What do we Know about the Falcons?

As the local professional football collective comes down the stretch, they are 12-2, which gives them a two-game lead over the Saints and Eagles for the best record in the NFC. Unless something goes terribly wrong, the Dirty Birds are going to be at home for the NFC playoffs. At first glance, the Falcons’ record is deceiving because the team has won seven straight games decided by one score after losing the opener in Pittsburgh in overtime. They look like a team whose record flatters. However, the Falcons are also second in the NFC in point differential, so maybe they aren’t a lucky team after all. The best team in the NFC in terms of point differential is Green Bay, a team that last year and this year seems like less than the sum of its parts. Great offense, good defense, and yet still loses more games than they should. Do we point a finger at Mike McCarthy? They’re the anti-Falcons: good statistical profile, but mediocre record because they lose close games.

When I say that the Falcons don’t have a good statistical profile, this is what I mean:

	Yards per play gained	Yards per play allowed	Margin
Eagles	6.3	5.3	+1.0
Giants	5.8	4.9	+.9
Saints	5.7	5.2	+.5
Packers	5.6	5.1	+.5
Bears	5.0	5.0	0
Falcons	5.0	5.6	-.6

Eeek. We can explain away that low yards per play gained number by pointing out that the Falcons have a low variance offense that consistently churns out first downs by getting medium-sized gains without giving up sacks or penalties. The opening two drives on Sunday against Seattle were the Platonic ideal for this team’s offense: 15 plays and 51 yards for a touchdown, followed by 14 plays and 51 yards for a field goal. At the end of two drives, the Falcons had ten points while gaining a mere 3.5 yards per play. (Put in context, the hapless Panthers have the worst offense in the league and they gain 4.3 yards per play.) Yards per play doesn’t quite do this offense justice. The Falcons don’t hit big plays, so their number isn’t very high, but they score points just fine because they are rarely in third and long and they convert makeable third downs on a consistent basis. The Falcons are first in the NFL in total plays and second in first downs. The offense may look like a tortoise, but we ought to remember who wins the race in Aesop’s fable.

The defense, on the other hand, is harder to justify. They are significantly worse on a per play basis than any of the other contenders in the NFC. They are decent at denying opponents first downs (11th in the NFL), but that’s probably a function of the fact that the offense keeps the ball all day. The saving graces for the defense is that they are good against the run (seventh in yards per rush allowed) and they force turnovers (fifth in the NFL). (The Falcons are not unlike the Patriots, who also allow 5.6 yards per play and get by by forcing turnovers. The Pats, however, are better on offense.) That said, the NFL is a passing league and the Falcons give up a lot of passing yards. Should we feel confident that we can win consecutive playoffs games against Aaron Rodgers and then Mike Vick or Drew Brees? Yes, the Falcons beat Green Bay and New Orleans this season, but both games were very tight and the Falcons needed a little bit of good fortune both times.

So how much does yards per play matter? Can the Falcons win a Super Bowl when their opponents are outgaining them by a healthy margin? Let’s look at the last decade’s worth of conference champions:

	Yards per play gained	Yards per play allowed	Margin
‘09 Saints	6.3	5.5	+.9
‘09 Colts	5.9	5.0	+.8
‘08 Steelers	4.9	3.9	+1.0
‘08 Cards	5.9	5.3	+.6
‘07 Giants	5.1	5.0	+.1
‘07 Pats	6.2	4.9	+1.3
‘06 Colts	6.0	5.5	+.5
‘06 Bears	5.0	4.6	+.4
‘05 Steelers	5.4	4.6	+.8
‘05 Seahawks	5.8	4.9	+.9
‘04 Pats	5.5	5.0	+.5
‘04 Eagles	5.9	4.9	+1.0
‘03 Pats	4.8	4.4	+.4
‘03 Panthers	5.1	4.7	+.4
‘02 Bucs	4.9	4.2	+.7
‘02 Raiders	5.8	5.0	+.8
‘01 Pats	4.9	5.3	-.4
‘01 Rams	6.6	4.7	+1.9
‘00 Ravens	4.7	4.3	+.4
‘00 Giants	5.1	4.6	+.5

Eeek squared. 19 of the last 20 conference champions have had a positive yards per play margin. In fact, only two of 20 conference champions have been lower that +.4: the ‘01 Patriots and the ‘07 Giants. Both of those teams won the Super Bowl, but they needed to pull two of the biggest upsets in NFL history to do so. Is that what we’re counting on to make the Super Bowl? You wouldn’t know it from reading the paper or listening to the radio, but this Falcons team doesn’t fit the statistical profile of the vast majority of conference champions.

Again, we need to point our fingers at the defense. There are six teams that have made the Super Bowl averaging five yards per play or less and five of them came home with the Lombardi Trophy. (An interesting side note: there are four teams on the chart that allowed less than 4.5 yards per play and every one of them won the Super Bowl. If you drop last year’s Super Bowl in which both teams had top offenses, there have been seven teams to make the Super Bowl with an offense gaining 5.8 yards per play or more and six of those teams lost. Let’s file that away in the memory bank if the Eagles or Patriots make the Super Bowl.) There isn’t a single team on the list that allowed 5.6 yards per play, although there are two teams that allowed 5.5 yards per play and both of them won the big game.

So we have one team as our beacon of hope: the 2001 New England Patriots. A young team with a burgeoning star at quarterback that got hot, won a ton of close games, and then pulled a massive upset in the Superdome. There’s actually a larger point to be made here: it might not be hyperbole to say that the Falcons are built on the Patriots model. Look at the three New England teams that won the Super Bowl. One had a negative yards per play margin and the other two were a nothing special +.4 and +.5. Those New England teams won with superior turnover margins: +8 in 2001, +17 in 2003, and +9 in 2004. If there is a secret to having a positive turnover margin, then Thomas Dimitroff has brought it from Massachusetts. Maybe we aren’t doomed after all. If the Tuck Rule comes into play in the Falcons’ first playoff game, then I’m headed for the nearest casino to bet on the Dirty Birds in Dallas.

To the Rest of the NFC...

In the Words of Jean Girard, Come Face Your Destroyer

The Champions League draw with quick thoughts:

Barca-Arsenal - I've made my point about this pairing before. I'll be very interested to see if Wenger changes his approach this time around. He's stubborn, but he also doesn't like getting embarrassed. Barring a spate of key injuries for Barca in the next two months, Arsenal cannot play their normal style with their normal XI and hope for anything other than a hiding.

United-Marseille - A good draw for United. This has first leg draw, second leg United win written all over it.

Chelsea-Copenhagen - This is why it's important to finish first in one's group. That said, Copenhagen were surprisingly frisky in the group stages. If Chelsea are not playing better by February, they'll have a torrid time in the first leg. Watch out for Dame Ndoye.

Spurs-Milan - Possibly the best tie of the round of 16. Lots of attacking talent on both teams, along with suspect defenses.

Shakhtar-Roma - Hard to pick a winner from these two. Roma get the pleasure of a trip to Ukraine in March.

Bayern-Inter - The "how far have we fallen in six months?" tie.

Real-Lyon - Real get a chance to exorcize a very recent demon. Lyon winning this tie would be unbelievably hilarious to me, but it's not going to happen.

Schalke-Valencia - On league form, one would have to take Valencia, but Schalke are showing signs of improvement and Manuel Neuer could be the difference in a close tie. Raul will certainly feel at home in this one.

