Penn State vs West Virginia. College Football Week1 Model Prediction

Penn State West Virginia first up shall we yes so um Seth I want to start with you here so a couple of interesting couple of interesting things so one this this number um talk a little bit about the opening spread and where it currently is because correct me if I'm wrong here the way we pull in week zwe one spreads um is a little bit of an art as much as it is science here yeah you mean like uh forecasting it yeah so for forecasting we you're using all the previous season's data and then you're doing a basically adjustment on you know returning production returning offensive and defensive coordinator head coach tenure um returning quarterback all these kind of updated ideas of who the new roster is as well as in an upd updated Talent number um and both these teams are quite interesting West Virginia is returning 89% of their offense only 52% of their defense um their total Talent rank um if we look at their ranking of the the roster is 54th in the nation but the interesting thing here is zero Blue Chip ratio this is a team that has no four and five-star recruits um versus Penn State returning 74% of their returning production 66 U or 74% of their offensive returning production 66% of their defensive returning production but their team Talent scores the 11th best roster in the nation and 57% of their roster four and fivar recruits so um this is definitely a lopsided um Talent game but the market is basically non-stop bought up West Virginia spoiler alert we're also on this um we were able to buy it and get a 10 and a half um almost a month ago and uh it's basically been all all West Virginia all week um and and you can see where it's at now eight and a half and actually right before we recorded some money hit the market this is now sitting at eight yeah and Steve I want to jump to you real SEC uh in one second but I want to maybe give a little bit of context to some of the numbers that you know people are seeing on the screen here so we did a very similar format last year and had a lot of these uh statistics and advanced metrics up here and these are metrics that go into our model as well but a couple of new ones and some that people might not be familiar with so Seth bring back to you for a sec can you can you point out or give a little more context to two of these here so number one um offensive and defensive W EPA per play which stands for weighted EPA per play and then further to last uh looking at the last three columns here so run rate and then um offense or excuse me one over to that but run rate and then Echo R overe expected if you could just touch on those please yeah so weighted EPA is very similar to an EPA per play but um what we're looking at is what types of plays should be upweighted and down weighted a good example is quarterback design runs should hold a little bit of weight when we're looking at how impactful they are because they are more impactful to the overall game outcome um things that should be down weighted are things like penalties and specific types of plays don't want to give way too much of the magic but there is an algorithmic approach to how you um generate weighted EPA but it's an EPA based model um and then Echo rate again is a drive level statistic that tells us how well teams are driving so basically an echo is defined as achieving a drive that gets to 40 uh yard line or better or results in a touchdown um and you can see that when we have an echo rate overexp expected we're looking at what would an average team done on that drive and what did that team do and you can see West Virginia's offense is you know good and weighted EPA but also Echo rate overexp expected and then something that we think is really crucial is what do teams do on early Downs how successful are they on early Downs because how successful you are on early Downs is a leading indicator on how successful you're going to be in the game right if you're throwing a lot on first down this is something want to see but we ultimately want to see how successful are you you know in first and second down okay appreciate that I just want to make sure people aren't looking at this and saying what the hell what the hell am I looking at so thank these are highly highly statistically significant variables um we have these free on the website you don't go to you don't got to pay for it you can go and get these for every single team if you're not already using these statistics I highly recommend you do them or you start using them they will help you win a lot of games yeah all right Steve let me get you in here for a sec here um all right so again West Virginia Big 10 or excuse me West Virginia Penn State uh toess sucess Point earlier too um this Penn State one of the best defenses in the nation last year they they led the nation actually in sacks and tackles for loss so I do do does the West Virginia do the Mountaineers have enough offensive Firepower to combat combat that or what are you expecting out this game yeah I mean let me take a step back here because when I first saw this you know I was definitely I was definitely scared I'm not going to lie to you you know you look at Penn State Penn State's an elite team their biggest flaws they have to play Michigan and Ohio State every year right you go back to the last two seasons regular season record for Penn State 10- two only losses were it's in Michigan and Ohio State cfp ranked number 10 uh last year number 11 the year before so you take away one of those losses this