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Mountain West Football: Boise State Leads 2022 Preseason FEI Projection

Brian Fremeau unveils the preseason projection of college football’s most efficient teams from drive to drive and what means for scoring.

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Who could be the Mountain West’s most potent teams?

Hot on the heels of Bill Connelly’s SP+ preseason projections comes the FEI projection from Brian Fremeau, released today. Unlike SP+, which examines teams and their efficiency on a play-by-play basis, the FEI metric does so drive by drive, the end result of which, according to Fremeau himself, represents “the per-possession scoring advantage a team would be expected to have on a neutral field against an average opponent”.

If that sounds like a lot, suffice it to say the longer your drives are consistently, the better off you’ll be. With that in mind, the FEI projection comes with a few results that may come as a surprise at first glance:

24. Boise State — #53 offense, #26 defense
31. Air Force — #7 offense, #56 defense
48. Fresno State — #65 offense, #42 defense
54. San Diego State — #112 offense, #15 defense
61. Utah State — #64 offense, #54 defense
71. Nevada — #71 offense, #69 defense
79. Wyoming — #98 offense, #57 defense
92. Colorado State — #99 offense, #80 defense
97. Hawaii — #94 offense, #106 defense
110. San Jose State — #122 offense, #76 defense
114. UNLV — #107 offense, #117 defense
124. New Mexico — #130 offense, #105 defense

While Boise State leads the Mountain West in both efficiency projections, FEI has a cooler stand on the Broncos defense and a rosier outlook for the offense. Air Force also comes out ahead of Fresno State in this measure on the strength of an offense that projects here to be one of the most effective in the country, wedged between Ole Miss and Notre Dame within the top ten.

Another team with a more optimistic outlook here is Utah State, though the reason for it may come as a surprise: Unlike SP+, the Aggies defense actually has the more optimistic projection. They aren’t alone, however, as Nevada, Wyoming, and Hawaii all have substantial improvements in outlook, as well.

By contrast, there is really only one team with a dimmer forecast here when compared to SP+. The San Jose State Spartans offense will have some work to do, it appears, to overcome bottom-ten projections in both measures.

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