Quick Thoughts on Cliff Lee’s No Accounting for Taste Decision

C3PO said it best. It’s always possible that the Phillies will be beset by injuries, especially with a number of players on the wrong side of 30, but man, it’s hard to imagine competing with a starting rotation that includes Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt, and now Lee. Egads, they’re getting close to the rotations that the Braves trotted out in the 90s. Also, the uncomfortable thing about this acquisition is that it’s reminiscent of Greg Maddux’s decision to join the Braves in that Lee took less money because playing for the Phillies was so attractive to him. It was most satisfying when Maddux turned his back on the Yankees’ filthy lucre because pitching in Atlanta for Bobby Cox, Leo Mazzone, and this fan base was so appealing. The fact that the Yankees’ naked economic might wasn’t enough to sign a player is about the only aspect of Lee’s decision that is good for Braves fans. Otherwise, we’re just left with a reminder that the Braves used to be the preferred destination for free agents, but now, the destination is somewhere else in the division.

The other thought that’s kicking around in my brain right now is that Lee’s decision is our fault. On the radio this morning, the local hosts were making the usual complaints about Liberty Media not being “invested” in the team’s success, but the sort of investment that is being requested is really just red ink. If we use attendance as a proxy for revenue (and I know that it isn’t that simple), the Braves were ninth in the NL in butts in seats last year. How is it fair for Braves fans to demand that the team’s payroll go above its revenue? In other words, are we forgetting that professional sports teams are businesses? In what segment of the economy is it an expectation that ownership should lose money? The Phillies were first in attendance in the NL last year, so Cliff Lee is a reward for fans who turn out. Again, the Braves were once the team drawing better than their rivals, so we deserved Maddux. Phillies fans aren’t intrinsically better than Braves fans; they’re just in a place where Braves fans were in the 90s when their team was winning big and consistently for the first time in eons.

And now for a CYA paragraph. It occurred to me after writing this post that referring dismissively to the Yankees' "filthy lucre" in the first paragraph and then singing the praises of the Phillies' right to the luxury item that is Cliff Lee in the second paragraph can be seen as inconsistent. I hate the Yankees for a number of reasons, but one of the primary motives is that the Yankees and their fans are the quintessential brats who were born on third base and think that they hit a triple. The Yanks are the major team in the largest, richest market in the country. Their market is old and established (as opposed to Los Angeles), so their roots are deep. Their two local rivals both moved out of New York, which gives the Yanks a leg up on their current local rival. Thus, the Yankees win because of money and they have money for a number of factors, most of which have nothing to do with good management, but are instead the result of circumstance. (A little like Stalin taking credit for beating the Germans in World War II.) The Phillies can't be described in the same way. Philadephia is a big market, but it's not New York. The current management of the team doesn't benefit from the decisions of its predecessors because the team's history is mostly lousy. The Phillies' current success deserves respect, so I don't begrudge them a great free agent signing. And I say this as a person who has a per se rule against rooting for teams from Philly.

Auburn and Oregon in Context: Strength of Schedule

Following up on my post on Stewart Mandel's point regarding Auburn's and Oregon's schedules, I decided to look at their schedules in context with every other team that has played in a BCS title game.  Rather than using opponents’ records as the barometer, I used the three computer rankings that go back to 1998: Sagarin, SRS, and Sorenson.  (I must have a thing for rankings that start with S.  I blame my kids’ consumption of Sesame Street.  Or maybe the fact that they were fighting over Steamer & Samuel this morning.  Whatever, it’s the little ones’ fault.  Definitely.)  Using opponents’ records is a simple, but weak way to evaluate strength of schedule because it rewards teams that play in conferences with smaller numbers of conference games and/or whose members tend to play tomato cans outside of the league.  Here are the ranks of each of the 26 teams that made the title game, sorted by the average of the three rankings:

	Sagarin	Sorenson	SRS	Average
Florida 08	4	4	5	4.33
Florida State 98	5	3	5	4.33
Bama 09	2	10	2	4.67
USC 04	7	5	5	5.67
Oklahoma 08	7	9	2	6.00
Florida 06	8	10	4	7.33
Florida State 00	11	2	11	8.00
USC 05	8	16	9	11.00
Florida State 99	11	9	14	11.33
Oklahoma 04	15	10	11	12.00
LSU 07	11	12	14	12.33
Oklahoma 00	14	13	14	13.67
Texas 05	13	15	23	17.00
Auburn 10	15	24	14	17.67
Tennessee 98	24	22	26	24.00
Miami 01	27	27	22	25.33
Nebraska 01	29	26	29	28.00
Ohio State 02	30	42	21	31.00
Oregon 10	19	38	38	31.67
Texas 09	38	31	26	31.67
Oklahoma 03	39	29	32	33.33
Ohio State 06	38	35	34	35.67
LSU 03	28	38	41	35.67
Miami 02	37	34	37	36.00
Virginia Tech 99	43	35	58	45.33
Ohio State 07	53	51	57	53.67

The first point to make about this chart is that it underrates Auburn and Oregon because it compares their pre-championship game schedules against 24 other teams’ post-championship game slates.  After the title game, both Auburn and Oregon are going to find themselves about five spots higher in the rankings, so Oregon will be in the middle of the chart and Auburn will be right around tenth.  The conclusion to be drawn is that the e-mail that led Mandel to create his table – a message claiming that Auburn had an extremely hard schedule en route to Glendale and Oregon had an extremely easy one – is totally wrong according to the computers that aren’t castrated by the BCS.  Auburn played a tougher schedule, but not by a wide margin and neither team is an outlier in the 26-team sample.

It is worth noting, however, that the general point stands that strength of schedule has predictive power in title games.  The top six on the list all won the title game, with the exceptions of Oklahoma ‘08 (they were playing a team above them on the list) and Florida State ‘98 (they were starting the Rooster instead of Chris Weinke).  The bottom seven on the list all lost with the exception of ‘03 LSU, who played a fellow member of the bottom quartile. 

Also, the list gives us more reason to heap scorn on the Big Ten.  Leaving aside the fact that only one Big Ten team has made the title game over a 13-year period (joining the ACC as the only conference about which that statement can be made), Ohio State has two schedules in the bottom five of the list.  The best of the three Buckeye teams to make the title game had the 18th best schedule of the 26 title game participants and will likely be 19th after Oregon meets Auburn.  This isn’t a jibe at Ohio State, as the Bucks can’t be faulted for the state of their conference rivals.  This is a jibe at the rest of Jim Delany’s conference, which produced neither title contenders outside of Ohio State nor a depth of good opponents to challenge the Bucks in the three season in which they made the title game.

Point to Auburn

Stewart Mandel’s latest Mailbag contains a chart that I find very interesting.  The chart lists three measures of strength of schedule for every team that has played in a BCS Championship Game.  The results are fairly telling.  Auburn has played the third-toughest schedule, while Oregon’s is dead last.  Now, it’s important to mention that simply looking at the records of a team’s opponents isn’t a great way to measure strength of schedule.  Specifically, it penalizes a team from the Pac Ten because the Pac Ten has a nine-game conference schedule, which will tend to push the records of Oregon’s opponents towards .500.  SEC teams play eight conference games and tend to replace that ninth conference game with a revenue-friendly tomato can, which inflated the overall record of Auburn’s opponents.  Massey and Sagarin show Auburn and Oregon as having played equivalent schedules; SRS shows Auburn has having played a tougher schedule, but the margin isn’t huge.  I’d bet that Jerry Palm himself, the person that Mandel refers to has “our hero,” would be unimpressed by the methodology that Mandel uses.   

