After a month of college football, we get to play the fun game of signal versus noise in navigating the turbulent waters of small sample size. The strongest signal is most likely from success rate.

For an offense, play success is defined in terms of the necessary yards to the next first down. A successful play gets the following fraction of those yards:

• 50% on 1st down
• 70% on 2nd down
• 100% on 3rd, 4th down

Bill Connelly has shown this metric is predictive for college football.

At The Power Rank, I take this quantity and adjust for strength of schedule with my algorithm based on Markov chains. As much as I’d like to tout how much this Stanford PhD math matters, it isn’t the most important aspect for college football right now.

In my adjusted success rate calculations, I include games from all FBS and FCS teams. This expanded network lets me better evaluate a team like Texas A&M because it considers games against FCS teams like Sam Houston State.

Let’s dig into some insights from these adjusted success rate calculations.

Washington

In the first season of head coach Kalen DeBoer, the offense has grabbed the headlines in a 4-0 start. QB Michael Penix Jr., the transfer from Indiana, has led the 15th best pass offense. Overall, the offense ranks 20th.

However, the defense has been even better at 4th. Early data suggests that Washington should be the Pac-12 North favorite, not Oregon.

USC

Offensive guru Lincoln Riley brought a few high powered transfers in QB Caleb Williams and WR Jordan Addison with him to USC. It’s not a surprise that USC’s offense ranks 14th, even with a bit of a hiccup against Oregon State last week.

However, it is a surprise that USC’s defense ranks 31st. This unit was awful last season, but DC Alex Grinch has gotten quality play out of a number of transfers.

Michigan

After starting the season with three of the worst FBS teams, Michigan finally played a team with a pulse in Maryland. The offense fared better than the defense. For the season, Michigan’s offense ranks 10th and is powered by the run game (5th).

Maryland was able to move the ball on Michigan’s defense, and this unit ranks 52nd after four games. The defense gets another game off against Iowa (116th) before they need to show up at Indiana (40th).

North Carolina State

This team almost made my 3 overrated college football teams this preseason. QB Devin Leary threw for 35 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in 2021, but the underlying metrics didn’t like this offense (74th).

Through four games, the North Carolina State offense ranks a meager 72nd out of 131 teams. A 108th ranked pass offense is holding this team back.

Notre Dame

The Fighting Irish did make my overrated list, and they lived up to it by dropping their first two games against Ohio State and Marshall. Things seemed dire as QB Tyler Buchner was lost for the season.

However, Notre Dame has won two straight, and the pass offense ranks 28th for the season. QB Drew Pyne has led the offense to a 50% passing success rate the past two games (40.7% college football average).

More insights from college football success rate

For patrons of The Football Analytics Show, I made an audio episode that digs into the adjusted success rates for three more teams.

One section will have an impact on an SEC game this weekend. The other two sections speculate about the impact of a coordinator change this off season.

To get this audio episode, one that I am extremely proud of, support The Football Analytics Show on Patreon. 

You get access to this 18 minute episode for any level of support. You also get the Establish the Pass mug upon signing up at one of the higher levels.

To learn more, click here.

Notre Dame isn’t off to the best start in 2022.

It was not surprising they lost their opener at Ohio State. They actually made it respectable, as the Fighting Irish covered the 17 points as an underdog.

It was surprising they lost at home to Marshall this past week. They were a 20.5 point favorite. Now, QB Tyler Buchner is out with a shoulder injury.

In college football, it’s a good idea to react to early season performances. Players and coaches change, and I have found that a predictive system that makes aggressive adjustments leads to more accurate predictions.

However, a predictive system can also overreact. This preseason, I had Notre Dame as 15 points better on a neutral field than California. Now, the markets favor Notre Dame by 11.5 points at home.

With Buchner out, Drew Pyne will take over at QB for Notre Dame. Both of these players competed for the job this off season. While Pyne doesn’t run the ball as well as Buchner, he should sustain the passing game.

This does not mean the passing game will be good. But the passing game wasn’t good under Buchner either. The pick six he threw against Marshall was worse than Nathaniel Hackett’s clock management.

Fine, it wasn’t worse than how Denver managed the last minute at Seattle on Monday night. However, a 38.7% passing success rate isn’t reminding anyone of Joe Burrow in 2019 either (40.4% college football average this season).

California is a program looking to break through in their sixth season under Justin Wilcox. While they have been good on defense under Wilcox, they only ranked 64th in my adjusted success rate in 2021. 

California is hoping to get better on offense with Purdue transfer Jake Plummer at QB. This season, they’ve had two not so impressive wins over UC Davis and UNLV. My metrics have adjusted them downwards by about the same amount as Notre Dame.

While I had Notre Dame overrated this preseason, that was mostly because the preseason AP poll had them at an absurd 5th in the nation. They should be a top 20 team.

Notre Dame was expected to have a strong defense. While this unit failed against Marshall, they did hold down Ohio State in the opener and should return to form at home against Cal.

My member numbers like Notre Dame by 18.1 points, and this suggests value in Notre Dame -11 at home against California.

Football betting with a PhD edge

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