ACC: Yards per carry & yards per pass attempt

All of this stuff should really be computerized and you should be able to do just about anything you want. All you need is a SQL database with all the stats in it and then you should be able to run wild. Maybe that's what things like the Elias Sports Bureau have though and they just don't want to share them.

If anyone wants to write a script to go through ESPN pbp (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/playbyplay?gameId=292480059) and make it in to some sort of usable info, I would definitely host the db.
 
If anyone wants to write a script to go through ESPN pbp (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/playbyplay?gameId=292480059) and make it in to some sort of usable info, I would definitely host the db.

I've thought about it and it's definitely doable, but it would take A LOT of time, and I'm past that stage of my life where I can waste hundreds of hours doing something like this(ie, I'm at a stage in my life where I have a job :( ).
 
I've scraped a lot of stuff before, but it was raw stats that required less parsing, and it all came from urls that made sense for looping (pro football reference and basketball reference), which the ESPN ones do not so you'd have to script in a crawler just to find all the right pages.

I'm with you in that being too much work.
 
I've scraped a lot of stuff before, but it was raw stats that required less parsing, and it all came from urls that made sense for looping (pro football reference and basketball reference), which the ESPN ones do not so you'd have to script in a crawler just to find all the right pages.

I'm with you in that being too much work.

And after all of that you actually have to create a robust database to store it all in, which is no small task(although personally I find databases enjoyable.)
 
No, his "logic" isn't defending a preference for passing over rushing. The "logic" is in describing why other teams have more yards even though our YPC and YPA are better.

The "variance" between passing attempts and rushing attempts is the reason no one "just passes all the time." The yardage variance on passes is large; so a few bad passes can kill a drive. Rushing generally has a lower variance for every team.

However, our high YPC is misleading relative to other teams because we DO have more big plays rushing. Our mean may be higher but I am guessing our variance per carry is also higher per carry than most teams.

P.S.
Some teams have chosen to just throw "all the time" because throwing gets more total yards. If you can do it efficiently, then it is pretty powerful. But if you are not efficient then you will run less total plays and it won't matter how high your YPA average might be.

The argument can also be made that if you pass more frequently then the average yppa would be lower. If the other team knows you are going to pass 80% of the time they will gear they D to that and your rush ypa should go up too. The variables are not independent.
 
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