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Another flaw with the 4-team…

Another flaw with the 4-team playoff.  A top 15 finish with Lloyd was a good thing.  Preseason top 10 was a contender.  Caveat that Lloyd pretty consistently beat OSU before Tressel.  A 16-team playoff sets coaching expectations at a reasonable level.

Although whoever it was with the 10-team playoff idea a couple weeks ago, I was very intrigued by that.  That was a good line of thought.

Off the top of my head,…

Off the top of my head, Chris Perry and David Terrell also.

You are awesome.

You are awesome.

Cats don't murder people…

Cats don't murder people often.

Yeah, Dean Oliver invented…

Yeah, Dean Oliver invented the four factors.  It is pretty amazing to me how much what was originally a very nerdy concept and formula has penetrated popular understanding.

I did it once in Excel.  The…

I did it once in Excel.  The book I mentioned above (Basketball on Paper) teaches you how to do exactly that; BUT, it is a very complicated Excel formula.  If you read that book and understood Excel functions on an intermediate basis, (re: no coding experience necessary) you would know how to do it by the end of it, but again, one typo throws the whole thing off and formulas get crazy long. 

I was on adderall at the time and I would never have done so was I not.  Point blank.

But, in terms of a short answer like a website or something for D2?  I honestly don't.

But, it is entirely possible to do so with nothing more than box scores from their games.

Well, yes and no.  My point…

Well, yes and no.  My point is that offensive rebound is one of those stats where you can take one look at it and very easily, for example, ballpark OReb% to within an accurate range of what is happening.

At the end of the day, if you are an assistant coach on the bench and you look for 3 secs during a timeout and see you have 10 OReb and your opponents have 5, that is something you can feel good about... whereas defensive rebounds can be wildly misleading for the reasons you specified.

I'm just saying that's a simple stat that extrapolates very well in context.

Bielema is the one with the…

Bielema is the one with the Iowa logo tattooed on his calf, right?

HTX.  At least that's now…

HTX.  At least that's now anyway even though it's not technically where I'm from.  But that is very common in Houston.

Everyone hires search firms…

Everyone hires search firms.  It's what they do.  They dig up your old Facebook posts and make sure you have no Bobby Petrino issues.

But, I suppose if you are the current coach and they hire a search firm then the writing is on the wall lol.

To piggyback off of my last…

To piggyback off of my last comment (about Basketball on Paper, by Oliver), what it does that is primarily most beneficial is it teaches you how to determine from a simple box score how many possessions each team had during the game.  What that allows you to do - is narrow down things like per possession analysis and more specifically and perhaps useful, tempo analysis.

You know?  And it looks into things like what constitutes a possession - is an offensive rebound a new possession or a continuation of the last one?  Is a five second violation on an inbound pass a possession and how do we interpret that from the box score? 

But it does so less superficially, meaning rather than ask these questions for the purpose of debate it asks these questions for the sole purpose of mathematically determining the most accurate answer for the purpose of further analysis.

Basketball on Paper is the…

Basketball on Paper is the bible for basketball analytics departments.  It's by Dean Oliver.  I read it while studying Stat in a Dept. of Math postgraduate.

The book actually got him hired by the Denver Nuggets.  But this is the one that lays the foundation for a lot of what is reported today as 'advanced stats' and specifically how they are calculated.  By the end of it you would know how to actually calculate them in an Excel file, for example.

(It is very math heavy.)

Aside from that, a deceptively simple stat that is always meaningful is offensive rebounds.  But that is just an IMO.

Upside potential: the…

Upside potential: the offense figures its out, everyone stays healthy, the defense gets better, some leaders emerge and some youngsters do good things.  Also Dax Hill gets on the field and does some things because his measurables are simply Martian and you have to let someone like that play and learn from their experience to reach their full potential. 9 wins.

Downside potential: QBs get hurt, since we are very nearly at 0-depth level as it is, and we experience a true growth season.  7 wins, losses in rivalry games.

Baseline outlook: It's possible that both we are who we are afraid we were and Wisconsin is very good.  The writing was certainly on the wall, and one thing lacking is the idea that, yeah for as relatively decent as we might be and as bad as I think Gattis is, Wisconsin could just be a very good team on top of it.