is a team that legitimately could be in the conversation for the cfp um and who knows what happens when into a four game playoff so I a I want to set the record straight that I am not one of these folks on this bandwagon that you know Penn State is overrated they're not going to be that great I think they're going to be an elite team this year um with that being said I think if you look at the angle of West Virginia I think what you're looking at it's not necessarily Penn State's defense versus West Virginia's offense but actually the flip Penn State's coming in with a lot of new pieces here so they lost three linemen to the NFL draft they lost two of their top receivers um going out from uh for to the draft as well and to uh transfer so we got kandre Lambert Smith going off to Auburn Dante saus going off to K State and so what does that look like when you lose your upfront protection as well as your top receiver threats when you have drew Aller who's a pure pocket quarterback he's not gonna run you for 100 yards a game I'd be very interested to see that because West Virginia did come in last year leading the Big 12 in sack so that's a dynamic I'm kind of looking for at that point now on the other hand you do have the new OC uh Andy kotoni from Kansas high power high power offensive team so can he Implement that in Penn State the last thing I'm looking at is going back to your point about the defense so chop Robinson from Penn State he's now gone to the NFL can West Virginia which is a great running team pop off some explosive plays with their their running back Duo um last year you had Jem white and C.J doson Jr really lean the way um with explosive plays and running yards as you can see here um on their offensive way to EPA per play a lot of that is from the run so my angle here is defense keep them into the game westg defense keep into the game can Western J offense pop off some great run plays keep it close and cover the 10 and a half well in the eight and a half now we'll see but what we care about is the 10 and a half so it's reassuring the market has backed us and it's it's going our favor um but my butthole will be a little bit clinched going into this game yeah and I think one thing you got to point out there to new defensive coordinator also for Penn State so what do we get there there's some question mark s and then one thing I want to talk about is that offensive coordinator for Pense the new offensive coordinator coming from Kansas mostly running quarterbacks now obviously they threw the hell out of the ball so I'm not I don't want to go too crazy here but like you said Can Drew Aller actually you know quotequote operate in this offense there's a lot of question marks here and I I agree with you um hen State covers games period and their head coach makes it a point to cover games so I think if there's if there is a chance if we are covering it's it's a seven-point game there is a high probability that late in this game pen state gets a chance to score even when it's meaningless for the game state that they will so I think that's another thing you want to be cognizant of um it'll be interesting to see as we get we're here on Wednesday as we get closer to kickoff on Saturday does anybody in the market start to buy Penn State this is getting to eight and we haven't hit any buys on Penn State are we going to see some resistance finally in the marketplace because of those exact reasons where ultimately you're getting a a top 10 team a lot of people I know bud Elliott put them in in on the college football playoff I mean this is supposed to be a team that's going to achieve you know a lot this season and you know presumably covering an eight point spread to West Virginia should be part of that resume yeah I will say real quick to your point about covering spreads the two coaches that scare me the most in college football is James Franklin and PJ those guys do not give a f about your feelings or your spreads so well they care yeah they care about the spread like they it's not your spread their spread yeah yeah yeah yeah their spread yeah they're covering for their their alumni and I think more coaches should approach this now I will point out one caveat are we in a new you know age and a new you know reality those that's all you know fine and dandy to do when we're not in a 12 team playoff when and when you have to go and play potentially four extra games attrition now and the longevity of the season is a whole different you know Cowboy or whatever you want to call it um we we've seen you know coaches like Dan Lanning they've been Consulting with NFL teams to talk about playing a 17 18 game schedule because remember this is not normal for college football but as part of the playoff you're going to be playing multiple you know potentially multiple um additional games and so do you still do those crazy things do you still go for those extra drives because it puts your team one at risk but it's just putting wear and tear on your team when you know you got to go for extra games and so maybe there's some reprieve here I still am very scared like you are but it is a point here we may be seeing in the season and you know another thing to think about as far as covers um and over unders do teams at the top shut it down when they get leads because of these you know War of Attrition thing that's going to go on yeah interesting angle for sure we'll see we'll see let's hope West Virginia uh gets the ball to end the game and can maybe give a give a back door or something then we'll see