Showing posts with label Sooners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sooners. Show all posts

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Ranking College Football Programs - Discounted Win Percentage

[tl;dr - It is Ohio State, Alabama, and Oklahoma in the top 3 just about any way you cut it]

As the spring semester starts so too does the off season for college football. Inevitably this brings lots of prognostication for what is to come in the fall but also for a look back to assess the past--recent and long ago. With this are a million arguments about what are the greatest college football programs and who among the elite can claim Blue Blood status.

The website College Football News (CFN) says the best of them all is the Oklahoma Sooners. As much as I love that idea, I can see reasonable minds disagreeing. Undoubtedly any such lists will imply some hair-splitting considerations. What I really like about their approach is that it has a definitive methodology to it. It is not just some "experts" giving us their feel for the answers as if they could divine the truth free from bias. 

Of course all approaches will have bias. This would come in two varieties: assumption based and disposition based. One can create a formal algorithm (that is what I have done below) or one can derive a list from an informal algorithm weighing factors mysteriously within one's mind. While any method can be logically sound, generally speaking the less formal the process is, the more subject to bad reasoning or bad facts it will be. Assumption-based bias would be something like assigning too much weight to a certain factor. Disposition-based bias would be something like favoring a team for a reason not meaningful to the ranking itself.

Many attempts at this barstool debate are prone to bad math such as overcounting a metric since there will naturally be high correlation between commonly used measures (e.g., national championships and winning percentage). To prevent this, simpler is better if a simple approach can yield the desired effect. 

Back to CFN's approach, they use a very common and logical method, the inverse of the final AP Top 25 Poll each year to score teams. A first-place team would receive 25 points all the way through #25 receiving 1 point. Summing all the points by team creates the list in order. I do not disagree with their top 3 teams (OU, Alabama, and Ohio State), but the list can be criticized for its obvious shortcomings. For example, leaving out teams' scores when they finish just outside of the top 25 creates artificial distortion making it look like there is more separation within the list than actually exists. Of course there is no easy way to fix this. Additionally the AP poll is not itself without bias as some teams, especially those not typically perceived as being elite, may be systematically underrated. All of this makes this list, like so many others, subject to folly as one works down the list. Technically speaking our confidence in the outcome diminishes by an increasing degree from the top working down.

The CFN ranking is the "greatest programs of all time". As interesting as that is, it isn't necessarily what we commonly are thinking about when we seek to rank programs. Specifically, when we talk about the so-called "Blue Bloods", we are thinking of the best programs with emphasis to one degree or another on where they stand today. This opens up one additional criticism that this list and basically all lists like it suffer from: reverse-recency bias. Maybe we would term it "old-timer bias". This is the fact that these lists give equal weight to success in the distant past as they give to recent outcomes. And this is true whether they are derived from algorithms (assumption based) or expert opinion (disposition based). Of course many expert opinions can have the traditional recency bias problem (favoring the recent over the past), but often it is the traditional teams that get more love than they might deserve--I'm looking right at you Texas A&M and Michigan.

To get around this problem, I have created the model below. Borrowing from the foundational concepts of asset valuation where future cash flows are discounted back to present day (a dollar of earnings in ten years is worth less than a dollar today), I have created a model that gives more weight to recent performance than the same performance achieved in the past. 

Model

I believe the most straight-forward way to evaluate teams is the win-loss record. The only enhancement to this might be to include margin of victory*--a technique I have used and will update soon in an additional post. 

My model looks at each team's winning percentage by year and then discounts it by a factor for each year back it falls. So a win% in a given year would be worth less and less in the past the longer and longer ago it happened. Notice that I am using winning percentage so that basically there is no impact from the fact that teams play and have played a different number of games within a year and throughout the years--typically more games recently. 

I also have included a starting-year cutoff to stop counting results that are past a certain date, which is a changeable variable in the model (see below for the link). Even though a discount factor makes the past less and less valuable in assessing a total score, it might be that football changed so fundamentally we don't want any results before a certain date and the discount factor necessary to otherwise achieve this would be too big--it would make results fade away from importance too quickly.

For me the discount factor I settled on was 4% with a cutoff date of 1946. My reasoning was at a 4% discount rate a 100% win percentage season 18 years ago would be worth only about 50% today--the factor cuts it in half. 18 years is the typical age of an incoming college freshman football player--so there is some relevance, maybe, to the people playing the game.

My starting-year cutoff is 1946, which has historically been marked as a beginning point of college football. However, as I've said before, I am not sure how valid that is. One-platoon football was the rule in most of the 1950s and into the 1960s. Furthermore, racial integration into college football did not meaningfully arrive until the 1970s. 

These choices of discount factor and starting-year cutoff are both very arbitrary, but you see there is some logic to them. Importantly, the results do not seem to be sensitive to reasonable changes in either the discount rate or the starting-year cutoff date--the top three remain the same no matter what reasonable parameters are used.

One additional limitation this model has is that I did not look at all college football teams in creating it. Yet this is not the problem it may seem to be at least at the top end of the list (yes, this is of the same type of criticism I made of the CFN list above). Because I had to calculate from raw data the annual winning percentages of each team in the database, I limited it to the top 30 teams in winning percentage over the past 50 years (1972-2021). So, to be sure there are teams that with certain discount factors used (high ones) would find themselves otherwise in the list but are excluded. But this is quite limited to the very bottom of the list. Sorry Oklahoma State, your recent success would not get you very high in this ranking even if you had been good enough to make the list (OkState is 31st in win% over the 1972-2021 timespan for teams that were in D I-A (now FBS) football the entire time). Which brings up another team excluded, Boise State. They have had phenomenal winning teams since joining top-level college football in 1996. I made the decision to disallow them because of this limited time in the sample (the strength of their historic schedule might be another reason). 

