CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: Cincydawg on July 01, 2018, 10:27:27 AM
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Pick a player and hypotenuse.
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In Madison, there is one answer. His name is JJ Watt.
That 2011 team after he left had easily one of the top five offenses in the land. The defense was somewhere between 49-56th by advanced metrics (the standard stats were OK because they kinda smothered bad offenses). I dunno if Watt makes them top-10, top-25, but considering the two regular season losses were to MSU in a game with 37 points allowed and then gave up 33 to a team that could hardly throw outside one effing coverage bust, I'd bet UW wins at least one more, maybe both, and might well play for a title.
Another one might be Jamar Fletcher in 2001. That team lost him and Michael Bennett. That year's offense was vaguely passable (and Bennett doesn't make Bollinger that much better than Anthony Davis did), the defense was not.
But Watt. Watt forever.
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There are schools that get to keep guys for four years?
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For Iowa, I think the Big what if is Shonn Greene.
Greene won the Doak Walker award in 2008, rushing for 1800 yards. The 2009 team ended up playing 2 freshman running backs on a team that went 11-2, and won the Orange Bowl.
Stil that 2009 team lost in OT at OSU with a freshman backup QB playing because the starting QB got hit the week before.
If Greene had stayed, Iowa might have gone undefeated and played for national championship, and Greene might have won the Heisman.
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There are schools that get to keep guys for four years?
The non-football factories do, yes. :73:
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In Madison, there is one answer. His name is JJ Watt.
No doubt about that. 2011 may have been unbeaten had he stayed. Tough to throw hail mary passes when you're laying down.
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There are schools that get to keep guys for four years?
Heck, I can't remember Purdue's last early entrant [in football]...
I mean, we did have one this last year [Eddy Wilson], but he had academic problems and had to go to the NFL because he couldn't stay eligible. So I don't think he quite counts. He went undrafted and ended up as an UDFA with Seattle.
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Ohio State - Maurice Clarett: So much talent wasted away. Past football, If he stayed 4 years would he have fallen into a bad crowd? gone to jail? piss away his NFL talent? On the field, 6k rushing yards? Heisman? Another National Title?
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Vince Young, very possible a second consecutive MNC for Texas in the 2006 season.
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Ohio State - Maurice Clarett: So much talent wasted away. Past football, If he stayed 4 years would he have fallen into a bad crowd? gone to jail? piss away his NFL talent? On the field, 6k rushing yards? Heisman? Another National Title?
Imagine Clarett with NFL 1st round money??? He'd be out of the league quickly if he ever did get there.
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If Herschel Walker stayed at UGA for his SR season...
average his carries his SO/JR years and multiply by his career ypc = 1908
5259 + 1908 = 7,167 yards
Walker would still hold the career rushing record, despite Dayne's bowl stats counting and Walker's not. That's crazy.
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Johnny Manziel played 2 years, if you double his numbers:
Passing x 2:
14,640 yds (9th all-time)
126 TD (7th)
44 INT
Rushing x 2:
4,338 yds (5th for a QB, I believe...and more than Bo Jackson)
60 TD (10th all-time, 2nd for a QB - 1 more than Crouch, 3 more than Tebow)
That's a pretty sick career that never was. Of course, this assumes no suspensions or major arrests, etc.
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As an aside, can I just rant here about all-time passing numbers and the schools these "top" guys performed at?
Here's a list of the top 10 in passing yardage for a career, by school, not player:
Houston
Hawai'i
OU
Texas Tech
BYU
Boise St
OU
Washington St
Hawai'i
Marshall
Maybe I'm just a snob, but I really would like an all-time P5-type leaderboard separate from the 'I threw for 600 yards against the 90th-toughest schedule' crowd.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0C9gWtt-fs
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There are schools that get to keep guys for four years?
Nick Chubb and Sony Michel are examples who stayed. Chubb ended up number two in all time yardage rushing in the SEC. Michel ended number three at UGA among backs.
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And oddly Michel was drafted ahead of Chubb.
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In 1981, college athletic recruiting changed forever as a dozen big-time football programs sat waiting for the decision by a physically powerful and lightning-quick high school running back named Marcus Dupree.
