First Half Point Differential: The 2024 Group of Five

After a bit of a hiatus, we return to our review of the 2024 college football season.This week, we will look at how each Group of Five conference played out in terms of First Half Point Differential (1HPD). As I have mentioned before, 1HPD is a very advanced stat. It tells us how many points a team either outscored or was outscored by their opponents in the first half of games. If you need additional background on this statistic, I invite you to look up each word individually. Why do we look at this stat? Its far from a perfect measure, but it can sometimes point us toward teams that are due for improvement or regression the next season.  In theory, teams that pull off a lot of second half comebacks might not be as fortunate the next season and teams that lead at the half, but can't quite close the deal might be better than their actual record. It helps guide some of my over/under win total bets, but your mileage may vary.

American Athletic Conference

The 2024 AAC standings. 

1HPD in AAC play (title game excluded). 

The top two teams in 1HPD met in the AAC Championship Game with the top team winning in somewhat dominant fashion. At the other end of the AAC, Tulsa was dead last by a significant margin. Their 1HPD was more than twice as bad as the second worst team (Temple).

Conference USA

The 2024 Conference USA standings.

1HPD in Conference USA play (title game excluded).

The top two teams in 1HPD also met in the Conference USA Championship Game. While the top two teams were close in 1HPD, their matchup in the title game was not. Western Kentucky opened the scoring with a field goal, but Jacksonville State outscored the Hilltoppers 52-9 the rest of the way. 

Mid-American

The 2024 MAC standings. 

1HPD in MAC play (title game excluded).

The top two teams in 1HPD met in the MAC Championship Game (sensing a theme here?). Much like Conference USA, while the top two teams were close in 1HPD, the title game was not. Miami kicked a field goal to go up 3-0, but Ohio scored the final 38 points of the game to win their first ever MAC Championship Game and first MAC title since 1968. At the bottom of the MAC standings, Kent State's 1HPD was more than twice as bad as the second worst team (Eastern Michigan). 

Mountain West

The 2024 Mountain West standings. 

1HPD in Mountain West play (title game excluded). 

Like the previous three Group of Five conferences, the top two teams in 1HPD met in the Mountain West Championship Game. And once again, despite the relative tightness of the top two teams in 1HPD, the title game was not especially close. 

Sun Belt

The 2024 Sun Belt standings. 

1HPD in Sun Belt play (title game excluded). 

The Sun Belt was the streak breaker in 2024. The top two teams did not meet in the Sun Belt Championship Game. However, the teams ranked second and third in 1HPD did face off in the title game. Like the other Group of Five title games, this one was also a dud, at least from a competitive standpoint. I suppose if you were a Marshall fan, you were not overly concerned about the competitiveness. 

In the YPP and APR offseason recaps, I sort the teams in each conference by how much they over or under-performed relative to their expected record. Since all the Group of Five conferences are grouped together in this post, I am only going to list those that significantly over or under-performed (a difference of at least .200). We'll start with the overachievers.

Tulsa technically overachieved since a team with their 1HPD (trailed on average by 23 points per game at the half) usually finishes winless in conference play. In Tulsa's lone league win, they overcame a 28-point halftime deficit against UTSA. Boise State never trailed at the half in Mountain West play, but they were tied in three games, and held a lead of less than a touchdown in another. Colorado State rode an easy conference schedule to a 6-1 record and nearly qualified for the Mountain West Championship Game. However, the Rams trailed at the half in two of their seven conference games and were tied in another. Louisiana-Lafayette only trailed at the half in one of their Sun Belt games, but they were down by three touchdowns which significantly suppressed their overall numbers. Finally, East Carolina finished with a winning record in AAC play despite trailing at the half in four of their eight conference games, including three times by double digits. 

And now the underachievers. 

Tom Herman lost his job at Florida Atlantic because the Owls could not close the deal. They won just a single game in AAC play despite leading at the half in four games and trailing by more than a touchdown at halftime just once. Nevada was not a good team in 2024, but their profile did not befit a team that finished winless in conference play. The Wolfpack were tied or leading at the half in three of their seven conference games. UTSA finished with a .500 record in AAC play despite leading at the half in five of their eight conference games. Their under-performance is mostly explained by their shocking loss to Tulsa I mentioned above. Four seasons after winning the MAC in the Covid-impacted 2020 season, Mike Neu lost his job at his alma mater thanks to the Cardinals struggles in the second half. Ball State led at the half in three of their five conference games and trailed by double digits in just one. Finally, Georgia State only led at the half in one of the conference games, but they were tied in two others and trailed by a touchdown or less in two more. The Panthers probably should have won at least one additional conference game in Dell McGee's first season in Atlanta. 