Some Results

Using a discount factor of 4% and a starting year of 1946:


Using a discount factor of 4% and a starting year of 1972 (last 50 years):


Using a discount factor of 4% and no starting-year cutoff (all years included):


Using a discount factor of 0% 
and no starting-year cutoff (all years included):


Check out the model for yourself including changing the parameters as you see fit. Here are some of the results given a few parameter choices.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M-3q6zWtTAyCFDHEuU5z3eA6jIwRplxq/view?usp=sharing 


*MoV isn't completely stable over time, a potential criticism of that model, but since it has tended to increase in the past 50 years, I believe there is some natural recency premium built into that model. Regardless, it would be interesting to add into it a discounting factor, which I will do before publishing the updated results.

Friday, August 7, 2020

What To Root For

In late summer every football fan begins to dream about the season to come with aspirational hopes for one's team and general excitement for what autumn will bring. That is every normal late summer. 

But this is 2020. So, here we go. 

I am torn as to what I should want to see happen. On the one hand I do not think cancellation of the season is the prudent choice from a health perspective. I would rather see options kept alive as the developing situation continues to play out. And this is strengthened by two underlying convictions as controversial as they may be: the health risk is generally minimal and people should have the liberty to choose for themselves what risk they wish to face. 

Note that there is a wide gulf between being completely back to a regular football season and no football season whatsoever. Minimal fans with abundant spacing and many other procedures can be a prudent compromise. No fans initially with potentially many or full fan attendance later in the season is also a possibility (keep your options alive). 

The pandemic is not completely understood, but we know A LOT more about it today than 6 months ago. And we are a lot further along all the curves including toward herd immunity. In just about every action we take we are potential externalities for our fellow man. And do remember that those run in both flavors (positive and negative externalities) and to many varying degrees. Magnitude matters. 

Are we so certain that this disease is too misunderstood, too deadly or otherwise too harmful, too contagious, and simply too terrible for people to make their own choices about exposure? For many people the answer to that question is yes, which raises interesting questions about many other activities and diseases. I do not believe the evidence supports this point of view. If we cannot have football in any manner, then how different should the rest of our lives be? Trust me, I know how some are willing and eager to answer that question. 

My threshold for the use of force is much higher than that. Like Bryan Caplan, "I accept a strong presumption in favor of human liberty. You cannot rightfully shut businesses and order people to 'stay at home' out of an 'abundance of caution'. Instead, the burden is on the advocates of these policies to demonstrate that their benefits drastically exceed their costs..."

Who am I to say an elderly man living with terminal cancer should not come to a football game? I am referring to a specific, very devoted fan and personal friend. I believe he should have the freedom to make that choice. I am a strong believer in freedom, fair dealing, and justice. 

Deciding for others is an invitation for injustice. Unfair bargaining is a method of unfairly restricting the freedom of others. All of which brings me to the other hand . . . The players.

The general data for the typical college age-person shows very low health risk associated with COVID. While particular individual players very certainly have underlying conditions or other circumstances like close contact with at-risk people, most do not. For those that do, accommodation and excuse from the risk is very much the right thing to do. 

It is not the player's health risk per se that I believe gives rise to an "other hand" concern, but rather it is the general injustice of players not being compensated with the added burden of a health concern bringing this disparity into sharp relief. 

Most people when confronted with this idea ask the wrong question--"Why should we pay players?" The correct question is the opposite--"Why should we NOT pay players?" The default presumption in a free society is that people should be paid for their labor. If you want the services of another person, you should expect to do so by reaching a mutually agreeable arrangement.

"But the players have agreed to play, and they are paid. Haven't you of scholarships?" is the typical response. That response is as wrong as it is common. That "agreement" is made repeatedly in a very one-sided deal between the individual player on one side and a very powerful buyer of services on the other--college universities. These colleges act in concert under the rubric of a pure cartel organization--the NCAA. This is not a pejorative, emotional charge nor is it name calling. It is a very well established factual depiction. And the power and extent of the NCAA is supported explicitly and implicitly by government action at every level. This shouldn't be a surprise as cartels do not withstand the inevitable forces of competition and free markets without state support.

As a cartel the NCAA and its member institutions conduct themselves as a single buyer of college athlete services--the technical term for this is monopsony. This affords them considerable economic power and leverage, which they use to enforce an arrangement that is very good for themselves at the expense of the athletes. The reason why college football and basketball programs are limited to what they can provide athletes is because doing otherwise would unleash that terrible scourge upon the Earth unto the halls of college sport purity--the free market with its evil property rights and competition. More specifically, the athletic departments and universities and all those who individually benefit financially from the current arrangement would have to share. 

The most succinct way to explain why athletes are not currently paid what they are worth is to simply ask why would NCAA regulations on what athletes can earn be necessary if they were currently earning their market wage. The more detailed way is to do the economic analysis as sports economist Dr. David Berri among others have done repeatedly

About those scholarships . . . There are two very strong arguments against the common refrain that they’re getting a college education. The first is that that college education is something they could attain anyway and do so with little to no expense. Most of these players would be eligible for need or merit-based scholarships as well as grants that would cover the cost of college. The second is that that college education is in fact not worth very much to many of them. For many people college is not the right decision. We push way too many people through the college system inside and outside of sports. For many a different route through trade school or other education or flat out immediate pursuit of a job would be a better option.

There are many other bad arguments made in defense of the system that we know. These include:

What will happen to the schools who can't afford to pay? and This will just mean that football ends at many places and only the biggest programs will survive. While a radical change may and probably will result in a lot of disruption, the market is more dynamic than its opponents' imaginations. Plenty of room exists for true amateur and other types of football aside from a professional college league. And it is very wrong to assume that Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and other blue bloods in football as well as Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, and other blue bloods in basketball would benefit from a world where direct, open payments were able to be made to players. These programs benefit the most from a limit on the very important competition dimension of wage compensation. Alabama does not hurt for the top talent in football. Paying players would be a pure expense for them with little to no incremental benefit. Oh, and are you soooooo sure players aren't already being paid in many cases. Black markets of illicit payments to athletes are alive and thriving in this world of prohibition. And they do so with all of the horrible consequences associated with black markets.

