CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: OrangeAfroMan on April 19, 2018, 07:39:03 PM
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I may just be used to toiling with baseball stats or something, but why does the historical college football stat record suck??? You can't find anything good or deep going back very far.
It's annoying. Just a rant.
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probably because sports fans had baseball
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Getting tackles numbers is a joke, pre-2003. 21st century!!! Forget about sacks going back. Want to find out which year a school's defense was the best at stopping the run? NOPE!
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We have better baseball records than weather records in this country.
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We have better baseball records than weather records in this country.
Heh. Time to call The Bobs.
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baseball and boxing were big!
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Heh. Time to call The Bobs.
We've been trying. We got him a computer and server, and a new website. It's all ready for when he decides to get it moving. Hopefully that will happen.
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Even his stuff was all W/L info though right?
As far as player, and even team, stats, it just ain't out there. It has to be somewhere, team media guides at least show school records, but the task of compiling it all at this point is overwhelming.
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Sean Foreman's sites (sports-reference.com) have been chiseling away at this for awhile. Of course he founded the greatest of all sports website, baseball-reference.com, but his college football version has gotten pretty good
there's some good statistical data, even at a player level, but it is far from complete. the people behind the scenes are responsive too, you can reach out to them.
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Sean Foreman's sites (sports-reference.com) have been chiseling away at this for awhile. Of course he founded the greatest of all sports website, baseball-reference.com, but his college football version has gotten pretty good
there's some good statistical data, even at a player level, but it is far from complete. the people behind the scenes are responsive too, you can reach out to them.
That's what I rely on. You're right, it's getting better.
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Yeah, I have both baseballreference and collegefootballreference bookmarked. Those baseball cats really worked together - project scoresheet, among many many others. I can basically find any obscure stat I want in baseball going back to 1913.
For college football, the data drops way off a cliff before 2005. 2005!!!!!! Hell, if they want to give me $50,000/year to toil and compile and flesh out their site, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
As it is, Arizona teachers have scheduled a walkout next Thursday. Striking in a right-to-work state - fun!!!!
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Every play by play of a game back to 1973, I think there are a few Braves games w incomplete pbp data.
I can get most guys batting and pitching splits before 1920. The Rbi data is a little murky pre 1920.
Re cfb , it's disappointing. Schools would need to cooperate and lets face it, some probably don't have the data to share. A handful of schools have fans that have taken matter into their own hands. Huskermax .com probably is the best resource for a single team, outside a schools actual own records.
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yeah, huskermax is a turn-on.
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Speaking of stats, apparently some folks at the Omaha World Herald are getting their arms around the entire conference's 'scanned ticket' numbers, which of course tell the real story regarding attendance. They will report their findings at some point in the near future.
Out of this, Sam McKewon of the OWH had a quick take on a specific instance. I see he is in agreement with me, in that this was Nebraska's lowest moment since joining the B1G, the 2015 Nebraska at Purdue game. I'm more focused on the humiliating 55-45 defeat to Purdue (its lone FBS level win that season). Announced crowd was 31,351, the scanned ticket attendance was 15,522, apparently the lowest scanned count during whatever period is being examined.
I was in Arizona for a wedding during this weekend but my brother and Dad went to this game, they both said (via text) during the 1st quarter that it was the most depressing environment that they had ever seen for a I-A game and this was before they watched Purdue abuse the Huskers. Of course it was drizzly and low 40s.
I'll be interested in seeing these numbers across the league. Sam's written about Nebraka's before. We all know they pad them, but not by how much.
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Last night I was creating '73 ND. The Irish are usually good for scanned PDFs of season reviews going back pretty far. They even have tackles numbers, for crying out loud. Gorgeous.
Pre-sack numbers, I'll use TFL. I created '72 USC as well. I think I'll set the hard cutoff at 1971. Even INT numbers are hard to come by pre-1985, for non-helmet teams.
I'm sure I already said this, but if someone would give me $50K/year, I'd flesh out the statistical history of college football and be glad to do it.
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my brother and his son were at the Purdue game
attendance padding got serious for McKewon with the report out of WSU regarding Moos
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Attendance padding is/was always known, but lightly discussed. I've read some from a Madison writer (Oates?) and I 've seen the Wall Street Journal talk about it, mostly though with the focus on the precipitous drop in attendance by students, despite 'selling out' student allotments.
