The importance of this college football statistic was evident in Georgia’s win at Texas

There is no single metric that definitively shows which are the best and which are the worst college football teams. Different from points. Maybe wins and losses.

But as far as how they get those wins and points, we’ve discussed a few seemingly obscure but important metrics from this season: explosive margin of play and yards per margin of play. Let’s add something else: room for sudden changes.

And yes, the word “advantage” is the issue here, because defense alone doesn’t win championships anymore, nor does offense alone. This is the case in complementary football, and Margin tracks this by comparing teams’ performance on offense (explosive plays and yards per play) and defense (opponents’ explosive plays and YPP).

Here’s a look at how the margin changed when there were sudden changes: This week, we asked TruMedia how explosive the margin was in SEC games. (As a reminder, explosives here refer to rushes of 12 or more yards and passes of 16 yards or more.) And as before, the team that has more explosives than its opponent tends to win, especially the better the lead.

SEC teams with…

Plus-5 explosive margin or better in this game: 34-4

plus-1 to plus-4: 22-4

even: 7-8

minus-1 to minus-4: 7-12

minus-5 or worse: 3-11

But there was a more telling aspect to this: In SEC games where both teams were ranked, the team with the better explosive margin of play went 6-0. There was a seventh such game in which the teams were tied in explosive terms: Georgia’s win over Texas. We know what else happened in that game: Georgia’s defense dominated, limiting Texas to just 3.4 yards per play. But Georgia’s offense wasn’t exactly dominant, averaging just 3.9 YPP. Why was it a narrow 15-point win for the guests?

Red zone efficiency, an oft-cited metric, was negligible: Georgia converted on four of five drives, including three touchdowns and a field goal, while Texas scored two touchdowns on three drives. Georgia was simply in the red zone more – and the main reason for that was turnovers, where sudden changes occur.

Georgia was plus-one in turnover margin (four to three), but what it did with those turnovers mattered. And what the Longhorns didn’t do.

Quarterback Carson Beck was picked off on two of Georgia’s first three possessions, including once in his own territory. Texas scored zero points on its first two turnovers.

But when Texas turned over on Daylen Everette’s sack strip deep in its own territory, Georgia punched it in for a touchdown. When Everette intercepted a pass in the second quarter, Georgia’s offense scored another touchdown. Then another sack streak late in the half led to a field goal for Georgia, making the score 23-0 at halftime.

Texas scored the touchdown in the third quarter after Beck’s third interception. (That’s reverse pass interference.) And Georgia didn’t punt until the last Texas turnover, a fumble that came on fourth down. But the final lead in points minus turnovers: 17:7 in Georgia’s favor.

Sudden change is the term trainers use. In attack, it measures how well you can exploit mistakes. On defense, it measures composure, and Georgia holding Texas to zero points on its first two turnovers — and actually forcing one after the second — was the game’s early turning point.

South Carolina is another case study. The Gamecocks capitalized on early turnovers to take a 21-0 lead at Oklahoma last week. But what stands out most about the Gamecocks is how their defense responded this year, allowing just 19 points on South Carolina’s 12 turnovers.

“It’s huge. Obviously momentum is a real thing,” South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer said. “We have the mantra here to just put the ball down. It doesn’t matter what happened, defensively we have to put the ball down and stop it. That’s why we emphasize taking the ball away. We care about protecting football, like everyone does. And when you are faced with a sudden change situation, good or bad, we want to be able to respond properly.”

South Carolina has the second-best sudden turnover margin in the SEC, behind only Vanderbilt. According to TruMedia, here are this season’s leaders in terms of room for sudden change. Note how many of the surprise teams are on this list:

Some other CFP contenders or surprise teams are close behind: Ohio State (plus-32), Colorado (plus-31), Texas (plus-28), Army (plus-28), LSU and Tennessee (plus-27 each). .

But who is dead last nationally, 134th out of 134 teams? If you guess Florida State, congratulations: The Seminoles are minus-65.

There are a few anomalies in between: Miami is ranked 76th nationally at minus-2 and is still undefeated. Oregon, the top-ranked team in the country, is just plus-5. Penn State, another undefeated player, is just plus-8.

Then there’s Georgia, which may be able to attribute its big win at Texas to sudden change, but is plus-10 on the season, which explains some of its disappointing wins. (In the loss to Alabama, the Bulldogs were minus-7).

Here’s the full SEC list, along with raw revenue margin:

In the meantime, here is the updated yards per play margin:

This isn’t necessarily a prediction: Last year, Alabama was seventh in the SEC after six games, but shot up to third by the end of the regular season and then beat Georgia (which finished second to LSU).

A lot of this is due to the schedule. Ole Miss and Texas have each played only one currently ranked AP team and three non-power conference teams. Tennessee has also only played one ranked team and two non-power conference teams.

As for some of the others, you can use sudden change margin as a reason: Auburn has a large YPP margin, but is minus-15 in sudden change margin and ranks 95th nationally. Vanderbilt and South Carolina are tied in YPP margin barely afloat, but rank first and second in the SEC in sudden change margin.

Just something else to think about as to why things happen the way they do.

(Photo of Georgia linebacker Daylen Everette (6), defensive end Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins (93) and linebacker Chris Cole (18): Brett Patzke / Imagn Images)