How will they be paid? Will it be a free-for-all? Will players make different amounts? I don't know and I don't have to solve this problem to be correct about much higher compensation being the rightful world to strive for. I don't know how much the local grocery employee should make. I don't know how much the CEO of Exxon should make. Hell, I am not quite so certain about how much I should make. The market is a marvelous process that reveals this knowledge to us and constantly refines it. Let the market work.

No one wants to see college kids make that type of money. While this is not true as professional sports, entertainment in general, and many other areas of life attest--IT DOESN'T MATTER. An unfair deal is not made fair because a beneficiary (direct or indirect) prefers it. 

They aren't worth that much. Supposing you have ignored the vast research in this area including that referenced above, let me give you a simple example using a different sport as this will also defeat some of the false arguments that relate to worries about other sports and athletes. At my favorite university, The University of Oklahoma, Patty Gasso is an extremely good coach of the extremely good OU softball team. Coach Gasso makes about $1.2 million per year for her services. Of her many talents, two of them relate directly to athletes--recruitment and player development. So I ask, how good do you think Gasso's OU softball team would be if she were required to randomly pull her players from the pool of all female OU students and how well would the team do if the women selected to play were redrawn at random before each game? More to the point, how much would Coach Gasso be paid in this hypothetical? To the degree players add value above random replacement we get some idea about the added value talented players bring and are worth.

Title IX completely disallows this in fact or in economic result. This is Myth #6 in economist Andy Schwarz's 13 Excuses, Not Reasons: 13 Myths About (Not) Paying College Athletes

There are other bad arguments. Many play upon our biases and jealousies. These too must be called out for what they are. Two wrongs don't make a right. Frustration that there are great rewards for great, rare talents is common but unjustifiable. There is no reason or virtue in adhering to the rules of the past when those rules are revealed to be wrong for today.

Simply put, any argument justifying the current arrangement must address the central question--why should we NOT pay college athletes.

If ever there were a season to make a change, this is it. Beyond the pandemic and all the economic and health disruptions, we of course are in the midst of an opportunity to take a major leap forward in the name of justice. Perhaps 2020 will eventually come to be remembered as the year when significant racial progress started. When old institutions were challenged and remade. When we realized it doesn't just have to be this way because it has always been this way. 

This is another example of my theory that the pandemic has accelerated already present trends. In this case we may be witnessing some version of the universities of the Power 5 conferences separating themselves from the NCAA and beginning of the dissolution of the NCAA cartel. Let us hope a new cartel does not rise in its place. My optimism for change is tempered and I know that any new result will be with its flaws. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't forsake progress for the fear or even the certainty that change will be flawed.

Perhaps a lost season is not required. Compromise with true pre-commitment to reform could be a way out. Let the universities call the players bluff, but also let the universities come back to the table with solutions. Make them put up contractual commitments, earnest money, and public promise of specific and explicit change. The road map at this point of the journey is quite blurry and very undecided. The most we can expect is to have a destination, boundaries for the eventual route to be found, and a burning of the bridge of retreat once the journey begins.

That is what I am rooting for.

I stand with the players. 

Friday, June 5, 2020

Bargains Not Available


Just a little exercise in futile thinking (aren’t we all doing a bit of that nowadays?). I would swap these if I could

My rough rules on these were that they have to be relatively equal in stature and be games that I experienced—either agony of defeat or thrill of victory. 

I would lose this . . .                                                        To win this . . .
OU vs KU 1995                                                                  OU vs KU 1988
OU vs OSU 1988                                                                OU vs Boise State 2007
OU vs Texas 2018                                                              OU vs Georgia 2017
OU vs Texas 1996                                                              OU vs Texas 1984
OU vs Nebraska 2010 & OU vs Alabama 2014                      OU vs Florida 2009*
OU vs Auburn 2017 & OU vs Texas 1993                              OU vs LSU 2003*

*As they all could be argued, I would admit these are the most arguable as unfair trades.

Friday, October 25, 2019

What Do Weddings and College Football Have in Common?

Besides not going together as in: do not schedule your wedding in conflict with an OU football game and expect me to attend (the wedding).

Weddings, sporting events, and so much more are all subject to alternatives for the audience. And that competition is demanding that average is over.

Consider weddings first. They have to be getting more and more expensive and outlandish just to keep up--not just with each other but with the opportunity costs for the guests. The explicit cost of attending a wedding is time, travel, and gift. Since there is no admission fee to reduce, the only way a wedding can become more attractive is along the quality dimension (differentiation). In the extreme think about trying to get people to attend a Manhattan wedding. Of course it would have to be fabulous! The opportunity cost for guests would simply be too high to allow otherwise.

Now consider sporting events. They face opportunity costs from far substitutes (other leisure and non-leisure activities) and near substitutes (watching the game at home or a friend's house on a giant high-definition TV with no traffic, weather, cheaper food and drink, etc.). Sporting events do have admission fees which means these competitive forces are at work making college football et al. choose a strategy of differentiation (high quality, value-added experiences for select audiences) or low price (mass market to fill enormous venues). Over the long-term the latter strategy probably is suboptimal if not outright unfeasible given competitive pressures and expense demands. It might all become various first-class seating only at the highest levels of various sports.

Thinking back to weddings, people don't need the superficial opportunity to stay in touch that weddings once offered. Social media now provides this. With sports feeling like you are there and a part of it can be closely simulated through viewing on TV, interacting with others via social media or texting, and all the other media/internet follow up.

