Big Ten Coaches Give Their Hot Takes on Most Overrated Football Stats

As football has entered the modern age, teams utilize statistics to bolster their game plans more and more. But with this data revolution, it has also, for some, become a clutter of statistics, with a few stats being useful, and others, well, not so much.

The Big Ten’s football coaches weighed in through a video posted by the Big Ten Network Friday, giving their takes on what the most overrated stat is.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was pretty blunt in his take, saying all of them are overrated “except for points.” As of right now, the points total has been in favor of the Wolverines, which currently sit 5-0 and atop the Big Ten East despite not leading the conference in total or scoring offense or defense at the moment.

Other coaches, such as Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald, believe offensive yardage is the one metric that is overvalued. “Yards against versus yards for… It’s not about yardage, it’s about points,” Fitzgerald said in the video.

Ironically, Iowa (3-2) sits at the bottom of the league in scoring offense, total, rush and pass offense in the league and one notch (13th) from the bottom in offensive efficiency. And, for Northwestern (1-4), the Wildcats are not too far ahead of the Hawkeyes, sitting only one spot ahead of the Hawkeyes. 

If the underrated stat takes do nothing more than provide a good laugh, it is worth the comedy.