Clarifying Effective College Football Play-by-Play Ratings
My article last week sharing the details of my first full run of college football data and power ratings received a response, especially after 15 games where I pointed to teams with play-by-play edges versus point spreads that went 12-3 ATS. I promise that if the results are guaranteed, I will continue posting games on the side. Well, 12-3 ATS and 80% certainly warrants it. Before I post this week’s edge games, however, I want to clarify the topic further as we move into week 5.
First, know that I’ve updated my average strength ratings for both college and professional football. Typically, I upload new ratings on Sunday for college football and both Monday and Tuesday for the NFL. You can see those ratings here:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL POWER RATINGS
NFL POWER RATINGS
The confusion I’m left with to try and clear up is considering the new, or fifth, rating set I introduced last week for college football. Leading up to the weekend, and even after all the successes last week, I received a lot of feedback. Those fixed ratings are, of course, the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings. This is what I included in last week’s article as an illustration:
POWERFUL PLAY-BY-PLAY
The Effective Strength Ratings I described earlier only take into account scoring statistics, but as we all know, there are many things that can happen on the field that can lead to teams being inaccurately evaluated. These include turnovers, penalties, gains on third or fourth down, decisions made when games are out of hand, etc. Because of that, what I will identify and share with you are the teams whose current EFFECTIVE YARDS PER PLAY (EYYP) stats indicate that they may be better or worse than their current outlook. I believe this is a great way to find over- and underrated teams to take advantage of in the next few games. I will also use a formula for comparing teams in this week’s games by their EYPP numbers to see if there might be any point spread value.
What I did was take the Effective Offensive/Defensive Yards Per Play numbers I first ran for the 2025 season on Sunday and assigned them an equivalent power rating on the scale I currently use. I then took these EYPP Equivalent Ratings and compared them to my current Power Ratings, which are heavily based on betting markets and perception.
The assumption being made is that if the Effective Yards Per Play Equivalent Rating is higher than the average SM power rating, that team is playing better than its perceived strength, and vice versa.
I received a few questions from readers, and as I answered them, I thought of a few other questions I might have had if I had seen it for the first time. I want to answer everyone here.
Q. How do they differ from your Effective Strength Ratings?
A. In other words, Effective Strength Ratings include only scoring statistics; these Effective Play-by-Play Ratings use PLAYS and YARDAGE data.
Q. Are you posting these Effective Play-by-Plays regularly?
A. No. I share them from time to time, but in my experience, they are too volatile to hang my hat on. With my Effective Strength Ratings, I rarely come up with a game that varies 10 points from a point spread. They are common, however, in Effective Play-by-Play Ratings.
Q. Do Effective Play-by-Play Ratings account for teams playing weaker opponents?
A. Yes, heavy. These ratings don’t just use schedule strength differences, like my Effective Strength Ratings, they go further than most standard strength indicators because they also use previous opponents’ yards gained and allow for averages.
Q. Will you post the Effective Play-by-Play biggest variation game every week?
A. Most of the enthusiastic response I got from readers came from the fact that the top 15 variation games went 12-3 ATS, including highlights of blowout wins from Toledo, LSU, Nebraska, Florida and UMass and key victories from Iowa and UAB. These metrics also point to overpricing in the biggest game of the week between Texas and Tennessee. What’s more, one of those losses came in the biggest disparity game, one that Sam Houston State was in a strong position to cover long into the fourth quarter and eventually lost by half a point. Since I promised the readers that I will continue this as long as it is successful, you will see again the top 15 games in college football diversity at the end of this article.
Q. Can I see Effective Play-by-Play Ratings for all teams?
A. Not yet. I’d like to see it develop a little more and track it more before I start adding these numbers to my weekly strength ratings update. That being said, I will share with you the Top 25 in college football. Here it is:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Top 25 teams in Effective Play-by-Play Strength (in proportion to my power ratings)
Rank. Team, Effective Play-by-Play Rating
1. GEORGIA: 77.8
2. OHIO STATE: 74.1
3. MIAMI FL: 71.9
4. LSU: 70.8
5. MISSISSIPPI STATE: 68.4
6. SMU: 67.6
7. OUR WOMAN: 67.1
8. UCLA: 66.6
9. ALABAMA: 65.8
10. KENTUCKY: 65.7
11. FLORIDA: 65.6
12. UTAH: 65.4
13. BYU: 61.8
14. INDIANA: 61.4
15. WAKE FOREST: 60.2
16. TEXAS: 59.9
17. NORTHWEST: 59.7
18. OREGON: 59
19. LOUISVILLE: 58.8
20. OLE MISS: 58.8
21. PITTSBURGH: 58.8
22. WISCONSIN: 58.6
23. OREGON STATE: 58.5
24. Iowa: 58.2
25. NEBRASKA: 57.9
When I said I felt these ratings could be “volatile,” you can clearly get the picture from this list. If I start publishing data regularly that says a team like Mississippi State is the fifth best team in the country, or UCLA is No. 8, I would probably lose a lot of credibility. As it stands, I would still argue that these groups are clearly better than the perception at the moment.
