Countdown to Study Hall: Announcing the 2013 Charting Project

In Study Hall, I include amended versions of two pieces I wrote for the 2012 Charting Project: College Football's Curveball and QBs and the Passes They Throw. Now, probably 85-90 percent of Study Hall consists of new writing, but I wanted to include these two pieces for two reasons: 1) I like them, and 2) I think game charting is the next wave for college football stats (just as it has been for pros), and I'd like to drum up as much interest as possible about it.

That was the basic point of the 2012 Charting Project in the first place, really. With just two interns charting a few games per week, we were able to begin gleaning interesting information about team styles, formations, quarterback tendencies, play-calling tendencies, offensive styles, etc.

Now it's time to go big. Even with 100 volunteers, we wouldn't be able to chart every FBS game, simply because not every game is televised. But so many are. The goal for 2013 is to simply see how many games we can nail down. So we're taking charting volunteers.

This is such rich data, and I would love to pull in as many games as possible. We're working on streamlining the process, but as it stands, each game takes probably 3-4 hours to chart, at least at first. We will make the charting data available to all charters, so if you want to write about a given game at either Study Hall or your own team's site, you can. And if you want to do scouting pieces from other teams' charting stats, you can. But this is certainly a labor of love. Charters in 2013 will be volunteer-only; though I'd love to get to a point where we can pay for charters in the future, we're just not there yet.

To sign up for the 2013 Charting Project, simply fill out the form below. We'll start a mailing list and figure out the best way to make weekly assignments from there. And we'll try to help you get some preseason practice if you want.

Any help you can give will be incredibly valuable. Charting data is awesome.