ESPN FPI Updated Predictions for 2020 BYU Football Season
BYU quickly turned a primetime game into a lopsided affair last night. The Cougars dominated the trenches on both sides of the ball. At the end of the first half, BYU had 17 first downs to Navy's 2 first downs. The Cougars had 304 yards on offense, the Midshipmen only had 48. ESPN FPI updated their season predictions for BYU following last night's blowout victory.
If you really want understand these numbers, you need to understand how ESPN FPI is calculated - I've included the definition at the bottom of this article.
Opponent: BYU's chances to win according to ESPN FPI
@ Navy: W (Was 32.1%)
@ Army: 63.7% (Upgraded from 52.1%)
Troy: 88.6% (Upgraded from 72.2%)
UTSA: 96.0% (Upgraded from 88.7%)
Houston: 48.7% (Upgraded from 37.7%)
Texas State: 96.6% (Upgraded from 91.7%)
Western Kentucky: 83.2% (Upgraded from 62.2%)
North Alabama: 99.7% (Upgraded from 99.2%)
The most notable change might be the upgrade against Army. Yes, BYU looked fantastic against a triple option team last night, but Army was no slouch in week one. The Black Knights beat Middle Tennessee by a score of 42-0.
These percentages favor BYU in most games, but the Cougars will need to prove that they can win games they are favored to win.
For those that aren't familiar with FPI, here's a definition from ESPN's website:
"FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.
Correctly predicting game outcomes can’t be done by evaluating teams’ records because some teams are stronger than their records indicate (lots of close losses), and others have favorable schedules. Both of these situations are reflected in the game- and season-level projections.
Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams component. These ratings represent the number of points each unit is expected to contribute to the team's net scoring margin on a neutral field against an average FBS opponent.
In the preseason, these components are made up entirely of data from previous seasons, such as returning starters, past performance, recruiting rankings and coaching tenure (more on the preseason component below). That information allows FPI to make predictions (and make determinations on the strength of a team’s opponents) beginning in Week 1, and then it declines in weight as the season progresses. It is important to note that prior seasons’ information never completely disappears, because it has been proved to help with prediction accuracy even at the end of a season. Vegas similarly includes priors when setting its lines."