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, interesting stats, and a little bit of hip-hop music mixed in now and then.
1. Top QB Performers
@FBGChase has done a lot of great work on twitter with ANY/A with NFL passers. That gave me the idea of using this metric to gauge college passers weekly. If you are unaware of this 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.
It’s calculated as follows: ANY/A = (pass yards + 20*(pass TD) – 45*(interceptions thrown) – sack yards) / (passing attempts + sacks)”
Here are the top 10 performers from week 12 of the CFB season out of 91 qualifying performances.
*Note – The total on the bottom is the tally of all QBs that attempted at least 10 passes this past weekend.
If you told me Brennan Armstrong was going to be the most valuable passer this week, I wouldn’t have believed you. Facing off against an FCS opponent greatly aided him. Kaleb Eleby has had two monster weeks now. He averaged over 19 YPA and 5 TD tosses this past week. Another MAC player finished as a top 3 passer as Dustin Crum crushed Bowling Green. Crum is one of only 8 passers that has a season-long ANY/A over 10 still. We had the usual suspects with Kyle Trask, Spencer Rattler, and Zach Wilson all finished inside the top 10 once again. JT Daniels finally made his way onto the field and had a wonderful week. He rolled out the 8th best game of the week. Michael Penix found his way into a top ten outing against a top 3 Ohio State team. Oregon QB Tyler Shough came in just outside the tenth spot. He’s quietly thrown together three straight strong games to start the season.
On the flip side, the B1G had the two worst performances of Week 12. Luke McCaffrey and Graham Mertz tossed a combined 6 INTs. Mertz faced off against the Wildcats defense that was second in the nation defending the pass. Last week’s darling, Malik Willis, didn’t quite perform to the lofty claims surrounding him. He had the third-worst game of the week after being projected as a Day 2 prospect just a week ago. Dillon Gabriel came in 79th out of 92 QBs In Week 12. Gabriel was a top-four performer on the year before facing off against Cincinnati. The Bearcats defense has been the best against the pass all season long.
2. Under-the-radar Performers
The Mountain West and MAC conferences are still in the early stages of their seasons but have a number of very productive players.
D’Wayne Eskridge, WMU: Eskridge has been on fire to start the season for the Broncos. He’s sitting at 14-457-6 (32.6 YPC!). Eskridge currently leads the nation (WRs with at least 20 targets on the season) in Yards Per Target, Yards Per Team Passing Attempt, and Yards Per Route Ran. Still a small sample size with just three games played though. Eskridge averaged over 20 YPC in 2018 but moved to DB in 2019. After some injuries, he found his way back to WR in 2020 and hasn’t disappointed yet.
Antonio Nunn, Buffalo: Nunn hasn’t performed quite like Eskridge, but he isn’t too far behind in a few categories. Nunn is second in the nation, only behind Eskridge, in Yards Per Team Passing Attempt and Yards Per Route Ran. Like I said with Eskridge, it’s a small sample size of three games. Those numbers can swing big time after a poor game. Nunn is a SR coming off a solid JR year (49-687-6), which accounted for nearly 40% of the Bulls passing yards. He’s currently leading the country at 51% market share of passing yards.
Romeo Doubs, Nevada: Over the last five weeks, we haven’t seen a better duo than Carson Strong and Romeo Doubs. Through five games, Doubs is sitting at 35-770-9 (22 YPC). Doubs is top ten in the nation at Yards Per Target and Yards Per Team Passing Attempt. He also is sitting just outside the top ten in Yards Per Route Ran. Doubs is a JR and is coming off back-to-back seasons with over 550 yards. He’s already outperformed his 10 game season from 2019 in half the games played. Doubs and Strong have been telepathic with the deep ball.
Isaiah McKoy, Kent State: McKoy entered 2020 off a really good 2019 (56-872-4). McKoy is currently 9th in the nation at Yards Per Team Passing Attempt and 16th at Yards Per Route Ran. McKoy is a beneficiary of having NFL caliber passer tossing him the ball. Standing 6’3” and 220lbs, McKoy has an NFL future.
Khalil Shakir, Boise State: Shakir has been the Broncos leading catcher. After five games, Shakir is 10th in the country at Yards Per Team Passing Attempt. Also sits within the top 25 of Yards Per Route Ran. Shakir is on pace to outperform his 63-872-6 in 14 games from 2019.
