Today, we'll move from a statistic that focuses mainly on the defensive side of the ball to a statistic that focuses mainly on the offensive side of the ball: the Scoreability Index. Whereas the Bendability Index determines how many yards it took an opponent to accumulate to score a point on a team, the Scoreability Index determines how many yards it takes an offense to score a point on their opponent. Just like was the case with the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index is not solely a measure of offensive prowess, but instead a measure of overall team efficiency that takes into account a variety of factors, such as red zone offense, special teams performance, defensive performance, and turnovers.
The following is how the SEC finished up in terms of the Scoreability Index in 2006:
Now let's look at things closer, beginning with my beloved Crimson Tide.
Unfortunately, well, it's just not pretty for those clad in crimson. As you can see, we finished eleventh in the conference in the Scoreability Index, and combined with us finishing eleventh in the Bendability Index, well, no one should be surprised that we went 6-7 and Mike Shula was fired. In terms of the Scoreability Index, the offense moved the ball relatively well. We racked up 2,691 yard of total offense -- granted, keep in mind I understand that looking at things by total yardage alone doesn't tell you much, which is why we're going farther in this analysis -- and moreover we were very consistent in racking up yardage. We weren't boom and bust (400 one week, 150 the next), we consistently put up over 300 yards almost each and every week (the only two exceptions were Tennessee and MSU). But unfortunately, those yards didn't really translate into very many points.
At bottom, though we moved the ball relatively well, it didn't translate into points. Poor special teams (all across the board, in terms of punt returns, kick returns, punting, kicking, and punt and kick coverage), and below average defensive play meant that we generally didn't have great field position, so we had to move the ball long distances to score. Beyond that, once we did move the ball downfield, we bogged down in the red zone, so we never saw the full potential point value of all of the yards that we had accumulated. For example, moving the ball 74 yards isn't very meaningful if you can only get three points on the board when it is all said and done.
At the end of the day, it was just bad from top-to-bottom. There are no real bright spots to the matter.
Now just a few thoughts on the rest of the SEC...
Vanderbilt was the only team that finished behind Alabama, and in reality we should have been behind even them. Vanderbilt's yards-per-point ratio was skewed massively by the fact that in one game (Kentucky) they put up 621 yards of offense. For the other seven games, we were a good bit worse than even the Commodores. Bad stuff.
Arkansas just set the world on fire in this category, needing only 11.5 yards per point. You have to give the Hogs credit, they were good from top to bottom. They played great defense, capitalized on turnovers, had good special teams, and ran all over just about everyone when they actually got the ball on offense. What can you say? They were the epitome of how it is supposed to be done.
Auburn did not have a very good offense in 2006, but they did quite well in the Scoreability Index, finishing third in the conference. Again, they weren't very good on offense, mainly due to injuries to Brandon Cox and Kenny Irons. However, they still did the things, as an entire team, needed to be successful. They got great special teams play, and great play from their defense. Though their offense wasn't particularly good, it was efficient and capitalized quite well off of what their special teams and defense created for them.
And finally, to close, one of the keys to always look at with any statistic is how well that particular statistic correlates to winning or losing football games. Some stats -- despite people talking about them all the time and you hearing it talked about on ESPN 24/7 -- have essentially no correlation to winning or losing football games, but that is not true of this statistic. Much like the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index has a very high correlation to actual wins. Just look at the teams that finished in the top five in the Scoreability Index versus those who finished in the bottom five. The teams that finished in the top five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 54-13 (80.59 percent winning percentage). The teams that finished in the bottom five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 28-33 (45.9 percent winning percentage).
Small wonder Cold, Hard Football Facts -- the inventor of this statistic -- refers to it as one of the "Stats That Matter."
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