Welcome to College Football at Sports-Reference.com
Posted by Justin Kubatko on August 11, 2010
I am pleased to announce the launch of College Football at Sports-Reference.com, the latest addition to the Sports Reference family of web sites. We have had plans to launch a college football site for quite some time, but for one reason or another we always ran into roadblocks, most of them data-related. However, we now have a college football database that we believe to be second-to-none. Let me tell you a little bit about what the site does (and does not) have:
- In the Players section, we have statistics for FBS players dating back to the 2000. Each player’s page includes detailed player statistics, appearances on leader boards, awards, honors, and more. We also have player game logs and splits. Let me note that we do not have a page for every player who played since 2000. However, we do have a page for every player who had at least one non-zero in the following categories: pass attempts, rush attempts, rushing yards, receptions, receiving yards, defensive interceptions, defensive interception return yards, fumbles recovered, fumble recovery return yards, punts, punt returns, punt return yards, kick returns, kick return yards, extra-point attempts, field goal attempts, or points.
- In the Schools section we have data for all major college programs dating back to 1869. Each school has an index with school information (location, colors, etc.), yearly W-L-T records, and more. Each year has its own summary page with rosters, statistics, and more. We also have schedules and results dating back to 1869.
- The Years section has summaries for each year dating back to 1869. On each summary page you will find AP poll results, award winners, consensus All-America teams, leader boards, and more.
- Next we have the Conferences section. Each conference has an index with cumulative W-L-T records, conference champions, and more. For each year we have a summary page with conference standings, AP poll results, bowl game results, and more. Finally, as with the schools we have schedules and results dating back to 1869.
- In the Coaches section we have career W-L-T records for almost 2000 coaches. Each coach’s page includes a career summary, yearly W-L-T records, and more.
- The Leaders section has career, season, and yearly leaders for a number of statistics. Please note that all leaders are based on statistics from 2000 through 2009 (the period for which we have complete player statistics).
- Let’s move on to the Awards section, where you will find consensus All-America teams, major award winners, and Heisman Trophy voting.
- Finally, the Bowls section has bowl summaries for all major bowls with results and more.
Whew! All in all the site has almost 16,000 school pages, over 18,000 player pages, almost 2,000 coach pages, and over 6,500 conferences pages. Now, with a project this big we know there are going to be errors that slipped through our fingers, so please give us a helping hand and fill out the site’s feedback form when you come across something that appears to be in error.
Working on CFB@SR has been a labor of love for me. I have always wanted to build a college football site, but when I first started digging into this and realized the enormity of the project I began to question my sanity. In the end, though, it has been a lot of fun, and, like our other sites, this is only the beginning. The site will continue to expand as we move forward, with new data, new features, and (hopefully) many new users. Let me close by thanking the people that made CFB@SR possible: James Howell, for his outstanding game scores database; John Hartwell, for once again coming up with a fantastic logo; the crew at Sports Reference, for their ever-helpful comments and suggestions; and my family, for their love and patience. This is starting to sound like the end, but it really is just the beginning. I hope you enjoy the new site…
August 11th, 2010 at 6:13 am
This is too awesome. I have been waiting for this for a long time, and I am really glad that you guys have dedicated so much hard work to this. A huge thanks! And keep up the great work!
August 11th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Fantastic. Looking forward to wading through this material.
One quick question, though — are there plans to add statistical information for FCS schools? In particular, there are a lot of schools that were classified as major through 1981…would be nice if they didn’t “vanish” from the statistical record, especially since they still exist.
August 11th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Cool beans!
Here’s a suggestion: Can you link a player’s page on this site to his page on PFR (and vice versa)? I’m just so used to being able to switch between minors and MLB stats on BBR that I miss the ability here. I don’t follow basketball, so I haven’t looked much at your NBA and CBB sites, but I imagine that’s come up there, too.
August 11th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Jason W, that’ll get done before too long.
I also wanted to point out that when Justin says, “this is only the beginning. The site will continue to expand as we move forward, with new data, new features”, that’s not just the usual We’re Always Trying To Improve Our Sites talk. We definitely wanted to get the site established before the season started, but we have lots of other data in hand that will be integrated (probably) within a month or so. In particular, we’ll have rosters (about 40 deep) along with partial stats for the top performers on those teams for about 70 major schools for every season back into the 50s. Plus more that we’ll tell you about very soon.
August 11th, 2010 at 10:19 am
No comments yet except to agree with #3- and I see that’s already been addressed in the next comment. I think many, many people have wanted a site like this for a long time. Congratulations on rolling this out and I’ll be excited to see how it improves.
August 11th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Random question to anyone who feels like answering:
Why are college football tackling stats so hard to come by? ESPN, CBSsports, Yahoo(Rivals), this site…. no one seems to have them. It seems like about the only place to get them are the teams’ official site. Is ‘tackle’ not an official stat that college football tracks?
August 11th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
great job … looking forward to when the 1900-1999 player data is included
August 11th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Hey guys – glad to see CFB coming up online.
I’m sure it was a tremendous amount of work to get to this point, but one recommendation for future improvements would be to include team statistics (such as 3rd down conversions, 4th down conversions, total takeaways/giveaways, etc).
August 11th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Awesome. Two more things that I’d love to see as you guys make further additions and improvements:
– more defensive player stats, like tackles, sacks, and tackles for loss
– integrating these stats with the PFR draft page, so that we could have a version of the draft page which shows the players’ college stats instead of (or in addition to) their pro stats
August 11th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Splits (records) vs. other schools would be cool
August 17th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Your reference sites are a treasure trove of knowledge…best of luck, and thanks for all the hard work.
I’m ecstatic that you have a yearly page with expanded standings detailing the SRS of each squad.
Do you have plans of ever tweaking the SRS calculations?
This data is fascinating to me, as I consider it more valuable than the polls system.
Also, I’m a huge proponent of the AV on the pro football side, and recommend it to anyone attempting to understand players values through history.
Any plans to adjusting AV either?
Thanks again
August 17th, 2010 at 11:06 am
awesome web site. for a stat loving geek like myself, I love it. One thing: When are you guys going to expand past the year 2000. I love the stats on the coaches, but when will be able to get the stats on the “old” players?
August 19th, 2010 at 12:03 am
I would be floored if this site could include an area detailing probation and vacated win seasons…
I have been using the SRS ratings as a historical guideline for national champions.
USC’s Reggie Bush SRS championships would be in question, along with Oklahoma from the 1970’s, and Florida from 1984.
Thanks again guys.
August 19th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Love this website
it has help me with my website.
would love to seek the college football expand into the Divisonn 1-AA and the non-major leagues