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Tackling statistics are notoriously of dubious value. Last guy to get off the pile, first visible guy on the pile, credit based on the PA announcers call, misidentification of guys.
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yup, buddy of mine in high school would always jump on top of the pile after the play was over, lay there until everyone else got up, be the last guy on the ground and got credit for large numbers of tackles he was no where near when the play ended.
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Tackling statistics are notoriously of dubious value. Last guy to get off the pile, first visible guy on the pile, credit based on the PA announcers call, misidentification of guys.
Well inflated tackles numbers don't matter too much, as it's % of tackles made. So as long as the numbers are inflated for everyone on the team, I'm good.
But the more I play the game, the less I think 'who made the tackle' will be desired by the masses. I just think it'll give the player on defense something to do.
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I think one issue relates to what "stats" in football merit counting. I bet back in the day they simply didn't think things like sacks were anything more than a tackle. Maybe they tracked the easy and obvious things and nothing else.
It's a bit like in baseball back when they didn't record a hitters batting average with 2 outs and men in scoring position.
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College football was always a highly regional sport, so different teams and different leagues kept stats on different things. Also, in team sport like football, the individual stats weren't considered as important for a very, very long time. It doesn't really bother me, I'm much more of a "watch the game" than "stat the game" sort of person.
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Well I was the only one in my group of friends of sports nerds that also played for our high school. Actually, 3 of us were sports nerds who knew every player on every team in all major sports, one was a band geek, and the other was always on the cusp of being expelled. But we all played pickup football and tore each other up for fun. It was lame not having any of them on the team with me.
I love baseball and I love baseball stats. Damn my luck, the NFL has pretty good records going back pre-WWII, but I have no interest in it, only college football.
As for sacks, no, they weren't "invented" until Deacon Jones in the late 70s/early 80s, but I've seen some PDFs of stats going back into the 40s that specify tackles for loss.
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I think one issue relates to what "stats" in football merit counting. I bet back in the day they simply didn't think things like sacks were anything more than a tackle. Maybe they tracked the easy and obvious things and nothing else.
It's a bit like in baseball back when they didn't record a hitters batting average with 2 outs and men in scoring position.
You mean we don't know who led the WAC in interceptions for the month of October in Thursday night games in 1962?
Dammit all to hell !!!!
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Obviously it's also easy enough to retroactively track a lot of that stuff for baseball, that you can't as easily do for football.
Plus baseball scorekeeping lends itself to having pitch by pitch data, whereas even the stuff we *could* retroactively determine for football, like 3rd and short conversion rate or something, we lack the play by play info to even attempt it.
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Researching for teams for my game - A&M and Colorado have great sites, with PDFs for each year, including tackles/sacks.
I don't know where else to put this, but that 1993 Arizona team with the 'Desert Swarm' defense - WOW! They allowed only 30 yards rushing per game - under 1 yard per carry!!! Insane! It was the team that shut out Miami 29-0 in the bowl game.
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I'm listening to the Dodgers getting tea-bagged by the worst team in baseball. Ugh.
Adding
1994 Colorado (Salaam)
2014 Oregon (Mariota)
2012 ND (Te'o)
1999 Wisconsin (Dayne)
2008 Texas (McCoy)
1993 Texas A&M (good RB, great return game - McElroy KR 39 yds/ret)
to my board game catalog.
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I'm listening to the Dodgers getting tea-bagged by the worst team in baseball. Ugh.
Adding
1994 Colorado (Salaam)
2014 Oregon (Mariota)
2012 ND (Te'o)
1999 Wisconsin (Dayne)
2008 Texas (McCoy)
1993 Texas A&M (good RB, great return game - McElroy KR 39 yds/ret)
to my board game catalog.
The Aggies called him 'Lectric Leeland. He was definitely a pretty good player, though I don't know whether or not he was truly "'Lectric." :)
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Wasn't his Dad like 72 when leland was in school?
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All I know is that A&M had some great years under Slocum, but picking one is hard. From 92-94, they had seasons of 11-1, 10-2, and 10-0-1. They had very good RBs and very good 5'9" corners.
