10 Days to Kansas Football: An Advanced Analytics Kansas Season Preview
Over on the Rock Chalk Podcast, we like to mix it up a bit when we start previewing the upcoming season for the Kansas Jayhawks. We'll still have our normal traditional preview next week as we ramp up for game one, but we like to find a different angle to evaluate the team and upcoming season. Last year we looked at betting information and how that could make you a more informed fan. This year, we are looking at advanced analytics. Specifically, we are looking at EPA-based stats.
To help us set a baseline for the season, I had Parker Fleming join the show, who has been looking at Expected Points Added as a lens to view the college football world for a few years now.
Before we jumped into the analysis though, I spent some time running through some of the biggest stories of the fall camp period both inside the football program and throughout the athletic department. This includes a few hirings for NIL opportunities and the beginning of the volleyball and soccer seasons.
After the break, Parker and I jump into his philosophy surrounding advanced analytics for college football. We start with some general information that you can use to better inform your fandom, before diving into his methodology for the EPA stats.
There is some discussion about what a drive-based system brings to the team matchup analysis, and we use Kansas as an example for how this analysis can be used to evaluate teams before there is any in-season data to use.
After that, we look at how the approach changes throughout the season, and talk about the best ways to apply this model to the games you are watching. This includes a discussion of what you can NOT do with this data.
Finally, we look at what the model says Kansas fans should expect, and how crazy my prediction is for the Jayhawks this season.
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