This goes a long way to explaining the wedding-industrial complex I pondered previously.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Ranking College Football Programs - 1970-2018

It is about time that I updated my previous work on ranking college football programs.

Recalling the methodology from before, I am attempting to answer who's better, who's best. I am limiting the data set to my generation (1970 through 2018) because it happens to coincide with what I believe is the modern era of college football. To rank the teams I use average margin of victory. Opinions could differ, but who are you to criticize? Join together with your like-minded brethren to create your own list. Just be objective rather than try to fool us again with some anyway, anyhow, anywhere to make your team come out on top.

The results are below and the spreadsheet with the full analysis is here.

Since 1970:


Since 1998 (BCS and College Football Playoff era):


Since 2014 (College Football Playoff era):


Tuesday, January 22, 2019

The Best Defense is . . .

The game of football has changed in the couple decades in a fundamental way. Nowhere is this more acutely witnessed than in the college game. And perhaps no team more demonstrates the odd juxtaposition than the Oklahoma Sooners.

Last year Oklahoma had a very poor defense looking at the traditional statistics. While these do not outright lie, they also do not tell the full picture. Oklahoma played in a league with very good and innovative offenses. And Oklahoma itself had one of the all-time great offenses last year. Their yards per play and points per play, to name just two meaningful statistics, were at near record levels. Keep in mind that historically most teams who have touched the type of numbers Oklahoma put up last year did so playing lower-tier opponents. In contrast Oklahoma played in one of the tougher conferences (those who find this to be a controversial statement ignore results and are caught up in old-world expectations of what football "should" look like), and they competed in the college football playoff against an exceptionally good Alabama team. The Oklahoma offense was Platonic while the Oklahoma defense was non-Platonic beyond all recognition.

While the Sooners are the extreme case, this combination of great offense and bad defense (albeit not necessarily on the same team) is a growing phenomenon throughout the sport. Teams with "old-world" offenses fail to reach the pinnacle within their leagues cough...Michigan... and teams with "old-world" defenses such as, sadly for me, Oklahoma look like two entirely different teams between when they possess the ball and when they do not. This resulted in Oklahoma parting ways with its defensive coordinator, Mike Stoops, after a disappointing loss to Texas mid season (in case you don't know, firing a coordinator mid season in what is otherwise a very promising season is a very rare event). After scrambling to fill the gaps to finish the year, Oklahoma has cleaned house bringing in a promising and perhaps innovative group to run the defense.

So far this is just me discussing my rather unremarkable and unoriginal observations. While I absolutely do not claim to have the answers, I think I do have an advanced framework for discovering the solution. Here we go...

To restate the premise: Defensive strategies and tactics desperately need to evolve since offenses have evolved at a much more rapid pace and in a more dynamic way for some time now.

Defense has a chance to catch up before offenses figure out that they don’t have to punt every time on 4th down. If offenses figure that out and continue to innovate in other ways, defenses are screwed. Case in point, offensive production is up remarkably over the past 19 seasons (2000 vs 2018). Across all FBS-division college football teams the average production is up meaningfully in the categories of yards per play (11%), points per play (14%), and points per game (12%). Maybe it is too late for defense?

Assuming this is not a lost cause, let's focus on a solution. The key is to be disruptive. Yes, that has always been the key. It’s just that the strategy of how to achieve that has changed over time. Back when running the football was the dominant offensive strategy, defenses needed to try to limit offenses to about 3 yards per play. Achieving that play in and play out is much more difficult today. Limit an opponent to a gain of 2 yards twice in a row (creating 3rd and 6), and you just don't feel like down and distance is on your side. A crude but probably telling stat: In the 2000 season just 10 teams went the season averaging gaining over 6 yards per play. In 2018 46 teams did.

Defensive strategy seems to have fallen into a losers games where defenses are trying to be very safe and limiting every play relying on the offense eventually making a mistake. "Just don't get beat deep..." goes the saying. The problem is offenses don’t take as many iterations (plays) to score as they used to, and they are more explosive. Hence, they don’t need to be as steadily productive as they did in the past.

Defensive strategy has to shift the probability back in its favor. The key is to increase volatility which increases disruption. If you will more likely eventually give up a score (and this is increasingly the case for all teams in nearly all situations), you might as well give it up right away having taken a big chance to stop it. Simply put: Just get the ball back--create failure or fail fast. Second and 11 is not as difficult for an offense to overcome as it was in the past. Likewise, defenses need to realize that second and 2 is not as bad a position to be in as it once was. Defenses need strategies and tactics that increase the probability of turnovers and tackles for large losses at the cost of increasing the probability of giving up meaningful offensive yardage gains and scores. The defensive mindset needs to begin with the assumption that everything is four-down territory--don't assume an offense will punt except in the most dire of positions.

A critical next step is to think terms of making an offense have as difficult a time scoring as possible regardless of what they do in trying to score. Defenses need to push offenses into making high-risk, low-reward decisions. Lowering an offenses chances of success is not entirely enough. Defenses must make offenses choose lower payout expected values. Think about an analogy with basketball. If defenses had their way, they would make offenses shoot every shot within a zone that is within about 0-5 feet inside the three point line. What is the football equivalent?

The most disruptive defense one could imagine from an NFL fantasy lineup would perhaps be the five best pass-rushing defensive linemen and six players among the strongest defensive backs or fastest linebackers. Notice that I am not saying the best run-stopping defensive linemen or the fastest defensive backs (cornerbacks or safeties) or the biggest linebackers. This group is going to blitz (send a disproportionate number of players rushing toward the quarterback) nearly every play. The remaining players are going to attempt to shut down the quarterback's options. What would it look like in result? Lots of small yardage given up, painful amounts of big plays given up, but all at the benefit of relatively many great defensive outcomes (turnovers, big yardage losses, etc.). Of course, that is a fantasy team. But perhaps we can get close to that by selecting for players in those molds and for plays in that fashion. Consider an analogy from baseball. There is a reason The Shift has become very popular--it shifts leverage in favor of the defense in a number of ways.

