CompuDrew - My college football computer ratings

Do you want to know an intelligent, passionate fan's perspective on college football? Go somewhere else. In the meantime, here is my computer rating system (my next post will be about my completely reasonable playoff proposal--even Lee Corso is appeased).

CompuDrew - Andrew Ishak's computer ratings
This rating system is based on team record, strength of schedule (SOS) and conference strength of schedule. Margin of victory is not taken into account. Measurements I threw by the wayside: team honor, perseverance, handsomeness of quarterback, if the team likes to "just win", fight song, things written on eye black.

Here's the formula: ((Winning Pct+1) multiplied by (SOS/2 +1) multiplied by (Conference SOS/8 + 1)) all divided by 0.03

(I divided it by 0.03 to make the system look like it's out of 100; it's easier to digest that way. SOS is 2/3 opponents' winning percentage and 1/3 opponents' opponents' winning percentage.)


You might be asking: How can a conference like the Mountain West have a stronger SOS than the Big 12? At this point, the Big 12 has only had 15 or so in-conference games, and has beat up on Conference USA and FCS opponents, while the MWC has actually faced just as many BCS conference teams as the Big 12 has. As the season progresses, the Big 12 SOS will strengthen quite a bit.

Look for my completely reasonable playoff proposal coming soon.

Stats are for Losers?

I was playing with my daughter yesterday with the TV on in the background. I wasn't really paying attention to the screen. Hungry for college football content, I had TiVoed a Texas Longhorns Season Preview on Fox Sports Southwest. They had interviews with coaches mixed with footage of the 2008 season, so I was kind of paying attention when I heard head coach Mack Brown say "stats are for losers."

Yeah, LOSERS with their stupid stats. Losers are always whining about numbers as Sean Connery says in the edited-for-television version of The Rock: "Winners go home and date the prom queen."

My first though was: "stats are for losers" in what context? So I skipped backward to hear more. During the Longhorns' national championship season in 2005, Brown and his coaching staff told Vince Young--a major running threat--to not pass the line of scrimmage at certain times. They wanted him to use his arm, much like they want Colt McCoy to do now. But your quarterback is probably worried about his rushing stats, right?

"We do not care about stats. Stats are for losers. We care about winning the game."

Ah, okay, so it's not that he doesn't care for stats, it's that winning comes first. That's fine. I can see where he is coming from.

I love looking at stats, and I have a good memory when it comes to numbers, so I spend a lot of time thinking quantitatively about life. For instance, I remember that I was a disappointing 12 for 23 in slow-pitch softball this spring, but had 8 hits in 10 at bats in a summer tournament. I played catch with my daughter yesterday and she used her left hand to throw about two-thirds of the time (she is stronger with the left but has more control with the right). I have spent 5 of 11 weekends this summer outside of Texas. Stats help give me a more objective view at what has happened in my life. I have made a baby with 100% of my spouses.

Stats comprise knowledge. They guide our reasoning, and we use them to make decisions, and I believe that to be true for anyone from the highest levels of professional sports to the most successful businesspeople to me trying to improve my free throw percentage in a church league. To take the phrase "stats are for losers" at its face means that only losers use that knowledge.

I don't think Coach Brown meant it like that. I don't make 3.8 million dollars a year (with an additional 1.2 million dollar incentive for still being coach on January 15, 2010), but I do respect Coach Brown greatly so I am going to assume he meant one of two things. Either stats are a way to comfort losers after a loss, or stats are for losers given certain conditions. I will expand on the latter explanation.

Stats are for losers if their statistical goals get in the way of winning. The classic example of the conflict this can cause comes from incentivized salaries in team sports. Suppose Derek Jeter gets a million dollar bonus for ending the season with a .300 batting average or better (3 hits for every 10 at bats). Going into the last game of the season, he has a .300 batting average, having 180 hits in 600 at bats. The opposing pitcher for the game is Scott Kazmir, who Jeter is 4 for 33 (.121) against lifetime. Should Jeter play? If his statistical goal (and the bonus) is most important to him, then most people would say he shouldn't play because he is likely to dip below .300. Of course, Jeter would never do this for a multitude of reasons: he would incur the fans' and media's wrath for one, and Jeter seems like the kind of guy who is confident enough to believe he can get 1 hit in 3 at bats on the last day of the season. But might he be more inclined to look for a walk or sacrifice bunt, two outcomes that do not affect batting average?

