For part 27 of our “Does It Matter?” series, we explored whether a college running back’s best all-purpose (AP) yardage season can predict their success in the NFL. To do this, we analyzed the top 50 fantasy football finishers since 2003. Here are all of our findings:
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For this analysis, we looked at the top 50 fantasy football finishers for each season since 2003 using PPR (points per reception) fantasy football scores. Throughout this article, you will see the term “Bottom 10”. This is defined as those finishing 41st to 50th each season. Further, the acronym “AP yardage” is “All-Purpose yardage,” which is the sum of rushing and receiving yards. The college RB’s AP yardages we used was simply their top season. In our theory, this gives insight into what their ceiling is.
Why the top 50? The reason we chose the top 50 is to find a happy medium. We don’t want to go further than the top 50 and start getting close to the fringe roster members whom obviously are not going to score top 10. These players could therefore just weigh the data. On the other hand, We want to compare the worst to the best still. Comparing the top 10 to the 11th place finisher, or an average number that takes into account the 11th place finisher, doesn’t satisfy our personal itch to try to find trends.
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For the first phase of our analysis, we created an averages chart which reflects RB’s best college AP yardage seasons, while also breaking it down into different Fantasy Football finisher groups. Those groups are as follows:
The findings were quite revealing. Each top 10 NFL RB finishers (average) top college AP yardage season consistently was higher compared to those finishing in the 31st to 50th range. In all 21 seasons, the Top 10 finishers consistently had higher best college AP yardage seasons than the 31st to 50th finishers.
Next, we charted the top 10 finishers since 2003 by segmenting their best college AP yardage season into 50-yard increments (rounded to 50). This segmentation revealed a similar pattern:
Our main goal was to identify the threshold for peak performance among NFL running backs. To achieve this, we made a differences chart to compare each yardage and the next 200 yards. Essentially, the top 10 to bottom 10 differences across all possible 200 yard spans. The chart’s desired outcome is a negative number for unique differences (Orange) and a positive number for non-unique differences (Blue). This would indicate the desired consistent top level performances we are hoping for.
Findings: The 1,600-yard mark and above emerged as a potential threshold for peak performance. This yardage range consistently demonstrated the highest differences, indicating it as a possible performance threshold. Therefore, we are going to look deeper into the 1,600 AP yardage and above threshold next to try to verify whether it is the optimal range.
We then moved forward by comparing this specific yardage threshold against all RBs who finished in the bottom 10 since 2003. For this, we evaluated 199 RBs, noting if their best college All-Purpose (AP) yardage season reached 1,600 yards or more. Out of these 199 RBs, 93 hit the 1,600-yard mark, accounting for 46.7% and setting our baseline for comparison to the top 10. We now will compare this to the top 10 to attempt to find whether we found an average RB’s best AP yardage college season, or if we found a top-performing RB’s best AP yardage college season.
If more than 46.7% occurs in the top 10, then we found a top-performing RB’s best AP yardage college season. From 2003-2023, 144 of 201 top 10 finishers fell within the 1,600-yard range, representing 71.6%. This was a significant 24.9% increase over the baseline, strongly suggesting 1,600 yards could be a legitimate threshold. Since these are all rounded to the nearest 50 yards, its important to note that 1,576 yards would be the threshold, if 1,600 yards is next verified as the threshold.
To have precision, we used our spreadsheet to make quick range adjustments to accurately identify the highest performing yardage. From that, we noticed that altering the threshold to 1,450 AP yardage and above yielded a 25.3% higher rate of top 10 appearances compared to the bottom 10, outperforming the 1,600-yard threshold. With rounded numbers, 1,426 AP yardage and above will be the subject of our analysis going forward, and our optimal threshold for this statistic.
The critical value is simply the threshold at which an outcome change could occur. For this, we segmented the top 50 fantasy finishers into groups of 10 over the last 21 seasons. Those thresholds, with their corresponding minimum best college AP yardage seasons, are seen below:
Due to this, 426 AP yardage (after rounding) in a RB’s best college season will serve as a critical threshold for when we produce our StarPredictor Score (SPS) model. Essentially, Running Backs must have at least one season where they have 426 AP yards or more in order to not be considered a future bust by our model. We are hoping to have this model fully functional by the beginning of the 2025 NFL season. You can subscribe to our mailing list to get updates on this model when it begins coming out here:
Our findings were backed by strong regression testing results:
These values reveal a correlation between an RB’s best college AP yardage season and their NFL fantasy production. The Rsquared shows that 5.5% of the variance in fantasy points can be explained by a RB’s best AP yardage college season, with the remaining 94.5% attributed to other factors. Further, you can see from the chart that as a RB’s best college yardage season increases, their NFL fantasy production is expected to increase as well:
To find trends in the best college AP yards for the top 10, the 11-40th place finishers, and the bottom 10 finishers over various decades, we broke down all the numbers into the 2 most recent decades. A noticeable trend is the 9.5% decrease in the rate where our optimal range appeared in the top 10 more than in the bottom 10 compared to earlier decades. This suggests that the strength of the college AP yardage as a predictor has diminished slightly in recent years.
| 2004-2013 | |||
| Top 10 | 11 through 40 | Bottom 10 | |
| All count | 94 | 275 | 95 |
| All 1,450 and above | 73 | 160 | 45 |
| % (Optimal Range/all) | 77.7% | 58.2% | 47.4% |
| 2014-2023 | |||
| Top 10 | 11 through 40 | Bottom 10 | |
| All count | 97 | 285 | 94 |
| All 1,450 and above | 78 | 189 | 56 |
| % (Optimal Range/all) | 80.4% | 66.3% | 59.6% |
We applied our optimal AP yardage range to evaluate the 2024 rookie RB class. Each rookie was assessed against the critical 1,426 AP yardage threshold. Those who met, or exceeded, this threshold have a higher likelihood of finishing top 10 in PPR standings.
| Blake Corum |
| Bucky Irving |
| Re’Mahn (Ray) Davis |
| Audric Estime |
| Rasheen Ali |
| Isaiah Davis |
| Kimani Vidal |
| Dylan Laube |
| Jonathon Brooks |
| Trey Benson |
| Marshawn Lloyd |
| Will Shipley |
| Jaylen Wright |
| Isaac Guerendo |
| Braelon Allen |
| Tyrone Tracy |
| Keilan Robinson |
| Jase McClellan |
| Jawhar Jordan |
Our analysis supports the theory that a college RB’s best AP yardage season can be a predictive indicator of NFL success. After our thorough analysis, the 1,426 AP yardage best college season threshold emerged as the highest producing range for top-performing NFL RBs. Our findings were also validated by regression testing. Therefore, for those assessing future NFL RB talent, it does matter to consider a player’s best college AP yardage season as a significant factor.
Our series has always sought to push the boundaries of sports analytics. This latest installment reaffirms our commitment to uncovering the hidden dynamics that define the game. Every Saturday, we’ll dive into intriguing questions, bust myths, and settle debates with thorough analysis. We welcome your input. Therefore, please leave comments or reach out with topics you’re eager to see dissected. Premium Analytics subscribers get priority. All of our research can be found on our Analytics Page. Up next on our agenda for Part 28 of “Does It Matter?” is an examination of RB Draft Capital: Does it matter? If so, what’s the Draft Capital threshold necessary for RB success? Mark your calendars; every Saturday we shed light on the topics that matter to you.
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