This is one of my favorite articles because College Football's prop lines are softer than the NFL's.
During the regular season, we would look for matchups to correlate quarterbacks from the same contest and attack the game environment. Unfortunately, during Bowl season there are many player opt-outs and transfer portal submissions. This leaves us with inexperienced players and has us searching for consistency and certainty.
We will target quarterbacks with a large sample size in optimal situations. The qualifying amount for each quarterback is a minimum of 125 dropbacks, which gives us a sample size of 162 quarterbacks.
Let's dive in.
College Football PrizePicks Bowl Games (Dec. 30)
Glossary
- EPA/Pass Att: Expected points added per pass attempt
- IsoPPP: Explosive plays
- Passing Success Rate: 50% of yards needed on 1st down, 70% of yards needed on second down and 100% on third and fourth down
- Behind LOS Depth: Passes behind the Line of Scrimmage
- Short Passing Depth: Passes within 1-9 yards of depth
- Med Passing Depth: Passes within 10-19 yards of depth
- Deep Passing Depth: Passes 20+ yards of depth
- Mickey Mouse Throw %: Combination of Behind the LOS attempts and Short attempts; The average attempt % is 55.8%
- Big Dog Throw %: Combination of Medium attempts and Deep attempts; The average Big Dog attempts % is 37.6%
Payton Thorne (QB – Auburn) Passing Yards under 165.5
This is one of my favorite articles because College Football's prop lines are softer than the NFL's.
During the regular season, we would look for matchups to correlate quarterbacks from the same contest and attack the game environment. Unfortunately, during Bowl season there are many player opt-outs and transfer portal submissions. This leaves us with inexperienced players and has us searching for consistency and certainty.
We will target quarterbacks with a large sample size in optimal situations. The qualifying amount for each quarterback is a minimum of 125 dropbacks, which gives us a sample size of 162 quarterbacks.
Let's dive in.
College Football PrizePicks Bowl Games (Dec. 30)
Glossary
- EPA/Pass Att: Expected points added per pass attempt
- IsoPPP: Explosive plays
- Passing Success Rate: 50% of yards needed on 1st down, 70% of yards needed on second down and 100% on third and fourth down
- Behind LOS Depth: Passes behind the Line of Scrimmage
- Short Passing Depth: Passes within 1-9 yards of depth
- Med Passing Depth: Passes within 10-19 yards of depth
- Deep Passing Depth: Passes 20+ yards of depth
- Mickey Mouse Throw %: Combination of Behind the LOS attempts and Short attempts; The average attempt % is 55.8%
- Big Dog Throw %: Combination of Medium attempts and Deep attempts; The average Big Dog attempts % is 37.6%
Payton Thorne (QB – Auburn) Passing Yards under 165.5
- 27th in Mickey Mouse Atts (61.9%)
- 101st in Big Dog Atts (35.1%)
- 16th in Short Atts %
- 111th in Short PFF Grade
- 123rd in Short QB Rating
- Auburn 122nd in PROE on Standard Downs (-8.7%)
- Auburn 125th in PROE on Passing Downs (-12.7%)
- Maryland 44th in EPA/Pass Att on Mickey Mouse Atts
- Maryland 40th in EPA/Pass Att on Big Dog Atts
- Maryland 47th in EPA/Pass Att on Behind LOS Atts
- Maryland 49th in EPA/Pass Att on Short Atts
- Maryland 71st in EPA/Pass Att on Medium Atts
- Maryland 32nd in EPA/Pass Att on Deep Atts
This is an extremely low passing total but realistically Thorne could soar under. Outside of the academy teams, Auburn has a similar PROE profile and they will look to establish the run in any situation. Auburn plays a ball-control style offense, that will look to grind away and lean on their opponent by shortening the game. Maryland is above-average at all depths when it comes to passing defense and that plays into this angle. Thorne will have to dink and dunk his way down the field with volume, and I would be shocked if he has over 25 passing attempts. This total should soar under.
Jaxson Dart (QB – Ole Miss) Passing Yards over 200.5
- 149th in Mickey Mouse Atts (47%)
- 20th in Big Dog Atts (45.8%)
- 8th in Medium Atts %
- 5th in Medium PFF Grade
- 6th in Medium QB Rating
- 78th in Deep Atts %
- 50th in Deep PFF Grade
- 109th in Deep QB Rating
- Penn State 1st in EPA/Pass Att in Mickey Mouse Atts
- Penn State 38th in EPA/Pass Att in Big Dog Atts
- Penn State 12th in EPA/Pass Att on Medium Atts
- Penn State 110th in EPA/Pass Att on Deep Atts
- Penn State 82nd in Def Pass IsoPPP
This is the most intriguing line to me for this weekend, I feel as if it should be considerably higher. Penn State’s defense looks elite on the surface, but when you dive into the underlying metrics there are weaknesses. They rank 82nd in Def Pass IsoPPP but haven’t played one team in the Top 40 in Off Pass IsoPPP. Ole Miss is 22nd in Off Pass IsoPPP, paired with their willingness to push the ball down the field could line up some huge plays that lead to this total getting crushed. This is confirmed by Penn State’s 110th ranking in EPA/Pass Att on Deep Atts.
Make sure to check out our other best bets for Saturday:
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RadioPublic | Breaker | Castbox | Pocket Casts
Thanks for reading! If you are interested in more advanced statistics or have any questions about the process, you can follow me @goldendomer622 on Twitter. Good luck with your bets!