Stats are for losers if context and variables are not taken into account. Let's say you move to a new city for a job. Your first few days at work, it has taken you an average of 45 to 60 minutes to get to your desk. So how long will it take you today? Before I even finish asking that question, you have probably processed three or four variables: day of the week, time of day, route, and parking (and, if you work at UT, how willing you are to risk a parking ticket). So let's look at those variables. It's Saturday, it's early afternoon, you'll take the same route, and parking should be easier because less people work on the weekends. But your job is in San Francisco and the Giants are playing an afternoon game. Those variables matter, because now it will take you 75 to 90 minutes. If you just looked at previous stats without thinking about the variables of this event, you would be banging your head against your steering wheel around the time you hit King Street.

This is my biggest frustration with using the points-per-game statistic, both on the individual and team level. Let's say a team leads their league in scoring per game. That's great, but you have to ask two contextual questions. First, who have they played? The opposing team is obviously a huge variable. UC Davis football almost led the country in scoring in 2000 but they were playing Division II teams almost exclusively; did they have a better offense than every Division I team? Second, what is their defense like? The Golden State Warriors were 2nd in the NBA in scoring this past season but it's partially because of a subpar defense that doesn't slow the other team down, therefore giving their own offense more chances and time to score. Points-per-game is a stat without context, which is why I prefer points-per-possession to evaluate teams.

Stats are for losers if they eliminate experience from the decision-making process.* The interesting thing about people who claim to hate stats is that they use them all the time, except they call it "experience" or "gut instinct." When a football coach decides on a running play on 3rd and 5 instead of a pass play, he is doing it for one of a multitude of reasons, but the reason will be based on the X times out of Y that he has seen it work in the past. Coach Brown didn't want Vince Young to run for first downs during particular games because...well, I don't know the reason, but it was probably something like: "Most of the time when we tell Vince it's okay to run, he doesn't look downfield" or "When Vince runs for first downs, he usually tires out too early" or "We are trying to teach Vince to be a better passer" because Coach Brown and his staff know that championship teams almost always have good passers. "Most of the time", "usually", and "almost always" are statistics. They are not precise, but they are statistics in a general form.

And this is why experience matters: we just don't know the numbers. I don't know what Heather wants for dinner tonight, but if I were to have kept stats during the course of our marriage, I would find that she almost always wants to eat out on Saturdays, and she wants Mexican, Thai, or Vietnamese--stats that I technically could have kept but didn't. But who knows how she is feeling today? Maybe when she is tired she tends towards one cuisine or the other. There are an infinite number of variables, some of which we just don't have the tools to measure yet, so we use our own past to fill the gaps. Experience is a substitute for unknown--or unknowable--data.

***

I'm already interested to see how the Longhorns season plays out: I'm a big fan, this should be a great season, and I have students on the team. But now I have another reason: Erin Andrews' halftime interviews with Coach Brown. "Coach Brown, your #1-ranked offense had two turnovers in the first half. How does that stat affect you?" "Erin, you know that as a coach I hate turnovers but I also think stats are for losers. So I think what you mean is: 'Our real good guys had a couple'a whoopsies in the early part goin' on.'"

See? He's still using stats, and I still love Coach Brown.




*Let me say that I don't think experience is not more important than statistical data. The biggest problem with using our own past experiences to understand future events is that we tend to rely only on our own experience. I'll give a personal example. I hurt my ankle a few weeks ago in California and wasn't planning on going to the doctor. See, I hurt my ankle once before doing the exact same thing I was doing this time, and two days later it felt fine, so why go to the doctor now? The problem was that I was relying on my own experience, which is a tiny sample size (n=1), and my own orientation towards getting professional medical help, which I would describe as "reluctant until bleeding".

I neglected two things. First, if I looked at the larger sample size of everyone (and not just experience with my own body), I would have realized that most people who cannot walk on their ankle because of the pain need to seek medical attention. I put my own experience ahead of worldwide medical statistics. Second, I used an experience from when I was younger, neglecting this annoying trend of aging one year for every year that I live. I was 23 when I hurt myself the first time, but now I'm 26. Maybe that's not a big difference, but I'm at the age now where my friends are starting to wear knee braces when we play basketball. The trend of aging probably played into the damage to my ankle this time. This is a very simple example that anyone can follow without a spreadsheet, but it's hard to pull out more complex trends without stats.

