Cougs Daily

BYU's Resume Ratings Vault Into Playoff Territory

Joe Wheat|
BYU wide receiver Chase Roberts against Colorado
BYU wide receiver Chase Roberts against Colorado | BYU Photo

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BYU Cougars

BYU escaped a hostile environment this past weekend in a huge come -from-behind win over Colorado. While that win could be seen as BYU struggling against an unranked team, neither the AP voters nor the Computer metrics seemed to mind. Let’s dig in.

How the AP Voters view BYU

If eking out a win to unranked Colorado was supposed to be unimpressive, the AP voters didn’t seem to mind. BYU moved up two spots this week after appearing on 46/62 ballots this week, up from 30 the week prior. BYU’s ranking among voters spread from 12th to unranked, but the most consistent ballot placement was 23rd by 19 voters. BYU is joined in the polls by fellow Big12 members no. 11 Texas Tech, no. 14 Iowa State, and no. 25 Arizona State with Utah and TCU receiving votes. BYU will have the privilege of playing four of these five teams in succession beginning in two weeks.

How the predictive metrics view BYU

Definition: Predictive metrics measure absolute strength of a team relative to the average team. Similar ratings are used by sports books to generate betting spreads.

SP+: 21

FPI: 18

KFord: 22

FEI: 21

Average: 20.5 (Prior week: 20.75)

The predictive metrics didn’t change much this week, as BYU mostly lived up to expectations against Colorado. BYU did move up four spots in SP+ from 25th to 21st, with their margin above average opponent rising from 14.5 to a season high 15.9. For reference, that margin exceeds BYU’s 2024 power rating, largely on the strength of their defense. BYU ranks as high as 4th in defensive efficiency per FPI and as low as 13th per SP+, though that is still a three-spot improvement from last week. BYU’s offense lags behind at 42nd nationally on average, but that is still a 12-spot improvement from where they were after their win over Stanford.

KFord gives them a 68% chance to win 9 games overall while FPI projects a 10-win season for BYU this year, which given the schedule is quite impressive. Following their game against West Virginia, BYU will not play a team outside the top 50 in SP+ the rest of the season. While that may seem daunting, SP+ still favors BYU in 6 of those 8 games.  

What do the resume-based metrics say?

Definition: Resume based metrics compare the teams performance to how the average top 10 team would have performed against the same schedule. They measure not only strength of schedule, but how a team performs against that schedule.

SP+: 11

FPI (SOR): 12

KFord: 13

FEI: 17

Average: 13.25 (Prior: 26.5)

There is an argument that BYU should be involved in playoff discussions right now. BYU’s win over Colorado and ECU’s big win over Army helped boost BYU’s strength of record nine spots to the 12th best resume in the country. That ranking is supported by the 11th best resume according to SP+. The opportunity is now their for that resume to only improve. Per FPI, BYU has the 37th strongest remaining strength of schedule in the country and the second toughest in the Big 12. Last year, BYU was kept out of the conference title game because their schedule wasn’t strong enough. This year, that won't appear to be an issue if BYU takes care of business.

Conclusion

In this author's opinion, BYU’s ranking is about right. While BYU unequivocally has a top 15 defense, BYU’s offense just isn’t quite flashy enough to justify them in the top 20 and beyond despite what the resume metrics say at this stage. BYU has an opportunity this week to put up some big numbers against a struggling West Virginia team. While that seems to be against everything BYU tries to be philosophically, it’s ultimately the biggest thing keeping their predictive metrics and power ratings from reflecting the ultimate strength of this BYU squad.

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Joe Wheat
JOE WHEAT

Joe Wheat has covered BYU since 2020. He specializes in passionate opinions fueled by statistics and advanced analytics. Joe’s goal in writing is to celebrate the everyday fan by understanding what they are feeling and giving them the data to understand why.

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