The Final Argument in the Coach Debate

I've been monitoring and debating a phenomenon in which former coaches (and to some extent QBs) do better against their old team than would be expected. And I think I just found the trump card.

I read the recap for the New England/Denver game. For those who don't know, the Broncos were 4-0 heading into the game and New England was a respectable 3-1. The game was at Denver, and Denver was a 3.5 point underdog.

Now on to the interesting stuff: Denver's new head coach was the old offensive coordinator under Bill Belichick. He just left New England this past year. Below is the wikipedia entry Josh McDaniel's time at New England:

McDaniels joined the Patriots in 2001 as a personnel assistant. From 2002 to 2003, he served as a defensive coaching assistant for the team, working with the defensive backs in 2003. In 2004, he became the team's quarterbacks coach. McDaniels was with the New England Patriots for all three of their Super Bowl championships, Super Bowl XXXVI, Super Bowl XXXVIII, and Super Bowl XXXIX. After offensive coordinator Charlie Weis left the team following the 2004 season, the Patriots did not name an offensive coordinator for the 2005 season. According to The New York Times, in 2008, it was McDaniels who called the offensive plays for the 2005 season, although suggestions to that effect were made in 2005.^[2][4] After the season, McDaniels was officially promoted to offensive coordinator, while retaining his responsibilities coaching the team's quarterbacks.

In the 2007 season, with McDaniels at the helm of the offense, the Patriots set NFL records, scoring 75 touchdowns (67 on offense, 50 passing and 17 rushing) and 589 points, leading to rumors that McDaniels might leave the Patriots for a head coaching job.^[5] McDaniels withdrew his name from consideration, however, during the Patriots' January 2008 playoff run. Shortly after the Patriots' loss in Super Bowl XLII, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave McDaniels a five-page typed report on what it takes to be an effective head coach and run a winning organization, which McDaniels termed "his bible." Throughout the 2008 season, the two would meet to discuss the report and allow McDaniels to ask non-coaching questions that he brought to later head coaching interviews.^[6]

In the 2008 season, McDaniels led the offense to an 11-5 record with quarterback Matt Cassel, the only known NFL quarterback ever to start an NFL game without ever starting at quarterback in college. McDaniels' role in developing Cassel has been cited as one of his qualifications for head coaching jobs.

Those are pretty important details. The man knows New England and everything about their current roster, and especially about Tom Brady. After all, he was their QB coach for several years.

And as fate would have it, Denver upset New England, winning in overtime. More tellingly, Brady threw for 215 yards, and New England didn't score in the second half. He stymied their offense and heralded QB.

So after reading this I wasn't very surprised and was happy I found another instance in which a former coach did better than average against his old team. Then I found my biggest piece of data:

With the loss, Belichick fell to 8-7 against his former assistants.

Let me write that again, for emphasis:

With the loss, Belichick fell to 8-7 against his former assistants.

Bill Belichick, the greatest coach in the NFL since the millenium started, with more Super Bowl Rings, more victories, the longest winning streaks, the unstoppable force in the NFL, is barely over .500 against his former assistant coaches.

So Belichick, coaching the best team of the last decade, going against 1st time head coaches on teams SO BAD THEY FIRED THEIR PREVIOUS HEAD COACH, is barely winning half his games?

Think about that.

It gives you everything you need to know.

It tells you why the Packers so desperately wanted to avoid Favre coming back to the NFC north. Why Belichick was so furious Eric Mancini went to the NY Jets, a divisional rival.

This statistic about Belichick struggling so much against his assistants settles the debate. If Belichick is only 8-7, the rest of the league's coaches must be terrible.

Cognitive Bias potentially discovered

I was thinking about the concept of upsets.  Of teams being either better or worse than their record.  Essentially, teams taking days off and giving up a game.  

As far as I know only really good or really bad teams take games off.  Everyone else is scrabbling for everything they can.

But I've never studied the playoffs and seeding to see how many lower-seed upsetting higher-seed situations there are.  The NBA is uniquely suited among the major sports to see how match-ups effect playoff results because of the linearity of scoring, and the seven game series format.  This allows for a LOT of basketball to be played between two teams in an effort to sort out who is the best.  

One of the problems with analyzing it is the seeding.  The NBA uses a 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3vs 6, and 4 vs 5 seeding.  An alternative seeding could be 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6, and 7 vs 8 format.  This would let the 1 and 2 seeds duke it out right away, without risk of players getting injured while getting the scrubs out of the way.  The winner would likely face a moderate test in the 3 vs 4 winner, and then celebrate the title early as they beat the winner of the 5 vs 6 vs 7 vs 8 scrum.  

The last series would be akin to a victory lap.  

If we used that seeding, we'd have lots of instances of teams with very close records playing seven games series and we'd see what sort of strength there is to a W-L record, i.e. how accurately it predicts the outcome.  

