luckadjusted
CFB Week 4 · 2026

Week 13 2025 · November 22, 2025

North Texas at Rice, Week 13 2025: who deserved to win?

North Texas beat Rice 56–24, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, North Texas wins 10 of 10.

Before kickoff North Texas was an 88% favorite.

Final

North Texas Mean Green 56
Rice Owls 24

November 22, 2025 · Rice Stadium · Closing line: North Texas −18.5

Luck index 0 North Texas about even · 0 Rice

Each team’s own plays from this game, resampled into new drives 4,000 times: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. North Texas wins 10, Rice wins 0.

  1. 1 UNT 56 RICE 0
  2. 2 UNT 52 RICE 3
  3. 3 UNT 70 RICE 24
  4. 4 UNT 56 RICE 14
  5. 5 UNT 37 RICE 0
  6. 6 UNT 63 RICE 30
  7. 7 UNT 44 RICE 14
  8. 8 UNT 48 RICE 23
  9. 9 UNT 41 RICE 20
  10. 10 UNT 28 RICE 17

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

The closing betting line, turned into a probability. What everyone knew before the game.

The line plus what this game showed, weighted by how much one game can tell. It stays close to the line because one game says little.

Every kick, fumble bounce, conversion and judgment call redrawn; everything else fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000 replays ended

North Texas wins 100% of them, Rice 0%. The line is what actually happened: North Texas by 32.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
North Texas by 17+95.5%
North Texas by 9–163.1%
North Texas by 1–81.1%
Level after regulation0.1%
Rice by 1–80.3%
Rice by 9–160.0%
Rice by 17+0.0%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A missed kick in a decided game counts for nothing; the same kick at the end of a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +3.7 points to Rice: the final margin was North Texas by 32, without the luck North Texas by 35.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).

Penalties: North Texas 1 for 5 yards, Rice 0 for 0 yards

Every accepted flag, in order, and what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment, including any play it wiped out (points on the scoreboard in grey). A flag in a decided game is worth nothing; one at the turn of a close game can be worth most of a win. Judgment calls count toward luck, pre-snap fouls mostly don’t. How calls are valued

WhenFlagWin probability for
Q2 0:25 False Start on North Texas, 5 yards · pre-snap 0% RICE +0.2 pts

When it happened

Rice’s chance of winning

Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score, the value of the possession and the time left, starting from the betting line. Overtime has no clock and is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while Rice was ahead in it, below while North Texas was.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q1 8:56 Rice converted 3rd & 83rd & 4th downs · 31% expected +2% RICE RICE: Touchdown
2 Q1 7:44 North Texas was stopped on 3rd & 63rd & 4th downs · 50% expected +3% RICE UNT: Punt
3 Q1 6:02 Rice converted 3rd & 123rd & 4th downs · 24% expected +6% RICE RICE: Touchdown
4 Q1 1:42 Rice converted 3rd & 93rd & 4th downs · 30% expected +6% RICE RICE: Turnover on downs
5 Q2 13:33 Rice was stopped on 3rd & 33rd & 4th downs · 55% expected +3% UNT RICE: Turnover on downs
6 Q2 12:55 Rice was stopped on 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 76% expected +7% UNT RICE: Punt
7 Q2 11:10 North Texas was stopped on 3rd & 13rd & 4th downs · 80% expected +3% RICE UNT: Touchdown
8 Q2 10:41 North Texas converted 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 79% expected +2% UNT UNT: Touchdown

Adjust the assumptions

Disagree with how much of a fumble bounce or a pass interference call is luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

North Texas 100% · Rice 0%

Final margin
North Texas by 32
Luck in points
3.7 for Rice
Luck-adjusted margin
North Texas by 35.7
Replay with same day's form
North Texas 100% · Rice 0% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts

None by default: our tests measured no carryover after a lucky break. Slide it up to count a break for more than its own swing. Why

Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a made kick becomes a miss, a stop becomes a conversion, a flag goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play and expected points from CollegeFootballData.com via cfbfastR; win probability from our own model of the score, the possession and the betting line; kicks valued against each kicker’s own record. College play-by-play has no charting of drops or interception-worthy throws and no injury reports, so those kinds of luck aren’t counted here.

Methodology and validation · All Week 13 2025 games · North Texas · Rice

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