Live Blogging the Super Bowl

I've decided to live-blog the Super Bowl, as I'm watching the game here at home and I don't think my dad will appreciate my inane comments and questions too much. I'll be talking about the game, the announcing, the commercials, and of course, CBS's predictable use of hip hop songs during montages about Peyton Manning and Rex Grossman. If you are viewing this blog during the game, please hit your refresh button every few minutes. Enjoy! (all times Pacific)
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8:58 pm Pacific - Well, I gotta say that the game delivered more on its hype than the commercials did. Even though the game was sloppy, what with all the turnovers and everything, it kept my attention from start to finish. I'm glad Tony Dungy mentioned his Christian faith in his post-game speech--that type of openness about Christianity on national television (in this case, the most watched event around the world) is welcome anytime to me.

As for the advertising, I would give the best overall Superbowl campaign to CareerBuilder for their "Don't just survive the workweek" spots. That first animated spot for Coke was probably my favorite single commercial. As for the other advertising, I am disappointed that there was not more creative in-game stuff. Actually, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single non-commercial that was creative enough to turn any heads. Maybe it's because CBS is a little more traditional. FOX would have changed the shape of the football during all instant replays to look more like a Coke bottle. Couldn't you just hear Joe Buck saying: "This Super Slo-Mo FoxTrax Instant Replay brought to you by Coke. Coke: Everything Tastes Better With a Coke."

Tim McCarver: "The point of football is to score more points that the other team."

Peace out from my first live-blog.

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7:00 - Who will be the first Colts player to say: "No one believed in us!"? My guess is Bob Sanders.

6:58 - Congratulations to the Colts, 29-17! I was one Bears TD and one Colts negative safety from getting the score exactly right.

6:56 - Well, this game is pretty much over. Let the Tony Dungy praise commence. If someone poured Gatorade on me, I would drink it.

6:49 - It's stopped raining, and we're approaching the 2-minute warning here and the Colts have a 12-point lead. If the Bears can keep them from running right into the endzone, then they still have a chance. Oh, and Devin Hester has to run it back because their offense has been inept.

6:37 - Our TV just exploded. Figuratively of course. I think we missed a sweet Delay of Game call.

6:30 - Is Rex Grossman trying to make it rain with these super high passes? Because IT'S ALREADY RAINING REX.

6:28 - Phil Simms said that the Colts wanted to put the Bears in a situation that they are not good at, which is coming from behind. Really? It's a good strategy to be winning? Fair assessment, I guess.

6:21 - I really hoped Rex Grossman would play well today so everyone would get off his back, but that was a crappy pass. It was like a Hail Mary to the flats. Colts TD, 28-17, but there's a challenge.

It's close, but the review evidence isn't overwhelming. And my predicition goes out the window. Booger McFarland is happy.

6:11 - Commercial Break: Katie Couric, Pro Bowl, The Masters...three in a row for CBS shows. Probably all in 30 seconds, so I guess that's okay.

6:04 - I think if I was allowed to be an NFL player for a day, I'd be a nose tackle. Offensive playmakers (quarterback, wide receiver, running back) get hit too much--I'd get snapped in half. I could never cut it on the O-Line. I'm not fast enough to play cornerback or linebacker. Nose tackle would be just right, because if I got one sack, or just one tackle, I'd be pretty satisfied.

6:03 - I'm pretty sure Barbaro is rooting for the Colts. Chicago hits a FG, 22-17 Colts. Go Barbaros.

6:01 - I have a good feeling the Bears will do something good with this short field. Could be a tie game going into the 4th quarter.

6:00 - Still waiting for the first John Cougar Mellancamp commercial. This IS our country, by the way.

5:56 - Robert Goulet.

AND AN OLD T-MOBILE COMMERCIAL. COME ON PEOPLE. I'm tuning out when I see these things.

5:52 - Phil Simms just intimated that Dominique Rhodes is a great sixth man. I'm pretty sure Simms played quarterback for the Giants, and I'm almost certain they played with eleven.

5:47 - Rex Grossman looks ridiculous, flopping around, dropping the ball. This Taco Bell thing with the lions saying "Carne Asada" is annoying.

Hey Van Heusen! A clothes ad for a brand I actually wear.

5:46 - Booger just tackled Rex.

5:44 - I wonder if guys change their cleats at halftime so they can have longer spikes.

5:35 - I know this is old news, but how in the world did we ever watch football before Sportvision created that yellow first-down line? I still don't understand the technology behind it. I don't get how it stays in the same place when the camera moves, and how it can appear on top of the grass but behind a green Jets jersey. Someone please explain this to me.

5:21 - There have been A LOT of promos for CBS shows...I would guess about 20 during the first half. I wonder if CBS wanted to reserve all those spots, or if they really couldn't get their asking price for say, 5 more spots. The network has a ton of power in a situation like this; they can embed show promos into the game itself (which they have done a little of, but maybe not enough). A important factor in paying for the rights to an event like this is the ability to promote your own shows, but I wonder if it can be done better in CBS's case.

