by Brian Fremeau

Last week, we started breaking down Field Position Advantage (FPA). Every yard line of the football field has a built-in starting field position value, and FPA represents the share of total starting field position earned by each team in a game. By controlling starting field position, a team's offense has an easier time maximizing scoring opportunities and its defense has an easier shutting down its opponent.

Since football is a game played in alternating possessions, each team has roughly an equal number of opportunities to score in a given game. There may, of course, be an odd number of possessions in a half, which would provide one team with an extra scoring chance. And in a tight game, an extra possession might make a big difference. The average starting field position for all offensive possessions in college football is approximately a team's own 31-yard line. An average offense against an average defense would be expected to score 1.7 points per drive from that starting field position.

Every coach has his own preference about the opening coin toss. Some coaches prefer to go on defense to start the first half so that they will receive the kick to start the second half. Others like to start with the ball immediately, to try to jump ahead and put pressure on their opponent to match. Neither decision results in more or fewer total game possessions on average, but the team that receives the kick in each half has a roughly 50 percent chance of possessing the ball one more time than their opponent in that half.

As I perused this week's drive summary data, I found something peculiar. In the Nebraska-Missouri game on Saturday, the Cornhuskers kicked off to start both halves. Bo Pelini was asked about it after the game and chalked it up to a communication error at the coin flip. His captains elected to kick to start the game rather than defer the decision to the second half, allowing Missouri to choose to receive in each half. Ultimately, it didn't matter -- there were an even number of possessions in each half -- but the gaffe could very well have given Missouri two extra scoring opportunities in the game had the possession count been uneven. I have been tracking drive summary data since 2003, and according to my data, this is the first time in the last eight seasons that the same team kicked off to start both halves of an FBS vs. FBS game. (EDIT: Apologies for the original erroneous information, but there have been several examples in the last few years of a team kicking off to start each half. Nebraska's kicks against Missouri were the first instance this season. It is rare, but not once-in-a-decade rare.)

Another thing worth noting about Nebraska's kickoffs on Saturday -- Ani Kunalic kicked off seven times for the Cornhuskers (once to start each half and once after each of Nebraska's five scoring drives) and all seven were touchbacks. Counting non-garbage kickoffs only, Kunalic recorded more touchbacks than any other kicker in an FBS game this year. How valuable were those kicks?

Similar to our approach to punt efficiency, we can calculate the value of each kickoff and reciprocal kick return based on resulting field position value. On average, kickoffs are returned to approximately the 27-yard line, an average starting field position value of 1.6 points. This includes all touchbacks (20-yard line, 1.3 points) and kickoff return touchdowns ("zero"-yard line, 6.96 points). It also includes fumbled kick returns and successful onside kicks that result in a forfeited offensive possession for the receiving team (zero points of field position value). "Kickoff Efficiency" (KOE) is the average difference between the value of a team's actual post-kickoff field position value and the national average expected for those kicks. Kickoff return efficiency is the same value attributed to the return team.

In Kunalic's game against Missouri, the resulting field position value for each kick was 0.3 points per kick better than average (-.334). Good kickoff teams produce a negative KOE -- less resulting field position value than expected -- and good kickoff return teams produce a positive KOE. On the season, Nebraska ranks fifth in KOE. The Cornhuskers also rank in the Top 10 in KOE for return teams, the only team ranked in the Top 10 in both categories. (Only non-garbage-time kickoffs were included).

Nebraska ranks second to Central Florida in total combined value of kickoff and kickoff return efficiency: 0.466 points better than average field position value per kick over the course of a game. That's roughly equal to 10 yards of starting field position on average. The average game features 9.5 non-garbage kickoffs, meaning Nebraska's kickoff and kickoff return units alone are spotting the Cornhuskers about 4-5 points per game on the scoreboard.

Approximately 80 percent of drives start after a punt or kickoff in college football. Next week we'll examine the result of starting field position value created from turnovers.