That said, look at what has happened in title games where one opponent was more than ten spots removed from the other on the chart:

1998 Tennessee (20) over Florida State (1)
2006 Florida (4) over Ohio State (24)
1999 Florida State (5) over Virginia Tech (25)
2009 Alabama (7) over Texas (19)

Three of the four teams that played significantly tougher schedules won the title game and the fourth is a bit of a misnomer because Florida State was playing without its starting quarterback.  The Noles wouldn’t have been in the title game in the first place if Marcus Outzen would have been their quarterback for the whole season.  (Counterpoint: if we drop the ‘98 game, then we should also drop the ‘09 game because of Colt McCoy’s injury and then we’re left with a sample size of two.)

The more I think about it, the more I’m deciding that Mandel has a good point about strength of schedule, but he’s using the wrong stats to achieve it.

Pearls before Swine

Carl Crawford is the most coveted free agent position player in no small part because of his defensive ability.  He’s terrific at covering wide open spaces in left field because he’s lightning fast and gets great jumps on balls.  So which team signs him in the free agent market?  The team with the smallest left field in baseball, naturally.  This makes as much sense as taking a five-star pocket passer and putting him in the Spread ‘n’ Shred. 

I'm Sorry, but this is Hilarious to me

Barcelona absolutely destroyed Arsenal last year. 2-2 in the first leg flattered Arsenal in an unbelievable fashion in light of the fact that the Gunners couldn't get the ball out of their own half in the first half. In the second leg, Barca played without Iniesta or either of its first-choice centerbacks and won 4-1. (Yes, I know that Arsenal had injuries as well.) This year's Barca side is better than last year's because David Villa is a better fit at striker and Iniesta is healthy. There's not another team I'd rather Barca play in the Champions League because Arsenal try to do what Barca do, only they aren't as good at it. Possibly to his credit, Wenger can't or won't play the counter-attacking style that is a necessity against the Blaugrana.

I mention all of this because I was laughing for about ten minutes straight when I read this:

Twitter / @Henry Winter: According to one #afc play ...: "@henrywinter
Henry Winter
According to one #afc player, only one name discussed in Emirates dressing-room afterwards... Barcelona
12 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Favorite Retweet Reply"

Where are the Trees in this Great Big Forest?

The problem with the computer rankings used by the BCS is that they are mathematically indefensible. The primary reason why this is so is that the computer rankings are forbidden from accounting for scoring margin. Thus, a 12-0 team that wins every game by 30 points looks exactly the same to them as a 12-0 team that won its games by seven points. If a bettor placed wagers looking only at record and strength of schedule without accounting for scoring margin, he'd end up at a bar being berated by Nicky Santoro. ("You call yourself a man?") And yet we have these ridiculous computer rankings that the programmers themselves view as inferior playing a major role in who plays for the national title.

So what's the problem with the computer rankings according to Tony Barnhart? The fact that Wes Colley made a data entry error. Yes, Tony, it would be nice if the computer rankings made their formulae publicly available. You know what would be even better than that? If Massey and Sagarin could actually use the formulae that they believe are far superior than than the drivel that they have to report to the BCS. Coming back to our inept bettor, let's imagine that Nicky's victim is wasting his family's money by playing craps instead of paying the power bill. Barnhart's complaint is the equivalent of Nicky ripping on the gambler for one decision that he made during an eight-hour binge at the tables instead of tearing him a new one for playing craps in the first place.

More Messi vs. Ronaldo

Sid Lowe weighs in:

It is true that what makes Messi appear so remarkable are his headline skills. He has a ridiculous number of goals -- 70 in his last 72 games. He has also outdribbled Ronaldo this season, completing 50 successful dribbles to the Portuguese's 30. But it is not about that. It is about the other things. All the other things. It is about the fact that, contrary to the assumptions that Messi is a player who only does the extraordinary, he does the simple things, too. Messi, in short, can play. When Ronaldo is no longer an athlete, he will probably not be much of a player. Messi will.

Monday was no one-off. If you really want to run through a checklist, try a list that's based not on arbitrary marks but actual statistics. This season, Messi has provided 27 assists, seven of them leading to goals. Ronaldo has provided 22, four of them leading to goals. Messi provides a goal every 147 minutes to Ronaldo's 307. Messi has completed 590 passes to Ronaldo's 429. Messi has delivered 105 bad passes to Ronaldo's 159. Messi gives the ball away less often, too. Ronaldo has delivered 45 balls into the area and Messi has delivered 64. Of those, Ronaldo has found his target four times, Messi 60 times.

In total, Messi has tried 695 passes and completed 590 to Ronaldo's 588 and 429. He is involved all over the pitch; his "action areas" are more varied. He participates in moves more often, starts more plays and has more total "actions" in a game than Ronaldo. As for that often eulogized quality known as fight, the cojones stereotype of which English commentators, in particular, are so fond: Messi has even committed more fouls, robbed more balls and won more possession than Ronaldo.

At this point, it seems hard to find anyone outside of Madrid and Portugal who will take the position that Ronaldo is the better player.  I’d like to say that I was right side of history, but it’s just as easy to say that I’m a Cule making the case that our player is better than their player.  The question that Sid Lowe doesn’t address (and possibly because it’s hard as hell to evaluate) is what role one should assign to coaching and teammates.  Messi plays in front of the other two finalists for the Ballon D'Or, two superlative midfielders who supply him with the ball.  Messi is playing in the system in which he has flourished since he was a youth team player and he’s playing for a coach who is himself a product of that system.  In watching college football, we’ve learned about system quarterbacks, guys who look great because they are in the right system with the right coach and the right teammates.  I’m not saying that Messi is Danny Wuerrfel, but it is possible that he’s Cam Newton: a superlative player who wouldn’t be where he is without his surrounding environment. 

The counter to this argument might be that Ronaldo wouldn’t fit in the Barca system.  Messi fits, both in terms of his style of play and his unassuming personality.  It’s hard to picture Ronaldo playing the same role, given his preference for doing his own thing.  The great counter-factual from the debate is this: what if Messi would have come up at Sporting Lisbon and Ronaldo would have come up at La Masia?  This question would get into psychology and adolescent development, so maybe Sid Lowe wouldn’t be the right guy to tackle it, but it would be a gem of an article, right?

Piling onto Wetzel

I am undecided as to whether I want to read Dan Wetzel’s book on the BCS.  I’ll give Wetzel credit for apparently going beyond the usual “decide it on the field!” cliches that one hears on sports talk radio.  (Steak Shapiro had his zillionth “a coach should be measured by how his team is doing at the end of the season” rant this morning, as if the first half of a season ought to be a glorified preseason.)  Wetzel’s examination of the bowl system sounds like a worthy read.  That said, his justification for a 16-team playoff sounds weak:

The way to reward the best teams is two-fold. First is providing home-field advantage to the higher-seeded team until the title game (more on this later).

The second is by giving an easier first-round opponent – in this case No. 1 seed Auburn would play No. 16 Florida International. Earning a top two or three seed most years would present a school a de facto bye into the second round.  FIU isn’t in the tournament to win the title – they won’t – but to make the regular season matter more.

