CFB Zeitgeist Score
46
Mid-pack in the position cohort. Carried by sacks at the 63rd percentile.
Braden Siders
Below the discourse floor — the honest stats-only state.
24 TACKLES · 1 SACKS
2026 Outlook
Returning to West Virginia for 2026
2026 Depth chart
Projected starter
Linebacker · West Virginia
Returning around him
2026 Award watch
No preseason watch lists yet (most drop June 15 – July 15)
West Virginia · Last season: 4-8 · Talent rank #63 · 2026 recruiting class #43
LB · WEST VIRGINIA · BIG 12
CFB Zeitgeist Score
46
Mid-pack in the position cohort. Carried by sacks at the 63rd percentile.
Heisman Heat
#12125
<1% win probability
Fan Belief
Awaiting
Player-specific FI not yet ingested. Falls back to team mood below.
Respect Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
Reality Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
ACCOLADE PROBABILITY
Heisman
<1%
TOP LB AWARD
Butkus
—
CONSENSUS
All-American
—
Player Standing · 17 rungs
Tier 1 · 2-deepBackup. On the two-deep, pushing for snaps.
Career Arc
The durable bio layer: position, size, hometown, and roster role.
How big the prospect was before college, and whether the later career arc beat that expectation.
| Class | Profile | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2-star | 0.7800 | No. 3396 recruit | HighSchool | Wyoming |
Portal movement changes role, context, and perception. This keeps that path in one place.
| Season | Move | Context |
|---|---|---|
| No transfer portal moves on file for this player. | ||
Where the player landed at the end of the listed season — final nowcast rank, win/finalist/ballot probabilities, and the cleanest official Heisman placement on file.
HIGH CONFIDENCE· through week 16Heisman Futures
Not yet listed on major futures markets.
Selector Grid · 2025
Selector recognition fills in once the major honors lists (AP, FWAA, AFCA, Walter Camp, Sporting News, SI) are scraped and ingested.
NIL · Recruiting · NFL Draft
Market value, pedigree & pro outcome
Recruit stars
★★☆☆☆
to Wyoming
Composite
0.7800
#3396 national
Today’s Hot-Take
The Hot-Take engine fires when this player’s percentile profile crosses a defensible threshold (top 10% in a cohort, 100+ snap sample). When it’s quiet, the model is honoring its “must be defensible” rule.
Anti-Take
PENDINGThe contrarian read fires when the rules-engine detects a stat that complicates the Hot-Take. Quiet here means the model hasn’t found a defensible counter yet — not that one doesn’t exist.
Fan sentiment · Awaiting signal
The Room reads fan conversation around a player — who’s talking, what they believe, and how that shifts. It publishes once weekly volume rebuilds; for most players that’s in-season, when game-week chatter spikes.
Cohort divergence reads how different fanbases talk about this player. Returns once weekly mentions clear the publish floor.
Rival Radar
No rival-bucket mentions in the current season.
Signature Story
He hasn't written his page yet — we'll start filling it in when there are enough snaps to rank against his peers.
Signature Moment
No signature moment on the ledger yet.
Returns once this player puts together a multi-game body of work — single-game flashes alone don't clear the bar.
Season Pace · Projection
Where the defensive totals stand
To hit 80-tackle season (currently 24): needs 28/game over remaining 2.
To hit 100-tackle season (currently 24): needs 38/game over remaining 2.
To hit 6-sack season (currently 1): needs 2.5/game over remaining 2.
To hit 10-sack season (currently 1): needs 4.5/game over remaining 2.
The fast read on the thing that makes this player more than a generic stat line.
Braden Siders is trying to climb the steepest award hill in college football: a defensive candidacy. The hook is the disruption profile on West Virginia's defense, with 1.0 sacks, 1.0 tackles for loss, and -- interceptions through the current loaded season. For a defender, the question is never just production; it is whether elite disruption and team context can become nationally undeniable.
Traditional stats first. Advanced context underneath.
Last season
2025 season snapshot | final
30-second read
Defensive contributor against FBS defenders.
2025 season snapshot | final
Tackling & Disruption
Coverage & Takeaways
Game Log · Week-by-week
2025 season · 11 games
| Wk | Opp | TKL | SOLO | TFL | SACK | INT | PD | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | W 45-3vs Robert Morris | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 1 | |
| Wk 2 | L 10-17@ Ohio | 4 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | Season-high 4 tackles |
| Wk 3 | W 31-24vs Pittsburgh | 2 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 4 | L 10-41@ Kansas | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 5 | L 14-48vs Utah | 2 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 8 | L 13-45@ UCF | 2 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 9 | L 17-23vs TCU | 2 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 10 | W 45-35@ Houston | 3 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 11 | W 29-22vs Colorado | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 12 | L 23-25@ Arizona State | 2 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 14 | L 0-49vs Texas Tech | 3 | 1 | 1.0 | 1.0 | — | 0 | |
| Total | 24 | 11 | 1.0 | 1.0 | — | 1 |
Traditional history
Season rows up top, career context at the bottom.
Season context · Team result + system
| Season | Team | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | West Virginia | 24 | 11 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1 | -- | -- |
| 2024 | Wyoming | 20 | 10 | 3.5 | 2.0 | -- | -- | -- |
| 2023 | Wyoming | 24 | 15 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 2 | -- | -- |
| 2022 | Wyoming | 40 | 31 | 12.5 | 7.0 | 1 | -- | -- |
| Career | 4 loaded seasons | 108 | 67 | 21.5 | 13.5 | 4 | -- | -- |
Advanced metrics second
Usage, value, and opponent-adjusted context.