I wonder how many people will start watching Two and a Half Men because of the commercials. I won't.

5:10 - This is as good a time as any to fold my laundry.

5:05 - Halftime show. I never cared much for Prince, but there is a pretty ridiculous In Living Color skit with Jamie Foxx playing Prince, selling jeans. Find it on YouTube.

From the neck up, with that front-tying headscarf on, Prince looks like he shoud be cleaning someone's house right now. He just looks like he's ready to scrub tile or something.

4:53 - Who's running KPIX exactly? Our reception cut out during the Frito-Lay Black History Month commercial for the first time today. Conspiracy.

4:51 - I'm pretty sure the American Heart Association was telling me to eat another sausage sandwich. I'm very full.

4:42 - I know this is not the point of High Definition (yes, it needs to be capitalized), but inclement weather looks so much cooler in HD. I'm actually kina hoping this rain will turn into snow.

4:38 - Weird replay graphics, but I like them . I never understood why networks don't try out new graphics in earlier playoff games, but I guess most networks want people to go: "oh, I've never seen that before." Of course, using that logic, you could insert a digital Koala Bear onto Joseph Addai's head at the start of every play.

4:36 Non-HD commercial, American Heart Association? That commercial was so unclear on my TV screen that I'm not sure if I'm supposed to exercise more or eat a tub of Crisco.

4:34 - Touchdown, Colts, good extra point, 16-14. Really good game so far.

4:30 - In all seriousness, the "user-created" commercials for Doritos and Chevy disgusted me. Seriously. "Cleanup at the register"? Gross. Stop it.

4:28 - I feel like there have already been 10 punts in this game.

4:26 - Over/Under on people Tank Johnson will shoot if the Bears lose: 1.

4:25 - I now want to drink Bud Light because a white dog got mud splashed on it and now looks like a dalmatian.

4:17 - That animated Coke commercial was pretty awesome. It certainly got my attention without having to resort to showing cleavage (c'mon Go Daddy, you said your commercial was going to be different this year).

4:13 - One year in Davis, Brian and I brought our desktop computers into the living room so we could work while we wached the Super Bowl. I don't even remember who was playing.

4:11 - I'm pretty sure Cedric Benson was lying on the ground because he wanted a rest. He looks sleepy.

4:08 - This game has more turnovers than a pie shop! HiyOOOO! Take that Woody Paige.

3:59 - YES. A commercial with immigrants trying to speak English. That'll get me every time. Bood Light.

3:56 - I've already seen that commercial, Schick! I'm not watching this game to see things I've already seen. Garbage.

3:53 - Is there a better name in football right now than Booger McFarland? Maybe Poopie McGee on the Seahawks...

3:51 - Two fumbles in 15 seconds. It's sloppy in Miami! Shoulda held the game in Buttonwillow.

3:50 - Yes, you did just hear "The Final Countdown" by Europe. Funny FedEx commercial. Except for the fact that there would be gravity on the Moon.

3:47 - Touchdown, Colts! I missed it--Dad asked me to check if the cat had food. I did see that botched X-point though.

3:45 - Dad's prediction:

"31, Colts."
"And the Bears?"
"Less than 31."

3:43 - Never gave my pick: Colts 27, Bears 24. Or 25.

3:40 - By the way, I'm hoping there will be at least one commercial this year that actually says something awesome about the product, hence justifying the 2.6 million dollars spent. I mean, it's cool to go for the whole irreverent thing, but it doesn't make me want to drink Sierra Mist.

3:39 - Wow. Beard Combover. Fantastic.

3:34 - First Bud Light commercial features physical humor. Got a chuckle out of Dad.

3:30 - Sweet team intros. I like that we get to hear each players' voice.

3:27 - In a roundabout way, Phil Simms agrees with me. On a completely contradictory note, there goes Devin Hester. Touchdown. No one has ever returned the opening kick for 6 in the Super Bowl.

3:24 - The Bears fans seem really excited about winning the coin toss, which is actually not an advantage at all. It's like being happy that your team is first alphabetically.

3:19 - It's unfortunate that miltary flyovers are not that impressive on TV, because they are so exhilarating when you are in the stadium. I've seen a couple live, and they can take your breath away. I think it's because of the timing and spacing precision involved.

3:17 - Dude it's raining all over Billy Joel's piano.

3:14 pm - First commercial break after team introdcutions, and all the commercials are in HD. Very nice. One of them is for that Ghost Rider movie. Not so nice.