This week's picks

Big Al's CFB Lab

Data updated
ACC

Virginia

4–4 (2–3 ACC). 2026 season, games through Oct 24, 2026.

SP+ rating6.649th of 138
SP+ offense28.161st of 138
SP+ defense21.738th of 138
PRIME-0.473rd of 138
Elo158154th of 138
Week 9

Virginia at Wake Forest

Sat, Oct 31, 3:45 PM ET. SP+ projects Virginia 22, Wake Forest 32. Big Al's pick: Wake Forest (83%).

Full head to head

Offense

StatValueRank
Points per game28.274th
Yards per play5.9982nd
Success rate45.6%48th
Explosive play rate11.2%95th
Yards per carry4.8391st
Yards per pass attempt8.6831st
Sack rate allowed12.0%131st
3rd down conversion35.0%103rd

Defense

StatValueRank
Points allowed19.632nd
Yards per play allowed5.2934th
Success rate allowed37.0%33rd
Explosive plays allowed10.1%43rd
Yards per carry allowed4.8775th
Yards per attempt allowed6.0124th
Sack rate5.6%79th
3rd downs allowed30.2%16th

Players

Beau Pribula (QB), Jekail Middlebrook (RB), Matthew Fobbs-White (DE), Xay Davis (RB).

Results

WeekOpponentResult
1vs. NC StateW 34–8
2vs. Norfolk StateW 59–3
3vs. West VirginiaL 27–38
4vs. DelawareW 42–3
5at Florida StateL 7–38
6vs. SyracuseW 28–25
7at SMUL 13–23
8vs. DukeL 16–19

Ranks are out of 138 FBS teams. Stats from play-by-play; scoring counts FBS opponents only. Compare Virginia 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 like.

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.