espn_cfb_player_career_stats: *ESPN College Football Player Season Statistics (Long...

In cfbfastR: Access College Football Play by Play Data

ESPN College Football Player Season Statistics (Long Format)

Description

Get a single college football player's full season statistics from ESPN – every published stat across every category, in long format (one row per stat).

Usage

espn_cfb_player_career_stats(
  athlete_id = NULL,
  year = NULL,
  season_type = 2,
  athlete_detail = TRUE
)

Arguments

athlete_id	(Character/Integer required): ESPN athlete id.
year	(Integer required): Season, 4 digit format (YYYY). Minimum value accepted: 2004
season_type	(Integer optional, default 2): ESPN season type. 2 = regular season, 3 = postseason.
athlete_detail	(Logical): when TRUE (default), fetch the requested athlete's ESPN record once and append the ⁠athlete_*⁠ name columns (see Details). Set FALSE to skip the fetch, reproducing the prior output exactly.

Details

Wraps the ESPN core-v2 endpoint sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/football/leagues/college-football/seasons/{year}/types/{season_type}/athletes/{athlete_id}/statistics. ESPN nests a player's season stats under splits -> categories[] -> stats[]; this wrapper flattens that tree to long format – each row is one stat, tagged with its category (e.g. passing, rushing, defensive). The long shape is deliberate: ESPN adds and retires stats and whole categories across positions and seasons, and a long frame absorbs that drift without breaking column expectations. Pivot wider with tidyr::pivot_wider() keyed on stat_name for a wide table. Each stat carries both a season-total value (value) and a per-game value (per_game_value).

When athlete_detail = TRUE (the default) the requested athlete's ESPN record is fetched once and the human-readable name columns athlete_display_name, athlete_first_name, athlete_last_name, athlete_jersey, athlete_position, and athlete_position_abbreviation are appended to every row. This is a single cheap fetch – the wrapper already takes one athlete_id. A fetch failure degrades the name columns to NA rather than erroring the wrapper. Set athlete_detail = FALSE to skip the fetch and reproduce the prior output exactly.

Value

A data frame with one row per stat:

col_name	types	description
athlete_id	character	ESPN athlete id.
season	integer	Season (4-digit year).
season_type	integer	ESPN season type (2 = regular, 3 = postseason).
category	character	Stat category (e.g. passing, rushing).
category_display	character	Human-readable category name.
stat_name	character	Internal stat key (e.g. passingYards).
display_name	character	Human-readable stat name.
abbreviation	character	Stat abbreviation.
description	character	ESPN's description of the stat.
value	numeric	Season-total value of the stat.
display_value	character	Display-formatted season-total value.
per_game_value	numeric	Per-game value of the stat.
per_game_display_value	character	Display-formatted per-game value.
athlete_display_name	character	Player display name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_first_name	character	Player first name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_last_name	character	Player last name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_jersey	character	Player jersey number; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_position	character	Player position name; athlete_detail = TRUE only.
athlete_position_abbreviation	character	Player position abbreviation; athlete_detail = TRUE only.

See Also

Other ESPN CFB Functions: espn_cfb_award(), espn_cfb_awards(), espn_cfb_clear_cache(), espn_cfb_coach(), espn_cfb_coach_record(), espn_cfb_coaches(), espn_cfb_franchise(), espn_cfb_franchises(), espn_cfb_futures(), espn_cfb_game_broadcasts(), espn_cfb_game_drive_plays(), espn_cfb_game_drives(), espn_cfb_game_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_odds(), espn_cfb_game_pbp(), espn_cfb_game_play(), espn_cfb_game_player_box(), espn_cfb_game_player_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_powerindex(), espn_cfb_game_predictor(), espn_cfb_game_probabilities(), espn_cfb_game_situation(), espn_cfb_game_status(), espn_cfb_game_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_team_linescores(), espn_cfb_game_team_records(), espn_cfb_game_team_roster(), espn_cfb_game_team_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_teams(), espn_cfb_groups(), espn_cfb_pbp_v2(), espn_cfb_player(), espn_cfb_player_eventlog(), espn_cfb_player_gamelog(), espn_cfb_player_overview(), espn_cfb_player_seasons(), espn_cfb_player_splits(), espn_cfb_player_stats_v3(), espn_cfb_players(), espn_cfb_position(), espn_cfb_positions(), espn_cfb_powerindex(), espn_cfb_qbr(), espn_cfb_rankings(), espn_cfb_recruits(), espn_cfb_season_info(), espn_cfb_season_types(), espn_cfb_season_weeks(), espn_cfb_seasons(), espn_cfb_standings(), espn_cfb_team(), espn_cfb_team_ats(), espn_cfb_team_awards(), espn_cfb_team_coaches(), espn_cfb_team_events(), espn_cfb_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_team_powerindex(), espn_cfb_team_ranks(), espn_cfb_team_record(), espn_cfb_team_roster(), espn_cfb_team_schedule(), espn_cfb_teams(), espn_cfb_unnest_plays(), espn_cfb_venue(), espn_cfb_venues(), espn_cfb_week_rankings()

Examples

  try(espn_cfb_player_career_stats(athlete_id = 102597, year = 2024))
  try(espn_cfb_player_career_stats(athlete_id = 102597, year = 2024,
                                 athlete_detail = FALSE))

cfbfastR documentation built on Aug. 24, 2026, 5:13 p.m.