College football's September numbers are the loudest of the year and the least useful. Many teams schedule their easiest games first, and even against good opponents, four games is a thin record. A big early average often says more about the schedule than about the player. What travels better is how often a player gets the ball, and you can start tracking that in Week 1.
September schedules flatter everyone
Ole Miss opened 2024 with four non-conference wins by a combined 220-22, then lost its first SEC game at home to Kentucky, 20-17, per the official Ole Miss schedule. The official box scores show how the offense and two of its starters, receiver Tre Harris and running back Henry Parrish Jr., did in each game.
| Opponent | Result | Ole Miss plays | Harris catches, yards | Parrish carries, yards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furman | W 76-0 | 82 | 8 for 179 | 8 for 40 |
| Middle Tennessee | W 52-3 | 73 | 9 for 130 | 14 for 165 |
| at Wake Forest | W 40-6 | 79 | 10 for 94 | 22 for 133 |
| Georgia Southern | W 52-13 | 69 | 11 for 225 | 13 for 89 |
| Kentucky | L 17-20 | 56 | 11 for 176 | 13 for 62 |
The points fell from 55 a game to 17. Part of that was the ball: Kentucky held it for 39:43, and Ole Miss ran 56 plays after averaging almost 76 in its first four games. Fewer plays means fewer touches for everyone. Each touch also went for less. Parrish averaged 7.5 yards a carry through four games and 4.8 against Kentucky, on the same 13 carries he'd had the week before.
Harris barely moved. He caught between 8 and 11 passes in every one of those games, and against Kentucky he had 11 for 176. His role traveled from Furman to the SEC even when the team's scoring didn't. Over the full season Ole Miss averaged 38.6 points a game, per its official season stats, which is still a very good offense and nowhere near the September number.
If you look at team numbers, yards per play holds up better than yards per game, since it doesn't care how many snaps an offense got. Ole Miss went from 8.9 yards a play over the first four games to 6.3 against Kentucky. That's a real drop, and still a smaller one than the fall in total yards, from 671 a game to 353.
So before you trust a September average, open the team's schedule on its official site or on Sports Reference and look at who they played. A 76-0 win tells you very little about the first conference game.
A month of games is a small sample
Even without the schedule problem, a month of games doesn't give you much to go on. A back who gets 14 carries a game has fewer than 60 by October, so one big afternoon moves his average a lot. Parrish's 165 yards against Middle Tennessee came on 14 carries with a 42-yard long, and that one game is nearly 40% of his rushing yards through four weeks. He scored four touchdowns that day and three in his other three games combined.
Blowouts also cut into a starter's volume. Against Furman, starting quarterback Jaxson Dart threw 27 of Ole Miss's 45 passes, and backup Austin Simmons threw 16, including a touchdown early in the third quarter that made it 59-0. In a mismatch, a star's numbers depend on how long he plays, and that's hard to know before kickoff.
Averages get more useful once a team has played a real mix of opponents, which usually means a few weeks into conference play. Until then, weigh each game by who it came against, and pay the most attention to the closest one. A one-score game is where the starters play all four quarters and the offense leans on the players it trusts most.
Last season's numbers carry a different risk. With the transfer portal, a player's job can change completely between seasons, and a new coordinator can change it again in August. Treat last year's totals as history until you've seen a couple of games in the new role. The broader habit, knowing when a hot start deserves your trust, is a big part of getting better at sports predictions.
Touches travel better than yards
A player's share of the ball comes from his job, and his job doesn't change much when the opponent gets better. His yards per touch do. Against Kentucky, Harris still caught 11 passes and Parrish still got 13 carries, but Parrish's yards per carry dropped by more than a third. So early in the season, count opportunities before you count yards. The same split works in a receiver's favor, too: when a player like Harris keeps catching 11 passes against better defenses, a receiving-yards YES has something solid under it.
College box scores usually don't list snap counts, so the best usage tracker is the broadcast. One way to spread it across a game:
- First quarter: map who starts at each skill spot and who rotates in.
- Second quarter: watch third downs only. Who's on the field, and who gets the ball?
- Third quarter: note who gets the first carry or target after a timeout, when a lot of offenses go back to their base plays.
- Fourth quarter: if it's still a one-score game, see who the offense trusts. If it isn't, watch for backups.
Hurry-up drives are worth a look whenever they come, because substituting gets harder and whoever stays on the field is someone the staff trusts. A backup quarterback package or a wildcat look only matters if it repeats, so note it the first time and wait for the second.
Before kickoff, pick five or six names, including one wild card, usually a freshman or a player back from injury. Write down one question per team, like whether the tight end is blocking or running routes tonight. Afterward, check your notes against the official box score, since memory leans toward the big plays. The same habits carry over to Sundays, and this guide to reading an NFL player's week covers the pro version.
A rushing-yards pick against a September average
Say a lead back goes into his first conference game with numbers like Parrish's: 107 rushing yards a game on about 14 carries, all of it against non-conference defenses. The GAGE card offers rushing yards 80+, and YES shows +4.5, so the odds give it a 55% chance.
Split that average in two before you take YES. His 14 carries come from his job, and they're the part most likely to show up again. That 7.5 yards a carry came against defenses he won't see in conference play. Say you think a conference defense holds him closer to 5 yards a carry. Fourteen carries at 5 yards is 70, short of 80, so NO looks likelier than its 45%.
So you pick NO at 45%: +5.5 if he stays under 80, and −4.5 if he gets there. The full scoring and lock rules are on the odds page, and GAGE is on the App Store if you want to try a pick like this one.