This week's picks

Big Al's CFB Lab

Data updated
Big 12

TCU

3–4 (1–3 Big 12). 2026 season, games through Oct 24, 2026.

SP+ rating10.131st of 138
SP+ offense26.277th of 138
SP+ defense15.912th of 138
PRIME4.348th of 138
Elo160150th of 138
Week 9

Kansas at TCU

Sat, Oct 31, 3:30 PM ET. SP+ projection: TCU 26, Kansas 17. Big Al's pick: TCU (63%).

Full head to head

Offense

StatValueRank
Points per game23.4102nd
Yards per play6.4645th
Success rate44.8%59th
Explosive play rate10.5%111th
Yards per carry4.21122nd
Yards per pass attempt9.0620th
Sack rate allowed8.0%111th
3rd down conversion44.1%47th

Defense

StatValueRank
Points allowed13.96th
Yards per play allowed4.565th
Success rate allowed32.8%5th
Explosive plays allowed7.8%9th
Yards per carry allowed3.9014th
Yards per attempt allowed5.6113th
Sack rate7.4%41st
3rd downs allowed30.9%19th

Players

Ansel Din-Mbuh (DT), Ed Small (WR), Jaden Craig (QB), Jeremy Payne (RB), Jordan Dwyer (WR), Kari Ashley (TE), Koron Hayward (LB).

Results

WeekOpponentResult
1vs. North CarolinaL 10–15
2vs. GramblingW 63–7
3vs. Arkansas StateW 31–7
4at UCFL 13–21
5vs. BYUL 10–17
7at BaylorW 17–6
8vs. West VirginiaL 20–24

Ranks are out of 138 FBS teams. Stats from play-by-play; scoring counts FBS opponents only. Compare TCU with any team.

Site
Picks two teams at random. Any FBS team can come up.

How we picked it

Three ratings look at a team in three different ways. Big Al's pick is the team at least two of them favor.

Where the game is won

Each row puts one team's unit against the unit it faces, by national rank out of all FBS teams. An edge is a gap of 25 spots or more.

What these mean

  • SP+ Bill Connelly's opponent-adjusted efficiency rating. Points better than an average FBS team on a neutral field.
  • PRIME A second opponent-adjusted rating, built from possession efficiency, on the same points scale. SOS is schedule difficulty; SOR is wins above what an average team would get against that schedule.
  • Elo A results-only rating that moves after each game based on the score and the opponent. 1500 is average.
  • Success rate Share of plays that stay on schedule: 50% of the yards needed on 1st down, 70% on 2nd, all of it on 3rd and 4th.
  • Explosive rate Share of plays that are runs of 12+ yards or completions of 16+ yards.
  • Defense rows What opponents did against the team. Lower is better except sack rate and interception rate.
  • Projection Rating gap, plus 2.5 points for the home team, and games usually land within about 14 points of it. A coin flip is 50%.

Ratings: SP+ via CFB Update; PRIME via primecfb.com. Box and play stats computed from CollegeFootballData.com play data (via the public cfbfastR files), FBS games only for scoring. Rushing yards here exclude sacks, so they run higher than official totals. Ranks are out of 138 FBS teams.

Share as an image

Image style

Leave a field empty to drop it from the image. A blank line in the description starts a new paragraph.