On his way to eclipsing Herschel Walker's record for the most touchdowns in high school history, Dupree attracted recruiters from schools in every major conference to his hometown of Philadelphia, Miss.
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If Herschel Walker stayed at UGA for his SR season...
average his carries his SO/JR years and multiply by his career ypc = 1908
5259 + 1908 = 7,167 yards
Walker would still hold the career rushing record, despite Dayne's bowl stats counting and Walker's not. That's crazy.
Dayne’s bowl stats don’t count. They only started that in 2002.
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As an aside, can I just rant here about all-time passing numbers and the schools these "top" guys performed at?
Here's a list of the top 10 in passing yardage for a career, by school, not player:
Houston
Hawai'i
OU
Texas Tech
BYU
Boise St
OU
Washington St
Hawai'i
Marshall
Maybe I'm just a snob, but I really would like an all-time P5-type leaderboard separate from the 'I threw for 600 yards against the 90th-toughest schedule' crowd.
Big numbers are a function of style as well as skill. That affects passing more than running (along with shifts in the way the game is played).
It’s also worth noting, only one of those guys played before 2000 and only two before 2005.
If you filter out the G5, it’s
Landry Jones
Graham Harrell
Baker Mayfield
Luke Faulk
Mason Rudolph
Sean Mannion
Phillip Rivers
Colt McCoy
Aaron Murray
Chase Daniel
Career passing yards might just not be that useful of a metric.
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Le'Veon Bell was just about the only player on the 2012 MSU offense worth a damn. He would have been a pretty nice addition to the 2013 Rose Bowl Champion team.
As far of actual stats, tough to say. Team ypc went from 3.9 ypc to 4.3 ypc. So the easy fix is to raise his ypc from 4.7 tp 5.1, but then how do you calculate carries? He had an insane 382 of the 430 RB carries in 2012 (88.8%). He may have just wound up only slightly better than the 292 carries, 1,422 yards (4.9 ypc) season that Langford wound up with.
Or maybe I can use the fact that Langford's ypc increased by 88% from 2012 to 2013, and assume that Bell would get the same share of carries, as he did in 2012. So 374 carries at 8.836 ypc and you have your new NCAA single season rushing leader at 3,305 yards, boosting his career total to 6,651 yards, also an NCAA record. :93:
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Career passing yards might just not be that useful of a metric.
If I had the time it would be nice to find the national average for whatever period of eligibility the player had an compare his as a percentage of the national average to get a better idea.
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That's some gorilla math right there...
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Still better than using raw yardage
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Dayne’s bowl stats don’t count. They only started that in 2002.
On CFR, his bowl stats from his first 3 years are included. There's literally a 4-year gap where the NCAA won't include bowl stats, which might be THE dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Ever. With no reasoning behind it.
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Still better than using raw yardage
Uhh, I was complaining about the raw yardage top 10.......not that it was the most valid anything.
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Uhh, I was complaining about the raw yardage top 10.......not that it was the most valid anything.
Right, but that even if you limit it to Power 5, it doesn't help a ton. His point was that career yardage isn't much of a useful metric, period, even controlling for level of competition.
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On CFR, his bowl stats from his first 3 years are included. There's literally a 4-year gap where the NCAA won't include bowl stats, which might be THE dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Ever. With no reasoning behind it.
Official list
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_career_rushing_yards_leaders (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_career_rushing_yards_leaders)
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I was using Dayne's numbers with the bowls and Walker's without, which makes it all the more amazing, as I said....
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Similar to Watt for Wisconsin is Justin Tuck for Notre Dame. Left with a year of eligibility remaining, missed out on the 2005 season. Do the Irish lose in OT against MSU--giving up 44 points--with a pro bowler on their d-line? Does the Bush Push happen?
And how does that team look at the end of the season? Better than the team that Ohio State handled (heh--it was reading comments about that game that brought me here).
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Similar to Watt for Wisconsin is Justin Tuck for Notre Dame. Left with a year of eligibility remaining, missed out on the 2005 season. Do the Irish lose in OT against MSU--giving up 44 points--with a pro bowler on their d-line? Does the Bush Push happen?
And how does that team look at the end of the season? Better than the team that Ohio State handled.
