Author’s note: This post gets very detailed. Feel free to skip the math at your leisure. If you’re just here for some takeaways, you can skip to the results section or browse the data here. If you’re just here for the Frogs, scroll down to the appendix, where I discuss TCU’s specific optimization problem and strategy in detail.
The application of analytics and advanced statistics into college football enjoys a period of relative success in our current moment, with advanced stats popping up on broadcasts and power rankings and win probabilities dominating conversations about playoff rankings and team quality.