How To Find Passing Yards Per Game On An Excel

The formula =SUM(range_of_passing_yards)/COUNT(range_of_games) will calculate passing yards per game in Excel.

Want to quickly analyze football stats? Figuring out how to find passing yards per game on an excel sheet is simpler than you think. Let’s say you have a spreadsheet with a column for passing yards and another for games played.

You can use a basic formula to calculate the average. Excel’s built-in functions make this easy. This allows you to quickly assess a player’s performance over multiple games.

How to Find Passing Yards Per Game on Excel

Okay, let’s dive into how you can figure out a football player’s average passing yards per game using Excel. It’s simpler than you might think! We’re going to break it down step-by-step, so even if you’re not an Excel wizard, you’ll be calculating those yards in no time.

Setting Up Your Excel Sheet

First, we need to get our data ready. Think of Excel like a big, organized notebook. We’re going to put all our football stats in it. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Creating Column Headers

At the top of your Excel sheet, in the first row, you will type the labels for your data. These labels are called “column headers.” You’ll need these at least:

• Player Name: Write the name of the player.
• Games Played: How many games the player played.
• Total Passing Yards: The total number of passing yards the player gained over the season.

You can include more information if you want, like dates or opponent names, but for calculating passing yards per game, these three are all we need. Make sure you enter these in separate columns (e.g., ‘Player Name’ in column A, ‘Games Played’ in column B, and ‘Total Passing Yards’ in column C).

Entering the Data

Now, it’s time to fill in the data below the labels. So, under “Player Name” type in the name of a football player. In the “Games Played” column, enter how many games he played. In “Total Passing Yards,” write in the total passing yards he threw during that season. Go through and do this for each player that you are interested in.

Here’s an example of what your spreadsheet might look like:

Calculating Passing Yards Per Game

Now comes the fun part – calculating the passing yards per game! We can do this easily with a simple formula.

Using the Division Formula

In a new column (let’s say column D), we’ll calculate the passing yards per game. Here’s how to do it:

1. Click on the first cell in the new column (for example, D2 if your first player name is in row 2).
2. Type an equals sign (=). This tells Excel you’re about to enter a formula.
3. Click on the cell that contains the player’s Total Passing Yards (in our example, that would be C2).
4. Type a forward slash (/). This is the symbol for division in Excel.
5. Click on the cell that contains the number of Games Played (in our example, that would be B2).
6. Press the Enter key.

Your formula will look something like this: =C2/B2. Excel will automatically calculate the passing yards per game for that player. For the given example, for Patrick Mahomes, it will give 308.82.

Applying the Formula to Other Players

Instead of typing the formula for each player, you can drag it down! This is a very helpful shortcut in Excel. Here’s how:

1. Click on the cell where you just typed the formula (D2 in our example).
2. Notice a little square at the bottom-right corner of the cell. This is the “fill handle.”
3. Click on the fill handle, hold the mouse button down, and drag it down to the last player’s row.
4. When you release the mouse, Excel will automatically copy the formula down to the other rows, adjusting the cell references as it goes. So, for each player, it will correctly do the division between his total passing yards and games played.

Now you have a new column showing each player’s average passing yards per game!

Formatting Your Results

Adjusting the Number of Decimal Places

Sometimes, Excel shows results with lots of decimal places. We can easily clean this up and make it look better.

1. Select the cells that contain your passing yards per game calculations (column D, in our example).
2. Go to the “Home” tab at the top of Excel.
3. Look for the “Number” section. There, you will see buttons to increase or decrease decimal places.
4. Click the “Decrease Decimal” button (it usually looks like a zero followed by a dot and then two zeroes) a few times until you have the desired level of decimal places. Usually one or two decimal places is enough.

This will make your data much easier to read. Instead of 308.823529, you might see 308.82 or 308.8, which is much nicer.

Adding a Column Heading for the Calculated Data

It’s a good idea to add a header to the column with your calculated passing yards per game. At the top of that column (for example, in cell D1), type “Passing Yards Per Game.” This makes it clear what the numbers in that column represent.

Sorting and Analyzing the Data

Now that you have your data and calculations, you can do even more with it!

Sorting by Passing Yards Per Game

You can sort your spreadsheet to quickly see who has the highest (or lowest) passing yards per game.

1. Select all your data, including the headers.
2. Go to the “Data” tab at the top of Excel.
3. Click the “Sort” button.
4. In the sort window, choose “Passing Yards Per Game” from the “Sort by” dropdown.
5. Choose the order, such as “Largest to Smallest” to see who has the best average or “Smallest to Largest”.
6. Click “OK.”

