http://blog.al.com/goldmine/2010/02/cashing_in_auburn_football_coa.html

“Auburn’s coaching staff already earned more than Tommy Tuberville’s last coaching staff.”

To quote Jonny Carson: I did not know that.

However: probably the best gauge of offensive/defensive performance is something I saw worked with a little bit at the Missouri blog Rock M Nation and by a diarist (not Brian) at MGoBlog last year. It’s pretty advanced stuff: they take the entire set of field position data and establish a baseline for “expected yards/points” for an offense based on where on the field it starts. Then for a given game, you can say since Offense X had 10 drives that started here, here, here, and here, they should have gained X yards and scored Y points; compare to how many yards and points they did or didn’t gain/score, and you get a much better sense of their efficiency than total yards or even yards-per-play.

This would be especially helpful in a game like the Iron Bowl, where I’d argue Auburn’s defense played even better than the stats say they did, since between the turnovers, Arenas returns, awful kickoffs, etc., the Tide started a gazillion drives on their own 40 or better. Maybe we can sic Magruder on something like this next fall.

Don’t you sort of have to take into account where the starting point was? The available talent? Depth for cryin’ out loud?

And they can’t all get Cs since heir units don’t perform the same.

Vince Lombardi himself wouldn’t have done too much better with this roster coming off the year we had in 2008.

Jerry, I was thinking that points per posession (in addition to your favorite: yards-per-play)is also a good indicator of a defense when combined with a no-huddle offense.

The coverage and punt return teams have nowhere to go but up. But significant improvement is required.