Right now, the regular season matters because one loss is often fatal (ask the three Big Ten co-champions about that) and two losses are almost invariably fatal.  If you replace the existing system with a 16-team playoff, then teams are no longer playing for survival every week.  Instead, they are playing for homefield advantage, which anyone with skin in the game will tell you is worth about a field goal, and the right to play marginally easier opponents as the playoffs progress.  The Auburn-South Carolina game this weekend was all-or-nothing.  If Auburn won, they would almost certainly play for a national title.  If they lost, they almost certainly would not.  It would not have had nearly the same import if Auburn were playing for the right to play the LSU/Oklahoma winner in the second round instead of Wisconsin.

The other issue that I’d like to see Wetzel address is that a system that gives a 6-6 Sunbelt champion the same chance to win a national title as a 13-0 SEC Champion (or, for that matter, a 10-2 team that finished third in a six-team division over the 13-0 team that won that division and beat the 10-2 team) is flawed.  To use my favorite NFL example, a system that gave a 13-6 New York Giants team a shot on a neutral field to beat an 18-0 New England Patriots team that had already beaten the Giants in New Jersey is inferior in terms of determining a true champion, a.k.a. the team that deserves a title the most by virtue of having the best season.  How much did homefield and the right to play easier opponents matter in 2007?  Or the following year when the Arizona Cardinals almost won the Super Bowl after going 9-7 in the easiest division in football?  From all accounts, Wetzel presents a compelling case that the bowl system is fundamentally corrupt, but his solution is flawed in its own way.  Maybe his book is just a good case for reforming the bowl system?  Or implementing a limited playoff within the bowl system?  

Michigan Needs a Burst of Cleansing Synchronicity

Please tell me that I'm not the only one who reads the account of Michigan's season-ending banquet and then thinks immediately of this scene from Heathers:

[in the caf]

PF [shouts] Attention!

[GE spits out his milk]

May I have your attention?

[VS walks in through the door, wearing black glasses]

This school has been torn apart by tragedies. I'm here to fuse it back
again, in togetherness. I want everybody to clap hands. [VS takes of her
glasses, and looks at PF as if she was insane]
We need to connect this cafeteria into one mighty circuit! Look! Here's
the TV crew! Clap your hands!

[PF start walking around in the caf, making everybody hold hands]

VS [to HD] Look's like Ms Phlegm's on another one of her crusades.
Usual success, of course.

TV Hi, what's your name?

HD [smiling] Hi, I'm Heather Duke.

[MD crawls down under the table]

[JD walks up to VS, and holds her from behind]

JD Is this as good for you as it is for me?

[JD takes a seat at MD's table, and MD returns to her chair]

Greetings and salutations!

PD [to PF] I need a copy of all this by monday for my Princeton
application.

[VS leaves]

I thought we had hired Bo Schembechler, but instead, we've hired Pauline Fleming.

Cam Newton's Going to Play? Cam Newton's Going to Play!

This is what it's all about, folks!

Random thoughts on the NCAA ruling:

1. Though you wouldn't know it from the reaction of Auburn fans (or at least the Auburn fans with whom I work), yesterday was not a good day for Auburn. The NCAA has concluded that Cecil Newton attempted to sell his son to Mississippi State. That raises two possibilities for what actually happened in Newton's recruitment: (a) Cecil Newton was bluffing when he told Mississippi State that he had an offer on the table; or (b) the Reverend did have an offer from Auburn. Likewise, now that it's been established that Cecil Newton was looking for a payday when Cam was recruited and Cam ended up at Auburn after Cecil made the decision himself, we have a strong implication that Auburn paid for Newton. An implication isn't enough to declare a player ineligible, so the NCAA ruling is defensible, but if one were taking odds on whether Auburn paid for Newton, the favorite would be "they're cheatin' again."

2. The other negative for Auburn is that the stakes are just going to keep rising for them. If Newton would have been declared ineligible before the Georgia game, then it's quite possible (likely?) that Auburn would have lost to Georgia and Alabama and therefore would not have won their division. Now, Auburn has won the West and is favored to win the SEC Championship Game. If Auburn wins this weekend and it turns out that they paid for Newton, then they will have bought an SEC Championship. And then, you have the prospect that Auburn beats South Carolina and wins in Glendale. That would be the equivalent of the Tigers pushing all of their chips into the middle of the table. If that happens and then the NCAA (or, more likely, the FBI/IRS and then the NCAA) establish that Auburn boosters paid for Newton, then the blowback would be immense. At that stage, Auburn would have embarrassed the sport of college football by winning the national title on the back of a quarterback who was bought and paid for. As a neutral college football fan, the conclusion is that we would all feel a little more at ease if South Carolina won on Saturday.

3. All that said, the NCAA's ruling yesterday didn't offend my sense of propriety because I generally assume that players and their families will accept money if it's offered. That seems implicit to me in college football recruiting (with obvious exceptions). The bulwark against rampant cheating is not recruits and their families; it's the coaches and athletic departments that place their reputations on the line by offering money. The prospect of NCAA sanctions is the deterrent against schools paying for recruits. The prospect of becoming Todd Bozeman is the deterrent for a coach. All of the hyperventilating about families now having the ability to have their hands out seems excessive to me. If programs don't pay money for players, then it doesn't matter. Also, there is concern about a slippery slope with families asking for money all the time, but think about the alternative if the NCAA rules that asking for an improper benefit renders an athlete ineligible. Recruits and players are probably asking for small benefits all the time: tickets, meals, apparel, travel, etc. Most of the requests are probably entirely innocent. Do we really want every such request to put eligibility at risk?

4. The NCAA's ruling also makes sense in another respect: there are no damages. If this were a civil action, then Auburn's defense would be "no harm, no foul." Yes, Cecil Newton solicited money, but in the end, there is no evidence that money changed hands and that is the focus of these particular NCAA rules.

My Top 25 Runs Deep, So Deep

Braves & Birds Ballot - Week 14

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	Stanford Cardinal	--
4	TCU Horned Frogs	--
5	Arkansas Razorbacks	--
6	Boise St. Broncos	--
7	Wisconsin Badgers	--
8	Oklahoma Sooners	--
9	Nebraska Cornhuskers	--
10	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
11	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
12	Nevada Wolf Pack	--
13	LSU Tigers	--
14	Missouri Tigers	--
15	South Carolina Gamecocks	--
16	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	--
17	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
18	Michigan St. Spartans	--
19	Texas A&M Aggies	--
20	Florida St. Seminoles	--
21	Arizona Wildcats	--
22	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	--
23	West Virginia Mountaineers	--
24	Utah Utes	--
25	N.C. State Wolfpack	--

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

One observation on my ballot: this is a pretty good year in terms of depth of quality teams. Look at 16-20. Those five teams combined for only 11 losses and all five either won or tied for their division titles. We have three major conference title games coming up this weekend and there isn't a suspect team playing in any of them (even in the ACC!). One thought on why: this has been a relatively upset-free season. We thought coming into the season that this would be like 2007 in that there wasn't a dominant team and therefore that results would be crazy from week to week. It's true that this year was like 2007 in that none of the top teams from the preseason polls ended up in contention for the national title in November, but this year has been unlike 2007 in that there haven't been a pile of upsets. You don't get three one-loss teams in the Big Ten or an obvious big two in the Pac Ten if this were a year in which there was massive parity between the teams.