Why so aggressive--blitzing and otherwise? Start by thinking about how a defense is going to stop various types of plays used against it. Consider the most impactful offensive play, a deep pass down the field for either a touchdown or a very large gain. The first, best way to stop the play is to prevent the quarterback from throwing it in the first place. The second, best way to do it is to stop him from throwing it well while at the same time disrupting the receiver running the route. The third, best (worst) way is to have a defensive back covering the receiver being thrown to attempt to break up the play at the point of the catch. This holds not just for the deep pass but for all passes down the field. And by extension of the logic it holds for all plays.

Think about a running play. Where does the defense most want to attempt to stop a run? At or before the runner even begins, which would be in the offensive backfield. If the runner gets free for 9 yards as compared to 8 yards, the difference is very minimal. If the runner goes for 20 yards or 15 yards, again the difference is minimal. I am not saying it is not a big deal to give up large rushing plays. I am saying a combination of negative yardage running plays (-1 to -4, say) and positive, larger yardage running plays (9 to 20, say) is preferable to consistently yielding 3 to 8 yards each run. Don't try to make the offense fail small each down. Just one large failure (a turnover or a big loss on 3rd down or a big loss on 1st or 2nd down greatly reducing the offense's play options ) would be enough to allow the defense to win the drive.

The essence of my philosophy is a shift in the risk/reward and, hence, outcome dispersion for each defensive play and set of plays in a drive. Great defense should be torturous to watch for both teams' fans. For the offense and its fans it will look unpredictable and threatening--at any moment it might end the drive. For the defense's fans it will look unpredictable and haphazard--at any moment it might give up a score. Note the classic fan pessimism at play in both cases.

I admittedly do not have all the answers for how difficult it is to coach defense in football today. I just am on the lookout for the next innovators who I think will employ strategies and tactics very different from what has worked before. 

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Epilogue: The State of Sooner Football

Seven months ago to the day a new era in the storied history of Sooner football began. I posted about it here. This first season has ended. Here are my impressions.

By all measure and accounts it was truly magical. But it came up just short of being Sooner Magic; although, this was as close an example as there can be.
Obviously, the ultimate outcome is unfortunate. But time will heal the still fresh wounds (wounds that we receive a bit of salt tomorrow evening as I watch Georgia in OU's stead battle Alabama for the national title).

I would rate the season as a short-term failure (we had every right to believe we would win it all but we did not) but a long-term strong success (we won a conference championship, competed very well for a national championship, won a Heisman trophy among others, and made numerous, forever-memorable moments to add to the Sooner legacy).

My prior post made mention of a needed ingredient to achieve the level of success Sooner football demands: luck. The Sooners this year did not have much luck. Balls did not bounce their way either proverbially or literally. I wouldn't say they were unlucky, but they didn't get the breaks going their way either. Yet, they still achieved all that they did. Quite impressive.

Maybe it was Sooner Magic, but it a more subtle way. Baker Mayfield is the embodiment of Sooner Magic. He overcame repeated doubt; he had the style, swagger, and toughness of The Boz; and in the end he has the resume few will ever dream of. No one will ever again label him a pretender.

A fabulous season, it was all done too soon.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The State of Sooner Football

About nine months ago I began writing this post in rough form following a pair of painful and disappointing losses to begin the 2016 Sooner football season. I refined it a bit about midway through the season, but as prospects were improving, I put it back on the shelf not wanting to post something that seemed too critical during a season-comeback effort. The post is more about the long run trend than the short run noise (good or bad). With today's news it seems appropriate to consider the thought experiment...

Bob Stoops has chosen to retire. His contributions to OU have been tremendous. I am and always have been a very strong fan and supporter of Stoops--at times perhaps an apologist. I will miss him being on my team's sideline. He reawakened The Monster. He was an innovator. On the field and off the field he pursued and achieved excellence. Looking back at his tenure it is easy to pine for what could have been. But the fair reflection would be to consider that it is only because of what did happen are we as fans in a position to regret what could have been--his leadership brought OU to such heights that we could see mountain tops yet to climb. [sappy but true]

Here is the post I originally started last football season; the strong finish to the 2016 season, sadly Bob Stoops last, caused me to revise my priors somewhat...

Starting with the premise that OU's expectations of championship-level football have not been met during the last 8 years (2009-2016); what is the explanation? 

Make no mistake about it, the past 8 years have been at a VERY high level of success--what 95% of teams would consider completely satisfying and what >50% of teams could never dream of: 
  • 81-24 overall record--77%.
  • 5-3 bowl record (bowl game every year including 4 major bowls).
  • 1 national championship competed for (lost to Clemson in semifinals).
  • 4 conference titles; competitive (my view) 5 of 8 years (50%!!! but against a debilitated league).
  • Record breaking performances by both the team and individuals including several players competing for top national awards--the Heisman among them. (My views on the Heisman reflect why this is an after thought in this list.)
Yet the prior 10 years were stronger: 
  • 109-24 overall record--82%.
  • 4-6 bowl record (bowl game every year including 7 major bowls).
  • 4 national championships competed for (won against Florida St.; lost to LSU, USC, and Florida).
  • 6 conference titles; competitive 9 of 10 years (60%!!! against a very tough league)
  • Even more record breaking performances and quite a few more awards won including two Heismans, FWIW.
The records are both great and quite close except for the nuance that OU's contention for titles (national and conference) was much stronger. 