That's a tough one to answer, because even as-is, the result is fluky. I don't think you need to add Tuck to assume that result doesn't happen if they play again. But man between that game, then going to Champaign and pounding Illinois like 63-14 or something the following week, we all thought finally JLS' unstoppable offense had arrived. Then a mediocre Michigan rolled in the following week, and Mike Hart ran for 12 yards per carry and reminded MSU they still had to play defense.
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First (and to date only) home game my daughter has been to. She was 1 and up way past her bedtime. It ended in a loss, but man, it was a great atmosphere during the comeback (that fell short).
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Geez....so many....
Merriman and Vernon Davis to start off, but so many guys, had they stayed their 4th year, could have pushed Maryland over the edge of winning more than losing, and helping recruiting.
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I always wonder if Emmitt had stayed for Spurrier's first year. His carries might've been down, but his YPC might've gone up, thanks to a wide-open passing threat. And despite the loss of carries, he'd have caught the ball a lot more and maybe helped his draft stock.
It just would've been neat to see it.
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I always wonder if Emmitt had stayed for Spurrier's first year. His carries might've been down, but his YPC might've gone up, thanks to a wide-open passing threat.
Wait, I thought his ypc would go up due to his carries decreasing. What does a wide open passing attack have to do with anything?
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Now you're just trying to be an ass...but my post says exactly what yours does, so....you failed? The wide-open passing attack would have given defenses something else to key on besides Emmitt left, Emmitt right, Emmitt up the middle - which is what Florida's offense was before Spurrier.
And yes, that, combined with fewer carries would have very likely increased his YPC, as I already said in my previous post. :)
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And yes, that, combined with fewer carries would have very likely increased his YPC, as I already said in my previous post. :)
so you have an example that you agree with that dispels your "mean" argument
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so you have an example that you agree with that dispels your "mean" argument
Have I been typing in Chinese? WTF??? How are you misunderstanding everything so completely?
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My browser can translate
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I'm not sure how else to explain what I'm saying. Regression to the mean comes with greater sample size, not smaller.
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there's no way to get to the "mean"
there's the flaw
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Similar to Watt for Wisconsin is Justin Tuck for Notre Dame. Left with a year of eligibility remaining, missed out on the 2005 season. Do the Irish lose in OT against MSU--giving up 44 points--with a pro bowler on their d-line? Does the Bush Push happen?
And how does that team look at the end of the season? Better than the team that Ohio State handled (heh--it was reading comments about that game that brought me here).
That Notre Dame team is a hard one to analyze. First off, if you read the names on the schedule (USC, Michigan, Tennessee, Washington, MSU, Pitt, Syracuse, BYU, Stanford) it sounds like they played a REALLY tough schedule. They didn't, but it wasn't their fault:
Among ND's opponents that year:
- USC was great, 12-1 with the loss coming in the BCSNCG.
- Navy was Navy (8-4)
- Michigan was barely over .500 (7-5)
- BYU was .500 (6-6)
Every other pre-bowl opponent was below .500:
- 5-6 Pitt
- 5-6 MSU
- 5-6 Purdue
- 5-6 Tennessee
- 5-6 Stanford
- 2-9 Washington
- 1-10 Syracuse
In an average year scheduling USC, Michigan, Tennessee, Washington, Stanford, MSU, Pitt, Syracuse, BYU would assure you of no worse than one of the toughest SOS's in the country. In 2005 it just didn't work out that way.
FWIW: That 2005 season was the closest we ever came to a complete melt-down during the BCS era. It is funny because, as it turned out it was probably the easiest decision the BCS ever had but it was VERY close to being a complete mess:
USC barely beat ND in South Bend on the famous "Bush Push" play at the end of regulation. The play started with USC down 31-28 and 0:07 remaining. USC had the ball on the ND one second and goal but they had (I think) no timeouts. If they had been stopped short of the goal line time would have expired and ND would have won 31-28.
Texas barely beat tOSU in Columbus. Leading by six (22-16) the Buckeyes had a first down at the Texas 29 yard line with a little over six minutes to go. They ended up barely missing a 50 yard FG on 4th and 14 from the Texas 33. The FG was just short from 50 yards out and would have been easily good from four yards closer. Had Ohio State made the FG to take a two-possession 25-16 lead with just five minutes remaining it is extraordinarily unlikely that Texas could have pulled off a win.
