Clarifying Effective College Football Play-by-Play Ratings for Week 5
Clarifying the Effective College Football Play-by-Play Ratings
My article last week sharing the details of my first full run of college football data and strength ratings received quite a response, particularly after the 15 games I pointed out with teams having play-by-play edges compared with the point spreads went 12-3 ATS. I promised that if the results warranted, I would continue to post the edge games. Well, 12-3 ATS and 80% certainly does warrant it. Before I post this week’s edge games, however, I’d like to clarify more on the subject as we move on to week 5.
First, know that I have updated my usual strength ratings for both college and pro football. Typically, I upload the new ratings on Sunday for college football and both Monday and Tuesday for the NFL. You can find those ratings here:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL POWER RATINGS
The confusion I was left to try and clear up regarded the new, or fifth, rating set that I introduced last week for college football. Leading up to the weekend, and even after all of last week’s successes, I received a lot of feedback. That ratings set was, of course, the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings. This is what I included in last week’s article as a description:
EFFECTIVE PLAY-BY-PLAY STRENGTH
The Effective Strength Ratings I described earlier simply take into account scoring stats, but as we all know, there are a lot of things that can happen on the field that can lead to teams being inaccurately evaluated. Among them are turnovers, penalties, third- or fourth-down success, decisions made when games are out of hand, etc. Because of that, what I am going to be determining and sharing with you are the teams whose current EFFECTIVE YARDS PER PLAY (EYYP) stats signify that they might be significantly better or worse than their current perception. I believe this is a good way to find over- and underrated teams to take advantage of in the next few games. I will also be using a formula for comparing the teams in this week’s games by their EYPP numbers to see if there might be any point spread value.
What I’ve done is take the Effective Offensive/Defensive Yards Per Play figures 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 based heavily 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 while I was answering those, I thought of a few other questions I might have if I were seeing this for the first time. I’d like to answer all of those here.
Q. How are these different from your Effective Strength Ratings?
A. In short, the Effective Strength Ratings include only scoring stats; these Effective Play-by-Play Ratings use PLAYS and YARDAGE data.
Q. Do you post these Effective Play-by-Play Ratings regularly?
A. No. I have shared them occasionally, but in my experience, they have been too volatile to hang my hat on. Using my Effective Strength Ratings, I can rarely come up with a game that varies 10 points from a point spread. These are common, however, with the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings.
Q. Do the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings account for teams playing weaker opponents?
A. Yes, heavily. Not only do these ratings utilize schedule strength differences, like my Effective Strength Ratings, they go a step further than most common strength indicators in that they also utilize past opponents’ yardage gained and allowed averages.
Q. Are you going to post the Effective Play-by-Play biggest variation games every week?
A. Most of the enthusiastic response I have gotten from readers stemmed from the fact that the top 15 variation games went 12-3 ATS, including highlight blowout wins from Toledo, LSU, Nebraska, Florida and UMass and key upset victories from Iowa and UAB. These metrics also pointed out an overpricing in the week’s biggest game between Texas and Tennessee. Furthermore, one of the 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 a half-point. Because I promised readers that I would continue to do it as long as it was successful, you will once again find the top 15 college football disparity games at the end of this article.
Q. Can I see the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings for all the teams?
A. Not yet. I’d like to see this develop a little further and track it more before I start adding these numbers to my weekly strength ratings update. That said, I will share with you a Top 25 in college football. Here it is:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Top 25 teams in Effective Play-by-Play Strength (on an equivalent scale 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. NOTRE DAME: 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. NORTHWESTERN: 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 claims a team like Mississippi State is the fifth-best team in the country, or UCLA is No. 8, I’d probably lose a lot of credibility. As it stands, I would still argue that these teams are clearly better than perception right now.
Q. Are you going to post the biggest discrepancy games from the Effective Play-by-Play Ratings to the actual lines again this week?
A. Yes! Hopefully we see the same success level and more this week from the top 15 college list. Those games are just below:
Comparing the Effective Play-by-Play equivalent ratings to the actual Week 5 college football lines:
As far as actionable items, here are the top 15 games for this weekend, based on the differential of Effective Play-by-Play ratings versus actual point spreads, with home-field advantage built into the differences.
(107) PITTSBURGH at (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 at (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 at (130) MASSACHUSETTS
Actual Line: MASSACHUSETTS -6.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: MASSACHUSETTS -21.1
Difference: 14.6 — Favors: MASSACHUSETTS
(127) KENTUCKY at (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 at (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 at (140) BUFFALO
Actual Line: BUFFALO +13.5
Effective Play-by-Play Line: BUFFALO +26
Difference: 12.5 — Favors: WESTERN MICHIGAN
(169) LOUISIANA-MONROE at (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
SPONSORED
RECORD BREAKER! ROBERT FERRINGO just had one of the biggest football weeks in Doc’s Sports’ 56-year history! Robert banked +3,720 with his football picks (documented HERE) and added another +2,350 with his football props (documented HERE). That is an electrifying +6,070 in winnings and he’s looking to add to it this weekend!
Access his premium picks at Doc’s Sports with a free $60 new member account. Get your free trial here!