On the other hand, I got 22 teams on my ballot and then had to struggle for the last three.

Are you Almeria in Disguise?

That was better than sex. Or at least as good. I’m not certain. The last 20 minutes were certainly afterglow, the contentment of a job well done after Barca had plundered the net repeatedly. The Catalan sports dailies both agree, dubbing this Barca the Orgasm Team.

In retrospect, Real Madrid were beaten when Jose Mourinho announced in the lead-up to the match that Real needed to give the world a show. Since when have Mourinho’s teams ever been able to do that? Jose has shown the ability to do one thing right against the Blaugrana: park the bus. Using super-aggressive tactics, his Chelsea side escaped with a 2-1 defeat in 2005 that they were able to turn into a second leg win. Likewise, his Inter side scraped through with a 1-0 defeat last May using the same approach. When Real’s lineup contained “only” two anchor midfielders – Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira, neither of whom are true Makeleles – they were done. From the outset, Barca heaped pressure on Los Merengues because Xavi, Iniesta, and Busquets had time on the ball in the center. That time allowed them to pick out the three Barca forwards. It even allowed Xavi to make a run himself to put away Iniesta’s pass for the opener. I was expecting Real to play a tight backline with assistance from a midfield three and one forward dropping back. Instead, Real got stretched and Barca punished them time and again. This game was 5-0 and it could have been ten. Ray Hudson was raving by the end that it is unfair to compare this Barca side to the Zico-Socrates-Falcao ‘82 Brazil side, or any other team in history for that matter. The performance was that good.

The indispensible Michael Cox of Zonal Marking makes several excellent, specific points about the tactical decisions that turned the match into a massacre:

Mourinho started the game with his wingers on the opposite flanks to usual – Ronaldo out on the right and Angel di Maria on the left, presumably to work around the problem of Real defending against Dani Alves, as Di Maria is the better defensive player. Whilst Mourinho is generally a reactionary manager anyway, in a sense Guardiola had won the first battle of the match without a ball being kicked, since Mourinho felt the need to play his most dangerous player somewhere other than the position where he had been turning in incredible performances so far this campaign.

Ronaldo is not alien to the right wing, of course – it is the position where he established himself at Manchester United. However, Mourinho is clearly a fan of stability – he’s changed his starting XI as little as possible so far this season, and considering how well Ozil (who plays left-of-centre) links up with Ronaldo, breaking up that combination was a surprise, and was (a small) part of the reason why Ozil wasn’t very effective in this game. There’s also an argument that Ronaldo playing high up the pitch on the right indirectly opened up space on the flank for Iniesta, who often moved to Barca’s left.

Far be it from me to ever defend Cristiano Ronaldo, but this game was a little unfair as a referendum in the debate as to whether Ronaldo or Messi is the best player on the planet. (We resolved this a while ago, didn’t we?) Ronaldo was reduced a pile of useless tricks, a shove at Pep Guardiola, and one instance of penalty box theatrics. Carles Puyol put Ronaldo on a leash and took him for a stroll, not unlike the 2008 Champions League Final. (Having a center back who can play as a right or left back is a huge advantage. Puyol played on the outside of the back three and was able to run with Ronaldo all day. A conventional center back would get eaten alive in open space by Ronaldo.) That said, Ronaldo had precious little support. He was decoupled from Ozil, who was totally absent from the match, and he got very little from the midfield or the fullbacks. When Ronaldo had the ball, he either didn’t have options in the form of intelligent runs from Benzema and Di Maria or he didn’t pick those runs out. (I’m leaning towards the former.) In contrast, Messi got service from his midfield and Villa kept popping up in dangerous spots. Thus, Messi had a major impact on the game without scoring in that he assisted on the third and fourth goals. The game underlined the point that Messi is a far better passer than Ronaldo. Real didn’t quite know how to handle him, which was a surprise after Mourinho was able to use Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso to shackle their countryman in last year’s Champions League semifinal. Cox makes this point:

Sometimes you simply cannot stop Messi. How could Real have done it? Well, they could have used another holding player, and the introduction of Lassana Diarra for Ozil at half-time was nothing more or less than the obvious – an admission Mourinho got his starting line-up wrong. Against truly top-class opposition, especially a team playing a player ‘in the hole’ (as Messi often was, despite nominally playing as a forward), Alonso as the deepest midfield doesn’t work – he is neither particularly mobile nor a good tackler, and needs an enforcer alongside him. The Champions League final of 2005 showed that particularly well.

So Mourinho is faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, part of Real’s failing tonight was that their offside trap was totally ineffective and they can remedy that issue simply by playing more games together. (This explanation isn’t entirely convincing because Ricardo Carvalho is the only new member of the back line, but he was the weak link tonight.) On the other hand, Mourinho cannot play for a draw when the teams meet again in Madrid on April 16. The fans at the Bernabeu will not stand for negative tactics as that will be an admission that Real cannot go toe-to-toe with their arch-rival. (Then again, this point is patently obvious. Barca have won five in a row against Real by a margin of 16-2 and haven’t conceded in over 300 minutes against Franco’s favorite team.) Moreover, if Barca come into the game with the lead in La Liga, then Real will have to go for the win. Can Real play the tighter, more defensive style that appears to be their only hope against the Blaugrana and still go for the win? Is the answer no more complicated than that Real don’t have the same defensive personnel as Inter? Jose can take a trip to the local theatre to ponder.

As for Barca, this win answers a number of questions. Will David Villa fit in with his new team? Two goals and an assist say yes. Will Pep figure out his best XI? I’d say that the unit tonight will be the starters in crunch matches going forward, especially because Abidal provides defensive balance opposite Dani Alves. (Note that Javier Mascherano is not part of the preferred XI. I still don’t know why Barca spent so much on a guy who provides depth behind Busquets.) Can the youngsters fill out the bench? Jeffren’s coup de grace goal set up by Bojan is a good sign. Will the boardroom political fighting between the Laporta and Rosell factions undermine the team? Maybe someday, but that day is not today. Can Xavi’s Achilles tendon hold up? Time will tell, but he looked great tonight. Will Mourinho’s move to La Liga unsettle the team? Eh, seems unlikely.

The Sunday Splurge Wants Better Jimmies and Joes

I thought that nerds were smart?

I get the point that Georgia Tech fans were pessimistic going into the game in Athens on Saturday night with the Jackets 6-5, missing their starting quarterback, and coming off of an unimpressive performance against Duke.  In light of those expectations, losing 42-34 in large part because of a missed PAT seems like a victory.  However, this part of Mark Bradley's post-game column is excessively optimistic:

In the end his team lost, but the same Tech man who’d told me after the Jackets’ uninspiring defeat of Duke that he fully dreaded Saturday night in Athens was positively giddy in this losing aftermath. And another Tech man, the former captain Taz Anderson, sent this e-mail 18 minutes after the final whistle: “Tonight you saw a great football coach take a group that has little talent and keep them in a game where they were clearly overmatched.”

OK, I know what (some of) you Bulldogs are saying to that: “They’re Techies and they lost– who cares what they think?” And under other circumstances I might agree. But after this wild night I’d suggest both sides saw  the same game, which is to say an on-paper mismatch that became an on-field white-knuckler. And I’d also ask this: When was the last time Georgia’s coach worked a game that good?

