LSU Has Allowed 2.76 Yards Per Play To FBS Teams, Ole Miss Has Allowed 6.13: Saturday's College Football Card By Efficiency

Two weeks of college football is a thin record, and a big chunk of it is padding. Six of the eight teams on this Saturday card have already played an FCS opponent, and those games tell you almost nothing about what happens against a real schedule. So this study throws them out.

What's left is yards per play against FBS opponents only. It's a blunt number, but it doesn't care about garbage time scoring or a pick six, and it's the fairest way to put these eight teams on one chart before the card kicks off.

The FBS only numbers

A play here is a pass attempt or a rush attempt from the ESPN box score. In college football sacks are charged as rushes, so they're already inside the count. Every game below was completed by September 13, 2026.

LSU at Ole Miss, and the team both have seen

This is the cleanest read on the card, because there's a shared data point. Louisville went to Oxford on September 6 and lost 41 to 38. Louisville actually won the efficiency battle that day, 6.90 yards per play to 6.26, and didn't turn it over once. Ole Miss gave up 469 yards at home and won by three.

Now look at what LSU's defense has done. Clemson finished with 145 yards on 48 plays. Louisiana Tech finished with 139 yards on 55 plays, and ran for negative four yards. That's 2.76 yards per play allowed across two FBS games, and Princewill Umanmielen has five sacks in them. Ole Miss has allowed 6.13 per play against the same level of competition.

The worry is the ball. LSU has turned it over five times in two games, and Sam Leavitt has thrown four interceptions, three of them against Louisiana Tech. Trinidad Chambliss threw for 336 yards against Louisville, so a sloppy LSU day is exactly how this spread gets lost.

The market has already moved. ESPN's odds feed shows Ole Miss as the favorite when DraftKings opened this game. The TrustMyRecord board now has LSU -3 at -110. The ticket is LSU -3 for 2.5 units to win, 2.75 at risk, break even 52.38 percent.

Louisville vs SMU, where the chart argues back

Honesty matters more than a tidy story, so here it is: SMU's FBS number is the better one. Kevin Jennings threw for 430 yards at Florida State and SMU averaged 8.73 yards a play in Tallahassee.

That same game is also why the price is close. SMU turned it over four times, Jennings threw two interceptions, and a 585 yard day produced a three point win, 27 to 24. Louisville has turned it over zero times in two games. Lincoln Kienholz is 34 of 50 for 639 yards and four touchdowns across those games, and he ran for 69 more at Ole Miss.

Louisville is home, 1 and 1 with the loss coming by three on the road against a team ranked eighth on ESPN's scoreboard this week. SMU comes in 2 and 0. The ticket is Louisville moneyline at -120 for 1 unit to win, 1.2 at risk, break even 54.55 percent. It's the smallest play on the card, and the chart is the reason why.

Virginia vs West Virginia in Charlotte

Virginia's one FBS game was a 34 to 8 win over NC State. The Wolfpack managed 168 yards on 51 plays and 92 passing yards. Beau Pribula completed 9 of 11 for 155 yards and ran 15 times for 110, and Virginia held the ball for 38 minutes.

West Virginia's FBS game went the other way on the stat sheet. The Mountaineers beat Coastal Carolina 31 to 24 but were outgained 425 to 413, and Coastal threw for 373 yards. Cam Cook carried 30 times for 142 yards, which is how West Virginia wants to play, but that's a lot of carries to win by a touchdown at home.

The game is at Bank of America Stadium, not in Charlottesville. The ticket is Virginia -10.5 at -110 for 1.5 units to win, 1.65 at risk, break even 52.38 percent.

Colorado at Northwestern, the one with a blank space

Northwestern hasn't played an FBS opponent, so it gets no bar on the chart. Its only game was a 34 to 18 win over South Dakota State with 497 yards on 55 plays. The defense gave up 432 yards on 88 snaps, which is the number to keep an eye on.

Colorado's FBS sample is the weakest on this chart. The Buffaloes won 14 to 13 at Georgia Tech with 307 yards on 76 plays, 4.04 per play, and Julian Lewis went 14 of 27 for 124 yards. He threw for 366 the next week against Weber State, an FCS team, in a game where Colorado was flagged 13 times for 107 yards.

The ticket is Northwestern moneyline at -175 for 3 units to win, 5.25 at risk, break even 63.64 percent. It's the biggest play on the card, and it's a bet that a 4.04 yards per play offense against its only FBS opponent doesn't suddenly find it on the road.

What would make this wrong

One or two FBS games per team is a tiny sample, and a single long touchdown can swing yards per play by half a yard. Clemson and Louisiana Tech may simply be poor offenses. Northwestern has no FBS data at all, so that ticket rests on Colorado's side of the ledger. And turnovers, which this metric ignores, are already a problem for LSU and SMU.

Method: yards per play is total yards divided by pass attempts plus rush attempts, summed across FBS games only. FCS games removed: Villanova, UC Davis, Norfolk State, UT Martin, South Dakota State, Weber State. Break even for a laying price is price divided by price plus 100. Kickoffs: Louisville vs SMU 12:30 PM Pacific on ESPN2; LSU at Ole Miss 4:30 PM Pacific on ABC; Virginia vs West Virginia 4:30 PM Pacific on ACC Network; Colorado at Northwestern 4:30 PM Pacific on FOX.