Just a random thought I had about seeding.  

Also, when I research seeding upsets, check to see the expected wins and losses because of the disparity in homecourt advantage for the higher seeded team.  What I mean is that if two identical teams played, and one had home court advantage in a seven game series in the current format, what percentage of the time would they win.  And what percentage of the time does that actually happen.  

Darling Du Jour

The "darling du jour" is a play on the term soup du jour, meaning the soup of the day.

The darling du jour is whichever player on whichever team is being hyped and promoted at the moment.  

Because some player, on some team, is going to be hyped at some time today.  Somewhere an interview is taking place, an editor is reviewing some article, and someone will be hyped.  

There is no minimum criteria for being hyped.  Someone could hype the best player in a pick-up game.  They could write a glowing article about him.  

So the next time I read a glowing article about some player, stick to the numbers and the truth, don't just accept that he is the greatest around and a dominant force.  

The Intelligence Analysts Toolkit

I need to create a formal "toolkit" for analyzing games, schedules, and circumstances.  I'm reading a book that my friend sent me, that is one of the CIA's reference books for intelligence analysts.  That is essentially what a sports bettor is: an intelligence analyst.   It is titled Psychology of Intelligence Analysis and can be found here.

A theory is a generalization based on the study of many examples of some phenomenon. It specifies that when a given set of conditions arises, certain other conditions will follow either with certainty or with some degree of probability. In other words, conclusions are judged to follow from a set of conditions and a finding that these conditions apply in the specific case being analyzed.

An analyst seeks understanding of current events by comparing them with historical precedents in the same country, or with similar events in other countries

Objectivity is gained by making assumptions explicit so that they may be examined and challenged, not by vain efforts to eliminate them from analysis.

Failure To Consider Diagnosticity of Evidence. In the absence of a complete set of alternative hypotheses, it is not possible to evaluate the "diagnosticity" of evidence. Unfortunately, many analysts are unfamiliar with the concept of diagnosticity of evidence. It refers to the extent to which any item of evidence helps the analyst determine the relative likelihood of alternative hypotheses.  Evidence is diagnostic when it influences an analyst's judgment on the relativelikelihood of the various hypotheses

Scientific method is based on the principle of rejecting hypotheses, while tentatively accepting only those hypotheses that cannot be refuted. Intuitive analysis, by comparison, generally concentrates on confirming a hypothesis and commonly accords more weight to evidence supporting a hypothesis than to evidence that weakens it.  (I think I do this (although I am in the formative stage of hypothesizing)).

Stech notes that in each of these highly successful efforts, the analysts employed procedures that "... facilitated the formulation and testing against each other of alternative hypothetical estimates of enemy intentions. Each of the three accounts stressed this pitting of competing hypotheses against the evidence."

This is basically the summary from Chapter four.  Some very interesting material, for sure.  

Initial Pac-10 research, potential Bias discovered,

Before I forget, the bias that I thought up today is thus: a college football team that plays a majority of its early-schedule games at home will suffer from Home Field Bias.  Essentially, this means that its stats will be inflated because it will have a disproportionate amount of games played at home.  Homefield advantage has been proven to pump up scoring, improve defense, and generally make the team look better than it actually will when it travels.

Now, on to the research results.  I looked at each team in the Pac ten and their points scored in away games and at home.  The results were not surprising, but still important.

For the season

Home team: 2589 points.   Away Team: 2245 points.

A difference of 344 points spread out over 45 games.  That makes it 7.64 points per game!  That is over one touchdown difference per game that you get for playing at home.  In the pros it is a mere three points.  

I also read in Stanford Wong's book Sharp Sports Betting that home field advantage decreases between division rivals.  It would also be interesting to look at inter-conference games.  Perhaps if I picked another conference, say the Mountain West Conference, and also compared the inter-conference games between the two, to look at home field advantage in another conference and also the difference in inter-conference games compared to in-conference games.  

Also, if the implications of this research are correct, then the younger the team, the bigger the discrepancy between homefield advantage and away disadvantage.  Also, my data may be skewed because of certain "neutral" games that are technically listed as home/away, like USC/UCLA.  These rivalry games may have stadiums that are split.  

Possibly maximized when a young team is a road favorite over a home team with more experienced players.  

Predicting the Winner and the Loser

I just realized that is sports betting, one often tries to determine who will win.  In fact, for as long as I can remember, my Dad and I would always try to guess the winner of a game.

But that is the same as predicting the loser.  Except we never thought of it that way.  If one can figure out what makes teams lose, what makes them collapse, fall apart, and have struggles and internal tension, one can just as easily figure out the winners.  

Its a cognitive bias.  

I've always focused on the winner of game; what one has to do to win and then trying to figure out how to identifiy which team has more of those traits.  