If you flip those two results then at the end of the 2005 regular season there would have been six one-loss teams from major conferences. Here they are with their pre-bowl records (in alternate scenario), records against the other five (same), and other high-end games along with who their loss was:
- 11-1 USC, 1-1 beat Oregon by 32 on the road, lost to ND by 3 on the road. Also beat 10-2 UCLA by almost 50 points.
- 11-1 Texas, 0-1 lost to Ohio State by ? on the road. Next best opponent was 9-3 TTech whom they beat by 35.
- 10-1 PSU, 1-0 beat tOSU by a TD at home. Lost to 7-5 Michigan on the road. Next best opponent was 10-3 Wisconsin whom they beat by 21.
- 10-1 tOSU, 1-1 beat Texas by ? at home, lost to PSU by a TD on the road. Next best opponent was 7-5 (either Iowa-won by 25, MN-won by 14, NU-won by 41, or M, won by 4).
- 10-1 ND, 1-0 beat USC by a FG at home. Next best opponent was 7-5 Michigan at home which they won by a TD.
- 10-1 Oregon, 0-1 lost to USC by 32 at home. Next best opponent was 8-4 Cal whom they beat by a TD at home.
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Then, I guess it's good Notre Dame and Ohio State fell just short, and didn't rob us of the greatest national championship game of the BCS era.
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I'm not sure how else to explain what I'm saying. Regression to the mean comes with greater sample size, not smaller.
Point you've been making: more carries = less ypc, because there's some "mean" for each player that they will regress to as sample size increases.
Point I've been making: ypc is dependent on system and usage.
Then you said:
I always wonder if Emmitt had stayed for Spurrier's first year. His carries might've been down, but his YPC might've gone up, thanks to a wide-open passing threat. And despite the loss of carries, he'd have caught the ball a lot more and maybe helped his draft stock.
It just would've been neat to see it.
I.e. you're admitting that system and usage plays a large part in ypc.
Ron Dayne had lower ypc because Wisconsin's OC and their opponents DC both knew that they were going to run him on first down, then second down, and probably again on 3rd down, because they'd be in 3rd-and-short more often than 3rd-and-long when you have a back like Dayne. Defenses were loading the box to stop Dayne but still couldn't do it, so it made sense offensively to just keep riding him all day long.
The point being that his ypc wouldn't go up BECAUSE his carries go down, but that his ypc would increase AND his carries would decrease BECAUSE the defenses had a wide-open passing attack to account for and couldn't key on Emmitt every down.
It's not regression to the mean. It's system and usage.
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there's no way to get to the "mean"
there's the flaw
There's the team mean, though. That's where the efficiency aspect comes in. Every guy over the team mean should get more carries, every guy under it, fewer.
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Point you've been making: more carries = less ypc, because there's some "mean" for each player that they will regress to as sample size increases.
Point I've been making: ypc is dependent on system and usage.
Then you said:
I.e. you're admitting that system and usage plays a large part in ypc.
Ron Dayne had lower ypc because Wisconsin's OC and their opponents DC both knew that they were going to run him on first down, then second down, and probably again on 3rd down, because they'd be in 3rd-and-short more often than 3rd-and-long when you have a back like Dayne. Defenses were loading the box to stop Dayne but still couldn't do it, so it made sense offensively to just keep riding him all day long.
The point being that his ypc wouldn't go up BECAUSE his carries go down, but that his ypc would increase AND his carries would decrease BECAUSE the defenses had a wide-open passing attack to account for and couldn't key on Emmitt every down.
It's not regression to the mean. It's system and usage.
I also said "Let me see how to put this...we’ve got a player talent bell curve on top of a play-calling bell curve on top of a playing time bell curve." on the #25 thread.
I've never suggested the other aspects that have been mentioned don't play a part. I don't know why you're suggesting I have.
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It's not regression to the mean. It's system and usage.
A few of you seem to insist it's an either/or thing when it's not. It's both/all. A RB and a team has a mean, depending on talent and system and play-calling.....his usage is mostly what I've been focusing on.