The Aggies had very weak schedules those years, however. I guess the SWC was in its doldrums - A&M didn't fare well vs. ranked opponents OOC.
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In doing a little research, I see how programs tend to peak for at least 2 seasons. At least when it comes to the national-championship-level programs, they tend to still "be there" the year after. Here's what I mean:
We know Miami was the program of the 80s. But in 85, OU beat PSU for the NC. So we progress to 86 and who's there? PSU again. They beat Miami. The next year - Miami again...over OU. 88 it's Miami still, losing out to ND. The next year - Miami. 1990 is a sort of reset (CU & GT). 91 is back to Miami (and UW). This isn't about Miami, the Canes just happen to never go away for that period of time. 92 Miami is back, but loses to Bama. 93 is a reset, with FSU over UNL. But the new Miami is UNL, with the next to NCs (over Miami, then Florida). Florida wins it the following year, then back to UNL in 97 (with Michigan). 98 is a reset with Tenn & FSU, then FSU again, and FSU a third time, losing out to OU in 2000. 2001 resets with UNL and Miami, then Miami again losing out to OSU. Reset with OU and LSU the next year. USC is sort of at the top 3 straight years, if not 2, vs Texas in 05. 06 is another reset with Florida and OSU, who makes it back a 2nd year in a row vs LSU. Here we see OU is sort of the exception - in-and-out more than a 2-3 year peak.
Anyway, just something we all already kind of knew, but maybe more so than I'd realized.
Starting in 85:
OU-PSU
PSU-MIA
MIA-OU
MIA-ND
ND-MIA
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CU-GT
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MIA-UW
BAMA-MIA
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FSU-UNL
UNL-MIA
UNL-FLA
FLA-FSU
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UM-UNL
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TENN-FSU
FSU-VT
OU-FSU
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MIA-UNL
OSU-MIA
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LSU-OU / USC?
USC-OU
TEX-USC
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FLA-OSU
LSU-OSU
It sort of ends there, with a lot of Bama and Auburn intermittently next, with some Bama-Clemson lately.
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At least people 80 years from now won't have this issue
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ncaa-launches-transformative-statistics-initiative-300647410.html
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I wonder if that "cutting edge software" can get bowl stats from every season included, instead of having a random-ass gap within the past 20 years.
Where do I send my resume to be part of this? lol
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I'm having trouble finding 1971 OU's specialists - K, P, KR, PR - and their stats.
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I'm listening to the Dodgers getting tea-bagged by the worst team in baseball. Ugh.
Adding
to my board game catalog.
Tom Osborne says the 1982 and 1993* Huskers were the best of his non-national championship teams.
http://www.kearneyhub.com/sports/state/tom-osborne-says-huskers-were-best-nebraska-teams-to-not/article_e6c4b9ee-5882-11e8-a79c-ef6261b6e6c2.html (http://www.kearneyhub.com/sports/state/tom-osborne-says-huskers-were-best-nebraska-teams-to-not/article_e6c4b9ee-5882-11e8-a79c-ef6261b6e6c2.html)
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Researching for teams for my game - A&M and Colorado have great sites, with PDFs for each year, including tackles/sacks.
Duke's isn't too shabby.
http://www1.nmnathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=211693982&_ga=2.144150838.2072551024.1527172259-1734044458.1527172259
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Let me get to work on all the great Duke football seasons.....
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Spurrier scoreboard photo year?
(https://www.cfb51.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bobleesays.com.php7-27.phx1-1.websitetestlink.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2015%2F10%2FMg33v.AuSt_.156.jpg&hash=e9a8423c6fbbcc552333d29cb3e6d676)
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'89 was his last year at Duke, shared ACC title. Then "mama called".
Any site with defensive statistics is great. I have to say, Duke's is good and in looking up '89, something odd; full defensive stats, but not even a numerical roster. Easily found elsewhere - it's like zoo having a unicorn but not a giraffe.
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I'm having trouble finding 1971 OU's specialists - K, P, KR, PR - and their stats.
Good news, a guy from Soonersports actually replied back with all the stats I needed. Very cool. Even helped with 74 and 75 OU.
Now my problem is defensive data (INTs, Sacks/TFL) for '72 USC. Aaarrrgghhh!