BCS: King of the South countdown, 5 days until kickoff

Yesterday, we took a look at how similar both Alabama and LSU were in overall statistics. Those numbers covered both teams entire schedule, but how did they compare against similar opponents. Both teams played six common opponents and instead of just breaking down the stats like yesterday, we will take a look at it using a difference metric, the average yard or AY stat.

What is average yard you ask? I will tell you. AY is an efficiency metric that breaks down how a team’s offense was able to move the ball or how suffocating a defense was on meaningful drives. I say meaningful drive because this metric eliminates pointless drives such as a team trying to run out the clock or if a game is a blow out and starters are removed from the gam. There are three terms you need to be familiar with when determining average yard. Fist of all is average yard. To figure out AY, you divide a team potential yardage by their total yards gained. Total yard is a teams net rushing and passing yards. Potential is the total amount of yards a team could gain per game. Here is a short demonstration.