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Yards, Points and Predictions: Purdue
I toyed with a “Yardage Predictor” deal last season where I used the data from previous games in the season to make a more educated prediction on how Michigan would fare against their opponents and vice versa. This year, I’ve decided to resurrect the Yardage Predictor and utilize a “yards per point” metric. Yards per Point, Points per yard – they are the same thing. I just use Yards per Point because it’s an easier number to work with.
Here we go:
What is it? A score predictor utilizing total yards gained, total yards allowed, and points scored in each game by Michigan and by Michigan’s opponent.
What’s the methodology? Let’s first look at this week’s game against the Purdue. We’ll work through the methodology from the beginning. This is nothing complicated.
Predicting, coming to, whatever you want to call it, Purdue’s expected yards gained versus Michigan.
I’ll be referencing this table:
You have 8 weeks of football in the books so far. We want to find out how Michigan’s defense is performing in a comparative manner by looking at how Michigan’s opponents perform on average. What you see in the table above is Michigan’s opponents offensive production (yellow is Michigan’s opponents offensive production vs. Michigan, or, what Michigan’s D allowed).
Example: look at the “ND” column — ND’s offensive production is as follows:
Week 1 (South Florida): 508 yards
Week 2 (Michigan): 513 yards
Week 3 (Mich. State): 275 yards
Week 4 (Pitt): 398 yards
Week 5 (Purdue): 551 yards
Week 6 (Air Force): 560 yards
Week 7: Bye
Week 8 (USC): 267 yards
So, that’s Notre Dame’s offensive production by game – with Michigan’s D holding (or lack thereof) them to 513 yards. Notre Dame, on average, gains 426.5 yards per game. Therefore, Michigan’s D allowed ND to gain 120.28% of their average.
In doing the same routine as explained above for each of Michigan’s opponents, you wind up with Michigan holding its opponents to 87% of their average offensive production.
Next, I use Michigan’s average defensive performance of holding opponents to 87% of their average times Purdue’s average offensive output. 87%*387=342 yards.
Predicting the score.
I’ll be referencing this table:
Using the information learned in the first exercise, we are now going to predict, guess, whatever you want to call it, the amount of points Purdue will score this Saturday. What you see in the table above is Michigan’s opponents Yards per Point scored. Using our favorite Notre Dame game as the example. ND scored 31 points and gained 513 yards, therefore ND scored a point for every 16.55 yards gained.
The red text indicates a loss for that opponent. The point in doing this is simply to see losses vs. wins vs. the yards per point scored.
At the bottom, you have the total average, then the average for wins and losses. I don’t use the averages for wins and losses, just the overall.
So, next, I would take our predicted offensive production for Purdue, 342 yards, and divide that by Purdue’s average yards per point on the season, 16.04. 342/16.04 = approximately 21 points.
The other side of the ball. In doing the same for the other side of the ball for Michigan’s offense, you have the following table to reference.
The program here is the same as above in coming to Purdue’s offensive output. Based on that, you get 411 for Michigan’s offensive production.
Michigan’s season average Yard per Point metric sits at 13.15. 411/13.15 = approximately 31 points.
THE OUTCOME:
MICHIGAN 31
PURDUE 21
Is it accurate? The football isn’t round. It bounces in funny ways. You can never really predict the score to a football game. The variables that come in to play are many. I might get lucky a few times here and there, but as time plays out and I do this every week, we’ll see how legit this little exercise turns out to be.
What’s Next?
Every week I’m going to add a new metric to the system. Next week, I’m going to take a look at turnovers and add that into the mix.
Throw your suggestions my way. Don’t forget that whole the-football-isn’t-round bit and disclaimer when the score turns out to be Michigan 44 Purdue 18.