TFL, sacks, and QB hurries are grouped together because defensive Heisman cases are usually built on visible havoc, not on tackle counts alone.
Pass breakups, interceptions, and forced fumbles matter because national awards voters respond to plays that change possessions and highlight reels.
Every percentile is compared against players at the same position and level, so an FBS quarterback is judged against FBS quarterbacks, not the whole sport.
The top tables stick to the stats fans already know from broadcasts and box scores. Advanced context is pushed underneath instead of replacing the basics.
| Group | Metric | Value | Rank | Pct | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defense | Total tackles | 24 | #1737/4942 | 65th pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | TFL | 1.0 | #2051/4972 | 59th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Sacks | 1.0 | #872/4972 | 82nd pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Pass breakups | 1 | #1241/2184 | 43rd pct | Coveragevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | QB hurries | 1 | #1051/1878 | 44th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Solo tackles | 11 | #1855/4584 | 60th pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Fumbles recovered | 1 | #103/736 | 86th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Ball Security | Fumbles lost | 0 | #1/773 | 100th pct | Turnoversvs FBS DEF |
Universal 17-step ladder. Tier pills below; accolade streams nested.
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION · Rung None of 16
Why he’s here
Standing classification populates when honors, Heisman, and roster signals all align.
What moves him up
What moves him down
Accolade streams
The Butkus award tracker integrates per-week probability once a dedicated scraper for this award lands. Confirmed past winners and finalists for this player will surface here.
Splits · Per-game
2025 season · 11 games
Home vs Road
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home6g | 1.8 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Road5g | 2.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Win vs Loss
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins4g | 1.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Losses7g | 2.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
First half vs Second half
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-75g | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Weeks 8+6g | 2.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
Pocket and defense-quality (clean vs. pressure) splits are coming soon.
Savant · Box-rate percentiles
Where this profile ranks vs the LB cohort
Concern: tackles for loss (28th).
Percentiles versus same-position peers with enough snaps this season, based on box-score rates.
Advanced Savant · LB · 2024
Advanced opponent-adjusted percentile bars are coming soon for this player.
Opponent-adjusted advanced metrics with a cohort filter.
Peer Comparator · Fingerprint match
Three closest profiles by box-rate percentile
Closest peers by overall box-score percentile profile at the same position.
Player DNA
Solid in every phase without a signature dimension.
His 2025 production profile sits closest to Tackett Curtis’s 2025 season.
Tackett Curtis
Evan Tattersall
Chris Russell
Grayson Metz
Kyle Beaudry
Matches Tackett on
Differs from Tackett on
Not enough data yet for this comparison.
As a senior, his production profile tracks closest to Roman Harrison's senior season at Tennessee (2023).
Roman Harrison
Chris Russell
Tyler Elsdon
Caleb Kibodi
Ronald Nunnery
Matches Roman on
Supporting Cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
Rich Rodriguez
Pass share
38.7%
327 pass / 517 run
Plays / game
70.3
12 games
OL sack rate (allowed)
10.7%
272 dropbacks · PBP
Scheme: Run-heavy.
Coaching Lineage · 2022–2025
3 coachesPlayed under 3 different head coaches: Neal Brown, Chad Scott, and Rich Rodriguez. Multi-era developmental context.
Off-field context — switch tabs to drill into recruit profile, transfer arc, or roster timeline.
No fields populated yet.
No fields populated yet.
Every honor on the ledger, broken out by stream and selector.
All-America, all-conference, player-of-the-week, watch-list, and postseason awards land here when they're earned. The absence is the signal: most players never collect formal honors, and that's its own kind of context.
Season-end distinction and week-by-week recognition on one timeline.
| Season | Honor | Scope | Team / Selector | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No formal honors on the ledger yet. All-America, all-conference, weekly awards, watch lists, and postseason trophies land here when they’re earned. | ||||
Modeled rank and official finish by season.
| Season | Team | Role | Latest Model | Forecast | Win | Finalist | Official Finish | Points | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Wyoming | LB4 | #12125 | #12863 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W16 snapshot | Mountain West |
| 2023 | Wyoming | LB4 | #9600 | #9986 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W19 snapshot | Mountain West |
| 2022 | Wyoming | LB4 | #8566 | #9406 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W20 snapshot | Mountain West |
| 2021 | Wyoming | LB4 | #11615 | #11264 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W20 snapshot | Mountain West |
Team, conference, and class by season.
| Season | Team | Conference | Pos | Class | Bio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | West Virginia | Big 12 | LB | 4 | No. 10 | 6-2 | 238 lb | Thornton, CO |
| 2024 | Wyoming | Mountain West | LB | 4 | No. 10 | 6-2 | 238 lb | Thornton, CO |
| 2023 | Wyoming | Mountain West | LB | 4 | No. 10 | 6-2 | 238 lb | Thornton, CO |
| 2022 | Wyoming | Mountain West | LB | 4 | No. 10 | 6-2 | 238 lb | Thornton, CO |
| 2021 | Wyoming | Mountain West | LB | 4 | No. 10 | 6-2 | 238 lb | Thornton, CO |