2024 Week 5: Idaho (3-1) @ UC Davis (3-1) The one thing you had to.look at is defensive turnovers. This left a shorter field for the Ags to travel and time possession. The Ags kick off and leave a longer field to get yards and not core. Hence the yardage differential really isn't a big deal.
Lets say a team kicks off and the three times they kick the defense gets the ball and returns it for a TD.
Now say the subsequent kick off the team gets it and marches down the field, but misses the FG.
The offense gets the ball and scores a one play TD. Then kickoff and the fumble #2 occu rs and the defense runs it in for a score. Then on the next kick off the other team again marches down the fiels and scores. After this scenario the team losing big will have more total yards, but they are still losing.
Now because of errors, but they have a greater TOP and yards, but are still losing due to errors.