Thanks for reading. We'll be back in two weeks with a look at first half point differential in the Power Four. 

2024 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Sun Belt

Last week we looked at how Sun Belt teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2024 Sun Belt standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, Sun Belt teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Arkansas State and Marshall were the only Sun Belt teams that saw their actual record differ significantly (difference of a game and a half or more) from their APR. The Red Wolves and Thundering Herd significantly exceeded their APR and they also exceeded their expected record based on Yards Per Play. We went over some reasons for that last week, so no need to rehash it here. 

Conference Championship Game, No Bowl

Marshall pulled off a rare feat in 2024. The Thundering Herd won the Sun Belt, but did not play in a bowl game. There were of course, some extenuating circumstances that precipitated their absence from bowl season. Their head coach took another job in what seemed like mere seconds after the Sun Belt Championship Game. His departure led to a staggering number of players entering the transfer portal. And their bowl opponent happened to be a very good triple option team. Marshall opted out of the Independence Bowl and became just the twelfth team team to participate in their conference title game and not participate in bowl season. The Herd and the other eleven are listed below. 

Marshall is even more rarified air as they join UAB in the pandemic impacted 2020 season as the only other conference championship game victor to sit out bowl season. The Blazers had been set to play South Carolina in the Gasparilla Bowl, but the Gamecocks withdrew due to an uptick in Covid-19 cases within the program and the game was canceled. 

You may notice that five teams in the preceding table have asterisks by their name. The reason? Those teams all faced Marshall in their respective conference title games. The Thundering Herd kept four consecutive MAC teams from appearing in a bowl by beating them in the conference title game. This was in an era when mid-major conferences only had one or two bowl tie-ins. They were also defeated by the aforementioned UAB Blazers in the 2020 Conference USA Championship Game. 

That will close out our 2024 YPP and APR recaps. Thanks for reading. I hope you learned a little something and were at least marginally entertained in the past four and a half months. If you are curious, the rest of our summer schedule is as follows. I'll be taking the month of June off, but will return the first Thursday in July with a breakdown of First Half Point Differential in the Group of Five. Two weeks later, we'll look at the same stat in the Power Four. Two or three weeks after that, I'll recap my annual Vegas trip, and then we should be within shouting distance of the regular season. During the season, every Thursday, I'll post my seven favorite picks against the spread. And before you know it, another year will have come and gone. Thanks as always for reading. I appreciate the handful of folks who keep returning year after year. See you in July!

2024 Yards Per Play: Sun Belt

I know its hard to believe, but our time reviewing the 2024 season is nearly at an end. The final conference for us to look at is the Sun Belt. 

Here are the 2024 Sun Belt standings.

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each Sun Belt team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by division by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2024 season, which teams in the Sun Belt met this threshold? Here are Sun Belt teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

A quartet of teams in the Sun Belt saw their actual record differ significantly from their expected record based on Yards per Play. The trio of Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, and Marshall significantly exceeded their expected record while Georgia State underachieved. Arkansas State (4-1), Georgia Southern (2-1), and Marshall (3-1) all performed well in close conference games. All three were also on the positive side of fourth down variance. Arkansas State converted twelve of their fifteen fourth down attempts in league play. Georgia Southern (six of nine) and Marshall (six of ten) were good, but not quite as charmed as the Red Wolves on their fourth down conversions. Georgia Southern also stopped eight of their opponents' eleven fourth down attempts in Sun Belt play, generating an additional eight hidden turnovers. Meanwhile, Georgia State finished 1-3 in one-score conference games, had a negative in-conference turnover margin (-3), and converted just five of their eighteen fourth down attempts in Sun Belt action. Those fourth down failures represent thirteen hidden turnovers not accounted for in their already poor turnover margin. 

Dominated By Conference Opponents Part Deux

In last week's post on the SEC, we examined Mississippi State's horrendous conference season in 2024. The Bulldogs dropped all of their SEC games with each loss coming by double digits. I mentioned the Bulldogs were not the only FBS team to go winless in conference play in 2024 with each of their losses coming by double digits. Another team in the same state, Southern Miss, also managed that ignominious feat. The Golden Eagles were even worse relative to their competition than the Bulldogs. Southern Miss lost their eight Sun Belt games by more than 25 points per game. They lost to Louisiana-Lafayette in their conference opener by ten points and that represented their high water mark in league play. Southern Miss became the tenth non-power (non-BCS/Group of Five) team to finish winless in conference play with all of their losses coming by double digits in the BCS/CFP era (since 1998). The other nine teams are listed below along with their performance in the follow up season. 