So, given the premise, I can think of three possibilities and two alternatives:

1. The Sooners have simply been unlucky the past 8 years.

2. They were lucky in the beginning of the Stoops era (the first 10 years before the last 8 years) and the ability to reach OU's lofty expectations simply was never there.
3. They were up to fulfilling expectations at the beginning of the Stoops era but now they have faded in capabilities (the game as passed them by).

Alternatively we could say:

4. The premise is bad because they actually have been competing at a championship level--just less completely as might be possible/desired (i.e., too few championships achieved).

5. The expectation was faulty (i.e., they shouldn't expect to compete at a championship level).

I hope for 1, fear 2, and slightly suspect 3, but I highly suspect 4 and strongly reject 5. That puts me in possibility 1 assuming the premise and alternative 4 if I can question it.

Assuming the premise, my guess is about 70% of all Sooner fans fall into possibility 1, about 10% fall into 2, and about 20% fall into 3. But these answers would have been significantly different if looked at right after the loss to Ohio State and a 1-2 start to the 2016 season.
 
Allowing for the alternatives, I would then guess that the assignment of Sooner fans would be about like this:

Possibility 
% of Fans
1
50%
2
7%
3
18%
4
20%
5
5%


The fans that don't jump from possibility 1 to possibility 4 once we allow the questioning of the premise probably have unrealistic expectations--they think their team should ALWAYS win. I am tempted to dismiss these folks as fans who think the winning team "just wanted it more". I am tempted to dismiss fans who jump to possibility 5 (presumably from possibilities 2 or 3) as fans who would be happier rooting for a much lesser team so as to increase the emotional gain from a win and decrease the emotional pain of a loss (i.e., no true Sooners).

All fans will make their own evaluations over the course of the Lincoln Riley era, though, probably not with the formality I bring to the matter. And the measure will be how does that era match up to all 18 amazing years under Stoops. I wish Bob the best and thank him for the happiness he brought me as a fan.

I wish Lincoln luck. I fully expect that he has what it takes to keep the Sooners' status as a contender, but satisfying The Monster takes more than ability. It takes luck.

Boomer Sooner!

Thursday, January 1, 2015

2014's Resolution Fulfillment

It is time again to check on how I did in fulfilling my annual resolution. One word: success. Let me explain exactly how I mean.

Ever since the first skybox suites were installed in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, I've held steadfastly that they were not for me. My time as a student (7 years) solidified this belief as I wanted to feel and breathe the atmosphere. And even as a graduate, I continued for a season to sit among the students before migrating back to the upper-west side stands 14 years ago (the area in which I sat before college going back to the age of about 7).

While the upper-west seats were a bit sterile after my days in the student section, they were still in the elements of both weather and populace. Upgrades in recent years to include new, more glamorous suites did not sway my belief. It wasn't about a rejection of luxury per se; it was somewhat about staying true to the experience (I might as well be at home for being in a suite) and a lot about NOT being like or around those in the suites. On this latter point, there are three facets.

The first problem is these people tend to be snobs. This is perhaps the biggest single issue I have with the suites. The second problem is my perception that those in the suites don't actually watch the game much. It is easy to become distracted by the booze and the food and the conversation. The people in the suites might as well be at some pool party.

The first two problems relate to the third problem. Being in them is like playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up. You cannot have alcohol in the stadium at OU. In fact there are strict rules about alcohol throughout the publicly-owned, state university. But you can have it in the suites. So the guy sitting in the blazing heat or blistering cold can't have a beer, but the guy asking the attendant to adjust the thermostat can sip a bourbon.

Getting back to the resolution--what has changed? As surprising as it was for me, at some point this football season I reversed my position on where I would prefer to sit. This change of heart was gradual at first and then sudden in completion. To be sure I was not seduced by the lure of even better improvements to come. In fact there are perhaps as many amenities for the regular seats as their are for suite people in the latest plans. And it is not just that I can see the advantages of suites; I would actually prefer to be in one under certain conditions. Namely, those conditions include I don't have to endure the problems I still have with suite people.

But just as I don't want to associate with my stereotypical view of who frequents a suite, I have grown quite tired of being around the typical fan. So basically I want to watch a game in person with people of my choosing. What has soured me on those in the stands? One word: ignorance. I am tired of the following (to be sure, I have been guilty of each of these myself at one time or another):

  • People who think the other team and their fans are evil, dumb, undeserving, rude, or any other negative quality rather than basically equivalent to themselves as a whole and on average. 
  • People who indignantly and vocally question every thing short of perfect success.
  • People who don't know the rules of the game--to a ridiculous fault. You do not have to be an expert, but appreciate what you don't know.
  • People who always think they are getting screwed by the refs.
  • People who think good coaching consists of yelling, getting mad, "giving them a good butt chewing" at halftime, etc.
  • People who think that good player play includes never fumbling (the ol' try harder approach to solving a random phenomenon), never being out-manned or out-talented, and perfection in all its many other forms. 
  • People who support concussions for players. Oh, they never say it that way. The way they express it is to become visibly irate when one of their players is flagged for an illegal hit. Apparently, dangerously injurious behavior is "part of football"--at least it is when one's own player is applying the hit.
  • People who cheer this. It is theft in the least, and it is potentially criminal negligence that could lead to severe injury or death. For the unfortunate person on the ground the impact would be about the equivalent of having a football thrown at his head at 70 miles per hour from a few feet away.
I could go on and on, but it would get even more petty and unfair. Perhaps it is not them; it is me. But regardless it seems that after 176 home games attended in a row, I have changed my mind on where I would prefer to sit. Now to just come up with spare $100,000 a year or so to pay for my preference ...

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Ranking College Football Programs

If nothing else, sports enthusiasm is great for generating passionate debate about esoteric topics and hypothetical arguments. Within this realm lies the ever popular, hair-splitting activity of determining who is the greatest of all time. And college football is perhaps the most well attended of these masters of the universe feuds--for there can be only one.

