Welcome to “I Got 5 On It”, each week I’ll be picking five news-worthy subjects based around college football to cover. Ranging from views on Devy prospects, general college football talk, and interesting stats.
1. Top QB Performers
If you are unaware of the ANY/A metric “An advanced statistic in football that quantifies the contributions of a quarterback’s passing game by including five key passing statistics; passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions thrown, times sacked and yards lost to being sacked. This measure rewards passers for scoring with a multiplier on touchdowns and punishes a passer on throwing interceptions. This is all combined into a value on a per pass attempt basis.
Here are the top 10 performers from week 5 of the CFB season out of 126 qualifying performances.
*Note – The total on the bottom is the tally of all QBs that attempted at least 10 passes this past weekend.
A personal favorite CJ Stroud finds his way atop the WK5 QB list. It’s actually the 5th best performance to date. No need to go to one of the other 5-stars. Kenny Pickett has been on fire to start the season. He’s got 3 of the top 20 best performances so far this season. Albeit two of those games came against the likes of Western Michigan and New Hampshire. After five weeks, Pickett has been the most valuable QB. He hasn’t faced the stiffest competition yet with UMass, WVU, WMU, New Hampshire, and Georgia Tech. Malik Willis had a really nice night against UAB including over 100 yards rushing as well. I have my doubts about Willis but he’s been one of the best passers on balls over 10 yards downfield. Much like Pickett, Willis hasn’t faced a really good defense yet. Grayson McCall made short work of ULM enroute to another nice afternoon. DJU finally finished above the 50th percentile on the season, baby steps.
Boy, do I feel vindicated! Last week I said Taulia would be exposed by the Iowa defense and was he ever! He had the worst QB performance of the week, 126 out of 126. It actually ranked as the 8th worst game of the entire season so far (674 qualifying performances). I said force TT to go downfield and bad things happen. Taulia completed more passes to Hawkeyes than Terps WRs on passing 10 yards or down the field. Tulane’s Michael Pratt came inside the ten worst games of the weekend. He continues a really slow start to his sophomore campaign. Jake Haener’s 4 INTs were good enough to get him in the bottom 20 and cost me a nice chunk of change in Fresno’s loss to Hawaii. The nation’s darling Will Levis slid in 99th on the week. Including 0-5 on passing attempts of 10 yards or more in the air. Top ten pick here he comes! Another really poor performance slid Michael Penix to 133 out of 134 QBs on the season in overall value. Other big names like DJU and Graham Mertz both find themselves in the bottom ten for the season long. The big three schools in Florida all find themselves with a QB that ranks outside the top 110 in season-long value. Not ideal for such a talent rich state. Once above the season long passing attempts threshold Tyler Van Dyke should find himself much higher on the list though.
2. Team ANY/A
I really like the ANY/A metric so I’ve adapted it to using it to see how good teams are. It’s basically a yards per attempts metric with amplifiers for TDs and TOs. Here’s your top/bottom team’s margin of team passing ANY/A.
A couple of surprises in the top ten. Arkansas I think will slowly work their way down the list the more KJ Jefferson is forced to play SEC defenses. He’s a fine QB, but I think he’s mismatched against top defenses. Baylor is another school riding high on beating up on lesser competition. Gerry Bohannan isn’t a QB I can trust in conference play. The bottom ten pretty well encompasses the worst teams in the nation. If you can’t pass in 2021 you are going to struggle. The Big Ten has four teams (Iowa, MSU, UM, and Penn State) beating on the door to the top ten. The B1Ge is loaded this season. Even Nebraska is sitting in the top 20 right now.
*FBS opponents only
Combined record of top 10: 36-6
Combine record of bottom 10: 3-39
3. Is Kenny Pickett for real?
Pickett has been on a real heater the last three weeks. All three games rank out in the 97th percentile or better on the season. In those three games, he’s faced off against Western Michigan, New Hampshire, and Georgia Tech. WMU ranks 60th in the nation against the pass while GT comes in 98th. Pickett ranks 6th in the nation with a 62.3% completion rate on passes 10 yards or more down the field. On those throws, he’s got a 12 to 2 Big Time Throw to Turnover Worthy Play rate. There’s no doubt that Pickett has been one of the most impressive QBs to begin the season. The best defense that Pickett has faced five games into the season was the Tennessee Vols. I can’t see that the Vols defense is exactly a measuring stick. Facing UMass and New Hampshire in the same season is a joke. You can’t pull anything of substance from those games to project to the NFL. I can’t deny statistically that Pickett has been probably the best QB through the early part of the 2021 season. Before I truly start believing in Pickett, I need to see it done against a better defense. I need more than five games against mediocre-at-best defenses to erase four years of being an average college QB.
4. Rising Recruits
Almost a full two months in HS ball and who’s expected to see a big rise?
Kaleb Webb, WR: Webb is currently committed to ECU but has seen some major offers fly in from Virginia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Louisville, South Carolina, and UCF after a hot start to his senior season. Currently sits with 37-592-7 and 4 special teams TDs to date. Composite ranks Webb at 175th overall. He’ll climb majorly by the season’s end.
Demond Claiborne, RB: Committed at the moment to Wake Forest. Claiborne has received an offer from Michigan and has visited UVA recently. With a 10.82 100-meter on his resume, Claiborne can fly.
Major Everhart, RB: One of the faster players in the nation. Everhart is a very dynamic back. Has averaged over 10 yards per carry in his HS career and just committed to TCU yesterday.
Nicholas Anderson, WR: Committed to Oregon but is only ranked as the 44th best WR in the nation and has had a big season. I’d expect to see him move into the top 30 by the season’s end.
5. I Got Five On It
Year: 12-13
Last Week: 3-2
Lines Via BETMGM Indiana
Temple (+29.5): I don’t need Temple to pull off the upset but just keep it within 4 TDs on the road. Coming off the program’s “biggest” win, I expect this to be a small letdown spot for the Bearcats. Temple is coming off an upset win over Memphis so they should be riding high into this Friday night matchup.
SMU (-13.5): I’ve had some good success this year riding with SMU. While Navy can sit on the ball and make it hard to cover a 2 TD spread, the Midshipmen have had trouble putting points on the board. SMU hasn’t had any trouble putting points on the board.
Penn State (+2): I have Penn State favored by 1.5 pts in this matchup. Going on the road and facing this Iowa defense in Kinnick Stadium won’t be fun. Sean Clifford will have to limit his mistakes. At some point, Iowa is going to have some bad turnover luck. This will be a tightly contested game that probably goes down to the last possession. Surprisingly, Iowa ranks bottom 5 in the nation at percent of rushing plays turned into first downs. Overall, they rank 124th in percent of plays turned into first downs. Iowa has some work to do offensively.
TCU (-1.5): Texas Tech is facing some injury concerns at QB, WR, and S right now. TCU is coming off back-to-back losses against Texas and TCU. This is the Horned Frogs get-right game. Texas Tech ranks middle of the pack against the run so be prepared to watch Zach Evans shred the Red Raiders’ defense.
Troy (-5.5): This is one of the more lopsided lines this week. I have Troy favored by 11.5 points heading into this weekend. Flying under the radar but Troy has one of the best defenses in the nation right now. The Trojans rank top ten overall and against the run. Troy has been slightly prone to giving up some long runs. If they can limit Georgia Southern’s big plays they should be fine on Saturday night. Troy currently leads the nation in percent of defensive plays ending in a TFL or sack.
