Crimson Red Sports

The consensus concerning turnovers is that they are bad when you commit them and great when you get them. The more difficult question is how can you measure their impact?

Coach Saban's answer to this is to itemize every one of Alabama's turnovers -- both those gained and lost -- then examine the outcome of the drive that resulted. By dividing the resulting points by the number of turnovers a "scoreboard value" per turnover can be derived.

In an attempt to replicate this analysis, we have gone through the play-by-play accounts of every game over the past five seasons and listed every interception and fumble turnover. We then noted the outcome of the drive that change of possession produced. This has been split into turnovers Alabama gained and those that the Crimson Tide lost (which, obviously, were those "gained" by the opponents.)....