You don't have to search for long to find many lists each with there own methodology. Here is one. Here is another. Here yet another. These all came from a quick Google search and all happen to have the Sooners at the top, but you probably can find lists with different results. 

Thinking about this topic myself but trying not to take too seriously any particular method of ranking (including my own), I have developed a ranking that is different from any I've ever come across. However, I believe it is more elegant and more defensible. My method uses historical average margin of victory to determine who's better, who's best. 

The reason this method may have a lot of credence is margin of victory (MoV) is a powerful determinant in predicting college football outcomes. In fact a simple MoV model adjusted for field neutrality can explain about 63% of the outcome in a typical FBS college football game. Keep in mind that this is not just predicting who will win but also by how much.*

So what did I do? Using the amazing data source from James Howell's page along with some supplemental data from the NCAA and College Football Stats, I compiled all the scores from all the college football games involving a Division I-A school for the past 43 years. Why start in 1970? Because that is when I started . . . but there is some foundation as that is around the beginning of the modern era of college football. Around that time saw the evolution of dynamic offensive strategies, the rise and proliferation of black athletes, the end of one platoon football (1966), and the beginnings of a more intrusive NCAA in the name of competitiveness. 

The results:

Since 1970, Nebraska is the clear leader. 


I include it through the top 26 since some would want to exclude Boise State from the rankings due to limited games played in the top level of college football.

Since 1998 (the BCS era):



Check out the workbook for yourself tweaking the constraints as you see fit. You can change the time period examined, the minimum number of games played to be included in the rankings, and the statistic you wish to sort by. 



*The out of sample prediction accuracy falls off some and the magnitude of the variance of outcomes matters such that the ability for such a model to beat Vegas (>~53% necessary prediction accuracy against the spread) is low (actual prediction accuracy ATS of between 51%-58%). 


Saturday, December 21, 2013

Put Me In Coach

I beat up on coaches a lot. More in conversation than in this blog in fact. I've done my share of armchair, from the bleachers, and Monday morning quarterbacking. Allow me to defend coaching a little and relate some economic concepts to the coaching profession.  I want to focus on college football coaches and to use Oklahoma's Bob Stoops in 2013 as a specific example, but this applies in large part to coaches at all levels and in all sports.

Flat out, coaches have a tough job. Yes, many are very, VERY well paid to do this job. Of course, many more are not. The job is tough because it is high-profile performance judged by a vast sea of people who have much less information and skills and who tend to approach the issue from an emotional standpoint. (Not me, of course; when I am yelling at my TV, it is because of my passion for reason and logical decision making.)

A coach has to balance between running an on-going training program while producing output that meets consumers' high demands. The training program is comprised of the gamut from relative beginners to high-value-producing experts (I'd call them professionals, but this isn't that blog post)--all of them thrown into the same "classroom".

Let me use the 2013 OU football team as an example of how coaches face issues involving asymmetric information, decision-making under uncertainty, skewed risk-reward payoffs, and management of public and intra-firm relations.

Throughout Bob Stoops' very successful 14 seasons as Oklahoma's head football coach he has either had a high-profile, all-star quarterback or an inexperienced newcomer who struggled not just when compared to his high-profile predecessor but also in absolute terms. 2013 was of the latter variety.

As Stoops sought to replace the 4-year record holder Landry Jones, he was evaluating the options with many backseat onlookers. The obvious choice to many was Blake Bell, the two-year backup. But in late August Stoops awarded the 2013 starting job to freshman Trevor Knight. When Knight stumbled some in early games, the natives including me grew restless for Bell to be given a shot. A combination of a bad first half and a slight injury gave the natives what they wanted in the West Virginia game, and Bell performed well. But then a few games into his starting role, Bell too fell into a malaise. The offense stumbled contributing greatly to OU's losses to Texas and Baylor. A little in and out substitution between Knight and Bell over a couple of games ended with Knight regaining the starting job for the Kansas State game (a victory) only to exit the role at half-time against OSU due to injury. Bell came in and played well if not better than Knight. Oh, and the formerly third-string sophomore Kendall Thompson was inserted before Bell replaced him in the OSU game.

To say this wasn't according to script is an understatement. But the script isn't actually written by fan dreams. It is an emergent process governed by both luck and coaching decisions. The coaching decisions are governed by a couple of underappreciated forces--uncertainty and asymmetric information. Coaches know a lot, and I mean A LOT, more than the rest of us. They see these players in practice and in games and in replayed videos of both. They interact with them. They also have a game plan and a complex strategy of plays to accomplish that plan. We don't know the plays, the formations, the game plan theories, or how well or poorly the players fit into them all. Add to that the complexity that combinations of players will imply different outcomes. Oh, and players are living lives all this time meaning they simply aren't the same in Spring of sophomore year as they are in December of senior year. Oh, and coaches are humans with biases and informational blind spots. They are operating in a cloud of uncertainty. We are in a fog orders of magnitude more dense than coaches are due to the asymmetric information.

And yet we judge them and will call for their heads if too many of their decisions turn out "wrong". Was Knight the right choice for Stoops to make in August? In September it seemed like the answer was no. In October and November it seemed more and more like the answer was probably yes. In one half of one game in December (n = .5 for statisticians out there) the best we could say was, "Looks like it was a toss up either way". It took us as onlookers an entire season to finally say what we should have been saying all along. To wit, "The coaches probably are making the best choice available, and that choice is still a guess".

"Coaches are paid the big bucks to make those calls and get them right!" you say. Well, yes and no. What is "get them right"? Right as judged by critics--media, fans, detractors, players, administrators, donors, parents, etc. Coaches have many masters. Effectively managing the intra-firm (i.e., players, assistant coaches, administrators, donors, some fans) relations along with the public (i.e., media, some fans, detractors, other team's coaches) relations implies they have interests that may conflict with simply maximizing the probability of long-term winning. Their risk-reward payoff matrix is skewed to a degree that is hard to appreciate. Balancing this well is an art.

