Week 4 2025 · September 20, 2025
West Virginia at Kansas, Week 4 2025: who deserved to win?
Kansas beat West Virginia 41–10, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, Kansas wins 10 of 10.
Before kickoff Kansas was a 79% favorite.
Final
 West Virginia Mountaineers | 10 |
|---|---|
 Kansas Jayhawks | 41 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +1 Kansas about even · −1 West Virginia
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. West Virginia wins 0, Kansas wins 10.
- 1 WVU 7 KU 14
- 2 WVU 0 KU 17
- 3 WVU 7 KU 27
- 4 WVU 7 KU 31
- 5 WVU 0 KU 27
- 6 WVU 0 KU 30
- 7 WVU 3 KU 35
- 8 WVU 0 KU 36
- 9 WVU 14 KU 54
- 10 WVU 0 KU 48
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before kickoff
The closing betting line, turned into a probability. What everyone knew before the game.
Same teams, fresh 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.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
Every kick, fumble bounce, conversion and judgment call redrawn; everything else fixed. The narrowest view of luck.
How 4,000 replays ended
West Virginia wins 1% of them, Kansas 99%. The line is what actually happened: Kansas by 31.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| West Virginia by 17+ | 0.0% |
| West Virginia by 9–16 | 0.0% |
| West Virginia by 1–8 | 0.4% |
| Level after regulation | 0.1% |
| Kansas by 1–8 | 2.8% |
| Kansas by 9–16 | 6.5% |
| Kansas by 17+ | 90.2% |
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.
The kicks
How likely each kicker was to make that kick (his own record, the distance), and what happened.
- L. Marjan, 42 yds made · 69% expected
- K. Hensley, 26 yds made · 90% expected
- L. Marjan, 44 yds made · 66% expected
Penalties: West Virginia 6 for 30 yards, Kansas 2 for 15 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
| When | Flag | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 10:28 | False Start on West Virginia, 5 yards · pre-snap | +1% KU +1.2 pts |
| Q1 5:51 | False Start on West Virginia, 5 yards · pre-snap | +1% KU +0.7 pts |
| Q1 5:14 | False Start on Kansas, 5 yards · pre-snap | +1% WVU +0.7 pts |
| Q2 11:32 | Unnecessary Roughness on West Virginia, 0 yards | +1% KU +0.7 pts |
| Q3 10:37 | Offside on West Virginia, 5 yards · pre-snap | 0% KU +0.4 pts |
| Q3 6:38 | Holding on West Virginia, 10 yards | 0% KU +0.3 pts |
| Q4 7:58 | Penalty on Kansas, 10 yards | 0% WVU +1.3 pts |
| Q4 7:10 | False Start on West Virginia, 5 yards · pre-snap | 0% KU +0.6 pts |
When it happened
Kansas’s chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Q1 14:10 | West Virginia was stopped on 3rd & 33rd & 4th downs · 57% expected | +2% KU | WVU: Punt |
| 2 | Q1 12:37 | Kansas was stopped on 3rd & 33rd & 4th downs · 57% expected | +2% WVU | KU: Touchdown |
| 3 | Q1 11:57 | Kansas converted 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 79% expected | +1% KU | KU: Punt |
| 4 | Q1 9:15 | Kansas converted 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 45% expected | +2% KU | KU: Punt |
| 5 | Q1 7:21 | Kansas was stopped on 3rd & 33rd & 4th downs · 57% expected | +2% WVU | KU: Punt |
| 6 | Q1 3:31 | West Virginia was stopped on 3rd & 43rd & 4th downs · 50% expected | +1% KU | WVU: Punt |
| 7 | Q1 2:21 | Kansas fumbled and West Virginia recoveredFumble bounces · loose balls are close to 50/50 | +2% WVU | KU: Punt |
| 8 | Q2 9:32 | West Virginia converted 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 44% expected | +2% WVU | WVU: Punt |
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
West Virginia 0% · Kansas 100%
- Final margin
- Kansas by 31
- Luck in points
- 2.9 for Kansas
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Kansas by 28.1
- Replay with same day's form
- West Virginia 1% · Kansas 99% unchanged: why
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 4 2025 games · 
West Virginia · 
Kansas
More from Week 4 2025
- Arizona State at Baylor ASU 27–24 · replay 39% for the winner
- Tulsa at Oklahoma State TLSA 19–12 · replay 44% for the winner
- BYU at East Carolina BYU 34–13 · replay 66% for the winner
- SMU at TCU TCU 35–24 · replay 74% for the winner
- Texas Tech at Utah TTU 34–10 · replay 87% for the winner
- North Carolina at UCF UCF 34–9 · replay 91% for the winner
- Wyoming at Colorado COLO 37–20 · replay 91% for the winner
- Fresno State at Hawai'i FRES 23–21 · replay 24% for the winner
- Troy at Buffalo TROY 21–17 · replay 30% for the winner
- Arkansas at Memphis MEM 32–31 · replay 30% for the winner
- Syracuse at Clemson SYR 34–21 · replay 34% for the winner
- NC State at Duke DUKE 45–33 · replay 35% for the winner