The nine non-power teams improved more in the aggregate than their power conference brethren we examined last week (.257 conference winning percentage in the follow up season compared to .200 for power conference teams). This makes sense. Power conferences tend to have more strict tiers of power, while non-powers are more fluid in their hierarchy. 

You may have noticed a few asterisks in the previous table. That was intentional. Unlike Mississippi State, who retained their coach despite their poor conference performance, Southern Miss will have a new head coach in 2025. Will Hall was fired midway through the 2024 season after a 1-6 start. Reed Stringer was the interim coach and I suppose received a nice paycheck for his 'performance'. The Golden Eagles pulled off a coup by getting Charles Huff (not to be confused with Charlie Hough) from conference rival Marshall to be their new coach. Huff has been moderately successful in his four seasons as a head coach, even guiding the Thundering Herd to the Sun Belt title last season. The good news for Huff is that the previous teams to swap out coaches after a crash and burn conference season all improved by multiple games in the following season. 

It might be the equivalent of a dead cat bounce, but I expect at least modest improvement in Hattiesburg in 2025. The Golden Eagles may not qualify for a bowl, but I expect two or three Sun Belt wins after their harrowing conference performance last season.

2024 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: SEC

Last week we looked at how SEC teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2024 SEC standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, SEC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

I use a game and a half as a somewhat arbitrary standard to determine whether a team significantly over or underachieved relative to their APR. By that standard, Missouri significantly exceeded their APR while Mississippi State underachieved. Missouri also overachieved relative to their expected record based on Yards Per Play and we went over some reasons for that last week. Mississippi State cannot blame a poor record in close games for their underachievement (as we'll discuss in a moment). They did have a poor in-conference turnover margin (-6) and were unable to get teams off the field on fourth down. Conference opponents only had eleven fourth down attempts against the Bulldogs, but they converted on nine of them. 

Dominated by Conference Opponents

There was some bad football played in the Magnolia State in 2024. Two teams, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss finished winless in conference play with each of their losses coming by double digits, joining a rather ignominious club. We'll discuss the Bulldogs this week and transition to the Golden Eagles next week when we look at the Sun Belt. 

In one of last year's SEC recaps, we touched on teams that went winless in conference play while losing all their games by double digits. The Bulldogs are the tenth power conference team in the BCS/CFP era to 'accomplish' the feat. The Bulldogs finished 0-8, with their average margin of defeat coming by 17.75 points, and their closest loss was by ten points. Feel free to read last year's post to see how they compare to the other nine teams. I, of course, am more concerned about how they will perform in 2025. The table below lists the previous nine teams and how they fared in the season following their noncompetitive conference season. 

In the aggregate, the teams improved although they still tended to be quite bad, winning just a fifth of their conference games in the follow up season. Seven of the nine teams improved and four of nine improved by at least two wins. 

You may have noticed a few asterisks in the previous table. Teams with one asterisk had the same coach in both seasons and teams with two asterisks had the same coach in both seasons with both seasons representing the first two seasons the coach was with the team. Both of those situations apply to Mississippi State. 2024 marked Jeff Lebby's first season as head coach in Starkville and barring some Hugh Freeze levels of indiscretion this summer, he should be the head coach of the Bulldogs in 2025. For teams that held onto their coach after a bad season, the results are similar to the aggregate results for all teams.

Seven teams kept their coach despite seeing their team finish winless in conference play with each loss coming by double digits. Five of the seven teams improved though they were still quite bad in the aggregate. 

The bad news for Mississippi State is that the two teams that finished winless in conference play with all their losses coming by double digits under first year head coaches did not show much improvement at all in their second year. 

The sample size is quite small (Kevin Steele at Baylor in 1999 and Ron Zook at Illinois in 2005), but those two teams improved by just a single win the following season. Baylor went winless again at the turn of the millennium and Illinois managed just a single conference win in 2006. Mississippi State plays in the arguably the nation's toughest conference, so the deck is stacked against them when it comes to improving in 2025. 

2024 Yards Per Play: SEC

The penultimate stop on our sojourn through the nine FBS conferences takes us south, home to the SEC. 

Here are the 2024 SEC standings.

