California’s carries with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and without Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele
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Against what the season’s ratings expected, California was 1.1 carries under with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and 6.7 carries under without Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele in 2026, 5 games against 3. The plain averages are 28.7 and 23.7, a difference of 5.0. All 4 first-half games were with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, quarterback: 1,751 passing yards, 264 pass attempts and 178 completions in 8 games this season, 10% of California’s carries in those games.
3 games without Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is still too small a sample for the statistics to say much, but maybe you can find something if you squint.
carries a game over expected
A +5.5 difference in carries over expected with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele vs without Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is a bit unusual: shuffle which games were with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and it comes up 20 times in 100.
A +5.0 difference in carries with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele vs without Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is about what you’d expect.
The games
| Side | Date | Game | Result | carries | Expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 5, 2026 | vs UCLA | L | 38 | 28.9 | |
| Sep 12, 2026 | @ Syracuse | W | 24 | 28.5 | |
| Sep 19, 2026 | vsWWagner | W | 28 | — | |
| Sep 25, 2026 | vs Clemson | L | 27 | 32.7 | |
| Oct 3, 2026 | @ UNLV | L | 24 | 32.1 | |
| Oct 10, 2026 | vs Virginia Tech | W | 26 | 28.4 | |
| Oct 17, 2026 | vs Wake Forest | L | 21 | 30.4 | |
| Oct 24, 2026 | @ SMU | L | 28 | 29.6 | |
| Oct 31, 2026 | @ NC State | L | 27 | 29.9 |
Method
- Expected is an offense and a defense a team, fit over every 2026 game between two teams in the table with the game being read left out, plus 0.6 for the home team (the edge the fit finds once strength is in), nothing at a neutral site.
- Each expected number is then fit to the season’s games: a game bears out about 61% of the difference the model predicts.
- The shuffle keeps the season’s shape: the games are cut in two where one date leaves the least variance, each game is read against its stretch, and the sides are shuffled only inside each stretch.
- Wagner has no other game in the table, so that game has no expected number and sits out the second figure.
- Who played is read from the schools’ box scores’ participation lists, which name every player who entered the game.
- With him means he was the team’s quarterback that game, at least half of its pass attempts; a game he left early or came into late reads as without him.