But identifying teams that have collapsed, don't give a shit, aren't trying to win, etc., and doing it faster than everyone else, can lead to major gains and plays.  

Michael Jordan knows everything

Does Michael Jordan know everything? His airness, the greatest basketball player ever, must know everything about basketball. Right? How could he not?

I just read an interesting article on Truehoop about an interview with Jerry Krause. He talked about how a lot of his decisions didn't jibe with MJ. His decision to trade Charles Oakley and acquire Bill Cartwright, amongst them.

And how MJ's view tends to become everyone's view, simply because he is the best and most aggressive player we've ever seen. But there are some interesting things to note.

MJ, as a basketball player, was unparalleled. But how much does he actually know about 5winning5 games rather than simply playing as hard as he can? A measure of his personnel prowess can be seen in how he has done as a GM. This gives us a rare opportunity to measure his basketball skills against those of his peers (scoring titles, MVPs, league titles) and his personnel knowledge against other GMs (drafting Kwame Brown, Charlotte Bobcats suck, etc).

There is a simple conclusion: MJ suffers from a cognitive bias, just like all of us. He assumes because he played the best that he also perceives the best. Simply having the best athleticism, highest jump, and best shots of his peers makes him feel like he knows everthing about basketball.

But being the best GM doesn't really require any of those skills. Its an intersting thought that MJ might be totally incompetent as a GM. He disagreed with the moves that made him a champion as a player and as a GM is most notable for drafting Kwame Brown.

Case closed.

Bobby Bowden: Victim of Cognitive Biases

Poor Tommy Bowden. He was recently fired from Clemson's head coaching position. I read the article about it on ESPN and couldn't help but feel sad for him and his situation. He is like a greek hero who is set up by the Gods to fail when it isn't his fault.

Allow me to present the unfortunate details of his demise:

1) A hungry fan base that has decided this is his time to win the ACC
2) A returning QB, two 2,000 yard rushers, and a 2,000 yard receiver.
3) A decimated offensive line

It is too bad that Clemson is clearly in a rebuilding year because of their offensive line but no one at Clemson seems to realize this.

Especially opening against a physical SEC team. What chance did they have against a Nick Saban-coached team and defense with a young and inexperienced offensive line.

There are countless examples of a crappy or new offensive line letting down skilled and veteran position players. And countless examples of a skilled offensive line opening up holes for a young back to scamper through. The 2007 Vikings and Adrian Peterson. More prominently, The 2005 Super Bowl Champ Steelers had a talented line with a very young QB (second season) and a rookie running back WHO DIDN"T EVEN PLAY IN COLLEGE. And they won the Super Bowl.

Why was Ohio State ranked #1?

The college football season is halfway over. Predictions have proven worthless. Upsets have occurred. We are gaining clarity about the relative strength of teams.

And the question is: why are we so bad at pre-season rankings? Why are we so bad at determining the strength of a team without seeing them at least a half dozen teams.

The first reason is the method of rankings. Lose one game and the team drops about eight spots. Lose badly and you drop about double the spots. Its an elaborate dance done by the coaches and voters determined to provide stability and a small measure of job stability.

But why was Ohio State the pre-season #1? They had just been blown out the second consecutive time by a physical SEC team. That has proven definitely that a top-tier Big-Ten team will not have the physicality to compete with a top-tier SEC team.

Nearly all their starters were returning. Which is not necessarily a good thing. A fourth-year junior will not suddenly leap as a fifth-year Senior into a dominant player. They are essentially a known quality by the time they are twenty-two.

So this Ohio State team we saw was a known quantity: well coached, disciplined, veteran, knowledgeable. Not overly physical. So it shouldn't have been a suprise when they lost to USC. USC was fast and slippery on offense, physical and well coached on offense. They only time Ohio State looked good was with Terrelle Pryor in the game because he was fast enough to stretch USC's defense.

And as we saw in the Rose Bowl (Texas) and against the Ducks last season, USC struggles against running quarterbacks. Meaning Pete Carroll struggles against running quarterbacks.

To conclude, Ohio State will get pounded the next time they play a really physical team. And it will happen all season. Might Penn State put a hurtin' on OSU?

Three cognitive biases are seen here:

1) Tendency to assume that players who return will be better than they were last season. They will be more knowledgeable about the schemes but likely won't make a jump in physicality. This helps returning starters for complex offenses (Urban Meyer 2005) or coaches with undisciplined teams with tons of physicality (Mark Richt this season).

2) Ranking system that works incrementally. To use a systems engineering term, college football needs to pump up the gain. Their system simply works to slow. It is accurate but must work faster. This can be exploited in sports betting, when a weak or strong team will take weeks to get the valuation it deserves.

3) Can't remember the third.