Three and Out

Week 3: Three-and-outs, Available Yards, and Explosive Drives
Week 4: Reaching the Red Zone, Methodical Drives, and Late and Close Efficiency
Week 5: Converting 10+ Yard Drives Into Scores, Points Per Possession, and Scoring After Three-and-outs
Week 6: Yards Per TD Drive, Playing With 2- or 3-Score Lead, Third Downs Per First Down Series
Week 7: FEI Team Resumes for South Carolina, Arizona State, and Utah
Week 8: FEI Team Resumes for Oregon, Wisconsin, and Georgia

In the tables below, the Game Efficiency, Offensive FEI, Defensive FEI, and "Game" FEI (GFEI) for each team in each game is provided. The ranking of those individual unit and game performances is also provided. Note that there have been 448 FBS vs. FBS game played to date, meaning that there have been 896 individual game performances for each category.

The opponent FEI ranking is also provided, as well as a general relevance factor for the particular GFEI, OFEI, and DFEI results for that team in that game. As stated in the FEI principles, my system rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. In the formula, the relevance factor is partly a function of the relative ratings of the two teams. Across all games, the least relevant results receive about one-eighth as much weight as the most relevant results. For simplicity, I've generalized the relevance data here into three equally distributed categories, High, Med, and Low.

Iowa's big leap up the FEI ratings this week comes on the heels of its dominant victory over Michigan State, the second best single-game GFEI rating of the year. The Hawkeyes dominated field position throughout the game as well, forcing the Spartans to start all 10 of their non-garbage-time possessions inside their own 30-yard line. Six of Michigan State's last seven non-garbage-time drives in the game began at or inside their own 20-yard line.

The F/+ love for Miami this year is making us a little bit uncomfortable. Why do the numbers favor the Hurricanes over a handful of other ACC teams, much less others, and why aren't their weaker performances dragging them down? FEI clearly loves the dominant victory over Pittsburgh, and the fact that Miami has played five of its seven FBS opponents on the road is helping a lot. Also, Miami is in an interesting situation with multiple "High" and "Mid" relevance data points that are both strong and weak. Other teams have more consistency in their game data (good performances versus weak teams, weak performances versus good teams) and Miami seems to be somewhere in the middle.

There are only two teams with two or fewer losses ranked behind Baylor -- San Diego State and Temple. The Bears lead the Big 12 South and just won in Austin. Are there really 51 teams with a better resume to date? The problem is that FEI is unimpressed with any of the victories. Their big wins came against teams ranked in the 100s, they have had some close calls against teams in their peer group, and the blowout loss to TCU isn't doing them any favors. FEI does not expect much from Baylor down the stretch with a tough slate against Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma in the coming weeks.

If you have a suggestion for an FEI Team Resume you'd like to see, drop me a line on Twitter or in the comment section here. I'm happy to answer data inquiries or provide team resume tables for bloggers interested in investigating the data themselves.

FEI Week 9 Top 25

The principles of the Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) can be found here. FEI rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. FEI is drive-based, not play-by-play based, and it is specifically engineered to measure the college game.

FEI is the opponent-adjusted value of Game Efficiency (GE), a measurement of the success rate of a team scoring and preventing opponent scoring throughout the non-garbage-time possessions of a game. FEI represents a team's efficiency value over average. Strength of Schedule (SOS) is calculated as the likelihood that an elite team (two standard deviations above average) would win every game on the given team's schedule to date. SOS listed here does not include future games scheduled.

Mean Wins (FBS MW) represent the average total games a team with the given FEI rating should expect to win against its complete schedule of FBS opponents. Remaining Mean Wins (FBS RW) represent the average expected team wins for games scheduled but not yet played.

Offensive FEI (OFEI) and Defensive FEI (DFEI) are the opponent-adjusted ratings of all non-garbage-time drives from scrimmage. Field Position Advantage (FPA) is the share of the value of total starting field position for the season earned by each team against its opponents. Field Goal Efficiency (FGE) is the point value per field goal attempt earned by the field goal unit.

Only games between FBS teams are considered in the FEI calculations. The FEI ratings published here are a function of the results of games played through October 30.

FEI ratings for all 120 FBS teams are listed in the stats page section of FootballOutsiders.com. Click here for current ratings; the pull-down menu in the stats section directs you to 2007 through 2009 ratings. There are also now separate pages for offensive and defensive FEI ratings for 2010.

Posted by: Brian Fremeau on 03 Nov 2010

21 comments, Last at 04 Nov 2010, 10:36am by Bill Connelly