Letter from the Editor

The world of statistics is both fascinating and annoying. While they don’t always tell the whole story they certainly indicate trends. In football, you can really accumulate statistics in just about any category your want: rushing first downs, third down passing accuracy, or forced turnovers. The NCAA has a total of 24 statistical categories that they update weekly for Division I-A, I-AA, II, and III. They range from Total Offense to Net Punting. The NAIA and Junior College offices do the same rankings for their respective schools. In all, statistics are available for roughly 860 colleges. In this month’s issue we examine those numbers over a five-year period and match the statistics with the top ten year-ending teams in Division I-A. The statistics are then correlated to indicate which categories are the most important in becoming a top ten or championship team. While certain