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each SEC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2024 season, which teams in the SEC met this threshold? Here are SEC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Two Tigers, Missouri and Auburn, saw their actual records differ significantly from their expected records based on Yards Per Play. Missouri exceeded their expected record thanks to a 4-1 record in one-score conference games. Missouri was absolutely destroyed in their other two league losses, falling to Texas A&M and Alabama by a combined 65 points while being outgained by more than four yards per play! For Auburn, their underachievement was a combination of several factors. The Tigers from The Plains were 1-2 in one-score conference games, had a slightly negative in-conference turnover margin (-1), and struggled in the kicking game (made eight of seventeen field goal attempts in SEC play). However, their biggest issues was scoring in the red zone. Auburn made 24 red zone trips in their eight SEC games, and scored just eight touchdowns on those trips!

Outliers

Without my cajoling, you probably noticed there seemed to be a large disconnect between the Net YPP numbers and conference record for both Auburn and Missouri. Auburn's Net YPP was greater than 1.00, yet they finished with a losing record. Meanwhile, Missouri's Net YPP was less than -1.00, yet they finished with a winning conference record. Both occurrences are quite rare. Auburn is one of thirteen power conference (BCS/Power 5/4) teams to finish with a .500 or worse conference record despite outgaining their league opponents by at least one yard per play since 2005. Meanwhile, Missouri is one of eleven power conference teams to finish with a .500 or better conference record despite being outgained by their league opponents by at least one yard per play since 2005. Let's look at the company these two teams are keeping, starting with Auburn. 

Outside of the pandemic shortened 2020 season, Auburn is one of only five power conference teams to outgain their league opponents by at least one yard per play and finish with a losing conference record. 

And now the teams Missouri most closely resembles. 

The Tigers, along with their former Big 12 conference rival Kansas State (Wildcats did it twice), are the only power conference teams to be outgained by their league opponents by at least one yard per play and finish with a winning conference record. 

Can we learn anything from those other outliers regarding what potentially awaits Auburn and Missouri in 2025? And can we use it make actionable wagers? The table below reveals what happened to the power conference teams that were .500 or worse despite outgaining their conference opponents by at least one yard per play.

In the aggregate, those previous eleven teams improved, though not by as much as I would have expected. Their winning percentage improve by about .081, or a little more than half a win in an eight or nine game conference schedule. Less than half (five of eleven) saw their conference record improve the next season, while three stayed the same, and an additional three actually declined. The three that declined were coached by Ron Zook, Houston Nutt, and Mike Locksley respectively, so you may draw some additional conclusions there. That being said, using history as a guide, improvement is definitely not guaranteed. 

Now let's look at the teams in a similar situation to Missouri. 

Once again, in the aggregate, the previous ten teams declined. On average, they declined by about .150, or more than a full win. In several cases, those .500 records built on poor per play numbers were portents of looming disaster. Three teams, Auburn, Stanford, and Vanderbilt declined by at least three games the following season. A select few teams did manage to improve, although in total, seventy percent of the teams saw a decline in their conference winning percentage the following season. 

So we can reasonably expect modest improvement (though not guaranteed) at Auburn in 2025 and at least modest decline at Missouri. Unfortunately, those expectations are right in line with the market. FanDuel currently has over/under win totals for power conference teams and both Auburn and Missouri have their total set at 7.5. At 6.5 for Auburn, I would happily take the over and at 8.5 for Missouri, I would happily take the under. Since the market seems to be pretty sharp on the win totals, I would instead consider taking a flyer on an Auburn SEC title at 30-1 odds and look for alternative win totals on Missouri (6.5 or 5.5) and take the under at better odds. Modest improvement and modest decline is the most likely result for Auburn and Missouri, but since there was such dissonance between their performance and actual records last season, I think getting longer odds on massive improvement or massive decline is the better betting option in 2025. 

2024 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Mountain West

Last week we looked at how Mountain West teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2024 Mountain West standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, Mountain West teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Boise State and Nevada were the Mountain West teams that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. The Broncos significantly exceeded their APR while the Wolfpack underachieved. Both teams also over and underachieved relative to their expected record based on Yards Per Play and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

Using the Preseason AP Poll to Handicap College Football Playoff Games

Frequent readers of this blog (if any) know the value of using the preseason AP Poll to handicap both conference title games in college football and the NCAA Tournament in college basketball. Could this proxy for talent also be used to handicap College Football Playoff games? Let's find out. 

