Load college football model-enriched play-by-play from the SportsDataverse data repo

Loads season-level model-enriched play-by-play – the modeling-grade pbp frame with the engineered features the cfbfastR EP/WP model suite trains on. Published to the espn_cfb_model_pbp release tag on the sportsdataverse-data repo.

Usage

load_espn_cfb_model_pbp(
  seasons = most_recent_cfb_season(),
  ...,
  dbConnection = NULL,
  tablename = NULL
)

Arguments

seasons: A vector of 4-digit years associated with given college football seasons. Published coverage runs 2004 through the most recent season. Pass seasons = TRUE for every published season. (Min: 2004)
...: Additional arguments passed to an underlying function that writes the season data into a database.
dbConnection: A DBIConnection object, as returned by DBI::dbConnect()
tablename: The name of the data table within the database

Value

Returns a cfbfastR_data tibble.

col_name	types	description
game_id	integer
id	character
sequenceNumber	character
game_play_number	integer
drive.id	character	ESPN's drive identifier, formed as the game id followed by the drive's sequence number within that game.
season	integer
week	integer
period	integer
pos_team	integer
def_pos_team	integer
start.pos_team.name	character	School name of the team with possession at the snap, taken from ESPN's team location field so it carries no mascot.
homeTeamId	integer	ESPN team id of the home team, read off the game header and stamped on every play.
awayTeamId	integer	ESPN team id of the away team, read off the game header and stamped on every play.
homeTeamName	character	Home team's school name from ESPN's team location field, without the mascot.
awayTeamName	character	Away team's school name from ESPN's team location field, without the mascot.
type.text	character	ESPN's play-type label, for example Rush, Pass Reception, Sack, Punt, Penalty, or Timeout.
text	character
start.down	integer	Down at the snap as ESPN reports it; 0 marks the small share of rows ESPN leaves without a down, overwhelmingly timeouts and penalty administrations.
start.distance	integer	Yards the offense needs for a first down at the snap, carried through from ESPN without correction.
start.yardsToEndzone	integer	Distance in yards from the offense's spot at the snap to the opponent's end zone, ranging 0 to 100.
pos_score_diff_start	integer
start.TimeSecsRem	integer	Seconds remaining in the half at the snap, so it tops out at 1800 rather than counting down from a full game.
start.is_home	logical	True when the team holding possession at the snap is the home team.
passing_down	logical	True on second and eight or longer, third and five or longer, or fourth and five or longer, the standard obvious-passing-situation flag.
pass	logical
rush	logical
completion	logical
scoring_play	logical
statYardage	integer	Yards gained on the play as ESPN reports it, negative on plays that lost yardage.
passer_player_name	character	Display name of the passer – the FIRST participant in that role on the play.
ep_before	double
ep_after	double
epa	double
wp_before	double
wp_after	double
wpa	double
completion_prob	double	Modelled probability the pass is completed.
cpoe	double
model_pbp_version	character	Version of the model-scored play-by-play build.
cp_model_version	character	Version of the completion-probability model that scored the play.
ep_model_version	character	Version of the expected-points model that scored the play.
wp_model_version	character	Version of the win-probability model that scored the play.
scored_date	character	Date on which the play was scored by the models.

Author

Saiem Gilani

Examples

# \donttest{
  try(load_espn_cfb_model_pbp(2004))
#> Warning: cannot open URL 'https://github.com/sportsdataverse/sportsdataverse-data/releases/download/espn_cfb_model_pbp/model_pbp_2004.rds': HTTP status was '404 Not Found'
#> Warning: Failed to readRDS from
#> <https://github.com/sportsdataverse/sportsdataverse-data/releases/download/espn_cfb_model_pbp/model_pbp_2004.rds>
#> ── college football model-enriched play-by-play from the SportsDataverse data re
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-09-10 05:49:53 UTC
#> # A tibble: 0 × 0
# }