Q. Will you be posting the biggest difference in games from Effective Play-by-Play Ratings to actual lines again this week?
A. Yes! Hopefully we’ll see the same level of success and more this week from the top 15 college list. Those games are just below:
Comparison of Effective Play-by-Play equivalent ratings with actual Week 5 college football lines:
As far as actionable items go, here are the top 15 games for this weekend, based on the difference in Effective Play-by-Play ratings versus actual point spreads, with home-field advantage built into the differences.
(107) PITTSBURGH and (108) VIRGINIA TECH
Actual Line: VIRGINIA TECH -3.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: VIRGINIA TECH +16.1
Difference: 19.6 — Favors: PITTSBURGH
(211) TEXAS STATE at (212) SAN DIEGO STATE
Actual Line: SAN DIEGO STATE +4.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: SAN DIEGO STATE +23.4
Difference: 18.9 — Favors: TEXAS STATE
(205) UTAH STATE and (206) BOISE STATE
Actual Line: BOISE STATE -20.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: BOISE STATE -2.4
Difference: 18.1 — Favors: UTAH STATE
(203) OREGON STATE at (204) COLORADO STATE
Actual Line: COLORADO STATE +6
Effective Play-by-Play Line: COLORADO STATE +23.9
Difference: 17.9 — Favors: OREGON STATE
(129) EASTERN MICHIGAN and (130) MASSACHUSETTS
Actual Line: MASSACHUSETTS -6.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: MASSACHUSETTS -21.1
Difference: 14.6 — Favors: MASSACHUSETTS
(127) KENTUCKY and (128) SOUTH CAROLINA
Actual Line: SOUTH CAROLINA -2.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: SOUTH CAROLINA +12
Difference: 14.5 — Favors: KENTUCKY
(103) WESTERN KENTUCKY to (104) NEW MEXICO STATE
Actual Line: NEW MEXICO STATE -2.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: NEW MEXICO STATE -16.5
Difference: 14 — Favors: NEW MEXICO STATE
(119) BOWLING GREEN at (120) MIAMI OHIO
Actual Line: MIAMI OHIO -13.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: MIAMI OHIO -27.3
Difference: 13.8 — Favors: MIAMI OHIO
(105) NORTH TEXAS at (106) TULSA
Actual Line: TULSA -1.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: TULSA +11.2
Difference: 12.7 — Favors: NORTH TEXAS
(167) PURDUE at (168) ILLINOIS
Actual Line: ILLINOIS -10
Effective Play-by-Play Line: ILLINOIS -22.6
Difference: 12.6 — Favors: ILLINOIS
(197) WEST VIRGINIA at (198) IOWA STATE
Actual Line: IOWA STATE -3
Effective Play-by-Play Line: Iowa STATE -15.5
Difference: 12.5 — Favors: IOWA STATE
(139) WESTERN MICHIGAN and (140) BUFFALO
Actual Line: BUFFALO +13.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: BUFFALO +26
Difference: 12.5 — Favors: WESTERN MICHIGAN
(169) LOUISIANA-MONROE and (170) SOUTH ALABAMA
Actual Line: SOUTH ALABAMA -14
Effective Play-by-Play Line: SOUTH ALABAMA -1.9
Difference: 12.1 — Favors: LOUISIANA-MONROE
(115) TOLEDO at (116) BALL STATE
Actual Line: BALL STATE +19.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: BALL STATE +31.4
Difference: 11.9 — Favors: TOLEDO
(173) TEXAS TECH at (174) COLORADO
Actual Line: COLORADO +12.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: COLORADO +0.6
Difference: 11.9 — Favors: COLORADO
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