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There's the team mean, though. That's where the efficiency aspect comes in. Every guy over the team mean should get more carries, every guy under it, fewer.
Yet Houston Nutt had Darren McFadden and Felix Jones on his roster together from 2005-2007, including one year where Gus Malzahn, who is somewhat of an offensive mind, was his OC.
Yet over those three years McFadden had ~2x the carries that Jones got, and Jones had almost 2 ypc advantage in his average.
Are you saying that this is just SUCH an easy mathematical/statistical problem that by giving Jones more carries and McFadden fewer until their ypc equaled out, the overall rushing performance of the team would be improved?
I wonder why these coaches never thought of that? :confuse:
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Coaches in all sports have a strong herd mentality. I'm not going to claim to be smarter or better than a big-time college coach. But for 100 years of college football, you give the majority of your carries to your eye-test best RB and fill in around him. Coaches also have to worry about transfers and player happiness and a bunch of other BS.
If a coach were to let optimal statistical efficiency dictate his decision-making, he'd be ridiculed as others who have tried to do so have previously. It's stupid and true.
But yes, it's plainly obvious to me that Jones warranted more carries - at the expense of anyone else who carried the ball besides McFadden initially, but also at the expense of McFadden. And I'm also certain this would have decreased Jones' ypc and I'm stunned at the push-back this is getting here. But it's also fun to discuss.
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A few of you seem to insist it's an either/or thing when it's not. It's both/all. A RB and a team has a mean, depending on talent and system and play-calling.....his usage is mostly what I've been focusing on.
I can perhaps get behind the idea that an RB and a team have a mean, based on system, play-calling, etc. And the larger the sample size is, the less "noise" there is relative to that signal. But I'd say that between Felix Jones (386 carries) and Darren McFadden (785 carries), you're well past the signal-to-noise ratio.
But there's still no justification for your assertion that, say, McFadden would have higher ypc if his carries were reduced or lower ypc if his carries were increased. Which of Darren McFadden's runs will be erased if you drop his # of carries by 2 per game. His 3 yard plunge into the line, or his 75-yard touchdown run? It's impossible to tell whether his ypc would be higher or lower if he only rushed 685 times in his career instead of 785. Because his actual performance was more due to system and usage.
You see a correlation wherein players who have acheived very high carry totals have lower ypc than players who have had less carries overall. And you are suggesting that there is a causation here, that increasing carries beyond a certain point is going to reduce ypc BECAUSE of the number of carries.
I'm saying that there are other factors involved. I'm saying Felix Jones had almost 2 ypc higher than McFadden not because he had fewer carries, but because he was used differently by the coaches.
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I'm saying that there are other factors involved. I'm saying Felix Jones had almost 2 ypc higher than McFadden not because he had fewer carries, but because he was used differently by the coaches.
Of course there are other factors involved - no one has said otherwise.
You're differentiating between the types of carries of McFadden (starter) and Jones (prominent backup). Their usage is tied to my overall point. No need to split them up into different pools.
With additional carries, Jones' new carries 'type' will be McFadden-like usage. If Jones' normal carries are of a type that allows his higher YPC, then adding McFadden-type usage will pull his YPC down.
I've simply just taken that as a given and been promoting the larger point.
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There's the team mean, though. That's where the efficiency aspect comes in. Every guy over the team mean should get more carries, every guy under it, fewer.
It's not baseball
one last thought, I'm glad you weren't the O-coordinator for the Huskers at any time
perhaps Osborne or Spurrier could explain things to you.
same probably should hold true with receivers, why not target the guy with the highest average per reception EVERY pass play?
Heck, just simply look at all plays called and see what particular play in a particular formation with a particular personal package has the highest average yardage per play and run it EVERY stinkin down?
Better yet, it's all about scoring TDs in this game so simply run the play that produces the highest percentage of TDs. Do this over and over and over and over again. How could you possibly lose?
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But yes, it's plainly obvious to me that Jones warranted more carries - at the expense of anyone else who carried the ball besides McFadden initially, but also at the expense of McFadden. And I'm also certain this would have decreased Jones' ypc and I'm stunned at the push-back this is getting here. But it's also fun to discuss.
