ESPN College Football Player Statistics Overview

Get the season-by-season statistics overview ESPN shows on a college football player's player page – one row per season the player has played, with the headline stat line for each.

Usage

espn_cfb_player_overview(athlete_id = NULL, year = NULL, athlete_detail = TRUE)

Arguments

athlete_id

(Character/Integer required): ESPN athlete id.

year

(Integer required): Season, 4 digit format (YYYY).

athlete_detail

(Logical): when TRUE (default), fetch the requested athlete's ESPN record once and append the athlete_* name columns (see Details). Set FALSE to skip the fetch, reproducing the prior output exactly.

Value

A data frame with one row per season in the player's career table. The leading columns are fixed; the trailing stat columns vary by position:

col_name	types	description
athlete_id	character	ESPN athlete id.
season	integer	Season passed as the player-page context argument.
stat_season	character	Season this row's stat line describes.
athlete_display_name	character	Player display name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_first_name	character	Player first name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_last_name	character	Player last name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_jersey	character	Player jersey number; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_position	character	Player position name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_position_abbreviation	character	Player position abbreviation; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
...	character	One column per stat in the names array (varies).

Details

Wraps the ESPN web-v3 endpoint site.web.api.espn.com/apis/common/v3/sports/football/college-football/athletes/{athlete_id}/overview. The overview payload's statistics block is the player's career summary table: it carries a splits array with one entry per season the player has played (most recent first), plus the names array of stat keys. This wrapper returns that career table – one row per season – joining each season's stat values to the names columns. Note that the season argument selects the player's player-page context but the statistics block is always the player's full multi-season career table; the returned stat_season column identifies which season each row describes. Stat columns vary by the player's position. For game-by-game data use espn_cfb_player_gamelog().

When athlete_detail = TRUE (the default) the requested athlete's ESPN record is fetched once and the human-readable name columns athlete_display_name, athlete_first_name, athlete_last_name, athlete_jersey, athlete_position, and athlete_position_abbreviation are appended to every row. This is a single cheap fetch – the wrapper already takes one athlete_id. A fetch failure degrades the name columns to NA rather than erroring the wrapper. Set athlete_detail = FALSE to skip the fetch and reproduce the prior output exactly.

See also

Other ESPN CFB Functions: espn_cfb_award(), espn_cfb_awards(), espn_cfb_clear_cache(), espn_cfb_coach(), espn_cfb_coach_record(), espn_cfb_coaches(), espn_cfb_franchise(), espn_cfb_franchises(), espn_cfb_futures(), espn_cfb_game_broadcasts(), espn_cfb_game_drive_plays(), espn_cfb_game_drives(), espn_cfb_game_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_odds(), espn_cfb_game_pbp(), espn_cfb_game_play(), espn_cfb_game_player_box(), espn_cfb_game_player_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_powerindex(), espn_cfb_game_predictor(), espn_cfb_game_probabilities(), espn_cfb_game_situation(), espn_cfb_game_status(), espn_cfb_game_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_team_linescores(), espn_cfb_game_team_records(), espn_cfb_game_team_roster(), espn_cfb_game_team_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_teams(), espn_cfb_groups(), espn_cfb_pbp_v2(), espn_cfb_player(), espn_cfb_player_career_stats(), espn_cfb_player_eventlog(), espn_cfb_player_gamelog(), espn_cfb_player_seasons(), espn_cfb_player_splits(), espn_cfb_player_stats_v3(), espn_cfb_players(), espn_cfb_position(), espn_cfb_positions(), espn_cfb_powerindex(), espn_cfb_qbr(), espn_cfb_rankings(), espn_cfb_recruits(), espn_cfb_season_info(), espn_cfb_season_types(), espn_cfb_season_weeks(), espn_cfb_seasons(), espn_cfb_standings(), espn_cfb_team(), espn_cfb_team_ats(), espn_cfb_team_awards(), espn_cfb_team_coaches(), espn_cfb_team_events(), espn_cfb_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_team_powerindex(), espn_cfb_team_ranks(), espn_cfb_team_record(), espn_cfb_team_roster(), espn_cfb_team_schedule(), espn_cfb_teams(), espn_cfb_unnest_plays(), espn_cfb_venue(), espn_cfb_venues(), espn_cfb_week_rankings()

Examples

# \donttest{
  try(espn_cfb_player_overview(athlete_id = 102597, year = 2024))
#> ── Player statistics overview from ESPN ────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:56:49 UTC
#> # A tibble: 5 × 24
#>   athlete_id season stat_season completions passing_attempts completion_pct
#>   <chr>       <int> <chr>       <chr>       <chr>            <chr>         
#> 1 102597       2024 2024        220         311              70.7          
#> 2 102597       2024 2023        142         237              59.9          
#> 3 102597       2024 2022        415         610              68.0          
#> 4 102597       2024 2021        505         683              73.9          
#> 5 102597       2024 2020        239         346              69.1          
#> # ℹ 18 more variables: passing_yards <chr>, yards_per_pass_attempt <chr>,
#> #   passing_touchdowns <chr>, interceptions <chr>, long_passing <chr>,
#> #   sacks <chr>, qb_rating <chr>, rushing_attempts <chr>, rushing_yards <chr>,
#> #   yards_per_rush_attempt <chr>, rushing_touchdowns <chr>, long_rushing <chr>,
#> #   athlete_display_name <chr>, athlete_first_name <chr>,
#> #   athlete_last_name <chr>, athlete_jersey <chr>, athlete_position <chr>,
#> #   athlete_position_abbreviation <chr>
  try(espn_cfb_player_overview(athlete_id = 102597, year = 2024,
                               athlete_detail = FALSE))
#> ── Player statistics overview from ESPN ────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:56:49 UTC
#> # A tibble: 5 × 18
#>   athlete_id season stat_season completions passing_attempts completion_pct
#>   <chr>       <int> <chr>       <chr>       <chr>            <chr>         
#> 1 102597       2024 2024        220         311              70.7          
#> 2 102597       2024 2023        142         237              59.9          
#> 3 102597       2024 2022        415         610              68.0          
#> 4 102597       2024 2021        505         683              73.9          
#> 5 102597       2024 2020        239         346              69.1          
#> # ℹ 12 more variables: passing_yards <chr>, yards_per_pass_attempt <chr>,
#> #   passing_touchdowns <chr>, interceptions <chr>, long_passing <chr>,
#> #   sacks <chr>, qb_rating <chr>, rushing_attempts <chr>, rushing_yards <chr>,
#> #   yards_per_rush_attempt <chr>, rushing_touchdowns <chr>, long_rushing <chr>
# }