FEI: Everybody Punts

by Brian Fremeau

Auburn is the new No. 1 team in the country according to FEI, and Cam Newton's Heisman candidacy surged forward in a relentless ground attack on Saturday. As I discussed last week in an ESPN Insider piece, the game was supposed to feature a Top 10 offense in Auburn against a Top 10 defense in LSU. After surrendering 440 yards on the ground, however, LSU's defensive FEI ranking dropped from No. 3 to No. 21, and Newton's 28 carries and 7.8 yards per attempt deserved most of the credit.

Auburn more than doubled LSU's total yardage in the game but wasn't able to bury LSU on the scoreboard. The credit for that belongs to LSU's extraordinary field position advantage in the game -- .622 FPA, or a 62 percent share of the total starting field position value in the game. Based on starting field position alone, an average offense against an average defense would have expected to score 20.7 points on LSU's drives and only 12.6 points on Auburn's drives. Auburn's FPA was the fifth most severe disadvantage overcome by a winning team this season. And unlike most starkly imbalanced field position games, no defensive or special teams touchdowns factored into the outcome. LSU kept Auburn's prolific offense from producing a more prolific scoring margin with a superstar performance from its punting team.

One thing I've been meaning to do for a while here in the FEI column is break down the FPA numbers into smaller components. The starting field position for any given drive may came about due to a variety of factors. First, since football is played in alternating possessions and every yard line on the field has at least some level of offensive score expectation value, part of the starting field position value is attributed automatically and isn't earned by a team's offense, defense, or special teams. But the rest of the value comes from the combination of the offensive, defensive, and special teams performances of the preceding possession. In the coming weeks, we'll take a look at those components one by one. This week, let's isolate on the field-position exchange on a punt.

The NCAA maintains a ranking of FBS "Net Punting" leaders, one way to measure a punt team's effectiveness. By their methodology, the total number of return yards and touchback yards is subtracted from the total number of gross punting yards, and the result is divided by the number of punts. Another idea proposed by Bud Elliott of TomahawkNation.com last week suggested that punting ought to be measured by percentage of available field to be gained. For example, a punt from midfield that results in a touchback nets 60 percent of the available yardage (30/50 = .60); one that is downed at the 5-yard line nets 90 percent of the available yardage (45/50 = .90). It's a good idea for punts in which a touchback is in play, but it doesn't translate well for punts from deep inside a team's own side of the field.

I was interested in identifying the national average expectations for a punting team in terms of field-position value and then measuring each punt for each team against that value. I first collected the data from every non-garbage time punt in the last three years, 19,862 punts in all. From each drive-ending punt position, I then calculated the average starting field position for the opponent's next drive. For instance, the 403 punts from midfield in the last three years netted an average starting field position for the opponent at its own 18-yard line. The 413 punts from a team's own 20-yard line in the last three years netted an average starting field position for the opponent at its own 41-yard line.

Every yard line translates into an expected field-position value. An average offense against an average defense is expected to score 1.2 points per possession from its own 18-yard line and 2.2 points per possession from its own 41-yard line. In the same manner that offensive efficiency is calculated, Punting Efficiency (PE) is simply the actual value of post-punt field position divided by the expected value of post-punt field position, minus one (in order to represent a team's efficiency above or below average). A good punt team will have a PE below zero, pinning opponents with less starting field position value than expected. A good punt return team will have a PE above zero, creating more starting field position value than expected.

It is important to note that this metric should be attributed to the respective punt unit and punt return unit, not just the punter or punt returner involved. It does not take into account the hang time or roll of the punt, the coverage, etc. Rather, the resulting field position of the entire play is taken into account. Punts returned for a touchdown are credited with a field position value of 6.96 points. Punts that are fumbled are credited with the field position value of the recovered fumble. PE does not include any adjustment for the strength of opposition faced.

Against Auburn on Saturday, LSU punted six times, none of which were returned by Auburn. From LSU's punting position, Auburn should have expected an average starting field position on the subsequent six drives of approximately its own 20-yard line. Instead, two of the punts were downed at the 1-yard line, one at the 2-yard line, one at the 9-yard line, one at the 10-yard line and one trickled into the end zone for a touchback. Auburn's actual field position value following those six punts was 35 percent below its expected value (-.346 PE), the eighth-best single game punting effort of the college football season. The tables below list the Top 10 punting and punt return teams according to year-to-date PE.

The Oregon Ducks are the only team ranked in the Top 10 for both punting and punt returning according to PE. LSU (No. 7 in punting PE, No. 11 in punt returning PE) is the only other team ranked in the top 20 in both categories. The Utah Utes rank first in punt returning PE and dead last in punting PE. They also have only 16 non-garbage time punts this year, fourth fewest in the country.

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

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 provided. Note that there have been 395 FBS vs. FBS game played to date, meaning that there have been 790 individual game performances for each category.

The opponent FEI rating is also provided, as well as a general relevance factor for that particular result for that team. 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. 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.

Oregon followed up a seemingly commanding No. 1 FEI rating last week with a thrashing of UCLA on Thursday night. So what's with the tumble down the FEI ratings? It actually has nothing to do with the victory over the Bruins, which was impressive according to drive efficiency data. Arizona State (previously ranked No. 13 but stuck on only one FBS victory) took a nosedive after flailing against California, and the Sun Devils are the second-best team Oregon has faced. A good win against USC should bring Oregon back in good graces with FEI, but this week's ratings indicate USC may have the upper hand at home.

Wisconsin has notched its two most impressive wins of the year in back-to-back weeks, topping Ohio State in Madison and Iowa on the road. The Badgers were ranked No. 32 in FEI only two weeks ago, and they were languishing in the mid-40s before that with a less-than-impressive schedule to start the year. It's possible Michigan State won't give up its seat at the top of the Big Ten standings, but Wisconsin appears poised to fill the void if they do.

Being the highest-rated four-loss team doesn't exactly meet even minimal expectations at programs with Georgia's history, but the Bulldogs haven't completely embarrassed themselves this year. Every loss has been competitive, the last three weeks have been dominant, and Georgia ranks in the top 20 in season-long Game Efficiency, a remarkable stat for a .500 team. A win over Florida this weekend keeps an SEC East title within reach.

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 tables for bloggers that are interested.

FEI Week 8 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 23.

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.