JTR QB Rankings: Season 22, Week 1

By: Ryan Moreland (@ryanmoreland)

The first week of CFSL action is in the books! That means it is time to get into the JTR QB Rankings. For those that are new, each week in the regular season the QBs are ranked based on how they played comparatively to the league average. Here is how it works:

How JTR Works

JTR ranks players by comparison to the league average using unbiased stats. By unbiased stats, we mean stats that don’t show a preference for one style of play over another. For example, we expect a quarterback in an air raid system to throw the ball more often than a quarterback in a multiple set. So comparing the two based on completions wouldn’t be fair. Once we determine stats that we believe to be unbiased, we create a league average. Outperforming the league average earns a player positive points. Stats that fall below the league average will earn a player negative points. Points for each stat are calculated and combined with a base rating given to each player. The combination results in a player’s JTR metric score. 0 is the worst possible score and 100 is the best possible score.

For QBs, the stats we chose to use are completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, passing yards per game, and unique rushing index. The rushing index excludes sacks from a quarterback’s rush totals to get a more accurate sense of them as a runner. Also, QBs cannot take negative points from the rushing index (outside of fumbles). This is because a running ability for a quarterback is a plus, but not a requirement.

JTR is not a predictive metric. It cannot tell the future. It can only measure what a player has done up to that point.

JTR Leaderboard

Findings

North Carolina’s Kevin Price takes the top spot to start Season 22. Price had an incredible performance this week against Texas, which propelled him to the top. This is the second time in Price’s career that he has held the top spot on the leaderboard. The first was Week 5 of last season.

Another thing that stands out this week is that some big names are starting their season much lower than normal. Auburn’s Jay Duke, West Virginia’s Gunner Rice, and Florida’s Jack Schmidt all have plenty of top tens on this leaderboard in the past. I would assume we see them climb as soon as next week.

The freshman QBs weren’t great, but weren’t bad this week. The highest-rated (Notre Dame’s Matt Perez) is #11, and the lowest (Oregon’s Alexa Earl) is #21. While we have seen a few QBs start their careers redhot, it is common for there to be an adjustment period for young QBs. Kevin Price has been a top-three lock the past few seasons but struggled to stay out of the bottom five his freshman season. So, don’t get too discouraged by a slow start.

This season, there is a new addition to the JTR Leaderboard. As you can see from the asterisks, each week we will mark when a player achieves a ranking (NOTE: not score) that is a career-high for them. All of the freshmen set new career highs this week since they are brand new to the leaderboard. Other than them, Michigan State’s Cole Mantell, Alabama’s Johnny Ray Davis, and LSU’s Tavon Moss set new career-high ranks.

The last thing you will notice this week is that there is a considerable gap between first and last on the leaderboard. 60.585 points separate Price and Rice. This is normal at the start of the season. As the season progresses, you will see this number shrink considerably. After all, outplaying the competition is easy to do in one game, but it’s much harder to outplay them for an entire season. Last season, the gap in the final week of the regular season was 38.124 points.

Good luck to all the gunslingers in the CFSL in Week 2!