Reflecting on the Sooners' 2013 season has humbled me and caused me to appreciate the coach's job(s). I don't think it is just because I view the season as a success with hindsight knowledge (it would be judged a failure from an ex ante point of view). Trying to put aside how a last-minute comeback victory over Oklahoma State makes me feel, I think I would feel that Stoops did a great job in 2013 win or lose that game.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Flooding the sports autograph memorabilia market

This past weekend was Meet the Sooners Day for the Oklahoma Sooners football team as the kicked off the start of fall practice. I would assume that this fairly common event throughout college football shares the same rules, which attempt to keep it child-focused. Those rules specify:
Each child may be accompanied by a maximum of one adult, but adults will not be permitted to submit items for autographs.
Each child may bring ONE item to be signed - no exceptions.
These rules are designed to keep Ernie eBay from having all the start players and coaches sign 15 items all to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. This leads me to some thoughts:

  1. Is the university or athletic department opposed to sports memorabilia? More specifically, opposed to a secondary market in sports memorabilia? Do they find it unhealthy, unwholesome, and this is a way to somewhat defund it? If so and setting aside the silly moralistic position, I think they are going about it the wrong way. I'll elaborate shortly but in another point because I find it unlikely this is the primary cause.
  2. I do think there is some highbrowishness supporting the motives, but I generally think it is a genuine and legitimate attempt to be mindful of the players' scarce time (minimally exploitative for a change) and direct the benefits to the most deserving group (children).
  3. Are the universities, athletic departments, and the NCAA missing a revenue opportunity while at the same time missing the best method to limit or control the secondary market? I think the answer here is a resounding yes. I think with two actions Meet the Sooners Day would be all about the kids without the rules needed to make it so. 
    • Organize a signing by the entire roster on a limited number of sports items to be sold through the athletic department. Johnny Manziel purportedly was paid $7,500 to sign 300 mini and regular-sized helmets. These would be "authentic, originally-signed" autographed items. 
    • At the same time take an electronic image of each player's signature. Use this to mass produce signed items. This essentially floods the market for signed goods taking away most of the impetus for others to duplicate these efforts.
  4. Of course these business actions might be a bridge too far making it obvious that a third action would be necessary to avoid charges of exploitation--give the players the proceeds of these sales.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Sports roundup: October 28th

Here is my take on a few sports results and sports-related news. From my perspective these are three stories of losing.

First the big one for me, Notre Dame defeated the Sooners last night yet again. I was very impressed by Notre Dame's game plan, execution, and grit. I was also "impressed" by the officials ability to call a questionable holding penalty on an OU touchdown, miss a pass interference call in a play that had an "interception", and then also miss after review that the ball clearly was trapped on the ground in that  interception. These were critical plays that could have changed the outcome. But I definitely recognize that the team that played better last night won the game.

Because they remain relatively untested for the rest of the season, it will be hard to assess to what degree ND is great versus to what degree OU is just above average. OU has played two very highly ranked opponents this year and underwhelmed in each case.

OU is now 1-9 against the Irish. It is interesting how a team can seemingly "have your number". Those of us at MM know that the number to have is sample size, and that is the key here. This small sample size just doesn't tell us much at all about how great and evenly successful both programs have been. The sample size being so small makes it very susceptible to selectivity bias. In this case some of that is opportunistic while most of it is pure chance. Notre Dame never played a Switzer team and they managed to avoid quite a few Wilkinson teams as well. They've only played Stoops twice catching the Sooners in relatively down years. OU and ND were supposed to play in 2000 and 2001, but it is my understanding that ND bowed out of those appearances.

I can relate to Notre Dame fans in ways I can relate to few programs' fans. They are a highly successful organization with the highest expectations year after year. That makes it hard when losses come. OU's season is now a bitter disappointment for me and most OU fans. When your goals are to compete for conference and national titles, the bar is set very high. It looks very hard for OU to still win the Big 12 this year. Winning the remainder of the games including a bowl game by 50 points would only bring to high relief the disappointment of not completing what would then look to have been possible. This is classic loss aversion as described by behavior economics. Losses hurt more than wins, and that diminishing return affect is greater and greater as winning is more and more expected/achieved.

The pageantry last night was second to none. I was very impressed by how it all came together. We put on a beautiful show for the Irish to fondly remember.

Switching gears, let's mention something about the Harden trade by OKC-Houston. This is striking many as a major WTF? Those sentiments may prove off the mark, but from what we know and see now, the head scratching appears reasonable. Harden is great and valuable. So, either Presti mistakenly estimated value (direct revenue from winning and brand strength and indirect from chemistry) or Simmons overstated the economic upside for the Thunder. There is a chance this tension is looking in the wrong place. The Thunder ownership could be loss averse in the financial sense. They aren't willing to make the investment and pay the luxury tax to effectively bet the come on future gains being worth certain extra expense. They could also suffer as an organization from several behavioral economics shortfalls including optimism bias and overconfidence effect.Or maybe it was spite: Harden wasn't showing "loyalty" and knowing his place as a sixth man. It wouldn't be the first time NBA owners asked not what a player deserved but what that player could give to the cartel organization.

One last topic, the double injustice of Tyrann Mathieu of LSU. The Honey Badger worked hard for negative current wages in the 2011 season for LSU. While not being reasonably paid for his labor, he brought happiness to LSU fans and profit to the LSU athletic department. Contemporarily and subsequently to that season he apparently chose as an adult old enough to die for his country to use some chemicals that are deemed highly naughty. Now his expected future wages are a slight fraction of what they were nine months ago. His life has been a tough and at times sad one. NCAA policies and U.S. law have made it tougher and sadder with less hope.