If Tech has little talent, then whose fault is that?  Partially Chan Gailey’s, but at least partially Paul Johnson.  Do Tech fans not understand that the head coach has a major role to play in determining whether his team will have talent, either directly by recruiting players himself or indirectly by hiring the coaching staff?  Put another way, are Tech fans viewing Saturday night as a lab experiment in which the guy in the white coat did his best to get a reaction out of the materials at hand, all while ignoring the fact that that guy is responsible for the materials in the first place?  If Tech’s roster is full of promising underclassmen who were recruited by Johnson and is suffering because of Gailey’s last classes, then I guess this response makes sense, but I don’t see that phenomenon when I look at the Jackets’ mix of players.  To me, the post-game reaction places way too much emphasis on the coaching decisions that we see with our eyes (Johnson’s decision to let Georgia score at 35-34 and Richt falling for the gambit) and not enough on the coaching decisions that we don’t see (recruiting good players 365 days per year).

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Tiebreaker)

Remember 2008 when the Big XII South (and therefore a shot at playing Florida in the national title game) was decided with the Big XII using the BCS rankings to split a three-way tie?  Remember how large segments viewed this as a travesty?  At this point, it seems fairly well accepted that this is the way to split a three-way tie.  The Big XII South is going to be settled by this method, as will the Big Ten.  As best I can tell, no one is clamoring for a return to using other methods.

The Big XII South coming down to BCS rankings makes perfect sense because it has a three-way tie in which the three teams each went 1-1 against one another.  The Big Ten’s three-way tie is a little more complicated.  Because Michigan State didn’t play Ohio State, there isn’t a complete set of results for the three teams tied atop the conference.  (By the way, if you want a good argument in favor of the Big Ten implementing a championship game, how about the fact that 27% of the conference gets to claim that they are conference champions?  Another good argument: money.)  Michigan State went 1-0 against the other two teams; Wisconsin went 1-1; and Ohio State was 0-1.  On the other hand, Michigan State is behind Wisconsin and Ohio State in the human polls and the BCS computer polls.  The Spartans are well behind the Badgers and Buckeyes according to Sagarin (they would be an 11-point underdog on a neutral field against Ohio State), Massey, and SRS.  In short, there is near-universal consensus that Michigan State is the weakest of the three teams tying for the Big Ten title, a conclusion that comes from the fact that the Spartans had very close calls with 7-5 Notre Dame, 7-5 Northwestern, and 4-8 Purdue.  With 36 games of evidence showing that Michigan State is not as good as Ohio State or Wisconsin, isn’t it better to use that evidence to determine the Rose Bowl bid as opposed to common record in two games (or, even worse, the fact that the Spartans haven’t been to Pasadena as recently as the Buckeyes or Badgers)?

Can Chuck Neinas find a defensive coordinator?

In 2009, Michigan finished a disappointing 71st in yards per play allowed.  As bad as that showing was, Michigan was ahead of Texas A&M (90th) and Florida State (105th).  A&M and Florida State both hired young, promising defensive coordinators, while Michigan stuck with Greg Robinson.  A&M returned nine starters on defense, Michigan returned seven, and Florida State returned six.  In 2010, the Aggies and Noles both improved to 11th in yards per play allowed, while Michigan plummeted to 100th.  The contrast was especially stark this weekend, as Texas A&M and Florida State both notched impressive wins over their arch-rivals, while Michigan was dominated (again) by Ohio State.  Yes, Ohio State is much better this year than Florida or Texas, but is there much doubt that Michigan would make John Brantley and Garrett Gilbert look like their predecessors under center?

This example can cut one of two ways when evaluating Rich Rodriguez.  On the one hand, he made a major staffing mistake unlike two other offensively-minded head coaches and that mistake would be a legitimate basis for termination.  On the other hand, if Rodriguez got another shot and found his version of Tim DeRuyter or Mark Stoops, then Michigan’s defense could show similar, marked improvement in 2011.

Random Thoughts on the Iron Bowl

• What is it with Auburn and the late rallies?  I get the fact that the Tigers sub liberally, so their defense is fresher in the fourth quarter.  That said, how does one explain their tendency to get torched by star receivers for two to three quarters before shutting them down in the fourth?  Does it take Ted Roof a while to realize that maybe he should be shading his coverage toward A.J. Green and Julio Jones?  And will he learn his lesson when the Tigers get a second crack at Alshon Jeffery this weekend?  On offense, Auburn and Oregon share a tendency to get better as the game goes on.  I see two explanations here.  First, their no-huddle offenses play at a fast pace and wear opposing defenses out.  (Maybe the Auburn and Oregon defenses are especially well-conditioned because of practicing against their offenses?  Can the Spread be an advantage to a defense?)  Second, Gus Malzahn and Chip Kelly are both very bright offensive minds, so they adjust to what the defenses are throwing at them over the course of 60 minutes.  That said, Auburn got back into the Iron Bowl on the strength of two basic fly patterns, one of which was badly misplayed by Mark Barron.  Jeff Bowden would be so proud.
• On the list of things that Gary Danielson got wrong this year, let’s add in the fact that he wanted Auburn to punt on fourth and three from the Alabama 47 on what turned out to be the winning drive of the game.  Anytime you have a team with a great offense and a merely decent defense, you want the game to come down to the defense instead of the offense, right?
• The personal foul on Nick Fairley in the first quarter was insane.  Ohio State was also the victim of a pair of dreadful “too much happiness” calls on Saturday, which makes me dread a world in which refs will have increased powers to make meaningful excessive celebration calls next year. 
• 36, 102, 69.  Those numbers represent Alabama’s rushing totals in the Tide’s three losses this season.  Remember before the season when the discussion was whether the Ingram-Richardson tailback pairing was the best in college football history?  The most interesting inquest following the 2010 Alabama season is what happened to the running game.

Barnhart's False Dichotomy

Professor Tom Collier, one of my favorite teachers in college, addressed Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan by saying that the answer all depends on the question that you ask. If the question is "was dropping the bombs better than invading Japan?," then the answer is obviously yes. If the question is "was dropping the bombs (and especially the second bomb over Nagasaki after we had already made the point that we had an unprecedented weapon) better than letting the diplomatic process play out?," then the answer is a lot less clear because there is a lot of evidence that the Japanese were about to surrender anyway.

I was reminded of that lesson when I read Tony Barnhart's "what if Auburn loses to Alabama and beats South Carolina?" piece yesterday because Barnhart frames the debate in such a way that it inherently favors Auburn:

If the choice is among 12-1 Auburn, 12-0 Boise State and 12-0 TCU for a No. 2 vote, who do the pollsters choose? Do they take a one-loss team from the conference that has won four straight national championships? Or do they use the controversy surrounding Newton as an excuse to give one of the little guys a chance?

In other words, do the voters make their decision based on precedent (the SEC's performance in BCS Championship Games) or conjecture (the swirling rumors about Cam Newton's recruitment)? If you pose the question that way, then the answer is obvious. However, Barnhart ignores the possibility that if Auburn loses to Alabama, then Boise State will have a better resume and would therefore be the more deserving team to go to Glendale. By ignoring the "which team is better if Auburn loses to Alabama?" question, Barnhart controls the answer.

