.9
Texas 5-3 +65.7
Ok State 4-4 -92.3
Baylor 4-4 +42.0
Texas Tech 4-4 +8.5
Oklahoma 3-5 -47.1
Kansas 3-5 -70.4
West Virginia 2-6 -98.1
Iowa State 1-7 +64.4
The records for each team and what you would expect their record to be based on their yardage margin are all within one game of each other with two major exceptions: Oklahoma State and Iowa State.
Oklahoma State’s yardage margin suggests that they ought to be around 1-7. Iowa State’s yardage margin is third best in the conference (barely behind Texas in second place) and suggests that we ought to be around 5-3 or even 6-2. To be four or five games below what the yardage margin suggests is really pretty incredible.
Interestingly, TCU’s yardage margin isn’t indicative of a typical 8-0 team. You would normally expect a team with that record to outgain conference opponents by over 100 yards per game. A team that really dominates their conference (like Ohio State in the Big Ten or Alabama in the SEC a lot of years) might even have a yardage margin around +200. A truly awful team (like Colorado this year and Kansas in the past) has a margin around -200.
If a team that got outgained by 40 yards per game for example ended up with a 6-3 record, they overachieved and might have have had some bounces go their way. If a team that outgained its opponents by 40 yards per game went 3-6, they were probably more capable than their record suggests but they underachieved and maybe had some bad luck.
Through eight games, these are the records and yardage margins in this year’s Big 12:
TCU 8-0 +77.5
K-State 6-2 +49.9
Texas 5-3 +65.7
Ok State 4-4 -92.3
Baylor 4-4 +42.0
Texas Tech 4-4 +8.5
Oklahoma 3-5 -47.1
Kansas 3-5 -70.4
West Virginia 2-6 -98.1
Iowa State 1-7 +64.4
The records for each team and what you would expect their record to be based on their yardage margin are all within one game of each other with two major exceptions: Oklahoma State and Iowa State.
Oklahoma State’s yardage margin suggests that they ought to be around 1-7. Iowa State’s yardage margin is third best in the conference (barely behind Texas in second place) and suggests that we ought to be around 5-3 or even 6-2. To be four or five games below what the yardage margin suggests is really pretty incredible.
Interestingly, TCU’s yardage margin isn’t indicative of a typical 8-0 team. You would normally expect a team with that record to outgain conference opponents by over 100 yards per game. A team that really dominates their conference (like Ohio State in the Big Ten or Alabama in the SEC a lot of years) might even have a yardage margin around +200. A truly awful team (like Colorado this year and Kansas in the past) has a margin around -200.
