"but a lot of people will write you off as soon as you point to total yards as an indicator of who played better..." Got it. Thanks for the help. Based on your opinion I guess I will start to ignore the second leading factor in winning games.
Yards per play is entirely dependent on what type of offense you run. In fact it is so important the NCAA doesn't even list it in their list of important statistics. It is a subset of total offense. Of course the two usually go together, but if you hare a 3 yards and cloud of dust offense but you drive down the field and score every time the yards per play don't matter at all as long as the average is 3.3 yards per play.