That whole article is nonsense. Applying an EPA to a single player worthless, since
You can't possibly design an experiment with enough control and have enough similar plays/situations to come to any kind of metric even approaching something that's useful.  Previous Message https://open.substack.com/pub/cfbnumbers/p/2025-cfb-season-qb-advanced-stats?r=22aof&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Last Year's Stats: See the upper right... While is sample size was on the smaller side, Demond Williams Jr. flashed his potential for Washington last season. His 78.1% completion percentage was 5 percentage points higher than any other QB in the FBS last season (min 100+ attempts). Incoming Duke transfer QB Darian Mensah takes the crown for EPA/Play + CPOE, which makes Manny Diaz portal addition all that more impressive. You’ll see later on this article, I am a big fan of what Mensah can do on the field. --- This Year's QB Rankings How many points does this QB add to their team? To answer this question, I built myself a linear mixed effect model that attempts to predict how many points a QB adds to his team. Using ESPN’s points above average metric as the dependent variable, I set QB plays (in a single game) and game number (what game number it is for the QB in the course of his career) as the fixed effects, while I set the QB themselves and the opponent they are playing as the random effects. The reason I do this is we know QBs have varying skill levels and we also know opponents have varying levels of skill so this allows us to capture a baseline performance for those individual QBs/Defenses. I have also added a weight to the model so that more recent performances have more of an effect on the QBs baseline performance. Once that runs, we can look at the QBs point estimate which will tell us how many points the QB adds to their team, while accounting for their in game usage, overall career experience, adjusted for who they have played throughout their career.
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Lots of puns, no real answers

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Illinois football is #12 in the preseason coach's pole - jdl August 4, 2025, 11:25:17
- BTN is at Illinois practice today - jdl August 13, 2025, 14:59:14
- Tickets have arrived (check your emails).*
- EffinIllini August 13, 2025, 11:14:16
- QBs based on EPA (Expected Points Added) - EffinIllini August 13, 2025, 9:02:11
- Freshman RB John Forster is out for the season - jdl August 12, 2025, 17:02:51
- The Athletic: How the 2025 college football season could go wrong for every preseason AP Top 25 team - EffinIllini August 12, 2025, 8:29:54
- Where did we end up in the "" luck "" category? * - osklister August 12, 2025, 9:26:23
- Going to need to be a good deal better on offense after losing our top 2 targets. gulp.* - LovetheChief August 12, 2025, 9:23:23
- By yards? Probably. By advanced stats that control for quality of opponent, game situation, etc the - illiniranger August 12, 2025, 9:14:22
- What would the most hyped season in years be without some trepidation based on… - uofi1998 August 12, 2025, 8:32:39
- Most overrated team in the top 25? - Tuscy August 12, 2025, 6:38:59
- I love it. Grow the chip on the shoulder.* - Warrin'_Illini August 12, 2025, 9:15:20
- We finally get recognized for something!!! - osklister August 12, 2025, 8:28:52
- The sentiment I've gathered here is that we agree* - AintHatin August 12, 2025, 8:19:08
- Put that on the bulletin board * - ATL August 12, 2025, 7:45:35
- Good* - longsnapper August 12, 2025, 7:12:13
- Jacas 1st Team ESPN Preseason All-American List * - aimlessillini August 11, 2025, 12:37:36
- Random scheduling thing I was thinking about. - OB25 August 11, 2025, 11:35:33
- who do we think the backup to Altmyer is? i haven't seen much * - illiniranger August 11, 2025, 11:30:30
- Also #12 in the Preseason AP Poll - UIHuskie August 11, 2025, 11:01:21
- Duke preseason all-ACC safety Terry Moore sounding unlikely to be available against Illinois. - opossum jenkins August 10, 2025, 10:56:24
- This 1994 Michigan game is brutal. Horrible penalties, Johnny Johnson no awareness* - opossum jenkins August 9, 2025, 16:26:45
- Matt Stevens just told me that Alex Capka-Jones has been first up in WR drills* - opossum jenkins August 8, 2025, 17:09:14
- Three More Weeks……I-L-L !! * - jjlocke923 August 8, 2025, 7:41:51
- Loren just said Altmyer is making $1.1M* - opossum jenkins August 7, 2025, 16:17:24
- Got another Aussie kicker commit. - Illiniphil August 7, 2025, 9:53:59
- Ohio State game sold out. Wear Orange* - Poldark August 6, 2025, 14:32:55
- One of the more respected chartbois has us 38th - illiniranger August 6, 2025, 8:16:03
- Bret article - jdl August 5, 2025, 13:12:03
- #11 in ESPN poll. (Schlabach?) - redgrange77 August 5, 2025, 5:54:36
- JC Davis in a boot, dealing with plantar faciatis. “Should be good to go” by the opener, per Bert* - OB25 August 4, 2025, 20:36:43
- that’s incredible. Has our basketball team team been ranked that high preseason?* - bbonb August 4, 2025, 18:45:26
- Of course* - MtHoodIllini August 5, 2025, 18:16:21
- Nobody has* - ijustkrushalot August 4, 2025, 18:55:42
- Like ever?* - Sounder August 4, 2025, 18:52:59
- nm* - ECEIllinois August 4, 2025, 18:47:50
- Something I can’t get past: are we really that talented? - opossum jenkins August 4, 2025, 16:45:36
- Two points: - ijustkrushalot August 4, 2025, 21:53:06
- Elaborating on my comments about the Pick 6 Previews magazine… - OB25 August 4, 2025, 18:45:43
- We have a handful of guys who will get drafted next year - snipes824 August 4, 2025, 17:51:13
- We're tough, deep and well coached. Something I've never said about an Illinois team. - Toonces August 4, 2025, 16:52:20
- No, but we have a lot of experience where it matters (QB, OL, etc.)* - UofIL6 August 4, 2025, 16:51:57
- experience, especially at QB. - assassin August 4, 2025, 16:49:14
- Certainly not more talented than a lot of other teams, no. - uofi1998 August 4, 2025, 16:47:50
- Does the Beloved finally get a College Gameday this season?* - Sounder August 4, 2025, 15:36:04
- I bought the Pick Six Preview magazine and oh boy is he not high on Illinois - OB25 August 4, 2025, 14:02:47
- AP is the one all the networks use, right?* - OB25 August 4, 2025, 11:54:32
- As I’ve been saying for years now, colleges are going to “sell off” their teams at some point… - LeatherneckIllini August 4, 2025, 11:43:39
- Illini # 12, South Carolina #13. Their coach will be PO'd all over again. :-))
- osklister August 4, 2025, 11:36:38
- Schwing!!!!* - OWWDig August 4, 2025, 11:33:24
- This belongs in the politics thread, jdl. - uofi1998 August 4, 2025, 11:27:14
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