Appendix to Going Pro: Developing a CFL Play-by-Play Database

6-Appendix 1: List of Games

The table below provides a complete list of all the games for which play-by-play data has been found and included in the database as of the date of publication. The games are listed chronologically by date played, oldest game first.

Going Pro: Developing a CFL Play-by-Play Database

1-Abstract

CFL play-by-play data was collected from the official website into a single database. Idiosyncrasies in the structure of the data required the development of a VBA HTML scraper into a database. The data was parsed with a method that parallels the U Sports database, making it available for future investigation.

Three Downs Away: P(1D) In U Sports Football

1-Abstract

A data set of U Sports football play-by-play data was analyzed to determine the First Down Probability (P(1D)) of down & distance states. P(1D) was treated as a binomial variable, and confidence intervals were determined iteratively until convergence at the 10-10 level. For each down, fitted regression lines were added to enable discussion of overall trends with respect to distance.

Only points with a minimum N of 100 instances were considered. 1st down trended linearly, bearing only points at 5-yard intervals. 2nd and 3rd downs followed an exponential decay fit. Special attention was given to the non-zero asymptotes of these functions, and their implications towards the nature of the game. A review of & Goal data failed to provide any deeper insight.

Due North: Analytics Research in Canadian Football

1-Abstract

A broad survey of the history of scholarship in Canadian football analytics as relates to in-game decision-making. Works discussed span from 1982 to 2016, and while most focus on CFL data there does exist some mention of Canadian university football research (then CIS, now known as U Sports). Eleven different works covering a variety of topics create the basis of modern analytics in Canadian football.