The Week of THEM NOLES: CFB Week 1 Advanced Stats Recap + Week 2 Look Ahead

CFB has started and THE NOLES ARE UNDEFEATED

Ive said it before, but as a Florida State alum and fan, the past year since the December 2023 playoff snub has been nothing short of miserable. It really has dragged down my overall college football fandom, and there really wasn’t much hype and anticipation for this season… AND THEN WEEK 1 HAPPENED!

Im going to keep this weekly article similar to last season, where we look at some statistical overviews from the past week, as well as a preview of the week to come. Since this is the first week, we won’t have a ton of stuff to go off of in terms of QB matchup previews or EPA previews. Im only going to include QB matchups for now, but it should be noted that its usefulness really kicks in after a couple weeks when we have more information (which is when ill introduce EPA matchups). Without further ado, for the first time this season, let’s recap!

During the season if you would like to see an advanced box score of a certain game, simply email (CFBNumbers@gmail.com) or DM on Twitter (@CFBNumbers) and I will happily provide you any number related thing you desire.

Most Exciting Games Of Week 1

To start with, we can use something called the “excitement index” that basically measures the swings in win probability in order to gauge how “exciting” a game was. Games with high excitement indexes usually involve lead changes, or games that come down to the final couple of snaps in the 4th quarter. Of course, excitement is subjective (FSU beating Alabama was exciting to me, not so much to Bama fans), and some weeks the excitement index is better than others. For this week…. probably a miss. Kansas State and UCF were both heavy favorites coming into their games, and while they won, it probably wasn’t the outcome either team expected.

The game I found the most enjoyable on this list was Nebraska holding off Cincinnati in Arrowhead stadium. Dylan Raiola didn’t have much going downfield, but finished with an efficient 0.14 EPA/Dropback (good for a 64th percentile game among all QBs in the CFB playoff era). Defensively, Nebraska was physical and shut down the passing game: Brendan Sorsby finished with only 81 passing yards and a 12th percentile -0.37 EPA/Dropback.

Expectations vs. Reality

Even if you don’t bet, checking what the pregame betting lines were can give you a lot of great information on the game. Comparing those to what actually happened in the game, and you get a nice little graph showing which teams performed better or worse than they were suppose to according to the markets. The further right on this graph, the better the team did on offense than what was expected of them before the game. The further up equals a better defensive performance.

South Florida was 8.5 point underdogs and expected to give up 36 points to a Boise State team that was fresh off a CFB playoff appearance. They completely shut down the Broncos, only allowing 7 points in that Florida humidity. USC was supposed to win 47.5 - 13 against Missouri State, and while vegas got the 13 right, the 47.5 was off by a mere 25.5 points.

QB Play: Power 5

Here is the Power 4 QB play for the week. Film based metric (PFF Grade) on the Y axis, per play efficiency (ESPNs QBR) on the X axis. Rocco Becht and Jayden Maiva your most top right QBs so they earn the coveted power 4 QB kings of the week award (that I just made up). Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, true freshman for Cal, was highly impressive on the week, throwing for 3 TDs in a win over Oregon State.

QB Play: Group of 5

Here is the group of 5. Evan Simon of Temple, Anthony Colandrea of UNLV, and Ohio’s Parker Navarro are your G5 QB kings of the week. Byrum Brown 85.3 PFF Rush grade, in combination with his 81.1 PFF Pass grade, show how much he shined in the Bulls upset win at home against Boise State.

Stat of the Week: THE NOLES

FSU QB Tommy Castellanos didn’t throw the ball a ton during their upset win over Alabama (only 14 pass attempts), but when he did it was usually for a chunk play. The Noles averaged 10.9 pass yards per attempt against Alabama, which was the 5th most against a Crimson Tide defense since the 2015 season. Combined with a run game that averaged 0.15 EPA/Rush (71st percentile) and a 13% explosive play rate (91st percentile), and you have yourself an upset folks. THE NOLES!

Week 2 Implied Points

Looking ahead to next week, we can once again look at those betting lines to see who is favored, and whether the betting markets think a game will be close or a blowout. Teams to the right of the line are expected to win their week 2 game, while teams on the left side are not. According to Vegas, Texas Tech should have no issues when they take on Kent State, while a game like Michigan-Oklahoma is supposed to be a close 25.0-22.5 game in favor of Oklahoma.

Week 2 QB Matchups

As mentioned before, this table only gets better as we gain more information throughout the year. Although just by looking at it now, I think it did capture some of the interesting matchups we will see this weekend. Jalon Daniels, the veteran for Kansas, going throw for throw with the younger talent Beau Pribula in the latest installment of the Border war. The same can be said for Oklahoma - Michigan, where John Mateer and true freshman Bryce Underwood will be squaring off against the respective defenses. I was hesitant to include this, but honestly it kinda works this week!

Week 2 Mismatches

This one needs a little bit more time as we can get some pretty wonky results with only one week of EPA.

Thats it for this week! COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS FULLY BACK BABY!

Buy Me A Coffee!

As long as I do this newsletter I will keep it free so that as many people as possible can enjoy and join us on our CFB data adventure. However, if you did want to show additional support the newsletter (which you 100% do not have to!) you can always buy me a coffee here!

If you want to dive in to the data like I do, check out @CFB_Data and @cfbfastR on Twitter, where you can learn how to get started in the world of College Football data analysis!

If you want to see more charts and one off analysis, follow my twitter page, CFBNumbers