On Thursday, the BYU football team will depart for Greenville, North Carolina where they will take on the East Carolina Pirates on Saturday night. BYU opened as a 7.5-point favorite and the line has shrunk to BYU -6.5.
The advanced analytics are more bullish on BYU’s chances than the oddsmakers. Oddsmakers are likely discounting the Cougars since they will take their true freshman quarterback on the road for the first time. The advanced analytics remove that bias and simply project the final score based on the efficiencies of both teams so far this season.
CFB Graphs gives BYU a 71% chance to beat East Carolina with a projected final score of 31-18. CFB Graphs believes this is a game featuring two of the better defenses in the country. BYU ranks no.1 nationally in points allowed per drive. East Carolina ranks 18th in the same metric.
One area where BYU will need to improve if it hopes to reach its goals this season is redzone efficiency. The BYU offense ranks 14th nationally in “quality drive rate”. A “quality drive” is “how often a team creates a drive that achieves a first down at the opponent’s 40-yard line or results in a big-play touchdown.”
While BYU ranks in the top 15 nationally in quality drive rate, the Cougars rank 110th in points per quality drive. In other words, the drives have been high quality but they haven’t finished with touchdowns enough.
BCFToys gives BYU an 80.6% chance to beat East Carolina with a projected final score of 30-17. BCFToys ranks BYU as the 19th best team nationally with an opponent-adjusted defensive efficiency ranking of no. 15 nationally and an offensive ranking of 41st nationally.
East Carolina ranks 78th nationally with an offensive ranking of 93rd and a defensive rating of 63rd.
BYU also has the special teams advantage in this game per FEI. The Cougars’ special teams ranks 14th nationally compared to 68th nationally for ECU.
SP+, a predictive metric invented by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, predicted BYU-East Carolina.
SP+ gives BYU a 72% chance to win with an expected final score of 31-21. SP+ is aligned with FPI, giving BYU a 72% chance to win.
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