Okay, put it another way...
McFadden and Jones were both RBs at Arkansas at the same time. So we can remove coaching differences, system differences, etc. There's no truly obvious talent differential here either. McFadden was drafted higher at 4th overall vs Jones at 22nd, but they were both first-round NFL talents.
Do you believe that the coaching staff used them both interchangeably with regards to playcalling? Or did they call different plays based on whether they had McFadden or Jones on the field? Did the coaches use them identically, or did they call plays suited to each player's strengths. Did they substitute players identically, or did they use one or the other more in certain down/distance, certain field positions, game/score/time situations, etc?
I am asserting that they were NOT used identically, and that usage is the reason why Jones had ~2 ypc advantage. Not that he was fresher, or not that the sample size wasn't big enough. I think Jones had ~2 ypc because the coaches used him in situations and playcalls that had a higher likelihood of being broken for long gains.
I submit that you're right, in one sense. If Jones had gotten more carries, and they were the playcalls that the coaching staff would have ordinarily given to McFadden, his ypc would probably have gone down. Possibly by more than "expected", as he wasn't suited to the playcalls McFadden got.
However, I submit that the corollary to this is that if McFadden got more carries, and they were the playcalls that the coaching staff would have ordinarily given to Jones, his ypc would probably have gone up. Possibly not by as much as "expected", as he wasn't as suited to the playcalls Jones got. But still up.
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With additional carries, Jones' new carries 'type' will be McFadden-like usage. If Jones' normal carries are of a type that allows his higher YPC, then adding McFadden-type usage will pull his YPC down.
But you seemed to disagree [in the other thread] with the idea that if you increased McFadden's carries by giving him Jones-like usage, his ypc will go up.
Why do you see it going one way but not the other?
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But you seemed to disagree [in the other thread] with the idea that if you increased McFadden's carries by giving him Jones-like usage, his ypc will go up.
Why do you see it going one way but not the other?
Two reasons:
1 - the statistics suggest so (I believe)
2 - he'd be tired
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Okay, put it another way...
McFadden and Jones were both RBs at Arkansas at the same time. So we can remove coaching differences, system differences, etc. There's no truly obvious talent differential here either. McFadden was drafted higher at 4th overall vs Jones at 22nd, but they were both first-round NFL talents.
Do you believe that the coaching staff used them both interchangeably with regards to playcalling? Or did they call different plays based on whether they had McFadden or Jones on the field? both, at different times
Did the coaches use them identically, or did they call plays suited to each player's strengths. Did they substitute players identically, or did they use one or the other more in certain down/distance, certain field positions, game/score/time situations, etc?
I am asserting that they were NOT used identically, and that usage is the reason why Jones had ~2 ypc advantage. Not that he was fresher but he was, or not that the sample size wasn't big enough. I think Jones had ~2 ypc because the coaches used him in situations and playcalls that had a higher likelihood of being broken for long gains. do you have evidence?
I submit that you're right, in one sense. If Jones had gotten more carries, and they were the playcalls that the coaching staff would have ordinarily given to McFadden, his ypc would probably have gone down. Possibly by more than "expected", as he wasn't suited to the playcalls McFadden got.
However, I submit that the corollary to this is that if McFadden got more carries, and they were the playcalls that the coaching staff would have ordinarily given to Jones, his ypc would probably have gone up. Possibly not by as much as "expected", as he wasn't as suited to the playcalls Jones got. But still up. I'd need evidence of this, which is probably impossible, unless Jones was hurt for x-number of games and McFadden's carries increased by a noticeable number. It's a "what if", so evidence isn't realistic, but if it's impossible, then it's unfalsifiable and we can stop wasting time.:)
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Check the #25 thread to see if my proposed study would be valid in your eyes.
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Check the #25 thread to see if my proposed study would be valid in your eyes.
I do agree, with the comments I made there. I think it will be both better visually and better statistically to just analyze the data without breaking it into "high, medium, low" groups.
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I do agree, with the comments I made there. I think it will be both better visually and better statistically to just analyze the data without breaking it into "high, medium, low" groups.
To do what I'm doing, I need cut-off points. You can do your regression or whatever, too. I doubt we'd get conflicting results.