Week 1 Five Factors box scores

Obviously we’ve got a couple more games to go this week, but I wanted to knock as many things as I could off of the to do list. So here are this week’s Five Factors Box Scores. (Will add ND-UT and FSU-Ole Miss at a later date.)

As background, the Five Factors are Efficiency, Explosiveness, Field Position, Finishing Drives, and Turnovers. It’s hard to gauge a lot of this in your typical box score, so I’m sharing some of the key measures below. Efficiency is reflected by success rate, finishing drives are reflected by points per scoring opportunity (first downs inside the opponent’s 40), and turnovers are broken into both actual and expected turnovers (which are based on the number of fumbles and passes defensed for both teams).

As with this year’s S&P+ picks (which I screwed up last week — will explain later this week), I am including a Google Doc embed. Among other things, this should make for easier tracking on your end. I will include averages in the sheet as we go along. I thought that might be a welcome thing. You can view the entire sheet here.

We’ll use Wisconsin’s win over LSU as an example of what this type of data can tell you. We see here that both teams were pretty awful at converting scoring opportunities into points, but UW was slightly less bad. LSU had an advantage in yards per play, but success rate was basically equal, and Wisconsin dominated the field position game. LSU nearly won anyway, in part because of a pick six, but the Tigers’ woeful drive conversion did them in.

Largest Yards Per Play margin:

• Louisville over Charlotte (+6.88)
• Miami over FAMU (+6.55)
• Michigan over Hawaii (+5.58)
• WKU over Rice (+5.26)
• UNLV over Jackson State (+5.07)

Largest Points Per Opportunity margin:

• Michigan over Hawaii (+6.40)
• Wake Forest over Tulane (+6.25)
• San Diego State over New Hampshire (+6.20)
• MTSU over Alabama A&M (+6.11)
• Ohio State over Bowling Green (+5.36)

Largest Field Position margin:

• Miami over FAMU (+28.1)
• Oklahoma State over SE Louisiana (+25.7)
• EMU over MVSU (+23.6)
• UTSA over Alabama State (+22.5)
• Illinois over Murray State (+21.0)

Largest Success Rate margin:

• Louisville over Charlotte (+44%)
• Michigan over Hawaii (+40%)
• NC State over William & Mary (+38%)
• Miami over FAMU (+37%)
• UNLV over Jackson State (+34%)