ESPN College Football Team Statistical Leaders

Get a college football team's season statistical leaders – the top athletes in each ESPN leader category (passing, rushing, receiving, tackles, ...).

Usage

espn_cfb_team_leaders(
  team_id = NULL,
  year = NULL,
  season_type = 2,
  team_detail = TRUE
)

Arguments

team_id

(Integer required): ESPN team id.

year

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

season_type

(Integer default 2): ESPN season type. 2 = regular season, 3 = postseason.

team_detail

(Logical): when TRUE (default), fetch the ESPN team catalog once and join friendly team fields next to the team_id column (see Details). Set FALSE to skip the catalog fetch and the join.

Value

A data frame with one row per category-leader:

col_name	types	description
season	integer	Season (4-digit year).
season_type	integer	ESPN season type (2 = regular, 3 = postseason).
team_id	character	ESPN team id.
team_name	character	Team nickname; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_abbreviation	character	Team abbreviation; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_location	character	Team location / school name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_display_name	character	Full team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_short_display_name	character	Short team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_nickname	character	Team nickname label; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_color	character	Primary team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_alternate_color	character	Alternate team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_href	character	Default team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_dark_href	character	Dark-variant team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
category_name	character	Leader category key (e.g. passingLeader).
category_display	character	Leader category display name.
leader_rank	integer	Rank of the athlete within the category (1 = top).
athlete_id	character	ESPN athlete id (parsed from athlete_ref).
value	numeric	Leading stat value.
display_value	character	Display-formatted stat line.
athlete_ref	character	$ref URL to the athlete-in-season resource.

Details

Wraps the ESPN core-v2 team leaders endpoint sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/football/leagues/college-football/seasons/{year}/types/{season_type}/teams/{team_id}/leaders. ESPN groups leaders into categories and ranks several athletes within each. This wrapper flattens that to long format: one row per (category x ranked athlete), with leader_rank preserving the order ESPN returns. Athletes are returned as ESPN athlete ids; join to espn_cfb_team_roster() for names.

When team_detail = TRUE (the default) the ESPN team catalog (espn_cfb_teams()) is fetched once and friendly team fields are joined in next to the team_id column – team_name, team_abbreviation, team_location, team_display_name, team_short_display_name, team_nickname, team_color, team_alternate_color, team_logo_href, and team_logo_dark_href, inserted immediately after team_id. A catalog failure degrades to NA rather than erroring the wrapper. Set team_detail = FALSE to skip the catalog fetch and the join.

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_overview(), 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_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_team_leaders(team_id = 61, year = 2024))
#> ── Team statistical leaders from ESPN ──────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:57:56 UTC
#> # A tibble: 176 × 20
#>    season season_type team_id team_name team_abbreviation team_location
#>     <int>       <int> <chr>   <chr>     <chr>             <chr>        
#>  1   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  2   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  3   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  4   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  5   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  6   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  7   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  8   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#>  9   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#> 10   2024           2 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia      
#> # ℹ 166 more rows
#> # ℹ 14 more variables: team_display_name <chr>, team_short_display_name <chr>,
#> #   team_nickname <chr>, team_color <chr>, team_alternate_color <chr>,
#> #   team_logo_href <chr>, team_logo_dark_href <chr>, category_name <chr>,
#> #   category_display <chr>, leader_rank <int>, athlete_id <chr>, value <dbl>,
#> #   display_value <chr>, athlete_ref <chr>
  try(espn_cfb_team_leaders(team_id = 61, year = 2024,
                            team_detail = FALSE))
#> ── Team statistical leaders from ESPN ──────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:57:56 UTC
#> # A tibble: 176 × 10
#>    season season_type team_id category_name category_display leader_rank
#>     <int>       <int> <chr>   <chr>         <chr>                  <int>
#>  1   2024           2 61      passingLeader Passing Leader             1
#>  2   2024           2 61      passingLeader Passing Leader             2
#>  3   2024           2 61      passingLeader Passing Leader             3
#>  4   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             1
#>  5   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             2
#>  6   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             3
#>  7   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             4
#>  8   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             5
#>  9   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             6
#> 10   2024           2 61      rushingLeader Rushing Leader             7
#> # ℹ 166 more rows
#> # ℹ 4 more variables: athlete_id <chr>, value <dbl>, display_value <chr>,
#> #   athlete_ref <chr>
# }