If we ask the right question, then the Broncos come out ahead. Boise has dominated their schedule to a sick degree. They are #2 in the nation in yards per play gained and #1 in yards per play allowed. Their yards per play margin of +3.85 is unlike anything that I've ever seen. (By comparison, 2004 Utah, which is the other recent mid-major team that was deserving of national title consideration, was +1.8.) The major computer polls that account for scoring margin - Sagarin, Massey, and SRS - all place Boise State at #2 behind Oregon. In short, Boise State has a case to play for the national title even if Auburn doesn't lose. Personally, I'd still have Oregon versus Auburn if both finish unbeaten, but it's not a foregone conclusion if you look at the numbers. If Auburn does lose one of its last two games, then the Broncos have to hurdle the Tigers, not because of Cecil Newton, but because Boise State is a great football team with a compelling resume.

Barnhart's precedent point has a number of flaws. First, Boise State can equally point to precedent since they are 2-0 in BCS bowls (and I think that they were underdogs both times). Second, none of the four SEC teams that have won the last four national titles were anything like Auburn on defense. (And let's remember that this is Tony Barnhart we're talking about, the guy for whom the '80 Georgia/'09 Alabama model of tough defense, great running, and a game manager quarterback is positively arousing.) Third, this edition of the SEC isn't quite as good as the last four, mainly because the SEC East has been a disaster zone (as evidenced by the fact that South Carolina won it).

I'm as much of an SEC homer as the next resident of the Peach State, but columns like Barnhart's rein in that tendency. To be worthy of the title, Mr. College Football ought to acknowledge what Boise State has put together this season. I'm no fan of the Broncos, but it's hard to argue with their results.

The Auburn Defense is Neither Auburn, nor a Defense. Discuss.

It’s been a fun few weeks reading stories about Alabama’s underground economy,* but Camkampf has obscured a more pressing issue for those of us who love SEC football: is the Auburn defense good enough to win a national title?  We know that the offense is outstanding.  We know that Nick Fairley is both inappropriately named and also an immovable object in the center of the defensive line.  We know that the Auburn secondary is suspect and facing a senior quarterback, Julio Jones, and a road game against the defending national champions.  So where does this defense stack up?  As ESPN’s Eliminator points out, the defense makes Auburn dissimilar from recent national champions. ($)  But I don’t like their numbers, so I thought that I would use a few of my own.

* – The story of the various scandals involving Auburn’s and Alabama’s NCAA violations would make for a great fourth section in Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness.  An economist would look at college football in Alabama and would not be surprised in the slightest that the state’s two major programs have both been hit by major sanctions on numerous occasions.  You have a state where there are no pro sports teams, so all of the sports interest is funneled into college football.  Evolution has given the state a bipolar set-up in which there are two major programs: a historically successful alpha program and a not-quite-as-good, but striving oh so hard second program.  The state is relatively poor and looked down upon by the rest of the country, so its college football teams become a matter of great importance and pride.  Put on top of that cauldron the ineffective lid of the NCAA’s weak, subpoena-free enforcement apparatus that isn’t a major deterrent to paying players and you have a situation in which it would be surprising if Auburn and Alabama were not forking out $200,000 for quarterbacks.  As my copy of Fab Five looks down from my bookshelf and snickers, I’m not saying that Auburn and Alabama are the only schools that flout NCAA rules.  I’m just saying that the state’s set-up makes that phenomenon likelier than in other places.

Last summer, I took a look at the yards per play numbers for national champions over the course of the decade.  Here’s what that list looked like in terms of yards per play allowed (with 2009 Alabama added in):

2009 Alabama – 4.05
2008 Florida - 4.46
2007 LSU - 4.42
2006 Florida - 4.32
2005 Texas - 4.39
2004 USC - 4.27
2003 USC - 4.41
2003 LSU - 4.02
2002 Ohio State - 4.66
2001 Miami - 3.93
2000 Oklahoma - 4.14

And here is yards gained per play:

2009 Alabama – 5.96
2008 Florida - 7.13
2007 LSU - 5.84
2006 Florida - 6.34
2005 Texas - 7.07
2004 USC - 6.33
2003 USC - 6.49
2003 LSU - 5.89
2002 Ohio State - 5.61
2001 Miami - 6.57
2000 Oklahoma - 5.99

And here’s what those ten national champions looked like in terms of yards per play margin:

2009 Alabama – 1.91
2008 Florida - 2.67
2007 LSU - 1.42
2006 Florida - 2.02
2005 Texas - 2.68
2004 USC - 2.06
2003 USC - 2.08
2003 LSU - 1.87
2002 Ohio State - 0.95
2001 Miami - 2.64
2000 Oklahoma - 1.85

Auburn is currently gaining 7.6 yards per play and allowing 5.18,  giving the Tigers a yards per play margin of 2.42.  So there are two conclusions to be made here.  First, Auburn’s defense is weaker than any of the ten teams to win national titles in the aughts.  The Tigers allow a half a yard per play more than any of those ten teams.  On the other hand, Auburn’s offense is better than any of those ten teams.  Only 2005 Texas and 2008 Florida gained over seven yards per play; Auburn is almost a full half-yard per play better than either of them.  (Note for Gary Danielson: what do 2005 Texas and 2008 Florida have in common?  You know, in terms of the offenses that they ran?  Take a wild guess.)  So while Auburn’s defense doesn’t look like a national championship defense, the team as a whole would fit in with 2008 Florida, 2005 Texas, and 2001 Miami in the cluster of the best national champions of the decade.  (Caveat: Auburn hasn’t yet played the toughest game on its schedule.  After the Iron Bowl, the SEC Championship Game, and a bowl game, one would expect the Tigers’ number to be lower.)  Despite playing several close games against inferior opponents, 2010 Auburn does not have the statistical profile of the insanely fortunate 2002 Ohio State team.

So here’s the takeaway (and one that I was not thinking when fingers hit keyboard this morning): the focus on Auburn’s defense is a little myopic.  A defense doesn’t exist in isolation; it’s part of a team.  If the team is producing great numbers overall, then do the individual components really matter that much?  This is the problem with ESPN’s Eliminator analysis.  It penalizes Auburn for not meeting certain defensive benchmarks, but it doesn’t reward the Tigers for blowing past the offensive benchmarks like Usain Bolt at middle school field day.  It’s possible that a team could be so extreme in terms of offensive strength and defensive weakness that it could have a good yardage margin, but would still be unlikely to win a national title.  A team that gained 13 yards per play and allowed ten would be better in yardage margin than any of the last ten national champions, but we would expect a team like that to lose a game or two 63-59.  It doesn’t seem to me that Auburn is quite that extreme.

By the way, this post has done nothing to push me off the position that Gus Malzahn is more valuable than Gene Chizik.  If Auburn were faced with a choice between the two, it should keep the former.  It would be insane for the Tigers to fire a coach who just won the SEC, but there is a precedent for that from their friends in Tuscaloosa. 

The Sunday Splurge is Thinking about Lucky Charms

Maybe Close Games Aren’t Random

One of the basic tenets of my football philosophy is that teams that win a disproportionate share of close games are “lucky.”  Ohio State 2002 didn’t have some sort of magical clutchiness; they just benefited from a series of fortunate events en route to becoming the weakest national champions of the decade.  I’m not sure if it was the LSU game on Saturday or the Falcons game yesterday, but I’m starting to reevaluate my beliefs.  Part of the reason why the notion of certain teams being clutch is silly is that the sample sizes are inevitably too small.  But then let’s think about how consistently LSU has won close games under Les Miles.  Saturday’s late win over Ole Miss pushed the Tigers to 25-9 under Miles in games decided by one score.  For college football purposes, that’s a reasonably large sample size.