Before we get to the College Football Playoff, I wanted to look at one of the more hated ranking systems in college football, the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS. If you weren't a college football fan in this era, there are some great reads on the subject but I'll summarize it in a few short sentences. The BCS was designed to pit the two highest rated teams in the BCS against each other for the national championship. The methodology was quite reactionary changing nearly every season based on previous controversies and never being forward thinking. But it was an improvement on not having the top two teams play each other because of traditional bowl tie-ins. 

In BCS bowl games, of which there were initially four (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar) and later five (BCS Championship Game), the participants were usually motivated. Even if they were not playing for the national championship, it was still a prestigious bowl game and opting out was never really an option. In the sixteen seasons of the BCS era (1998-2013) there were 25 BCS bowl games pitting a team that was ranked in the preseason AP Poll against a team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. There were also thirteen BCS bowl games pitting a team that was ranked in the preseason top ten of the AP Poll against a team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. The table below summarizes how those games played out both straight up and against the spread (ATS). 

The preseason poll was a solid predictor of success both straight up and ATS. Preseason top 25 teams won 68% of their games against teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll and also covered the spread more than 62% of the time. Preseason top ten teams performed at roughly the same level, winning 69% of their games and covering just under 62% of the time. 

Once the BCS ended, the College Football Playoff took its place. Instead of two teams vying for the national title, four teams were selected for a mini-tournament to crown the champion. The two semi-final games rotated among six prestigious bowl games now deemed the New Year's Six. The Cotton and  Peach joined the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar to constitute this new amalgamation of college football greatness. The bowls that were not hosting the semi-finals staged glorious exhibitions. There were eighteen non-playoff New Year's Six bowl games contested between a team that was ranked in the preseason AP Poll and one that was not, There were nine such games involving a preseason top ten team and one that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. The table below again summarizes how those games played out both straight up and against the spread (ATS). 

For New Year's Six games, you would have been better off flipping a coin. Preseason top 25 teams won just half the time against teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll and covered under 40% of the time. Preseason top ten teams did not fare any better, winning less than half the time and covering just a third of the time. Why the sudden change? ESPN bombarded the air waves with commercials and coverage of the College Football Playoff. If you weren't in the playoff and were merely a top ten team, you might as well not even participate in the sport. I don't think its a stretch to say motivation was an issue, particularly for teams that started with playoff aspirations (ranked in the top 25 or top ten of the preseason AP Poll) when they ended the season in bowl games that were not the College Football Playoff. The College Football Playoff era also coincided with the beginning of opt outs. If a team didn't qualify for the semi-finals, then a likely early round draft pick might sit out rather than risk injury in a 'meaningless' bowl game. 

What about the four-team College Football Playoff? In its ten years of existence, only two teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll qualified for the College Football Playoff. Those two teams played three games. The results are listed below. 

The sample size is small, but teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Poll won two of three games against preseason unranked teams both straight up and ATS. The two victories came by a combined 81 points and the lone loss came by six, so the teams ranked in the preseason AP Poll were quite dominant in their collective performances. 

The four-team College Football Playoff is a thing of the past. The playoff currently invites a dozen teams and seems more likely than not to expand in the near future. In the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff, eight of the twelve participants were ranked in the preseason AP Poll and six of twelve were ranked in the preseason top ten of the AP Poll. The four teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll that were selected for the College Football Playoff were Arizona State, Boise State, Indiana, and SMU. The below summarizes their performance in the College Football Playoff. 

All four teams entered as sizable underdogs against teams that were ranked in the top ten of the preseason AP Poll. All four lost, with three of the losses coming by double digits. Arizona State was the lone team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll that covered as an underdog in their playoff game. 

The expanded College Football Playoff gives automatic bids to the five highest rated conference champions and awards seven at-large bids. With three times the number of playoff teams (for now), we are likely to see at least one or two teams qualify for the postseason that were not ranked in the preseason AP Poll. One season does not a trend make, but based on the history of teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Poll taking on teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll in 'meaningful' games (conference title games, BCS games, and previous College Football Playoff games), those preseason unranked teams might be a good candidate to fade even if they are massive underdogs. 

2024 Yards Per Play: Mountain West

With the dissolution of the Pac-12, the Mountain West is the only conference with all members in the western half of the United States (for now). How did things play out in 2024? 

Here are the 2024 Mountain West standings.

