Today’s blog will continue with my series of analyzing the most/least improved units over the last 20 years. Each day this week I will have a new offensive or defensive statistical category to examine and today I will breakdown offensive pass yards.

There are many factors that contribute to a significant change in pass yards. First, a new coach may come in and prefer a more pass-oriented attack than the previous coach. Naturally a lot more passing attempts will usually equal a lot more yards. Similarly you may see a significant drop in pass yards if the new coach features a run-heavy offense than the previous coach.

Another factor team which could contribute to a large gain in pass yards may be that the team has a veteran quarterback along with bunch of young running backs and they will want to focus on the passing game more to take the pressure off the inexperienced backs. Similarly, a large drop off in pass yards may occur when the team has an inexperienced quarterback, and has their star RB returning. Also a team may feature an experienced Heisman-caliber QB and in that case they will give him many more attempts thus increasing the passing yard output.

Whatever the case may be here are all the teams that improved by at least 100 yards passing compared to the prior season. Quick note for many of the smaller schools in the WAC, MAC and Sun Belt: my data only goes back to 1995 for those teams so it would include the last 15 years instead of the last 20.

Most Improved Pass Offense YPG L/20 years

Coming in at #1 is the 1997 Kentucky Wildcats. After the ’96 season, Kentucky hired Hal Mumme who brought with him his pass-happy offense. Led by future #1 pick Tim Couch the Wildcats averaged 365 pass ypg in ’97 which was 247 more ypg than 1996. The next year Kentucky improved their pass ypg again and it was key factor in the team going to its first bowl game in five years.

Similar to Kentucky, the #2 most improved pass offense the 1999 Oklahoma Sooners brought in a new coach. In Bob Stoops’ first year the Sooners avg 327 pass ypg led by QB Josh Heupel which was 217 more pyg than the previous season. Oklahoma would then go onto win the national title the following season. The #3 team fit the new pass-happy coach mold as well. In 2007, North Texas brought in highly-successful Texas HS coach Todd Dodge and the Mean Green improved their pass ypg by 175.

Now here is a look at all of the teams who averaged at least 100 pass ypg less than the prior year. Keep in mind again that my data only goes back to 1995 for some of the smaller schools.

Least Improved Pass Offense YPG L/20 Years

Last year New Mexico St hired DeWayne Walker who featured a more balanced attack compared to former coach Hal Mumme who featured his “Air Raid” system. The Aggies also had to replace the school’s all-time career leading passer in Chase Holbrook and the returning quarterbacks had ZERO career FBS passes! Add all this up and you get the least improved pass attack of the last 20 years as the Aggies avg 213 ypg less in ’09.

At #2 is the 2008 Hawaii passing attack, which like New Mexico St had a new coach and the Warriors had to replace star QB Colt Brennan who threw for nearly 10,000 yards and 96 TDs in the previous two years combined! With a new quarterback, the Warriors avg “just” 251 pass ypg but it was a far-cry from the 439 ypg they avg in the 2007 Sugar Bowl season.

At #3 is the 1993 Houston Cougars who like the top 2 brought in a new coach in Kim Helton who featured a less “pass-heavy” offense than former “run and shoot” HC John Jenkins.

Make sure you visit the PhilSteele.com homepage and check out several of the new features added in the past week including Players Lost for the Season, Facebook Forecasts and a week-by-week Schedule complete with up-to-date TV times.

I will be back tomorrow with a look at the most/least improved pass attacks from the last 20 years.

Only 42 Days Until the First College Football Game!!

In my 2009 College Preview Magazine on pgs 324 and 327 I included my computer’s projected stats in 2009 for all 120 FBS teams. There were several different categories including rush offense/defense, pass offense/defense, offensive pts and defensive pts.

On the right hand side of the page I listed the teams that my computer projected to be most improved in ’09 compared to ’08 season in 6 different categories. I had them ranked in order from Most Improved all the way down to the Least Improved and included the top 15 in each category along with the bottom 5.

In today’s blog I have included my projections of the teams I thought would be most improved in pass offense heading into the 2009 season and how they finished in the final NCAA rankings.

In the coming days I will feature a different category in each blog and I think you will be happy with the results of the accuracy of my projections.

Most Improved Pass Offense 2009

Preseason Projection

Final Rankings

As you can see my projections were pretty close. I nailed 6 of the top 13 most improved teams and 10 of my top 15 teams finished #28 or better! 14 of my 15 teams (93.3%) saw their pass offense ypg improve and on avg my top 15 improved their pass offense by 50 ypg in 09!

My bottom 5 results were even more accurate. All 5 of my projected bottom teams in pass offense ypg saw their ppg decrease at least 44.9 ypg in 09 and all 5 of the teams finished 104th or worse! 4 of my projected preseason teams finished in the bottom 6 and on average the 5 teams had a pass offense decrease of 122.82 ypg in 09!

Heading into the season I thought New Mexico would have the most improved pass offense as they were switching to a no-huddle, high tempo, wide open spread offense under new HC Locksley. Despite the 1-11 overall record, the Lobos passing game was a bright spot avg 215.1 ypg in 09 a 83.75 ypg increase!

When my magazine was published in May I had Syracuse as the #2 most improved pass offense and that was before they acquired Duke transfer Greg Paulus in the summer. The Orange would go on to avg 203.8 ypg a 83.75 ypg improvement despite losing WR Williams mid year.

In my bottom 5 all of the teams were either losing a veteran QB or going thru a coaching change. Just like I predicted all of the teams saw their pass offense ypg drop in ’09 and with the exception of Missouri who still finished with a 44.9 ypg decrease, my bottom teams all had their pass offense ypg drop at least 100 ypg in 09!

Overall 19 of the 20 teams (95%) that were featured in my magazine finished with either a higher ypg or lower ypg just as I projected!

Complete List of all 120 Teams