So how can we explain this consistent success?  Let’s come back to the Falcons game yesterday.  Every set of downs seemed to follow the same pattern.  Mike Mularkey would send Michael Turner plodding into the line for a couple yards.  Then, when the team really needed yards, Matt Ryan would find Roddy White for nine yards to move the sticks.  That’s how a team ends up going 10-17 on third downs.  (Yes, Turner did end up with a good stat line in the game, but his line was 25 carries for 86 yards before the final drive in garbage time.)  The Falcons are 8-2 despite the fact that they don’t always play to their strength on offense, which is Ryan throwing the ball.  The Falcons are 5-1 in games decided by one score.  (Over Mike Smith’s tenure, the number is 15-7.)  To a certain extent, this is the result of good fortune (hi, Garrett Hartley!), but it’s also because the team is forced to play to its strength at the end of a close game.  So in a strange way, the team’s success in close games is actually a criticism of its approach.  If Mularkey called plays as if every possession were the final possession of a close game, then the Falcons wouldn’t be in so many close games in the first place.

Can we describe LSU in the same way?  Not exactly.  After all, a team with a dreadful passing game like the Tigers shouldn’t be criticized for relying heavily on the run.  Rather, LSU’s success in close games speaks to Gary Crowton’s incoherence as a playcaller.  There are a lot of good criticisms of Crowton; one of the best is that he doesn’t have a defined style, but instead calls a pastiche of plays that don’t fit together.  At the end of a tight game, he’s forced to go away from the grab bag and instead call the plays that work the best.  Voila, LSU can move the ball when their backs are against the wall. 

Maybe this approach was taught on Bo Schembechler’s staff in the 1980s, because Lloyd Carr had the same pattern.  Over 13 seasons, Carr went 46-27 in games decided by one score, including a perfect 4-0 in overtime.  Michigan fans often joked that Carr’s repeated mantra that the game would be decided in the fourth quarter was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The 1999 team is the best example of this phenomenon.  With fifth-year senior Tom Brady throwing to David Terrell, Marquise Walker, and Aaron Shea and protected by an offensive line featuring Steve Hutchinson, Jeff Backus, and Maurice Williams, Michigan went 7-2 in games decided by one score because whenever Michigan really needed points, they would throw for them.  When they didn’t really need points, they would run Anthony Thomas between the tackles.

So here’s the modification of my theory.  In some instances, a team wins a lot of close games because they are lucky and the small sample size of success in tight games doesn’t tell us anything.  In other instances, a team that plays in a lot of close games and wins a high percentage of those games is underutilizing its talent.  Thus, it ends up in close games repeatedly and then wins those close games because the coaches stop dicking around in the last five minutes.    

Gainesville Gary Rides Again

Remember in October when the final minutes were ticking off in Columbia and Gary Danielson remarked that Alabama would need to go undefeated to have a shot at the national title.  At the time, I found the statement odd because Danielson will never miss an opportunity to pimp a one-loss SEC team for a spot in the title game.  Sure enough, the drumbeat started on Saturday night when Danielson was extolling the difficulty of beating Ole Miss (yes, the same Ole Miss team that lost to Jacksonville State) and opining that a one-loss SEC champion should get to play in Glendale.  Yes, Gary, a one-loss LSU team that (according to Sagarin) would be a 15-point underdog against Oregon, a 14-point underdog against Boise State, and a ten-point underdog against TCU should go to the national title game over at least two unbeaten teams.  And what measure could possibly lead you to conclude that LSU is more deserving for a spot in the title game than Stanford is, seeing as how Stanford has the same record, they’ve played a better schedule in an equivalent conference, and the Cardinal have destroyed all comers without requiring 13 men on the field or a magical lateral bounce to a running kicker to get where they are?(Actually, I think he’s setting up a soapbox moment in the SEC Championship Game in the event that Auburn loses on Friday.)  Maybe you should also explain to us how the Spread offense is receding … during the Iron Bowl that Auburn enters unbeaten because of its offense.

Everything is Coming up Boise

Boise State beat Fresno State 51-0.  Nevada got to the end of its schedule at 10-1, which means that Boise will be able to send voters to the polls with a win over a legitimate team on Friday.  (If the Broncos don’t win, then this is all moot.)  Virginia Tech hasn’t lost since dropping a game against the Broncos and then having a hangover special the following week against James Madison.  Meanwhile, TCU had to survive against San Diego State and its big non-conference win over Baylor has been devalued over the past several weeks.  We can only assume that Auburn is facing another week of Cam Newton allegations in the lead-up to playing Bama in Tuscaloosa.  All that leads to the conclusion that we are going to end up with an Oregon-Boise State national title game that will cause a rash of suicides in Bristol, Connecticut.  In a 1789 season, that would be a fitting conclusion.

BCS, Please Stop Discriminating Against Smaller Programs by Following my Advice

Hey, Gregg Easterbook, contradict yourself in the space of two paragraphs:

And with TCU and Boise State undefeated but disfavored by the BCS setup, there's huge potential for a BCS title game that will be seen as completely bogus. The BCS insiders will do everything in their power to keep TCU or Boise State out of the title contest, and BCS insiders pull the strings.

Regardless, the obsession with style points and victory margins has gotten out of hand. One-third of the BCS ranking is based on the USA Today poll of coaches -- and most coaches are voting on hype and victory margins, since they can't possibly have time to watch film of any contenders they don't face. Retired college coach R.C. Slocum contends this poll of retired college coaches should replace the USA Today poll in the BCS formula, since retired coaches do have time to take a close look at film of every contending team.

First of all, Easterbrook, you're too smart to ignore the importance of margin-of-victory. If statisticians swear that, empirically speaking, rankings with scoring margin have greater predictive power and Vegas sharps who have skin in the game all base their models off of scoring and yardage stats, then someone who claims to have an appreciation for science and knowledge ought not dismiss scoring margin for purely aesthetic reasons.

Second, I guess it didn't occur to Easterbrook that including scoring margin is a saving grace for mid-majors like Boise State and TCU. Those teams will never be able to stay with major conference teams when computer rankings only take strength of schedule into account because their schedules aren't strong enough. The only way for them to keep pace is for the ranking to account for the fact that the Broncos and Horned Frogs are destroying their inferior opposition. The current set of Sagarin rankings proves my point. Boise State and TCU are #4 and #5 in Sagarin's Predictor, the ranking that accounts for scoring margin, and they are #12 and #6 respectively in his ELO-CHESS, the mathematical abomination that Sagarin produces for the BCS because he is required to do so.

Easterbook has two competing ideologies that are in tension with one another. On the one hand, he is a dime store moralist when it comes to scoring margin, suggesting that Wisconsin shouldn't have kicked extra points in the fourth quarter against Indiana. On the other hand, he is a critic of the BCS and major college football programs. The way for the BCS to open the door to smaller programs would be to allow its computer rankings to account for scoring margin. How does Easterbrook resolve the tension? He is either blissfully unaware of it (and I think he's too smart for that to be the case) or he willfully ignores it.