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each Mountain West team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2024 season, which teams in the Mountain West met this threshold? Here are Mountain West teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Boise State and Colorado State significantly exceeded their expected record based on Net YPP while the trio of San Jose State, New Mexico, and Nevada significantly underachieved. Boise State and Colorado State went a combined 6-1 in one-score conference games and also finished with good in-conference turnover margins. The Broncos were third in the Mountain West in that statistic (+6) and the Rams were second (+7). Close games explain Nevada's significant underachievement. The Wolfpack were winless in one-score conference games (0-4). More on them in a second. New Mexico had the worst in-conference turnover margin of any Mountain West team (-10). The Lobos forced just four turnovers in their seven league games. In their three league wins, the Lobos were had a turnover margin of -1, but in their four league losses, they were -9, including a combined -7 in losses to Colorado State and Fresno State. Close games (1-1) and turnovers (-4) don't do a great job of explaining San Jose State's underachievement. For the Spartans, it was a combination of a lot of things. They did have a negative in-conference turnover margin, but it wasn't horrendous. They also eschewed fourth down attempts (a league low seven attempts) and didn't do a great job of converting those attempts (three successful conversions). More aggression probably would have suited the Spartans. They also struggled scoring touchdowns in the red zone, converting just 56% of their red zone trips into touchdowns against Mountain West foes. Finally, they also struggled making kicks, hitting just four of seven field goal attempts in conference play. It wasn't just one thing, but a healthy combination that prevented San Jose State from finishing higher in the conference. 

The Best Winless Team Ever

The above superlative requires a lot of qualifiers (mid-major team, winless in conference play, as adjudicated by Net YPP, since 2005), but it described the Nevada Wolfpack in 2024. 

Nevada fired Ken Wilson after back to back 2-10 finishes following the 2023 season. His replacement, Jeff Choate, came from Texas, where he was the co-defensive coordinator, but he also had success as an FCS coach at Montana State. The Wolfpack seemed like they might be contenders in the Mountain West as they opened the season by taking SMU to the brink at home and beating the two-time defending Sun Belt champ Troy on the road. SMU ended up making a quarterback change and Troy ended up not being very good, so that start was a bit of a mirage. Though the Wolfpack were competitive in Choate's first season, they only won two other games after beating Troy and none of them came in Mountain West play. The Wolfpack were outgained by .33 yards per play by Mountain West opponents, a figure that ranked eighth in the twelve team league. Not great, but also not indicative of a team that would go winless in league play. In fact, Nevada posted the best Net YPP numbers of any mid-major (non-BCS/Group of Five) team that finished winless in conference play since I have been tracking the statistic (2005). 

Around these parts, we are not only concerned with how teams performed in the past, but what that data might tell us regarding their future performance (for betting purposes, duh). How did the other nine teams on this list fare the following season? Read on to find out. 

In the aggregate, the teams got better. Collectively, the nine teams improved from zero total conference wins to 22, meaning they won roughly two and half conference games on average. Seven of the nine teams improved and six of the nine improved by at least two games. However, it should be noted that improvement is not guaranteed. Two teams, Georgia State and SMU, went winless in their respective leagues the following season, though both do have some extenuating circumstances. 

After finishing winless in Conference USA in 2007, SMU fired coach Phil Bennett and replaced him with Run N' Shoot aficionado June Jones. 2008 may seem like yesterday, but college football has changed drastically since then. Jones was not able to revamp his entire roster in one offseason and the Mustangs struggled running his new offense, although they again posted respectable Net YPP numbers and just missed making this list. After struggling in 2008, the Mustangs won eight games (six in league play) in Jones' second season. 

Georgia State's extenuating circumstances are they were new to FBS in 2013 and football in general. The Panthers played their first game in school history in 2010 and were FBS team by their fourth season. Clearly, they were not ready for prime time, losing their first fifteen conference games in 2013 and 2014 before beating New Mexico State for their first Sun Belt in in 2015. 

Not only was Nevada arguably the best team to go winless in conference play, they also underachieved relative to their Net YPP numbers more than any other mid-major team since 2005 save one. 

Only Utah State in 2016 underachieved more than Nevada in 2024. How did the other three teams on this list perform the following season? You already know SMU changed coaches and again failed to win a league game, but the other two teams improved dramatically. 

In Shawn Elliott's first season at Georgia State, the Panthers finished with a winning Sun Belt record and won their first ever bowl game. That same year, Utah State rebounded from a disappointing 2016 campaign and quadrupled their conference win total en route to a sixth bowl appearance in seven seasons. 

Using history as a guide, I think there is a great chance Nevada not only improves in 2025, but also qualifies for a bowl game for the first time since 2021. I expect the Wolfpack to have a modest preseason win total, so the 'over' may be one of my big plays when I make my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas.