Brian Fremeau

This Is March (when I begin to pay attention to smart people and good visual explainers of a sport I give some real attention to only one month out of the year)

Pauses in mid-air, mind you

Scatterplot of available yards percentage by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of drive success rate by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of points per drive by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of yards per play by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Starting field position study based on 300k+ non-garbage offensive drives in FBS games since 2007

Scatterplot of available yards percentage by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of drive success rate by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of points per drive by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Scatterplot of yards per play by starting field position in FBS vs FBS games from 2007 to 2025

Starting field position study based on 300k+ non-garbage offensive drives in FBS games since 2007

SPORTS DATA DORK QUESTION

I am looking for a website(s) where I can potentially scrape simple W-L records by season for a variety of smaller college sports (soccer, volleyball, lax, etc). no advanced stats, just wins and losses.

sports reference isn't an option. other ideas? Here's why I want 'em:

Thank you! For now it’s all made in Illustrator while I work out the framework and design elements.

Every visualization sheds light on the chart designer’s priorities about what to include and what to omit. I wrote a bit about the choices I made with this one here: bcftoys.com/whiteboard/p...

nash marks — BCF Toys There’s no time like the present to obsess over old school, hand-illustrated possession charts.

Inspired by the ancient texts! bcftoys.com/whiteboard/n...

Thanks!

Data visualization of the CFP National Championship game played on January 19, 2026 and won by Indiana over Miami by a final score of 27-21. The visualization elements include a primary chart of the flow of alternating possessions, highlighting scores by each team and key possession change events. Illustrated tables at the bottom of the chart provide more specific information about Indiana and Miami’s respective offensive drive results.

Building on some #dataviz ideas I've been kicking around the last few weeks, I pulled a few elements together into an overall game possession and drive summary visualization template: bcftoys.com/whiteboard/p...

#Indiana #Miami #CFP

Dmytro Drahun of Team Ukraine competes in the Men's 50km Mass Start Classic on day 15.

Alex Fiva of Team Switzerland leads Erik Mobaerg of Team Sweden, Daniel Paulus of Team Czechia and Jared Schmidt of Team Canada in Men's Ski Cross Quarterfinals on day fifteen of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Livigno Air Park on February 21, 2026 in Livigno, Italy.

Athletes compete in the Men's 4 x 7.5km Biathlon Relay on day eleven of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Anterselva Biathlon Arena on February 17, 2026 in Antholz-Anterselva, Italy.

Abbey Willcox of Team Australia competes during Women's Aerials Qualification One on day twelve of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Livigno Air Park on February 18, 2026 in Livigno, Italy.

How about one last thread of awesome Winter Olympics photos? All via Getty Images. Photogs will be ID'd in each post.

Top left: Alex Pantling
Top right: Cameron Spencer
Bottom left: Michael Steele
Botom right: Patrick Smith (wow)

A handwritten storyboard or script outline from Christopher Nolan's film "Inception." The image features handwritten text and diagrams, suggesting the film's complex plot involving a heist, an escape, and characters like Yusuf, Arthur, Eames, and Saito. The text includes notes about the heist, the escape, and various locations within the dream world, including Limbo.

Christopher Nolan's hand-drawn map of Inception

Chart titled "Showing How the Tide of Battle Ebbed and Flowed” with what appear to be abstract (?) geometric lines detailing the flow of game possessions; Stanford 10, California 10 (1892)

Chart titled “World’s Football Chart showing exact position and time of every movement” referring to time of day (not time of possession); Princeton 6, Yale 0 (1893)

Game illustration detailing only a few basic elements — possession, kicks, rushes, fumbles, and penalties; Minnesota 8, Nebraska 5 (1907)

Published in “Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts” by Willard C. Brinton in 1919, a game possession chart details the second half of the Harvard-Yale football game played in 1912

"Spectators often would like to have a picture of the various plays ... so that any confusion as to what actually did occur may be seen at a glance. It may be possible that standards for this type of chart will evolve in the future." - Willard C. Brinton, 1939 #dataviz

bcftoys.com/whiteboard/n...

nash marks — BCF Toys There’s no time like the present to obsess over old school, hand-illustrated possession charts.

There's no time like the present to obsess over old school, hand-illustrated possession charts: bcftoys.com/whiteboard/n...

nash marks — BCF Toys There’s no time like the present to obsess over old school, hand-illustrated possession charts.

There's no time like the present to obsess over old school, hand-illustrated possession charts: bcftoys.com/whiteboard/n...

These are all so cool. Each of them has its own style and notation conventions.

Okay this one is wild, as it appears to predict the Stanford Band play sequence 90 years before it happens.

YES!

... working on that

Image (https://www.newspapers.com/image/179023290/) from October 20, 1907 issue of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a visualization of the sequence of possessions (via lines and symbols indicating kicks, rushes, fumbles, and penalties) over the course of a college football game won by Minnesota over Nebraska (final score 8-5).

Hat tip to @huskermax.bsky.social for pointing me to this 1907 game possession chart (via newspapers.com) published by the @startribune.com detailing an 8-5 victory by Minnesota over Nebraska. Kicks, rushes, fumbles, penalties, and a 110-yard field. Haven't come across an older cfb game chart yet...

For college football's future, be careful to understand how it grew and succeeded The sport's manifest destiny opened doors for Indiana and others. Consolidating power and access could eliminate the thrill of that growth.

MY COLUMN(UNIST MANIFESTO): I wrote about Indiana's incredible rise, JMU and the G6, 2005 Boise State-Georgia, manifest destiny, Frank Broyles, fainting couches and the super-league consolidation forces that threaten to make college football less college football-like.

www.espn.com/college-foot...

Chart titled “Drive Summary v.01”, an illustrated data table representing Miami’s 11 offensive drives against Indiana in the CFP Championship on January 19, 2026. Each row includes the drive number, starting and ending field position, plays, yards, drive result, and the game score at the conclusion of the drive, plus a graphic representation of the "drive plot".

I’ve been working on better ways to visualize college football game data for as long as I’ve been collecting it. Let's punch up a basic drive summary table with some graphic elements:
bcftoys.com/whiteboard/d...

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm planning on adding one other color for now to highlight successful field goals, but you're right that there's an opportunity to encode other drive results too so they don't all wash together, I'll need to think about that.

Chart titled “Drive Summary v.01”, an illustrated data table representing Miami’s 11 offensive drives against Indiana in the CFP Championship on January 19, 2026. Each row includes the drive number, starting and ending field position, plays, yards, drive result, and the game score at the conclusion of the drive, plus a graphic representation of the "drive plot".

I’ve been working on better ways to visualize college football game data for as long as I’ve been collecting it. Let's punch up a basic drive summary table with some graphic elements:
bcftoys.com/whiteboard/d...

Hello friends

There is a graphic that explains overtime rules every time it happens, but nothing to tell millions of people watching their first NFL game all season what the deal is with dynamic kickoffs.

non-linear, ranged from low of 0.385 points per play (2007) to high of 0.412 points per play (2020) over the span

0.391 points/play in 2025, lowest since 2013

Possessions per game are declining due to... new clock rules, the introduction of C2P communications, go-for-it decision making and explosive/methodical strategy shifts, offense/defense success rates, and maybe many other hidden factors? bcftoys.com/whiteboard/c...

A 24-hour clock illustration depicting Earth's history as a single day. The clock starts at midnight for Earth's formation, with major events like meteorite bombardment from 12:00 to 3:00 AM, origin of life at 4:00 AM, oldest fossils at 5:36 AM, sexual reproduction at 6:08 AM, emergence of seaweeds at 8:28 AM, and mammals at 11:39 PM. Humans appear at 11:58:43 PM, just before midnight.

If the whole history of the Earth was squeezed into one day... #dataviz

Source: flowingdata.com/2012/10/09/h...

Chart series titled "FBS vs FBS Trends, 2007 to 2025" with line charts illustrating trends in Possessions Per Game, Points Per Game, Points Per Possession, Plays Per Game, and Plays Per Possession

Possessions per game have steadily declined since 2015
Points per game reached a 15-year low
Plays per game have held steady in the last three seasons
Points per possession are maybe leveling off?
Plays per possession jumped to a 19-year (all-time?) high