Anthony Wilson
It’s time to rethink what it means to win the turnover battle. It’s a cliché said by everyone in football – coaches, players and media. At the beginning of each television broadcast, an analyst presents the “keys to the game” and, almost always, one of them is “winning the turnover battle.”
It’s not a brilliant observation to say that taking the ball away from your opponent and not giving it away helps you win games. That happens. However, the numbers show that forcing turnovers is less important than what follows.
Turning that extra possession into points means more.
Here’s a chart showing the top 20 teams in the country by turnover margin over the past seven seasons in games against FBS competition.
It should come as no surprise that most of the teams appearing on the chart have had success on the field. But notice what happens when we look at points-out-turnover margin (points scored on turnovers minus points allowed on turnovers) per game.
In the first graph, which was strictly a turnover margin, five teams that won national titles in College football The Playoff Era is in the top 20, while eight have made it to the CFP. When we switched to turnover points margin, there were still five national championship winners in the top 20, but the top three teams won a title. Additionally, nine of the 20 reached the CFP, including the top five teams.
It’s not a coincidence, but the correlation is best demonstrated by looking at both statistics in relation to a team’s winning percentage. After all, not every team can realistically compete to win a national title, but everyone is trying to win Saturday games.
We’ll start with a simple turnover margin compared to win percentage. As with the previous charts, this one is strictly against the FBS competition. Also, I’ve limited it to teams that have played at least 50 games at the FBS level, so apologies to newcomers like James Madison. No, and you; it’s your sample size skewing the results.
There is a correlation here, but there is also a lot of noise. See how things get tighter when we switch to points margin per turnover per game.
Notice how everyone becomes more grouped together? This shows more correlation between non-turnover points and wins than simply forcing turnovers. The top right portion of the chart is filled with teams that have won national titles and compete annually for conference titles. Meanwhile, the bottom left is filled with teams, the top right schedules when they need a week to relax.
But wait, there’s more. And it has to do with many of the teams we see in the bottom left corner. We’ve seen that points outside the turnover margin correlate with winning, but the teams in the top right corner aren’t so much relying on that as they are forcing the issue. These teams have more talent and can overcome their opponents without upsets. More than anything, they are the icing on the victory cake.
What about teams that don’t have that talent advantage? The teams that really need to win by the margins. Well, it’s not surprising that there is an even stronger correlation in what we used to call the Group of Five rankings than in the old Power Five conferences (although both remain strong). Here’s a look at both to compare for yourself.
The correlation is absolutely astonishing in the Group of Five chart, but here’s another fun statistic in case the pretty pictures aren’t enough to convince you. Of the 10 (11 if we include James Madison, who was ineligible) Group of Five teams that reached the conference title game last season, only three (Toledo, New Mexico State and Liberty) finished with a negative turnover point margin in conference play. Liberty was the only one of those three to win a conference title.
Next, we will see the entire country. Of the top 25 teams in points margin per game, only three (Arkansas State, Buffalo and Sam Houston State) finished with a losing record.
So the next time someone tells you that you need to win the turnover battle, tell them that what you do with that turnover is much more important than simply forcing it.
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