Offensive Statistics For College Football 2024
If there is one thing we know about college football it's that some big offensive numbers can be put up, much more so on average than the NFL. A team that averages 40 points in college might rank in the top-15 or so. Contrast that with the NFL and they would be leading the league hands down.
There are plenty of statistical breakdowns within a college football offense to be aware of as well. Such things include total offensive yards per game and points per game which are probably the two most well known. You can even take things quite a bit further, breaking down rushing yards per game, passing yards per game, time of possession on offense and more. Beyond that, there are more advanced stats such as QBR, Y/A, and more.
This is your home for everything relating to offense for college football teams, and we wanted to set this page up so that you can understand what is and is not an applicable college football offensive statistic.
On this page, we’ll discuss some of the major offensive stat categories, and go over their general usefulness, as well as how to apply them to betting on college football. We’ll focus on providing context for these stats - the college football season is a minefield of low sample size events, which means that understanding the context of a statistic is one of the most important skills you can have in evaluating these numbers.
Sample Size And You
The first thing to understand about college football is that it is simultaneously a low sample size event and a high sample size event. Statistics that analyze something large, like yards per game, tend to be less reliable because there are only twelve games in a regular season. However, statistics that analyze things on a play-by-play basis, such as yards per pass attempt, can be a bit more useful, since there are hundreds of passing attempts in that twelve game span. We wanted to put this section here simply because you’ll want to keep this in mind when examining nearly every statistic. Another thing that sticks out is that many conferences play cupcake games, usually two or three a year. These games can boost a team’s stats, especially when they make up a large proportion of the games a team has played. As always, context is key.
Major Offensive Stat Categories
Yards Per Game
Yards per game is the basic offensive strategy category, and while it can be misleading, it is a generally useful indicator of offensive quality. A team that racks up more yards tends to score more, and produce more offense. Knowing these statistics from past college football games, betting on certain player prop bets becomes more tempting with online sportsbooks. Yards per game stats can be obfuscated by how games play out. For example, consider a team that pulls the starters after building up a lead compared to a team that does not. The team that does not might rack up more yardage, because they kept their starters in longer. If a bettor is confident that a team will get blown out, and they do not risk want the starters getting pulled because a bet was placed on the QB’S total yards, a bet on the final score hitting the over could be the better alternative.
Scoring Per Game
Scoring per game is another generalized indicator of offense that is a bit less useful than it purports to be. It has the same problems as yards per game, in that it tends to be based on what personnel a team plays. However, by looking at the statistics of how many points a team scores in a college football game, online bets on the over/under, covering the spread, and even just betting on the money line, with none of these bets being affected by what platers are in the game. Having stats for team scoring can also help with placing prop bets. even if the starting QB does get pulled in the fourth, bettors can still look at past number and see that he is averaging three touchdowns by the third quarter, and place a wager on him hitting that total.
Advanced Offensive Stats
Advanced stats tend to look a bit different. For one, they tend to focus on per-possession information, so as to have the largest sample size, and the most normalized base for comparison. As an example, take Football Outsiders’ OFEI stat. OFEI measures how good a team is on a per possession basis against an average defense. It measures this in terms of points - how many more points will a team score on an average possession against an average defense. In 2019, the leader was LSU with 2.20 points above average, followed by Alabama with 2.17. This makes sense, both due to the quality of competition the two teams played and the quality of quarterbacking they employed.
The Other Side Of The Ball Is Also Very Important
Defense plays a role every bit as important as the offense. If a team doesn't score, the likelihood of winning that game is quite high. Just like complete offensive stats are formed on this page, there is another page where this information, and information like this related to defensive stats in college football are found.
Places Where You Can Make Money Off These Stats
US online sportsbooks come up with a wide variety of college football betting odds and there are no shortage of sports betting sites to visit. For offensive stats, it's not just about the game lines that are wagered on, but player prop odds based on offensive performances. These stats can and do affect everything about the game, so next time you want to wager, check out the following sites:
Bovada is an industry leader in the online gambling field, offering sports bets on almost everything you can think of. From the College Football Playoff to Russian table tennis, you can find odds on it at Bovada. In addition, Bovada has a great website that is easy to use and navigate, as well as live and mobile betting options for the discerning sports bettor.
Bovada offers quality bonuses for those who sign up at their website and deposit money as well. They’re one of the largest online sports betting websites, so you can know that their odds and lines will be sharp and updated to the minute. They’re a great baseline wagering site - you can use Bovada as a baseline to judge other sports betting websites’ lines against. Overall, Bovada provides one of the best college football wagering spots on the planet.
MyBookie bills itself as The People’s Sportsbook, and it tries its best to live up to that lofty title. It’s a sportsbook that is based around appealing to the common person, someone who probably isn’t super familiar with gambling, but wants to spice up their college football Saturdays. If that’s you, MyBookie might be the spot for you to bet with.
They’re a very solid overall sportsbook, with a lot of lines available at any given time, as well as high quality mobile and live betting. They have quality bonuses as well that can help to keep you in the black. MyBookie also focuses on providing fun props and alternate wagers that can keep you entertained all Saturday long, and hopefully keep you on the sportsbook in a more long term sense. Overall, MyBookie is a great addition to any college football bettors betting repertoire.