[81alum]

[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12825.msg129046#msg129046 date=1442628703]
Against NW, the 5.0 ypc is very much due to the quality of the RBs, in my estimation. Take out the McCaffrey 26-yard run (due partially to defensive misalignment and partially to McCaffrey's quality), and the running back yards-per-carry falls to around 3.5.

Yep. Take out the good runs and the ypc goes down.

That particular play had good blocking by the line, though it wasn't power just straight ahead hit your guy. It was aided by the two NU LBers running to the same gap, and impossible to tell what would have happened without that. McCaffrey had a nice deke at about 12 yards, but he didn't have to do much before 12 yards downfield.
[/quote]
So wouldn't the median yards per carry be a better measure than the mean yards per carry?  It would do a better mob of measuring consistency in the running game, although of course it would not focus on big running plays.  To the extent that our running game is thought to be part of a ball-control, clock eating strategy, consistency would be more important to measure than big plays.

[81alum]

[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12825.msg129046#msg129046 date=1442628703]
Against NW, the 5.0 ypc is very much due to the quality of the RBs, in my estimation. Take out the McCaffrey 26-yard run (due partially to defensive misalignment and partially to McCaffrey's quality), and the running back yards-per-carry falls to around 3.5.

Yep. Take out the good runs and the ypc goes down.

That particular play had good blocking by the line, though it wasn't power just straight ahead hit your guy. It was aided by the two NU LBers running to the same gap, and impossible to tell what would have happened without that. McCaffrey had a nice deke at about 12 yards, but he didn't have to do much before 12 yards downfield.
[/quote]
So wouldn't the median yards per carry be a better measure than the mean yards per carry?  It would do a better mob of measuring consistency in the running game, although of course it would not focus on big running plays.  To the extent that our running game is thought to be part of a ball-control, clock eating strategy, consistency would be more important to measure than big plays.