3. Underperforming Top Talents
On the flip side, who are the top Devy prospects that have underperformed so far this season? Numbers below are out of 320 WRs that have at least 20 targets this season.
George Pickens, UGA: Pickens hasn’t been able to avoid the sophomore slump in 2020. He comes in 213th in the nation in Yards Per Target and Yards Per Team Passing Attempt. Pickens hasn’t fared much better in Yards Per Route Ran, he comes in 247th. The YPTPA is influenced by missing some games but Yards Per Target and Per Route Ran wouldn’t be affected by missed time.
Charleston Rambo, OU: Rambo looked in-line to take over a big role after the departure of CeeDee Lamb. While no OU WR has really stepped up to become the alpha WR, Rambo hasn’t lived up to expectations. He’s well down the list in all three categories. Yards Per Target (257th), Yards Per Team Passing Attempt (245th), and Yards Per Route Ran (233rd).
Jacob Copeland, UF: Copeland, much like Rambo looked primed to have an increased workload in 2020. So far that hasn’t worked too well for Copeland. Yards Per Target (146th), Yards Per Team Passing Attempt (258th), and Yards Per Route Ran (264th).
JJ Holloman, FIU: Holloman got into trouble at UGA and found himself in the transfer portal. He sat out 2019 and hasn’t taken off in 2020 as was expected by the former 4-star recruit. Yards Per Target (310th), Yards Per Team Passing Attempt (251st), and Yards Per Route Ran (276th). Holloman once was a very promising prospect.
4. Passing Value
I’ve talked a lot about ANY/A in terms of a single player’s performance but let’s look at what team has the biggest value. Today’s game is a passing game, so being able to be efficient in passing the ball and defending the pass are paramount to winning. ANY/A is one of the best ways to gauge just how successful you are on each drop back.
The top ten teams with the biggest differential from their Offensive ANY/A and Defensive ANY/A are a combined 54-4 on the season. Two of those losses belong to OU who’s one of the hottest teams in the country right. While the MAC schools are 9-0 combined, but their numbers are in a very small sample size and are subject to big variance week-to-week right now.
The teams bringing up the rear are a combined 2-43. Florida State and Temple are the only ones with a victory, both coming against FCS schools. Much like the top ten list, three MAC schools and one PAC12 have all played three or fewer games and are subject to big weekly variance in their numbers.
5. I Got 5 On It
Forced to write this section much earlier this week due to the holiday than prior weeks. Hoping we don’t see too big a swing in lines from what I’m writing up on Tuesday morning.
Notre Dame (-5.5): Starting the week off with a homer pick. ND is down two starting offensive linemen this week, that’s been a strength of this team the entire Brian Kelly era. UNC defense has been poor against the run. I believe the Irish will still be able to run the ball down UNC’s throat. ND will have to control the clock to limit UNCs powerful offense. This will be ND toughest test as a defense and UNCs toughest test as an offense. This should be a fun matchup. ND pulls out the W in the 7-10 point range. Close game throughout.
Kent State (+7): Both Kent State and Buffalo have had cake walks to this point. Kent is coming off back-to-back 60 point efforts. Buffalo has struggled against the run to start the season. They are near the bottom of the country in Power Success, Stuff Rate, and Line Yards. Each offense has a major edge over the opponent’s defense. The o66 number isn’t looking too bad in this matchup. But I’m taking Kent State to keep it close.
Coastal Carolina (-16.5): Coastal has the edge in just about every category of this game. It should be a landslide as long as Coastal doesn’t have a letdown game following App State.
Egg Bowl (o67.5): Ole Miss might be able to cover the over by themselves with the way that the Rebels offense has been running. As good as the Rebels offense is, their defense is just as equally bad. Expect a lot of fireworks in the first of hopefully man Kiffin Vs Leach Egg Bowls.
Northwestern (-13.5): On paper, I’m not sure how MSU scores on the Wildcats defense. They’ve been great after five games. MSU can not run the ball to save their lives, that’s not great knowing the fact that the ‘Cats have the second best passing defense in the country. Low scoring game so the -13.5 will be a bit tough to cover, but some Spartan turnovers will aid Northwestern. The u42.5 is also enticing for this game.