True, and the spirit of this…

True, and the spirit of this thread is that right now it feels like the season is over, whereas if you had a 16-team playoff, as several others alluded to, you would have that one game (at the very least) at the end of the season that had all of the drama and heightened excitement that UGA-ND had last night. 

The point is that right now, for all but a few teams, the end of the season results in an exhibition game.  This sucks in a lot of ways.  For one, our fan base is considered one that "travels."  You could put a game on the moon and Maize and Blue would want to be in the stands, and certainly some would.

But right now, you have bowl games that change names every other year because of sponsorships and marketing, in which for all but a few, you get more of a Pro Bowl effort than something like what you got at the end of Carr's tenure against Tebow and Florida, let alone days of yore when bowl games really meant something.

So for now it is disproportionate.  I don't mean to turn this into a 16-team vs 8-team idea, but more to express the idea that the icing on the cake isn't very sweet at the end of the season when it's the Belk Bowl and everyone is sitting out.

A 16 team playoff would…

A 16 team playoff would establish a much more reasonable benchmark for a successful season for P5 teams than the current one, but we're a decade from that.

I agree with your premise though.  The bar is filthy high, and changing coaches every three or four years in a reactionary way perpetuates inconsistency, identity issues, so on.  In the past you could win a national championship by beating a 9-3 Pac-10 team in the Rose Bowl.  Now half the players who have sure money futures sit out all but the biggest bowl games. 

Fan bases demand better, as they should.  For college students today I think it can be hard to fully comprehend just how long it took for the BCS to come into fruition and how much resistance there was to it. 

Taking the question at face…

Taking the question at face value, the answer is no - the game has changed, and now there is a conference championship game as well as two playoff games, which are in fact three additional opportunities to lose.  Add that to the fact that only one (or historically two) teams can ever actually achieve that each year and, well, yeah my answer is bluntly and honestly no. 

Where is the person who…

Where is the person who mentioned Henne?  Someone did.  This is where I am.  What would Henne do with these receivers?

I laughed.  I honestly did.

I laughed.  I honestly did.

Be that as it may, by the…

Be that as it may, by the time he posts he will have watched the film many times more and intently than I have, will, or care to.  Hence my trust in his opinion.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT TURNOVERS?…

CAN WE TALK ABOUT TURNOVERS?  It's a bit of a problem.

To be fair, some people try…

To be fair, some people try to forget these things...

I appreciate this and I…

I appreciate this and I wonder whether this is the exception or the norm, something UFR should clear up.  My hunch is that it is closer to the exception but I am open to being proven wrong.

I think we should exhibit…

I think we should exhibit some class and congratulate them on that if in fact it is valid.  If not for all those wins in our winningest, we would never have became who were or are - depending on your mood today, I suppose.

Yeah, it isn't just that…

Yeah, it isn't just that Shea was chucking it into trouble... but the fact that Dylan has shown no noticeable difference passing seems to indicate Gattis just doesn't have a well-designed plan.

I'll revise if Brian sees something different since he watches this stuff intently and often I base my opinion on his, but watching it live it just felt like JV play calls and wishful thinking.

D-line has to get better. …

D-line has to get better.  Also Dax Hill, please.

Kittens are nice.  Puppies…

Kittens are nice.  Puppies are nice too.

I was not expecting 10…

I was not expecting 10 paragraphs when I clicked lol

This is where I'm at also. …

This is where I'm at also.  It just looks inferior.  WRs rarely actually open, etc.  One of my main problems with a tempo offense that tries to go lightning fast is that you lose the ability to own the clock.  It all comes down to whether or not you can outscore your opponent.  Ball control offenses end up dictating opponent play calls and themselves become an advantage for their defense in doing so, and that is my preferred mode of offense.

I'm fine with Harbaugh, and Michigan lost a ton of talent on D so my expectations were for them to regress more than a bit, but Gattis and this offense are turning into a liability... even before the turnovers are considered.

Playing Overwatch.

Playing Overwatch.

Nah, but Gattis can go.

Nah, but Gattis can go.