Your spreadsheet will now be sorted based on the passing yards per game. The players with the highest average will be at the top, or at the bottom, depending on how you sorted. This is very useful for comparing different players.

Filtering Data

If you have a lot of data, filtering can help you focus on specific players or conditions. For instance, you might want to see all players who had over a certain number of passing yards per game.

1. Select the column headers.
2. Go to the “Data” tab and click the “Filter” button.
3. Little drop-down arrows will appear next to each header.
4. Click the arrow next to “Passing Yards Per Game.”
5. Go to “Number Filters” and choose the condition you want, like “Greater Than” or “Less Than.”
6. Enter the desired value. For instance, if you want to see all players with over 250 passing yards per game, you would select “Greater Than” and type 250.

Excel will hide the rows that don’t meet your filter conditions, making it much easier to focus on the information you need.

Using Formulas to Calculate Total Passing Yards

Sometimes, you might only have each player’s passing yards for individual games, but not the season total. You can easily calculate the total with another Excel formula. Let’s say you have the following columns:

• Player Name: Name of the player.
• Game 1 Yards: Passing yards in game 1.
• Game 2 Yards: Passing yards in game 2.
• Game 3 Yards: Passing yards in game 3 (and so on if you have more games).

Using the SUM Formula

In a new column, let’s call it “Total Passing Yards”, we can use the SUM formula to calculate the sum of each player’s individual games.

1. Click in the first cell of your “Total Passing Yards” column.
2. Type an equals sign (=).
3. Type SUM(.
4. Select the range of cells with the individual games. For instance, if game one is in column B and game 3 is in column D, select from the column B cell for the first player through to the column D cell for that same player. Excel will show it as B2:D2.
5. Type a closing parenthesis ) and hit the Enter key.

Your formula should look like: =SUM(B2:D2). The formula will sum up all the yards for each player. As we did previously, you can use the fill handle to apply the formula to all other players.

Handling Missing Data

Sometimes you won’t have all the data available. For example, a player might not have played every game. In this case, you may want to leave a blank cell. Excel will treat a blank cell as zero in a formula. If you are planning to calculate the average from all the game stats, then this won’t cause problems. But for games played, you want the number of games the player was in. For this, you may want to enter “0” or “N/A” depending on what you plan to do with that specific data point.

If you’re just working with total yards and total games played, these empty cells won’t cause you trouble in the average calculation. But always double check to make sure you know what your data contains so you don’t accidentally get strange results.

Advanced Techniques

Using AVERAGEIF function

For more advanced analysis, you might want to calculate the average passing yards per game for certain conditions. This is where functions like AVERAGEIF or AVERAGEIFS come in handy. AVERAGEIF allows you to calculate averages if certain criteria are met. For example, if you have a column of the opponents, you can see the average for different opponents.

Let’s say you also have a column called “Opponent”. You could use the following steps to see the average passing yards against a particular opponent (let’s say “Team A”).

1. In an empty cell (e.g., F2) write this formula: =AVERAGEIF(E2:E10,"Team A",C2:C10)
2. E2:E10 represents the range of cells where opponents are mentioned.
3. “Team A” is the criteria – the opponent you are interested in.
4. C2:C10 represents the range of cells containing the total passing yards for each game.
5. Press the enter key.

The cell F2 will now contain the average passing yards the player has against “Team A” over the games played.

Using AVERAGEIFS function

You can use AVERAGEIFS if you have two or more conditions. For example you might be interested in the average passing yards by a player in games where the player has less than 3 interceptions. Or average yards on games played at home.

Suppose you have a column called Interceptions (column F) and Location (column G). In an empty cell, use the following formula to see the average passing yards in games with less than 3 interceptions when the game was away:

=AVERAGEIFS(C2:C10,F2:F10,"<3",G2:G10,"Away")

C2:C10 represents the range for total passing yards, F2:F10 represents the range of the total interceptions, and G2:G10 the locations. "<3" indicates that the total interceptions must be less than 3 and "Away" indicates that the location must be "Away".

With these techniques, you can really get into the details of football stats, and how to use Excel to quickly get the information you need from the data!

You now know how to find passing yards per game using Excel. With this skill, you can analyze your favorite players and teams, and understand football data better.

NFL Handicapping: Using Yards Per Point

Final Thoughts

To find passing yards per game in Excel, first calculate total passing yards. Then, count the number of games played. Finally, divide the total passing yards by the games played to get the average.

This simple division gives you the passing yards per game for the desired player or team. This provides valuable data. Remember that to easily find how to find passing yards per game on an excel, simply implement these steps.