Punt, Pass, or Kick? What the Numbers Say You Should Do

• Activity Number: 487
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Sports
• Author(s): Mary Bayles* and Ariel Webb and Yuting Wang Manley and Tracy Morris
• Companies: and University of Central Oklahoma and University of Central Oklahoma and University of Central Oklahoma
• Keywords: logistic regression ; football ; fourth down ; field goal

Abstract

It's fourth down and two yards to go. The ball is on your own 30 yard line. Do you go for the first down or kick a field goal? Except in situations in which a team must go for the first down (ex: down by more than 3 points with under 2:00 to play), coaches tend to make the conservative decision to kick a field goal and put the points on the board. In this research, data was collected from www.cfbstats.com concerning all fourth downs during the 2011 NCAA Division I college football season. Only fourth downs for which the ball was either passed, rushed, or kicked (not punted) were included in the data set. Logistic regression was used to construct two models: one for estimating the probability of converting a fourth down and one for estimating the probability of making a field goal. Variables considered for inclusion in the models were playing surface, team (home or away), site (team or neutral), opponent (BCS or non-BCS), period number, score, yards to go, and spot. The accuracy of the models was determined by comparing the estimated probabilities from 2011 to the actual probabilities from the 2012 season.