Week 5 2025 · September 25, 2025
Army at East Carolina, Week 5 2025: who deserved to win?
East Carolina beat Army 28–6, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, East Carolina wins 9 of 10.
Before kickoff East Carolina was a 59% favorite.
Final
 Army Black Knights | 6 |
|---|---|
 East Carolina Pirates | 28 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +9 East Carolina about even · −9 Army
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. Army wins 1, East Carolina wins 9.
- 1 ARMY 24 ECU 17
- 2 ARMY 14 ECU 17
- 3 ARMY 21 ECU 28
- 4 ARMY 10 ECU 20
- 5 ARMY 3 ECU 17
- 6 ARMY 7 ECU 24
- 7 ARMY 10 ECU 31
- 8 ARMY 10 ECU 35
- 9 ARMY 21 ECU 51
- 10 ARMY 3 ECU 40
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
Army wins 9% of them, East Carolina 91%, counting the 1% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: East Carolina by 22.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Army by 17+ | 0.6% |
| Army by 9–16 | 1.5% |
| Army by 1–8 | 5.5% |
| Level after regulation | 1.3% |
| East Carolina by 1–8 | 12.3% |
| East Carolina by 9–16 | 19.8% |
| East Carolina by 17+ | 59.0% |
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.
Penalties: Army 2 for 9 yards, East Carolina 1 for 5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 11:45 | Delay of Game on East Carolina, 5 yards · pre-snap | +1% ARMY +1.3 pts |
| Q2 3:41 | Illegal Touching on Army, 0 yards, wiping out the play | +1% ECU +2.0 pts |
| Q2 1:35 | Holding on Army, 9 yards | 0% ECU +1.2 pts |
When it happened
East Carolina’s chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Q1 12:35 | East Carolina converted 3rd & 33rd & 4th downs · 49% expected | +3% ECU | ECU: Touchdown |
| 2 | Q1 11:00 | Army was stopped on 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 45% expected | +2% ECU | ARMY: Punt |
| 3 | Q1 5:55 | Army was stopped on 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 45% expected | +2% ECU | ARMY: Turnover on downs |
| 4 | Q1 5:25 | Army converted 4th & 53rd & 4th downs · 44% expected | +4% ARMY | ARMY: Turnover on downs |
| 5 | Q1 3:16 | Army was stopped on 4th & 53rd & 4th downs · 44% expected | +3% ECU | ARMY: Turnover |
| 6 | Q1 2:38 | East Carolina converted 3rd & 103rd & 4th downs · 30% expected | +3% ECU | ECU: Touchdown |
| 7 | Q3 7:48 | East Carolina was stopped on 4th & 23rd & 4th downs · 66% expected | +4% ARMY | ECU: Turnover on downs |
| 8 | Q3 5:45 | Army was stopped on 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 78% expected | +3% ECU | ARMY: 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
Army 2% · East Carolina 98%
- Final margin
- East Carolina by 22
- Luck in points
- 7.8 for East Carolina
- Luck-adjusted margin
- East Carolina by 14.2
- Replay with same day's form
- Army 9% · East Carolina 91% 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 5 2025 games · 
Army · 
East Carolina
More from Week 5 2025
- South Alabama at North Texas UNT 36–22 · replay 72% for the winner
- Tulane at Tulsa TULN 31–14 · replay 76% for the winner
- Memphis at Florida Atlantic MEM 55–26 · replay 94% for the winner
- Rice at Navy NAVY 21–13 · replay 99% for the winner
- Hawai'i at Air Force HAW 44–35 · replay 5% for the winner
- Louisville at Pittsburgh LOU 34–27 · replay 11% for the winner
- California at Boston College CAL 28–24 · replay 28% for the winner
- Marshall at Louisiana UL 54–51 · replay 29% for the winner
- Cincinnati at Kansas CIN 37–34 · replay 30% for the winner
- Houston at Oregon State HOU 27–24 · replay 34% for the winner
- Oregon at Penn State ORE 30–24 · replay 39% for the winner
- Georgia Tech at Wake Forest GT 30–29 · replay 40% for the winner