We compared the overall performance of Illinois high school football teams in the first two rounds of playoff action in 2014 to that in 2013.
| — 2013 — | — 2014 — | |||
| Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 1 | Round 2 | |
| Average Points Scored (winners) | 36.96 | 33.52 | 37.23 | 35.33 |
| Average Points Scored (losers) | 12.88 | 14.41 | 15.30 | 15.64 |
| Standard Deviation (winners) | 11.41 | 12.17 | 11.70 | 12.07 |
| Standard Deviation (losers) | 8.79 | 9.80 | 10.34 | 9.09 |
| Standard Deviation (margin) | 13.23 | 13.04 | 13.30 | 13.72 |
Our hypothesis is that there is no significant difference in overall performance from the 256 teams that made the first round of playoffs or from the 128 teams that made the second round between the two years.
Our Excel spreadsheet is available for download here if you would like to compute the numbers yourself. It’s not formatted, but all the scores are in there.
Prove or refute our hypothesis in comparing the different statistics, such as margin of victory in Round 2 of 2013 compared to the margin in Round 2 of 2014. See Common Core math standard HSS.ID.A.2-3 for more information. Critical values of the Student’s t distribution can be found here. Useful formula:
