Bleacher Report - Articles by David Wunderlich

Pat White Will Usher the Spread-Option into the NFL

David Wunderlich — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:50:55 -0400

When Miami’s implementation of the Wildcat series took the NFL by storm in 2008, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Suddenly, NFL analysts had to explain why it worked, and they discovered some good reasons. The fakes and options built in to it ruined defenders’ reads. Having the person taking the snap be a running threat created a numerical advantage. If defenders didn’t stay completely disciplined, they could get gashed for big gains.

It’s funny to me that it took lots of serious analysis to realize that, because college football fans had seen mobile snap-takers give their teams these same advantages for years.

The one downside was that Ronnie Brown isn’t exactly a great passer. He had a nice throw against the Patriots, and there was always the flea flicker-type play the Dolphins ran against the Texans. Still, the series was almost exclusively a running formation.

Not that it was ineffective, as Miami averaged 6.1 yards per carry from the Wildcat. However, everyone seemed to agree that the package could become more effective with someone who’s a threat to pass. Enter the Dolphins’ second-round pick, Pat White, who was immediately labeled “the Wildcat who can throw.”

I would be surprised if Miami gave up on having Ronnie Brown do Wildcat, given how successful it was, but it’s pretty clear that White is the future of the formation down there. He is a legit threat both throwing and running, and the Dolphins can expand what they do with it.

Now that an actual quarterback will be doing the wildcat, can we still even call it the wildcat anymore? The thing that makes it specifically “the wildcat” is the presence of a running back behind center.

With White taking the snaps, it’s basically now a new flavor of spread-option offense. That very thing that many folks said would never be attempted in the NFL is going to be attempted in Miami this fall.

It should not be surprising at all that it’s going to happen. Spread offenses have been far too effective in college for them never to seep up into the pro league.

Most of the complaints about the spread—offensive linemen in two-point stances, wide splits between linemen, the quarterback too far deep in the shotgun—really only apply to a small set of teams like Missouri and Texas Tech. None of those apply to Florida’s offense, for instance. In actuality, there are almost as many different spread-offenses as there are teams that run them.

Kansas City ran a full-on passing spread offense last season. The result was that their points per game improved about 73 percent from 12.5 a game before implementation to 21.6 a game after, and that was with a team woefully lacking in talent. New England ran one in 2007 with top-shelf talent, and they destroyed nearly everything in their path on the way to an 18-1 record.

Now with the Dolphins, we will see what a more run-based spread will do. It’s obviously a more risky situation with the hits White will probably take, but the Dolphins will still have Chad Pennington taking the majority of the snaps and Brown to run the Wildcat if necessary. It’s a calculated risk, but one with multiple backup plans built in. In other words, it’s the only way this could find its way into the risk-averse NFL.

How things work out with White and Miami will have a huge impact on the draft next year. It’s a copycat league, and a dozen teams had tried some Wildcat by the end of last season. If the Dolphins’ experiments work well, that will have a huge impact on guys like Tim Tebow, Dan LeFevour, and Colt McCoy, three highly-regarded quarterbacks who have led their teams in rushing at least once in their college careers.

For their part, the Dolphins say that the Wildcat series will remain a small part of their offense. Play in and play out, you can still expect to see Pennington under center doing his normal hand-offs and three- to seven-step drops. It makes sense to do it that way; after all, Pat White won’t hold up taking NFL hits 30 times a game.

However, White’s presence in Miami means we will get to see some spread-option in the pros. Go ahead and call it “the Wildcat who can throw” if it makes you feel better. Either way, college football fans were right about this one: It was inevitable that someone would try it, and this fall, it’s actually going to happen.

Is Auburn's Bobby Lowder on the Comeback?

David Wunderlich — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:14:20 -0400

If you ever want to make a die hard Auburn fan swear, there are two words that do it nearly every time. I mean, besides "Bear Bryant" or "Crimson Tide."

Try "Bobby Lowder".

Lowder is more than just an Auburn booster. He's on the university's board of trustees, and some say he's the most powerful booster in all of college football. That's right, he's even more involved than Nike founder Phil Knight at Oregon and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens at Oklahoma State. Lowder has had a hand in nearly every major decision in Auburn football since 1983.

When Pat Dye resigned after the '92 season, Lowder was encouraging him to do it. When Auburn officials surreptitiously went to Louisville to get Bobby Petrino in 2003, they flew on Lowder's private jet. When Tommy Tuberville finally got forced out after last season, few doubted that Lowder was one of the ones doing the pushing.

As it so happens, Lowder gets his power, money, and influence largely by being the CEO of Colonial BancGroup. As you may have noticed, things haven't been going so well for many banks since mid-2007, and Colonial was heavily invested in what have become the nation's worst real estate markets like Florida and Nevada.

Paul Davis of the Opelika-Auburn News detailed Colonial's and Lowder's troubles in a February column. That piece caught the eye of Jay at Track 'Em Tigers, who likewise hoped that the recession would mark the end of Lowder's influence at Auburn.

Colonial's stock closed yesterday (April 20) at 83 cents. That's down 96.9 percent from its all-time high of 26.69 in February of 2007. That's what happens when the government decides your bank isn't healthy enough to get any TARP money.

Yahoo! Finance has records of Lowder's trading (as the CEO of a public company, he must disclose it), and on May 7, 2007 he owned 6,562,828 shares of his company. That day's close of 24.86 made his fortune in Colonial shares worth a cool $163.1 million. His current holdings of 7,678,590 shares are worth only $6.37 million, just 3.9% of his former total.

I'm guessing that Lowder has money in more than just his Colonial holdings, so he's got more than just that to his name. However, he's been brought down quite a way for someone who's given more than $20 million to his alma mater.

As it turns out, Colonial was able to find $300 million in investment money in order to qualify for $550 million in government bailout funds. Well, mostly. There's some legal wrangling left to do, as the investors won't commit the funds without the government putting it in writing that its part is coming too.

And even with this development, Colonial isn't in great shape. It's financial strength rating is E+, with A being the top mark on the scale. Plus, some shareholders are suing the company over Lowder being somewhat dishonest last December about disclosing regulatory actions taken by the state of Alabama. Tiger fans, try to contain your shock.

In any event, Colonial will almost certainly be headed for insolvency and FDIC receivership at some point if this round of private and public funding falls through. Many had given up on the possibility of Colonial getting enough private money to qualify for government loans, but at the last minute it's back on the table.

What does this mean for Auburn?

Well, it means we can't yet say that the recession will K.O. Bobby Lowder. It's brought him down pretty far, but he's not out yet. Then again, given his realm of personal influence it's difficult to predict that he'll ever truly be out of Auburn's business while he still draws breath without intervention from the law or the NCAA.

Analyzing Tim Tebow's "Slow" Release

David Wunderlich — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:36:02 -0400

One of the major complaints about Tim Tebow by those who say he won't make it in the NFL is that he has a slow release. This critique is related to the charge that he has poor mechanics.

I am not a trained coach, but I believe I can show you at least what armchair NFL GMs see in him that causes the real scouts to fret.

I will compare him to Sam Bradford, a guy who was said to be a surefire top-five pick in the draft if he had come out.

All times that I quote here came from studying the national title game frame-by-frame in Avidemux. It's not as precise as professional video gear, but it's close enough for these purposes, and any errors will be consistent throughout.

Here is a sequence showing Bradford's throwing motion. Pay close attention to the second frame, which is where the biggest difference between the two guys come from.

Bradford has a compact throwing motion, which is what NFL scouts are looking for.

In the first frame, he is holding the ball in the classic quarterback stance. Frame two shows the farthest out his arm goes in his windup. You can see that the ball is close to his body and his arm is about at a right angle.

The final two frames finish out his motion. This throw, which is representative of his standard throws, takes about 467 milliseconds to complete.

Here is a sequence of Tebow's motion.

In the first frame, Tebow is in the same starting position as Bradford was in. The second frame shows a very different story, however. The ball is far away from his body, and his arm is almost fully extended.

The final two frames finish out his motion. This was the most extreme example of Tebow's long windup I could find, and it took 734 milliseconds to complete. That time is 267 milliseconds longer than Bradford's throw.

Not every one of Tebow's throws takes this long, but it illustrates the perils of having a longer motion. Even more so in the NFL than in college, a fraction of a second can be the difference between a catch and a tipped ball, and a tipped ball and an interception.

The throw above was Tebow's first interception in the national title game, a pass that was picked off by a safety reading his eyes and jumping in front of a receiver.

As I said, this was the longest delivery I could find for him. I chose it because it makes for the clearest picture. To find out a rough approximation of how much longer Tebow's motion is than Bradford's is, I took a sample of 10 normal passes apiece and timed their motions.

I did not include passes where the players were being hit, throwing on the run, or shovel passes.

I found that Tebow's average time across the 10 passes was 557 milliseconds, with all but one pass taking a half second or more.

Bradford's average release was 487 milliseconds, with the most common time being 467 milliseconds. The difference in average was not great, at just 70 milliseconds.

As I said, though, my ability to time their motions is not exact, and certainly Bradford's motion looks a lot quicker than Tebow's does. Tebow has a habit of bringing the ball down near his waist during his windup, while Bradford generally brings the ball straight back from his neutral stance.

Simple physics says it takes more time to move an object along a longer path, so Tebow's release is labeled "slow." It is not a huge difference, but just think back to Michael Crabtree's catch that beat Texas. If the ball came a tenth of a second later, the defensive back coming to help may have gotten a finger on it.

Florida's new quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler has been working with Tebow this spring to shorten up the motion. He is also working on getting Tebow to have a "10 o'clock release point," as opposed to the sidearm-like delivery you can kind of see in his fourth frame.

Bradford's fourth frame shows what I would assume to be a two o'clock release point (since he's right handed, and Tebow's a southpaw).

Tim Tebow is one of the most driven people I've ever seen though, so the effort will be there. He has almost a full year from today to prove to the Mel Kipers of the world that he can be something other than an H-back in the pros.

Shortening up his delivery and fixing his release point will go a long way to that end.

Clarifying What a "Spread Offense" Entails

David Wunderlich — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:59:41 -0400

While reading the excellent interview Bruins Nation had with Rick Neuheisel, I came upon the final question of part one. It basically was, "Hey Rick, what do you think of the spread offense?"

Neuheisel ends up giving a fairly long and winding explanation of why he chooses a pro style offense rather than a spread scheme. I'm going to chop it up into mincemeat for a second to illustrate a point:

"The key to the spread offense, and the reason why its successful, is that it adds an extra player. It diminishes the need for great offensive linemen, because you’ve got a little longer because you are always in the gun...

"The problem at UCLA is that you have to beat the Trojans. And it’s also the benefit at UCLA, because when you beat them, you’re going to be among the nation’s elite. So you have to be a physical offense...

"I was the benefactor of a type of spread offense, even though it was an option offense, it’s the same math in terms of the quarterback’s [being] a runner...

"There were some components of the spread offense in what we did last year. We got into the old wildcat stuff..."

The picture of the spread offense that Neuheisel paints is one that involves a running quarterback, the shotgun as the exclusive setup, an offense that isn't physical, and the wildcat formation.

Basically what he described is the Rich Rodriguez/Urban Meyer style offense (except for the part about the spread not being physical). However, that's not necessarily what a spread offense is.

I know Neuheisel is a bright guy, and I wasn't there when the interview was conducted. Maybe something about the session led him to think of the spread in those terms. However, that's an awfully narrow definition of a very broad concept.

The term "spread" dates back at least to 1952, and I'm sure it's been around longer than that. The spread isn't an offense; it's a formation and a philosophy.

For the record, this is a spread formation:

This is not:

That's all there is to it. There is no other distinction between spread and non-spread. A spread formation uses most of the horizontal space on the field and a non-spread formation does not. Nearly every offense uses some spread formations, and many spread-based offenses use some non-spread formations.

The idea behind a spread-based offense is to make the defense cover the entire field. Contrary to what Neuheisel may have made it sound like, a spread formation is an excellent choice for physical running up the middle. That's because with the defense spread out, there are fewer guys in the middle of the field to try to stop the ball carrier.

That fact is also why many spread teams prefer to have a mobile quarterback. Fewer guys near the line of scrimmage makes for fewer people hanging around to stop a runner behind center. Having a running triggerman is not a requirement though.

For instance, the first neo-spread team in the SEC was Hal Mumme's Kentucky, and we never saw Tim Couch take off and run much. That branch of spread offense is continued today by Mumme's former assistant Mike Leach at Texas Tech.

You also have teams like Ohio State's 2006 team which ran a fair bit of spread with Troy Smith rarely participating in designed runs.

The shotgun isn't even a requirement as Neuheisel made it sound like. Sam Bradford operated from under center a fair bit in Oklahoma's spread last season. In addition, Paul Johnson's offense keeps the quarterback under center almost exclusively even though his base flexbone set is is a spread formation.

Finally, the wildcat is a formation and offensive package but it doesn't have to be run from a spread set or spread offense. Not all spread teams use it either.

No two teams run the exact same spread offense, as every coach has his own take on it. It also must be tailored to personnel. If you want details, there's a wealth of information on many spread topics at the blog Smart Football (start here, here, and here).

If I wasn't clear before, let me be so now: I don't think Rick Neuheisel is unaware of all this. He knows far more about offensive football than I do and he could probably explain it a lot better than I can.

It just disappointed me about the way he used "spread" to mean a lot fo specific things when it doesn't necessarily. It's like saying that having a quarterback under center in the I-formation means you're in a pro style offense, except that the heyday of the Nebraska option was largely done from the I.

In short, just remember that there is no one "spread offense." There are as many spread offenses as there are teams that run them, and every one has something that makes it unique.

Gator Football Spring Practice: Week 1 Review

David Wunderlich — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:31:10 -0400

The Offense

Florida is experimenting with a fast-paced, uptempo offense. It is partially a result of seeing Kevin Wilson's Oklahoma offense in the national title game and partially a result of seeing Kevin Wilson's Northwestern offense in 2001.

I took a look at pace earlier this offseason, and I projected that the Gators would have scored about 55 a game last year if they played at Oklahoma's pace.

Urban Meyer may or may not have seen a similar figure from his stats guys, but he seems most interested in the way that an uptempo offense disrupts defenses.

The other big difference is that Tim Tebow will be taking some snaps under center. Tebow says it's happening because it's the way Scot Loeffler is influencing the offense, while Meyer says it's happening to get Tebow more comfortable with it since he'll have to do that in the NFL. It's not that one is wrong and one is right, since the offense has always been a team effort under Meyer.

Many have pointed out that packages with the quarterback under center existed in Meyer's offense in 2005 and 2006 when Chris Leak was running the show. That is true, and the I-formation is also coming back if they can find a fullback.

Behind Tebow, redshirt sophomore QB John Brantley is looking sharp.

Receivers

The question on everyone's mind comes down to this: who will replace Percy Harvin?

Meyer said around national signing day that he sees incoming freshman Andre Debose in that role. So far, that appears likely because no one has stepped up to take control of that role so far. Deonte Thompson, Chris Rainey, and Jeff Demps are the other candidates for that position.

Carl Moore was the invisible man for a lot of last season, which was odd for someone touted as a five-star guy from junior college. He's been looking a lot better this year.

David Nelson and Aaron Hernandez have also looked good catching passes. Justin Williams has been practicing with the first team offense along with Thompson and Nelson. Riley Cooper is playing baseball and is not participating in spring football practice.

Personally, I'm thinking that the 2008 receiving corps is not going to be the best analogue for the 2009 corps in terms of fitting guys into roles.

To me right now, 2006 seems like a better comparison given the personnel and likely ball distribution. Having Nelson as Dallas Baker, Thompson as Bubba Caldwell, Debose as Harvin, Moore as Jemaille Cornelius and so on feels a little more right. We'll see.

Running Backs and Offensive Line

With Rainey rehabbing from surgery and Demps running track, Emmanuel Moody is the only scholarship running back at practice. Fortunately, he's been playing very well so far though the defense has been stuffing him in goal line scenarios.

A probable cause for that is the fact that the offensive line has not been great. Partially that is because both Pouncey brothers are sidelined with injury right now, and the only other returning starter (Carl Johnson) is at a new position.

The younger guys who haven't played much haven't stepped up a whole lot. Things will get better when the Pounceys come back, but they won't solve all the problems alone. It took half the season for last year's line to gel, but hopefully this year's crew will work themselves out a little sooner.

Defense

The defense has been dominating so far, but Meyer says that's "usually" the case at this early stage of spring practice. It makes sense considering the offense is working through a lot of issues with new schemes and personnel while the defense is enjoying complete continuity.

The defense won the first scrimmage.

Defensive Line

Things are great at defensive end. They are so good and so deep that redshirt freshman Earl Okine has been moved to the inside.

With Torrey Davis kicked off the team and John Brown deciding to transfer, depth is again an issue at defensive tackle. Even the vaunted 2006 line needed Ray McDonald to move from the outside to the inside for depth.

As it turns out, things at tackle have been fine so far. Jaye Howard is bigger than ever and looking like a solid backup to starters Lawrence Marsh and Terron Sanders. Okine has been adjusting well so far. Omar Hunter, the guy Meyer called the Tim Tebow of the 2008 recruiting class, is finally in shape, healthy, and contributing.

Linebackers and Secondary

Brandon Spikes is happy to be back, and the Gators are happy to have him. He will be the unquestioned leader of what should be one of the top defenses in the country.

This position is one of the best and deepest on the team, so it shouldn't be a problem. Spikes, Stamper, and Jones are the first teamers right now, while Doe, Lorenzo Edwards, and Lerentree McCray are the second teamers.

The secondary is very crowded, especially at safety. Starters Ahmad Black and Major Wright are back, and both are playing well.

Fifth year senior Dorian Munroe, injured all of 2008, wants his starting role back. Will Hill has been making plays. Dee Finley is finally on campus, and he's looking athletic. It's crowded back there.

Not much has been reported about the corners, other than that Janoris Jenkins has been taking some reps as a punt returner thanks to Brandon James being out. Freshman Adrian Bushell intercepted Tebow as well, and that's about it.

I would expect that the position will be just fine with Joe Haden and Jenkins locking things down as the starters. The depth at secondary is something any other team in the country would be envious of.

The Florida-Era Steve Spurrier Is Officially Gone

David Wunderlich — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:26:33 -0400

The Florida-era Steve Spurrier is completely gone.

I don’t say that lightly, especially because of how big a part of my childhood he was.

My first time at the Swamp was the ’89 Florida-Kentucky game when I was four. I’ve been to at least one game there every year since.

On fall Sundays while I was growing up, my family had a custom of eating lunch while watching the Steve Spurrier Show after church. It was jarring to go from that to Ron Zook’s show, and it never did feel quite right.

I inherited a lot of my attitudes about football from that Steve Spurrier: it’s okay to throw for the endzone late in a blowout if it’s the backup doing it, there’s a certain elegance about getting receivers wide open over and over, he who’s on top gets to talk, etc.

When I saw that he is going to implement a Wildcat formation, I realized that the Spurrier I once knew is gone.

I should have known this moment was coming given the state of the South Carolina offense the past couple years, but I figured it was what would happen if he got stuck with only quarterbacks at Noah Brindise-level and below.

I simply cannot fathom the Florida-era Spurrier ever deciding to run many plays without a quarterback on the field.

He was a quarterback, loved to teach quarterbacks, and acted like a quarterback from the sideline as he still could read defenses better than most collegiate signal callers. That Spurrier would never have considered the Wildcat because he could get just as many yards on a fade route.

What started in Washington has completed in South Carolina. I am with those who think he could walk into Columbia and win almost as quickly as he did at Florida. It worked before, why can’t it work now?

For one thing, the situations are completely different. Bear Bryant famously called Florida a sleeping giant of a program.

Charley Pell and Galen Hall built it up to the point where it could take off, and they brought on the same probation that other big time programs had in the ‘80s while doing it. The cupboards were stocked, and Spurrier was the right guy in the right place at the right time for UF.

The talent level at South Carolina in 2005 was not comparable to that of Florida in 1990. It was comparable to that of Florida in 2005 though, and the Gamecocks’ win that year (in a game that Spurrier outcoached Urban Meyer, no less) showed it.

Three seasons later, the gap between Spurrier’s old program and his current one seems like it could scarcely be wider.

Florida has added two more SEC and national titles, and it handed him his worst defeat ever last season to the tune of 56-6. Whatever he’s doing has caused him to fall behind the conference leaders, the opposite direction he wants to go.

Now to help catch up, Spurrier, a guy with six SEC titles, is essentially taking a page out of the playbook of Houston Nutt, a guy with no SEC titles.

I can tell you that I would never have expected to see that happen when he took the job four years ago.

I have no doubt that his competitive fire is still burning; I doubt anything will ever extinguish that. The witticisms will still come, as they have periodically through his time in Columbia.

The trend-setting Spurrier though is gone, replaced by a more pragmatic and, yes, trend-following Spurrier.

It’s time for all of us to stop expecting to see anything different.

The Oakland Raiders Put the University of Tennessee On Notice

David Wunderlich — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:21:54 -0400

"As you are undoubtedly aware, Mr. Kiffin is involved in arbitration with the Raiders. Not withstanding the fact that Mr. Kiffin must have told you about the pendency of this proceeding, we want to put you on notice of it, and the University's involvement in some of the underlying facts."

The Raiders have been feuding with Lane Kiffin since before they fired him near the beginning of the 2008 NFL season.

The team believes that Kiffin broke NFL rules, breached his contract, and "induced" assistant coach James Cregg to breach his contract by leaving before the end of the season to work at Tennessee.

CBS Sports managed to get a copy of a letter the Oakland Raiders sent to the University of Tennessee, and the quote right at the beginning is in it. It details the team's list of grievances against Kiffin, but that's not all.

The Raiders apparently plan to use some of the statements that Kiffin and Tennessee Athletics Director Mike Hamilton made about the Raiders.

At Kiffin's introductory press conference, the two laughed about Oakland and called it "dysfunctional." The team, however, says any dysfunction was a direct result of Kiffin's alleged rule-breaking and lying to the team and media.

The letter is also notice to Tennessee that the Raiders plan to get access to all of Kiffin's employment agreements with the university.

They feel those documents are necessary evidence for sorting out the grievance Kiffin filed with the NFL over whether he was entitiled to the remainder of the money in his contract. Oakland's front office refuses to give him any of it since it believes he breached his contract.

That request for documentation really isn't the biggest deal of this whole thing. UT is a public university, and those documents can probably be obtained as a part of whatever freedom of information act the state of Tennessee has.

The biggest accusation is that the team believes that it is "quite possible" that Kiffin gave information about the Raiders to opponents while unemployed.

The Raiders also estimate that the arbitration process will occupy some of Kiffin's time over the next five months.

The idea that Kiffin would give inside information to opponents should not sit well with any fans, and it certainly wouldn't go over well in the SEC if proven.

For instance, a contingent of Alabama fans became vocally upset last December when news broke that former Utah and current Florida head coach Urban Meyer discussed Alabama with his friend and current Utah head coach Kyle Wittingham.

The idea of devoting time to this case over the next few months will also probably chafe Kiffin himself.

After all, he was the person who (fictitiously) said he fired someone over being 25 minutes late to pick him up from the airport to illustrate how much time he wanted to devote to his job.

Whether much comes of this, I can't say. It seems to me that at this point, just about everyone has his or her mind made up on both the Raiders and Kiffin.

If you read the letter it will become clear though that Oakland will drag Tennessee into this arbitration process, and the team practically advocates for UT to fire him:

"It cannot be in the best interest of the University to continue to serve as his ally in his personal, though misplaced, war to rewrite the past."

I think this will be a story worth watching regardless of what Kiffin has said and done over the past couple of months.

I cannot remember ever seeing an NFL team publicly feud with a university, so this fight makes for a unique precedent.

All those who were cheering Kiffin on as he made Tennessee "more interesting" had no idea just how right they were.

Five Things You Should Consider When Filling Out Your Bracket

David Wunderlich — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:24:11 -0400

It’s almost bracket picking time, and everyone has a system or a theory to help them out. Regardless of your system, consider these historical trends while you’re picking your winners.

Keep in mind that these trends say what is likely to happen, not what will happen. Everything here is based off of the era of 64-team tournaments, which means we’ve only got 24 past tournaments to go off of.

One last thing: I do not classify an eight-seed losing to a nine-seed as an upset. That is all; let’s do this.

Kansas, UCLA, Memphis, and North Carolina will all win their first round games, but at least one will probably lose its second round game.

In the last ten years, nearly every Final Four team has won its first round game the next year (provided it made the tournament). The three that have not were all Big Ten teams and six-seeds or below. No Big Ten squads made the Final Four and it’s looking like all of last year’s participants will be at least four-seeds, so those teams should be safe.

For all of the tournaments though, never have all Final Four teams from one year made the Sweet 16 the next.

The champion will almost certainly be a one, two, or three-seed.

Only three teams lower than a three-seed have won it all: eight-seed Villanova in 1985, six-seed Kansas in 1988, and four-seed Arizona in 1997. Keep in mind that in the ‘80s when the six and eight-seeds won, we didn’t have nearly the coverage of the sport we do now. The committee has gotten better with more time and more film, and a team at the top will take home the title.

In case you’re wondering, one-seeds have won just over half of the championships and seven of the last ten. Three-seeds aren’t even that great a bet, as only three of those have ever won the whole thing (though two were this decade).

Strictly speaking, based on history each one-seed has a 13.5 percent chance of winning it all, each two-seed has a 5.2 percent chance, each three-seed has a 3.1 percent chance, and everyone else from four-seeds to eight-seeds has a 0.4 percent chance.

One and three-seeds playing in their home state are money, but twos are not quite so reliable.

Only a single one-seed in 62 contests has lost a game in its home state, and that was in 2001 when three-seed Maryland beat Stanford in Anaheim. Only a single three-seed in 19 contests has lost a game in its home state, and that was in 2007 when Texas A&M lost to two-seed Memphis in San Antonio.

Two-seeds however are just 30-8 (.789) in their home states, essentially losing one of every five contests. When you take out games against one-seeds, they go to 27-7 (.794) which is basically the same performance. They have won ten in a row in their home state, but six of those came from UCLA’s 2006 and 2007 teams. Even then, two-seeds are just 16-4 (.800) in home state games since 2003.

When picking first round upsets, don’t bet on lucky seven.

The average number of first round upsets is 5.63. The most common number is five in a year, something that has happened seven times. The next most common number of first round upsets is eight (five times) and then six (four times).

What about seven you ask? We’ve seen seven first round upsets exactly once, and that was in 2002. I have no good explanation for this phenomenon other than that there have been a relatively small number of 64-team tournaments, but try not to bet against history with this one.

For what it’s worth, this decade has evenly split up the number of upsets: 2007 had two, 2004 had three, 2005 had four, 2003 had five, 2008 had six, 2002 had seven, 2006 had eight, and 2001 had nine.

If you’re considering extending the pattern, be advised that we’ve never seen one or ten first round upsets in a year. Then again, we had never seen two or nine in a year until it happened this decade.

Having a team return to the Final Four is about a coin flip.

Having all Final Four teams shut out of the next year’s Final Four has happened 11 times in 23 possible chances. That means 12 times in 23 chances we’ve seen at least one come back.

The most that have ever returned is two, and each time that has happened one of the two Final Four repeat teams was on at least a three-year run of making it that far: Duke and UNLV both made it in 1990-91 during a four-year run for Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina both made it in 1997-98 during a three-year run for UK, and both UCLA and Florida made it in 2006-07 during a three-year run for the Bruins.

That would seem to indicate that if two teams were to make it back, UCLA would be one of them. It’s a trend, not a rule though, so nothing is set in stone.

Anyway, it’s no guarantee than any of last year’s bunch makes it back, much less two. Just pull out a quarter and let George tell you.

Alabama Is in Trouble, But Is It Really That Bad?

David Wunderlich — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:25:27 -0500

In a turn of events that would surprise no one, Alabama found itself in hot water with the NCAA. The Tide has undeniably had some problems with staying on the right side of Myles Brand in recent history.

The good folks at Roll Bama Roll have had an in-depth look at what happened, but basically athletes were giving out textbooks to non-athletes for free.

They explained that the ordeal could have stemmed from some athletes misunderstanding the way the textbook distribution process works, but in the end it's up to the university to make sure the players know about the process.

I'm sure some people out there might read the headline and first paragraph of the AP story and assume that this is just another example of flouting authority by Alabama or the SEC in general. Is it really, though?

I mean, this has to do with players providing textbooks to friends. This is not about hundred dollar handshakes from boosters or the old "if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying" culture. Bama didn't mind its store well enough, and a small number of customers took advantage.

The graduate of business school in me agrees fully that this sort of thing shouldn't be happening. However, the recently-graduated student in me sympathizes with the intent.

Dealing with the textbook cartels is one of the worst parts of being a student.

Even sticking with used books, a semester's load generally costs hundreds of dollars, and inevitably a professor or two will have chosen the newest edition, of which no used copies exist.

As students well know, authors and publishers tend to have this habit of changing roughly a chapter a year in order to pump out new editions and make money from every new class that goes through a university.

The online textbook market has helped some and, of course, there's the old strategy of sharing books among friends. Neither is really an ideal situation.

After discovering what was going on, Bama decided to put compliance officials on the job during textbook distribution time. They fixed the problem and they'll probably pay some sort of price from the NCAA for it.

Maybe next we can sic the NCAA on the textbook cartels. After all, they negatively affect students nationwide far more than anything that went on while Alabama's storekeeper was asleep.

SEC Football: Five Things I Love

David Wunderlich — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:21:22 -0500

Recently, ESPN's SEC blogger Chris Low did a list of five things he loves and hates about SEC football. It seemed like a good idea, so here are my votes on what I love. Feel free to leave your's in the comments, and it doesn't count if a thing you love is your team. That's obvious. The hates are coming up soon.

1. The camaraderie

Fans from other conferences hate it, and it can get tiresome from time to time. Even so, I love the collective spirit within the conference. The schools are like 12 brothers: there are rivalries and resentments, but in the end we're somehow all in this together.

My favorite example from last year was when College GameDay went to Vanderbilt. A lot of people barely even consider the Commodores part of the conference in football thanks to their historical struggles, but the "S-E-C" chant came out loud and clear. Even the nerdy brother is in on this.

2. The high level of competition

The SEC had a down year in 2008, but that's forgivable considering the amazing run of success this decade (and it still produced the national champion). For as long as I can remember, it's been an "any given day" conference.

I mean, even in 1996, when Florida set a record by winning five SEC games by 30 points or more, one of the close wins was by seven over 2-9 Vanderbilt. If you don't show up ready to play, you can get a run for your money or even beat.

3. Bryant-Denny Stadium on game day

I've only been once, and it was in 2005 when Alabama massacred Florida 31-3. The feeling before the game was that the fans were eager to prove that Alabama was "back," and it sure seemed like they did on that day. As it turns out, they feel like they need to prove that they're "back" every four or five years.

Anyway, the Tide fans brought their A-game that day and it was the closest I've ever heard to the Swamp's A-game in another venue. When they yelled "we just beat the hell outta you!" near the end, I cringed for the young ears in attendance, but it was impressive to hear as a visitor. If I ever go back to see a game without my Gators involved, I'd be cheering for the Tide.

4. The insanity

To thrive in a high pressure environment, it often takes a special kind of crazy. It just so happens that there isn't a higher pressure conference than the SEC.

You've got the intense, all-business types like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer (and Dan Mullen, I'll predict). You've got Steve Spurrier, who had to be at least a little nuts to bring his pass-first style into a run-first league. Lane Kiffin can't resist stirring the pot it appears, and he is employing Ed Orgeron, a man who probably shouldn't be trusted with a properly sharpened pencil.

Rich Brooks has his famous, ahem, vocabulary. Houston Nutt is crazier than a sack of weasels. Everyone agrees Les Miles is crazy, but I'm with those who say he's crazy like a fox. Gene Chizik may not be crazy (yet), but the people who hired him in the Auburn athletic department sure are. Bobby Petrino apparently has a pathological need to switch jobs every so often.

Just about everyone is nuts, and I love it. It's never boring around these parts.

5. It's always football season

There are four seasons in the SEC: football season, recruiting season, spring practice, and summer workouts. Sure, there are other diversions along the way like basketball and baseball, but in the end, it's all about football.

There are probably a million reasons why, but it pretty much has been that way forever for the whole league except Kentucky. When you win a national or conference championship in football, you just say you're national or conference champion. Every other sport requires you to say that sport's name along with the champion part. That just about says it all.

How I Would Explain the BCS to Mack Brown

David Wunderlich — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:38:37 -0500

Texas head coach Mack Brown is bringing in some BCS experts to explain the system to him and his players. Since the BCS poll was used as the Big 12 divisional tiebreaker (and that system has yet to be overthrown), it makes sense that he’d want to understand it better.

Coaches in general make a lot of flippant remarks about how they don’t understand the BCS, so I give Brown a lot of credit for wanting to know more. He’s going about it in a logical way by bringing in experts.

He’s also going about it in an expensive way. Just taking an afternoon and reading some old posts by the BCS Guru would probably be enough. Or, he could just read this guide that breaks it down within its component sections.

The Coaches’ Poll

The Coaches’ Poll should be very familiar to Brown. He was a voter in it last year.

It’s the oldest component of the formula and carries the most tradition. On the surface, it makes sense to poll the coaches. Most are getting paid millions of dollars to teach the game to the fine collegiate athletes of this nation, so wouldn’t it make sense to ask the experts for their opinions?

It’s all great until you take a peek at the coaches’ schedules. I personally have not, but Brown can look at his. I’d be willing to bet that everything on it during the season is in some way related to helping the Texas Longhorns win football games.

In short, the Coaches’ Poll is getting the opinion of people who don’t actually watch many college football games.

They know their team and they study their opponents. They have no way of making an informed opinion on all 119 teams, or even just the 66 BCS conference teams, because they don’t have the time to do so.

When pondering what kept his team out of the Big 12 title game Coach Brown asked, “[i]s it margin of victory? Was it not scoring more because if it doesn’t matter to the computers it does to the human vote?”

Well, I know he didn’t watch the Alabama vs. Georgia or Florida vs. Georgia games because Texas was playing Arkansas and Texas Tech, respectively, on those days.

Which do you think he probably thinks was more impressive—Alabama’s 41-30 win or Florida’s 49-10 win? I’d bet he’d say Florida’s victory, but really each was about equally as dominant. Alabama just allowed window dressing points while Florida did not.

That’s the problem with the Coaches’ Poll. The coaches don’t watch many games other than their own, which makes their ballots mostly guesswork. They’re also prone to lazy voting where guys move teams around solely on one week’s results instead of stepping back and doing thorough evaluations.

The solution, as Texas found out, is to go Oklahoma’s route and run up huge scores to impress those people who have no idea what really went on in the games.

The Harris Poll

The Harris Interactive Poll replaced the traditional AP Poll, something Brown is probably also very familiar with. It’s not quite so simple to figure out as its predecessor, which simply consisted of sportswriters. Harris Interactive, a polling agency, describes its poll as follows:

“This year, the BCS has again commissioned Harris Interactive to construct a panel of former players, coaches, administrators and current and former media who are committed to ranking the college teams each week during the 2008 college football season."

"Panelists have been randomly selected from among more than 300 nominations submitted by the conference offices and the independent institutions. The panel has been designed to be a statistically valid representation of all 11 Division I-A conferences and institutions participating in the Bowl Championship Series.”

Basically, every conference and independent in Division I-A gets to nominate some people with ties to the game. Harris then selects a group of them to give everyone proportionate representation. Sounds good, right?

The first problem is that there’s no quality control on the nominations. The conferences can put up anyone they want and Harris doesn’t screen them after that. They could put up a former player who’s been selling insurance for the last 30 years, and that person would have a legit shot at voting.

The second problem is that no one keeps up with the voters to make sure they are actually following the sport. They could be watching even less football than the coaches do. We saw this with Pat Quinn, a 2008 Harris Poll voter who last December thought that Penn State was still undefeated.

The “Computer” Polls

People call the final element “computer” polls for convenience, but they are really just math formulas. They are included as a check against the human polls, which can be influenced by things like allegiances and tradition of schools.

They are supposed to be impartial, but they’re not. They emphasize what their creators believe to be important, reflecting the bias of the mathematician who put it together. That’s fine if the person is reasonable, but it’s bad if the person is not.

They also are limited because they are required to ignore margin of victory. Brown was right about that in his comment that I quoted above. However, that means that the people who put the polls together (most famously, Jeff Sagarin) don’t get to release what they feel is correct.

There are six formulas. Each team’s highest and lowest ranks are tossed out to get rid of any outliers, and the rest are added together to form the third part of the formula.

These formulas are not be able to account for who’s hot, see head-to-head results, or react to injuries. However, that’s exactly their point.

In All

One third of the system is people who know a lot about football but who watch almost no games.

One third of the system is people who may or may not know football that well anymore and who may or may not even pay attention to the scores and standings.

The final third is aggregated formula results that are crippled by the restriction against margin of victory and in at least one case, by its maker’s alarmingly incoherent methodology.

Makes perfect sense, huh?

How To Set Up the Perfect Option Play

David Wunderlich — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:22:41 -0500

As unbelievable as it would have sounded in 1996, Florida has turned into one of the best option football teams in the country. The Gators use it about as effectively as anyone else, and it is a major part of the offense.

Since Florida doesn’t use the option as its primary offensive play like Nebraska used to or Navy currently does, it can be even more effective than normal if the Gators set it up properly. Of course, having devastating backfield speed helps it succeed as well.

Here I’ll show you how Florida set up an option play against LSU this past season to score a back-breaking touchdown.

This is the play prior to the option. TE Aaron Hernandez is lined up on the left side of the line, but the formation’s prominent feature is the bunch of receivers on the right. RB Chris Rainey is in the backfield to QB Tim Tebow’s left.

What ends up happening is a rather pedestrian hand off to Rainey who gets a rather pedestrian three yards. The receivers did a pretty good job of blocking for him, but the middle linebacker followed Rainey the whole way and made the stop.

The next play is from the right hash in practically the same formation.

This time the running back is Jeff Demps, and he lines up on Tebow’s right. Otherwise, the formation is identical. It’s an unlikely proposition though that Florida would run the same play twice in a row, especially since the right side is now the short side of the field.

Urban Meyer’s philosophy is to get players into open space, after all.

Anyway, LSU lines up in exactly the same defense and prepares to defend the formation exactly the same way. The Tigers are in a basic 4-3 defense with the safeties in cover two. Each safety will move forward to provide support on his side.

Hernandez will peel off of the line immediately to block the outside linebacker. LT Phil Trautwein will go up field to take on the middle linebacker. The two guards will go for the two defensive tackles, but C Mike Pouncey pulls away and shoots between the defensive end and left DT. His target is actually the left safety.

As is often done on option plays, the defensive end will not be blocked. He must decide to play the quarterback or running back, and if all goes according to plan for the offense, whoever he doesn’t go for will spring for a big gain.

Here we can see Hernandez engaging the linebacker on the left, and he will drive him towards the sideline. Trautwein has already taken out the middle linebacker. Mike Pouncey can be seen running through the line to go take on the safety.

Right guard Maurkice Pouncey tried to cut block his defensive tackle by diving at his feet. After all, since the play is to the left, he doesn’t have to get much of a block. However, the tackle sidesteps the cut block and can be seen pursuing Tebow.

At this point, LSU would seem to have defeated the play because the tackle can go for Tebow and the end can go for Demps. The only problem with that is that the end doesn’t know it, and he stays locked on the quarterback.

Tebow pitches to Demps, and the running back uses his speed to go right by the defensive end. There’s plenty of open space ahead for him to run in.

Now out in the open field, Demps is running towards the sideline. He had to swing wide of the DE, and that is also the direction the blockers are going in.

Demps is not content simply to head out of bounds for a big gain though. He knows he has excellent speed to get even more.

So, he cuts back once he has cleared the DE and is behind the blocks. Hernandez has done a great job of keeping his man contained and Mike Pouncey is about to push the safety over.

In the upper right you can see a couple other LSU defenders coming over to try to help, but it is far too late at this point for them to be of assistance. Demps is too fast for that.

The safety that Mike Pouncey blocked is in the bottom middle, getting back up to his feet after having been knocked over. All of the defensive linemen and linebackers who had been in pursuit can be seen in the bottom right as they slow down. They know they can’t catch up.

That leaves one man to beat: the other safety. Once he recognized that the play was not to his side, he made a beeline to the other and as you can see, he took an excellent angle.

Unfortunately for him, Demps turns on his afterburners at about the 15 yard line. The diminutive ball carrier also changes his angle to go more towards the corner to escape the oncoming defender. The safety finally catches up at the one yard line, just in time to give Demps a helpful shove in the back as he crosses the goal line.

Here’s the play in real time from both the normal camera angle and the blimp shot. Gary Danielson does a quick rundown of what I laid out here in depth. I like how instead of discussing angles at the end, he opts instead just to say “ZOOM!” If I wasn’t a Gator fan, I’d probably hate him by now.

This touchdown put Florida up 34-14 with a minute to go in the third quarter, effectively icing the game away for good.

Wrap Up

Two main factors helped make this play a success. One is the outstanding speed of Jeff Demps. A slower back would likely have been tackled by the defensive end at the cutback stage, as that window was very small.

Plus, someone with less speed would definitely have been tackled short of the goal line by the second safety.

The second factor was the setup for the option with the previous play. That one made it appear that the bunched receivers were there to serve only as blockers, and by running behind them, it drew the defense’s attention like a magician’s beautiful assistant.

While they were blockers the first time, the second time they were only there to keep four extra defenders on that side. It opened up the rest of the field, and by having the quarterback be a threat to run, Florida created a numerical advantage on the left.

Most modern offensive football theory one way or another revolves around creating a numerical advantage. The option is one way to do that, and if you set it up correctly, it can be devastating.

College Football's Points Per Drive in 2008

David Wunderlich — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:18:08 -0500

Perhaps the most important thing you can do in football is to maximize the return of your offensive possessions. You only get so many per game, and you don’t fully control how many you get. If your opponent is determined to sit on the ball for most of the contest, you simply won’t get as many chances to score as you otherwise would.

Some people may disagree with that though. They may argue that the most important thing you can do in football is to ensure your opponent gets the least out of their possessions as possible. A stifling defense can make up for offensive struggles and give the offense more possessions with which to work.

Regardless of which side you believe in, the same stat can be used to figure out how well your team is doing at both: points per drive. It’s not perfect since things like special teams and turnovers can affect that stat, but I think I can show that it’s pretty darn good at measuring how good a team is.

To calculate points per drive, you need two parts: points and the number of drives. Figuring out points is the easy part since you just look at field goals, rushing touchdowns, and passing touchdowns. That filters out special teams and defensive touchdowns.

I left out extra points and two-point conversions because they have little to do with how offenses and defenses truly perform over the course of a game. I had no choice but to leave in lost/gained fumbles in special teams situations since there are no stat sources that separate them out. I’m mostly fine with that though, since gaining or losing a fumble on special teams results in gaining or losing a possession. PATs, on the other hand, do not have anything to do with possession counts.

To calculate number of drives, I added up the following categories: punts, fumbles lost, interceptions, failed fourth down conversions, field goal attempts, and touchdowns of the rushing and passing variety. The NCAA official stats only have the offensive version of these stats and a few of the defensive, but the fantastic site cfbstats.com fills in the rest.

The top 10 teams in offensive points per drive were the following.

1. Texas Tech: 3.27 points per drive

2. Oklahoma: 3.24

3. Florida: 3.22

4. Texas: 3.17

5. Tulsa: 3.12

6. Oklahoma State: 2.92

7. Missouri: 2.89

8. Penn State: 2.80

9. Rice: 2.70

10. Ball State: 2.698

If you read any of my pieces on pace, this list will look familiar. All of these teams were either in the top 10 of yards per play or points per play. The fact that they appear here should not be a surprise.

Here are the top 10 teams in defensive points per drive.

1. USC: 0.65 points per drive allowed

2. Boise State: 0.75

3. TCU: 0.79

4. Iowa: 0.95

5. Alabama: 0.98

6. Ohio State: 0.99

7. Florida: 1.00

8. Boston College: 1.02

9. Penn State: 1.09

10. Utah: 1.13

Interestingly enough, Florida and Penn State are the only two teams in the top 10 of both. If I said earlier that there were two teams were in both, I’d imagine many people would pick out UF, but probably not Penn State.

In any event, these two measures are not infallible predictors of great success. Houston (8-5) was 11th and Arizona (8-5) was 14th in offensive points per drive. Tennessee (5-7) was 11th and Clemson (7-6) was 13th in defensive points per drive.

In order to find out how good of predictors of success these measures are, I decided to run correlations for them with winning percentage.

I fully expected to see the negative correlation of defensive points per drive to be stronger than the positive correlation of offensive points per drive with win percentage. After all, how many times have we all heard that defense wins championships? Probably more than we can count.

Having been a believer in that myself, what I found shocked me.

The correlation of offensive points per drive and win percentage was 0.715. The correlation of defensive points per drive and win percentage was -0.711. In other words, there basically is no difference in their ability to predict success. Offense and defense are equally important.

Now, that is only one year’s worth of data at work. I can really only say that offense and defense were equally important in 2008. I am in the process of running data on past years to try to get a better idea of how they relate. For now though, they’re equal.

The next obvious step was to try to synthesize these two into one measure to see how high a correlation I could get. It is not as simple as adding the two numbers together because with one, a high number is good, and with the other, having a low number is good.

I chose to go the route of deviation from the mean. So for offensive points per drive, I simply subtracted the mean from the team’s number. For defensive points per drive, I subtracted the team’s number from the mean. I then added those two together.

That process gave a single number to correlate with winning percentage. For now I’m calling it combined points per drive, but if you have a better name, leave it in the comments.

First, here are the top 10 teams in combined points per drive.

1. Florida: 2.12

2. USC: 1.90

3. Texas: 1.68

4. Oklahoma: 1.65

5. Boise State: 1.63

6. Penn State: 1.61

7. TCU: 1.46

8. Tulsa: 1.25

9. Texas Tech: 1.222

10. Utah: 1.220

The worst record among them is Tulsa’s 11-3 mark. All 11 teams with a winning percentage above .800 are contained in the top 13 spots.

Given those observations, it should come as no surprise that the correlation between combined points per drive and win percentage is 0.923 for 2008. That is an extremely high correlation and about as high as you can expect for just two stats put together.

The important thing to remember is that this describes what teams did in the context of their opponents. This stat has not been adjusted for strength of schedule, so it would not make sense to take the above list and proclaim that Boise State is better than Penn State because of a 0.02 difference between them. A WAC schedule just doesn’t compare favorably to a Big Ten schedule, regardless of what you think of the current state of the Big Ten.

The top four beg some sort of interpretation though. It puts Florida and USC well ahead of the top two Big 12 teams, Texas and Oklahoma.

One way to interpret it is to say that Florida and USC were the two best teams and should have played for the national title. After all, there really isn’t that big a difference between the top five or six conferences.

Another way to interpret it is to point out that the Pac-10 and SEC were down, while the Big 12 had perhaps the best year of its entire existence. Of course Texas and Oklahoma would be lower; they played in the season’s toughest conference.

As I said, I haven’t adjusted for schedule strength, so until and unless that happens, the debate will remain open. For what it’s worth, the NCAA says Oklahoma, Florida, and Texas (in that order) had the top three toughest schedules. USC’s slate clocked in at No. 38.

Regardless, the stat of combined points per drive seems to be a very accurate indicator of what degree of a winner a team was. I plan to explore this one further to see what else it might hold in store.

A Final Word on Pace in 2008 College Football

David Wunderlich — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:25:31 -0500

The past four days I’ve posted topics on how pace affected football in 2008. The primary impetus for doing the series was to put Oklahoma and Tulsa in their proper historical context.

Oklahoma scored the most points ever in a season, and Tulsa gained the most total yards ever in a season. When two records like that fall in the same season, especially one where a clock rule change reduced plays per game and scoring from the old rules, it’s worth taking a look to see why that might have happened.

The easiest answer is that both OU and Tulsa played in 14 games. The 12th game added to the schedule earlier this decade, when combined with conference championship games and bowls stats counting towards season totals, basically meant that it was a matter of time before some of these records fell. Anything set back when the season had only 11 games and bowl stats didn’t count towards season stats was doomed.

The extra game doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Each of these records, both points scored and yards gained, were set by 2006 Hawai’i. That team played 14 games, and that season’s clock rules lowered plays per game and scoring even more than 2008’s clock rules did. The extra game helped OU and Tulsa pass most teams, but it was not the deciding factor in breaking the records.

That is where playing at a faster pace comes in.

There are distinct advantages to running a hurry-up offense full-time beyond just getting more opportunities to score. When you go at a faster pace, you can disrupt the defense and gain an advantage. The defense may not be set every time, and it will not be able to substitute as often. Plus, your team is better conditioned to play at the faster pace than a team that doesn’t, so you can tire out the other side too.

Whether each team has six drives apiece or 15 drives apiece during a game, you still want to score on more of them than the other guy. Cranking up the pace is done with the idea of gaining an advantage that you cannot get at a normal pace and exploiting it to score more often than the other team.

Oklahoma chose to turn up the pace in response to the new 40-second play clock. Gus Malzahn of Tulsa has long been a proponent of the hurry-up, and you can purchase his book on the topic on Amazon. The end result of each team’s fast-paced attack was two big records falling.

As I mentioned yesterday, 1989 Houston still holds the record for points per game. That 2006 Hawai’i team that used to hold the total yards and points records still holds the yards per play record at 8.6 as well. Since Tulsa and Oklahoma do not now hold the rate records, only the total records, it is reasonable to conclude that the records fell almost entirely because of each team’s fast pace allowing them to run more plays than teams in the past.

I want to be clear about one thing though. I am not trying to bring down either of these teams. Each turned in remarkable offensive seasons that are among the greatest college football has ever seen.

There also is no way of knowing if those Houston and Hawai’i teams of the past could have kept up their rates at the faster pace either. After all, 1970 Notre Dame holds the plays per game record at an astonishing 92.4, but that Irish team doesn’t hold any other records to go with it. It’s one thing to theorize what a team could do, but it’s another to actually do it.

Bill Simmons of ESPN.com wrote a piece recently on the way that Mike D’Antoni’s “seven seconds or less” offense affected stats in the NBA. The most dramatic effect was taking Steve Nash and turning him from a good point guard into one of only nine players ever to win back-to-back MVPs. Simmons then showed that Nash’s stats from this year without D’Antoni are nearly identical to his stats from his pre-D’Antoni Dallas days.

As a fan, I have absolutely nothing against fast-paced offenses. I loved watching D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns teams, and what I got to see from Oklahoma and Tulsa this year was very exciting as well. Kevin Wilson and Gus Malzahn appeared to maximize the talent they had with their uptempo schemes, and that’s a beautiful thing to see any time it happens.

At the same time, it’s important to realize the distinction between the NBA and college football. What people think doesn’t matter in the team sense in the NBA thanks to the league having a playoff. College football determines its champion largely thanks to opinion polls, so what people think does matter.

I can’t think of a year in which what people thought mattered more than it did with Oklahoma and Texas this year. I don’t mean to rehash old news, but Oklahoma’s impressive scores were largely the reason why it passed up the Texas team that beat it earlier in the year. That then allowed Oklahoma to go to the Big 12 title game and on to the BCS title game.

It’s possible that had OU operated at a slower pace and didn’t put up 60 points in five straight games, it might not have passed up UT. If that doesn’t happen, Texas likely beats Mizzou in the Big 12 title game and goes on to play Florida for the national title.

There’s no way to know, but Texas could have beaten Florida and won the national title. If Texas makes the national title game, then Colt McCoy probably wins the Heisman trophy as well. So, not only did pace potentially affect the Heisman race, as it affected the NBA’s MVP race, but it also potentially affected the championship.

It’s not likely we’ll ever get all of the voters to look at efficiency stats like points per play or points per drive instead of final scores, so as long as the BCS exists, this same thing can happen again. The moral of the story is that cranking up the pace is a fantastic way to game the system if you can pull it off, and for the record, I’m all for gaming the system.

The 2008 Oklahoma and Tulsa offenses are the two most prolific we’ve ever seen at generating points and yards. They were special, and no one can deny that. They were not uniquely special in the annals of the game, though, and that’s the takeaway for thinking about the ‘08 season in historical context.

2008 College Football Scoring at Oklahoma's Pace

David Wunderlich — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:44:52 -0500

Pace was one of the hot button issues in the 2008 college football season. Oklahoma's highly publicized switch to a fast-paced offense in reaction to the new clock rules was the major reason for it. The Sooners ended up leading the country in plays at 1,106 (79 per game), and they set a record with 716 total points scored.

The Sooners weren't the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU. Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

But what if everyone played at Oklahoma's pace? Here is a look at what the top-10 in scoring would look like if everyone ran 79 offensive plays a game.

This would be the point where I mention that this is based on the NCAA's "scoring offense" stat, which includes defense and special teams scores in the totals.

Because this study is looking at pace in terms of plays, and it proportionately increases or decreases each team's total plays, it still works out under the assumption that teams would continue to get defense or special teams scores at the same pace as before.

*Top Ten Points per Game at Oklahoma's Pace*
Team	Total Pts	Pts/Game	Pts/Play	Adj. Total Pts	Adj. Pts/Game
Florida	611	43.64	0.70	773	55.23
Oklahoma	716	51.14	0.65	716	51.14
Tulsa	661	47.21	0.60	666	47.60
Missouri	591	42.21	0.60	666	47.54
Oklahoma St.	530	40.77	0.58	599	46.11
Texas Tech	569	43.77	0.58	597	45.92
Texas	551	42.38	0.58	593	45.58
Oregon	545	41.92	0.57	584	44.90
Penn St.	506	38.92	0.57	581	44.71
Rice	537	41.31	0.56	572	43.96

Tulsa edges out Missouri in points per game, even though rounding to the nearest point makes them equal in total points per game.

What we can see here is that Oklahoma was pretty much ahead of everyone at scoring points. Adjusting for pace, they still were ahead of most of the nation and earned a record 716 total points in 2008.

Florida was the one exception. Thanks to the Gators' ability to get points in many ways other than just offense (INT returns, blocked punts for TDs, in the return game, etc.) while running an average number of offensive plays, Florida would have shattered the Sooners' new record in the very year they broke it.

The Gators could have topped out at a little over 55 points a game. That means Army's all-time record would have been safe, but barely. In 1944, Army scored exactly 56 ppg, less than one point more than Florida's hypothetical total.

It is almost a little surprising to see Missouri so high since the Tigers were a bit of a disappointment this season. It goes to show that the offense was still good at turning plays into scores, but that defense just didn't quite work out.

As great as Florida and Oklahoma were at turning plays into points by having relatively high points per play ratios, they weren't the best of the decade. Since 2000, the team with the highest points per play was the 2006 Hawaii squad with 0.72. At Oklahoma's pace over 14 games, that would come out to 795 points on the season.

One would figure though that if they were that close to 800, they'd find a way to get one last touchdown to get to 802.

Maybe something like the Florida Flop?

2008 College Football Yardage at Oklahoma's Pace

David Wunderlich — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:38:31 -0500

The Sooners weren't the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU, and Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

But what if everyone played at Oklahoma's pace? Here is a look at what the top 10 yardage gainers would look like if everyone ran 79 offensive plays a game.

*Top 10 Yards per Game at Oklahoma's Pace*
Team	Total Yds	Yds/Game	Yds/Play	Adj. Total Yds	Adj. Yds/Game
Tulsa	7,978	569.86	7.27	8,043	574.53
Houston	7,316	562.77	7.20	7,395	568.86
Florida	6,231	445.07	7.13	7,885	563.21
Texas Tech	6,903	531.00	7.05	7,241	557.03
Oklahoma St.	6,340	487.69	6.98	7,171	551.61
Oklahoma	7,760	547.86	6.93	7,670	547.86
Missouri	6,778	484.14	6.90	7,634	545.28
Georgia	5,538	426.00	6.70	6,886	529.66
Ball St.	6,195	442.50	6.70	7,407	529.09
USC	5,911	454.69	6.63	6,813	524.10

The Tulsa Golden Hurricane tops the list at an incredible 8,043 yards for the season. The all-time record, if you're wondering, was 7,826 set by 2006 Hawai'i before Tulsa broke it with its actual 7,978 yards in 2008. However, the per-game record of 624.9 set by 1989 Houston is still safe in theory as well as in actuality.

The appearance of two SEC teams on this list, while not appearing on the actual list, shows that run-first, slower-paced conferences can still produce some efficient offenses. That fact was lost on a lot of people when picking the national title game, as many saw Oklahoma as clearly the better offensive team. The Sooners were definitely more prolific, but we can see here that the Gators were more efficient.

Everyone on this list averaged more than 524 yards a game at Oklahoma's pace. In real life, only four teams averaged that much: Tulsa, Houston, Texas Tech, and OU. Only one other team, Nevada, averaged more than 500 real yards a game.

The presence of Georgia, Ball State, and USC also show that pro-style offenses can be highly efficient, just like the spread offenses that are all the rage. You likely won't hit Gus Malzahn-like pinball numbers, but there is something to be said for doing it the old-fashioned way. It still gets the job done.

I don't know if we can really learn much from this, but it's still fun to look at and think about how close Tulsa was to getting to eight grand. Malzahn may have left Tulsa for Auburn, but Oklahoma returns a lot of tools from its team last season.

What do you say, Bob Stoops and Kevin Wilson? Why not make a run at 8,000 yards next year?

2008 College Football Scoring Adjusted for Pace

David Wunderlich — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:15:02 -0500

Pace was one of the hot button issues in the 2008 college football season.

Oklahoma’s highly publicized switch to a fast paced offense in reaction to the new clock rules was the major reason for it. The Sooners ended up leading the country in plays at 1,106 (79 per game), and they set a record with 716 total points scored.

The Sooners weren’t the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU. And Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

To take a look at how well everyone was able to score points on equal footing, I have adjusted total points by pace.

This would be the point where I mention that this is based off of the NCAA’s “scoring offense” stat, which includes defense and special teams scores in the totals.

Because this study is looking at pace in terms of plays, and it proportionately increases or decreases each team’s total plays, it still works out under the assumption that teams would continue to get defense or special teams scores at the same pace as before.

Here is a table showing the top ten teams in points per game if everyone played at the nation’s average pace in terms of plays per game.

*Top Ten Adj. Points per Game*
Team	Total Pts	Pts/Game	Pts/Play	Adj. Total Pts	Adj. Pts/Game
Florida	611	43.64	0.70	663	47.33
Oklahoma	716	51.14	0.65	613	43.83
Tulsa	661	47.21	0.60	571	40.79
Missouri	591	42.21	0.60	570	40.75
Oklahoma St.	530	40.77	0.58	514	39.52
Texas Tech	569	43.77	0.58	512	39.35
Texas	551	42.38	0.58	508	39.06
Oregon	545	41.92	0.57	500	38.48
Penn St.	506	38.92	0.57	498	38.32
Rice	537	41.31	0.56	490	37.68

Here we can see that when pace is accounted for, Florida usurps Oklahoma as the total points leader as OU loses over a hundred points. The accelerated pace that the Sooner offense operated at allowed them to score about a touchdown a game more than they would have had they played at the average pace.

On a per game basis, the Gators were first by a little more than a field goal over OU.

The Big 12 is well represented with five of the top 10. Oregon is the only Pac-10 team in the top ten, but USC is lurking, just outside at No. 12.

Penn State meanwhile is the only Big Ten team here, and the next-highest conference colleague of the Nittany Lions’ was Iowa at No. 27. In numerical terms, the Hawkeyes are almost a full touchdown behind. That shows just how much more efficient PSU was than the rest of its conference.

Florida holds a similar status in the SEC since it was clearly the most efficient team at putting points on the scoreboard. Florida was two tenths of a point away from being a full two touchdowns ahead of the next highest SEC team, No. 21 Georgia.

The ACC and Big East are the only BCS conferences not represented here. FSU was the highest ACC team at 20th, but their numbers are skewed a bit by 115 points scored in its first two games against I-AA opponents. Those 115 points make up 26.5 percent of the Seminoles’ total points in 2008. The Big East’s highest team was actually Rutgers, at 33rd overall.

I can’t finish this without a word about Rice. It’s amazing what Chase Clement and Jarrett Dillard were able to do for that team over their careers there. “Rice football” has been synonymous with “losing” in Texas for many years, but the Owls won 10 games a year ago. Rice has some other players, but those two will be sorely missed next season.

2008 College Football Yardage Adjusted for Pace

David Wunderlich — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:55:42 -0500

Pace was one of the hot button issues of the 2008 college football season. Oklahoma's highly publicized switch to a fast-paced offense in reaction to the new clock rules was the major reason for it. The Sooners ended up leading the country in plays at 1,106 (79 per game), and they set a record with 716 total points scored.

The Sooners weren't the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU, and Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

To take a look at how well everyone was able to gain yards on equal footing, I have adjusted total yards by pace. Here is a table showing the top 10 teams in yards per game if everyone played at the nation's average pace in terms of plays per game.

*Top 10 Adj. Yards per Game*
Team	Total Yds	Yds/Game	Yds/Play	Adj. Total Yds	Adj. Yds/Game
Tulsa	7,978	569.86	7.27	6,893	492.38
Houston	7,316	562.77	7.20	6,338	487.52
Florida	6,231	445.07	7.13	6,757	482.68
Texas Tech	6,903	531.00	7.05	6,205	477.38
Oklahoma St.	6,340	487.69	6.98	6,145	472.73
Oklahoma	7,760	547.86	6.93	6,573	469.51
Missouri	6,778	484.14	6.90	6,542	467.30
Georgia	5,538	426.00	6.70	5,901	453.92
Ball St.	6,195	442.50	6.70	6,348	453.43
USC	5,911	454.69	6.63	5,839	449.15

As you can see, no one was able to rack up yards better than the guy who wrote the book on the hurry up offense. In Houston it was no Art Briles, no problem for the Cougars under first year head coach Kevin Sumlin. We can also see that Florida played under the national pace in 2008, which is likely a side effect of the more defense- and ball control-oriented SEC.

A run of four Big 12 teams with nearly identical marks come next before we get to another SEC team in Georgia. The Bulldogs were also below the national average pace, and Ball State was the only other squad on the list below that average. It shows that these teams had the capacity to rack up yardage comparable to the Big 12 and CUSA teams on the list, but either chose not to for philosophical reasons or were prevented from it by their opponents' pace (or both).

USC surprised me at first not for being in the top 10, since Mark Sanchez was great and the Pac-10 was down, but for being above the national pace. The Trojans always field good offenses, but they don't stick out to me as being in a hurry when they play.

That's when it occurred to me. USC had a historically good defense this season, ranking second only to the 2001 Miami (FL) defense in terms of yards per point allowed in this decade. The fact that the Trojans' defense caused a lot of three-and-outs probably pushed their plays per game above average. It goes to show that plays per game has to do with more than just offensive pace (though for these purposes, it's close enough).

Of course, football is not won and lost on yards gained. I also adjusted points scored for pace as well. If everyone played at the national average pace, would Oklahoma still come out on top in total points scored?

Stay tuned.

Lane Kiffin's Speech Wasn't Just for Tennessee Fans

David Wunderlich — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:07:03 -0500

This is going to be the last thing I write about Lane Kiffin, until SEC media days. Or until he opens his mouth again. Unless, I write something about USC from earlier in the decade. Or something.

Anyway, there were two major theories about his now-infamous speech on the day after signing day. One is that he was just being stupid. The other, which I subscribe to, is that he knew exactly what he was doing and was trying to re-energize the Tennessee fanbase.

However, I'm beginning to think it was as much for a group of people that weren't at the booster function: his players.

Rewind the clock a little more than four months. Tennessee conducted a press conference to announce that its ultimate company man was leaving, and it wasn't his choice. It was a very emotional day for everyone there, and even I, a rival fan, couldn't help but feel bad for Phillip Fulmer.

As bad as I felt for him, I wasn't angry about it. Fulmer's players were angry about, and they made sure that the UT administration knew it. The Knoxville News Sentinel described the scene like this:

"Players marched en masse from UT’s football complex a few blocks away to arrive in the stadium 30 minutes before the 5 p.m. press conference. Some grumbled, while others interjected, including wide receiver Josh Briscoe, who asked [athletics director Mike] Hamilton during the press conference why it was more important 'that we make a dollar than it is to keep a tradition and keep the Tennessee family the way it’s been for years.'"

That's right, the Volunteer players practically stormed the castle with torches and pitchforks and openly questioned the athletics director during that press conference. Say what you want about Phillip Fulmer (and someone probably has already), but he definitely created an intense bond with his players.

Now, every new coach has to work to win over the players that were there before him. For instance, Urban Meyer's 2005 team struggled heavily because many of his new guys were unhappy about the vanishing of the player's coach regime that preceded him. In Tennessee's case, it was going to be a tall task for whoever followed Fulmer in Knoxville, given that they all clearly were not happy about him being forced out.

With his speech that angered rivals and turned the world against him, Kiffin may have turned his team for him. He said at a booster event yesterday that the controversy has "re-energized" the team:

"The bottom line is that our players are extremely motivated, because what's happened is that, yeah, we've said some things that may have ruffled some feathers. We've maybe gone in and not been exactly as polite as we can be when we go into a school and wait our turn. But you want to know what? [The players] know we're doing that, and I'm saying things publicly because they have to perform. When they feel their head coach and their staff have so much belief and so much trust in them, they're down there working harder than ever."

It's probably pretty easy for players to be inspired by a coach who has yet to run them hard or chew them out in practice. When push comes to shove there will be some guys who don't fully buy into what Kiffin is selling. That much is inevitable with any new coach.

For now, at least, he has them refocused on work. They aren't sitting around trying to figure out how Coach Kiffin compares to Coach Fulmer, they're figuring out how they're going to make sure Kiffin's verbal checks don't bounce this fall.

With the goal for 2009 undoubtedly being a return to a bowl after missing one in 2008, that change among the players may be his speech's most important side effect of all.

South Florida Football Team to Travel via Vespa Scooters in 2009

David Wunderlich — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:05:30 -0500

College football as a whole was able to sustain itself quite nicely in 2008, despite the overall down economy. Some analysts even proclaimed college football to be “recession proof”; thanks to full stadiums on college campuses throughout the country.

Despite the financial optimism around the sport, schools have begun to cut back, even in hotbeds, like Florida, where it is arguably the state’s most popular sport.

Last year, Florida State University introduced ticket packages for Tallahassee Community College students to buoy its flagging attendance. The University of Florida has decided not to boost ticket prices, a rare occurrence for defending national champions and will look to scale back in some areas. The University of Miami will take buses to in-state road games to save money as well.

In order to keep up with the state’s Big Three, the University of South Florida has announced that its football team will conduct all of its travel on a fleet of Vespa scooters.

“This is our way of continuing to prove that we are a major school in the state,” said USF Athletics Director Doug Woolard. “We can cut back just as much and in some cases even more than the other big guys.”

The school conducted a study determining that purchasing the fleet would be equivalent to the airfare for the school’s road game at Indiana alone. “We expect a good value for the investment thanks to the Vespa’s high production quality and superior fuel economy,” explained Woolard.

The Bulls will use the scooters to travel from its campus in Temple Terrace to Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Buccaneers, as well as its road games to Indiana, Syracuse, UConn, and Pittsburgh.

Thanks to the Vespa’s speed topping out at 55 mph, it will take the team in excess of 23 hours one way to travel the 1,260 miles to get to its most remote destination in Storrs, Connecticut. Even so, the team is not worried about it.

“Man, I take all my courses online anyway, so I don’t care if we have to miss class,” explained quarterback Matt Grothe. “I just wish they’d let me take my truck.”

The team will transport its equipment in a used semi-truck that was retrofitted to run off of the pure, unbridled fury of head coach Jim Leavitt. The school is already creating a list of things that enrage him in order to make sure it will have plenty of angerfuel to complete the long trips to the Northeast and Midwest.

The funding for the modifications to the semi was provided in the form of a grant from media conglomerate Viacom. It hopes to one day power all of the broadcasts of its Comedy Central property off of the rants of Lewis Black alone.

Tim Tebow: The Future Of the NFL?

David Wunderlich — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:03:58 -0500

If you had any doubts about how big a profile Tim Tebow has earned within football circles, have a look at this video from the sidelines of this year’s Super Bowl:

On top of that, at this point just about anyone connected from the NFL (who isn’t directly associated with a team) is getting asked about Tebow’s chances on the next level. The Orlando Sentinel had an opportunity to interview Jon Gruden now that he’s got some time on his hands, and the topic of college football and its most prominent player came up.

One thing Gruden said was that he’s going to take some time to learn the spread offense, and in particular Chip Kelly’s version of it that Oregon runs. When asked if the spread could become a base offense in the NFL, he said “no question.”

He was also asked about Tebow’s chances on the next level, and Gruden gave a response for the ages.

“…Tim Tebow is so interesting to me," he said. "He’s like Brandon Jacobs playing quarterback. He’s 250 pounds. He’s the strongest human being who’s ever played the position. Ever. He will kick the living [expletive] out of a defensive lineman. He’ll fight anybody. He is rare. Tebow is the kind of guy who could revolutionize the game. He’s the ‘wildcat’ who can throw. Most of the teams that have the wildcat back there, it’s Ronnie Brown, it’s Jerious Norwood, it’s whoever you want to say it is. This guy here is 250-pounds of concrete cyanide, man. And he can throw. He throws well enough at any level to play quarterback."

That wasn't it.

“He can play quarterback in the NFL," Gruden said. "When he was a high school senior, they played Armwood in the state championship game. I have tape. He has an 80-yard touchdown run that put them in the lead. When it flipped around, and Armwood had the ball, what position do you think Tebow was playing? He was playing nose guard — and he disrupted about 10 plays. This guy is totally different. He’s got Rich Gannon, Drew Brees, that kind of makeup as a team guy. What he said after the Ole Miss game, I said, ‘That’s my favorite football player I’ve ever seen in my whole life.’ I said, ‘I want Florida to win every game that kid plays from now on.’”

So as you can see, Tebow has a pretty big fan in Gruden.

Florida’s new quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler was also asked about Tebow’s chances on the next level. In his years at Michigan, Loeffler worked with pro-style Wolverine quarterbacks from Tom Brady up through Chad Henne. He spent one year in the NFL with the Lions before taking the UF job.

His thoughts on Tebow as an NFL quarterback follow what many have been saying.

“You’re damn right he’ll be a good NFL quarterback," Loeffler said. "He’s got 'it'. There aren’t too many people across the country who have 'it'. You’re really only looking at five or six great NFL players. There is no question in my mind he will be an NFL player.

While Tebow might have to adjust, Loeffler sees there being no issue.

"There are several different styles out there, some base fundamentals you have to do," he said. "Does he have some things he has to work on? Certainly. Of course. It’s very similar from a guy coming from high school to college. There’s a transition you have to make. But can that kid play in the NFL? Absolutely.”

It is pretty well known that Tebow has some things to work on before going to the next level. I have a post already written up that I’m saving for later illustrating how long his delivery is compared to Sam Bradford’s compact windup. Bradford, as you know, is expected to be a top-five draft pick in part thanks to his mechanics.

It is also pretty well known that Urban Meyer thinks that Tebow is great just the way he is. When asked about the words of wisdom that Meyer imparted to his new quarterbacks coach, Loeffler says all he gave him was “don’t screw him up.”

Lane Kiffin: Kickin' Ant Piles and Takin' Names

David Wunderlich — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:47:43 -0500

One of the endemic problems in Tennessee’s football program over the past few years was a lack of excitement and interest. Even when the Vols surprisingly made the SEC Championship Game in 2007, most people yawned and assumed they’d lose to heavy favorite LSU. The star of Tennessee, as well as that of its coach Phillip Fulmer, had been eclipsed by those of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and LSU within the conference.

When Lane Kiffin took over in Knoxville, he probably knew that. He knows that Tennessee fans are a very passionate bunch, but the program had stagnated into boredom.

That is why I don’t believe for a second that Lane Kiffin did not know that there is no NCAA rule barring coaches from calling players who are on official visits to other schools’ campuses. He has been around the recruiting block enough enough times to know what the rules are, and besides, he passed the NCAA recruiting exam. You know, the one that Steve Spurrier hinted Kiffin might not have taken.

In addition a Tennessee spokeswoman said that the school did not plan on turning in Urban Meyer for calling Nu’Keese Richardson while the receiver was in Knoxville. That notice came a couple hours before Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley issued his statement confirming that it was not, in fact a violation.

My guess is that Kiffin invented the “violation” for the purposes of firing up the Tennessee fan base. After all, he said so himself in his public apology.

So no, I don’t believe Kiffin was ignorant of the NCAA rules, as some have him accused him of being. I can buy though that he was not aware of the SEC ethics rule against publicly criticizing other conference coaches. The guy has only been in the league for just over two months, you know. If he knew a reprimand from Mike Slive was coming (and it did), he probably would have held off.

I also might buy that he didn’t know how much of a media firestorm it would create. The SEC is covered like no other league and until you’re in it, it’s probably hard to understand just how close the scrutiny really is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he bad mouthed other Pac-10 schools while at USC booster functions and it wasn’t reported widely, because the media attention out there is not like what it is down here.

Florida wasn’t the only target of Kiffin and his staff though. Lance Thompson, a former Alabama assistant who joined Kiffin’s staff just a few weeks before signing day, jabbed his former employer a bit today as well. Kiffin said that Nick Saban should thank Thompson for eight of the Tide’s 2009 recruits. Thompson also referenced Alabama’s loss to Utah in the Sugar Bowl in a mocking manner.

LSU fans also got ticked off at Kiffin today over former Tiger recruit Janzen Jackson committing to Tennessee. He said he waited until today to announce for his family to be together for it, but also that he had “known for weeks” that he wanted to be a Vol. Jackson reaffirmed his commitment to LSU on Tuesday, but he obviously was lying about it. That has caused some LSU folks to accuse Kiffin of personally orchestrating the episode.

On top of everything today, Kiffin yesterday needed only 40 seconds in his signing day press conference yesterday to boast about turning two former Florida commits to his team. He even tweaked Georgia a bit by implying that Bulldog signee Marlon Brown would have gone to Knoxville if not for his grandmother’s objections.

The end result of it all has been to unite Bama, Florida, and LSU fans against him. This EDSBS commend thread lays that out fairly well, and it even has Georgia fans popping in to warn about what happens when you make Urban Meyer mad (hint: for them the answer was 49-10 plus two timeouts).

It’s not like Tennessee did any better than that the last time the Vols visited Florida Field anyway.

The national reaction has either been the way of those UGA partisans—warning that a hellacious beat down in the Swamp is coming—or to cheer him on for trying to re-energize the Tennessee program. What everyone seems to agree on though is that he’s displaying an inordinate amount of arrogance for someone who has yet to win a game in the SEC and went 5-15 at his previous head coaching gig.

Even the SEC’s prince of arrogance himself, Steve Spurrier, largely held his tongue until he started winning. His only public jab in his inaugural 1990 season that I could find was his famous line about 20 books being destroyed in an Auburn dorm fire (”The real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet.”).

Florida beat Auburn 48-7 that year and finished first in the conference, though the Gators didn’t officially win it thanks to Galen Hall-era probation.

Considering what the Tennessee roster has right now, it would be a tough task for the Vols to beat anyone 48-7, much less an eight-game winner like that ‘90 Auburn team was.

Regardless of what happens from here on out, Kiffin has achieved what I believe to be one of his first goals when arriving in Knoxville, that of raising the profile of his new program. Mission accomplished, Lane, the nation’s eyes are squarely on Tennessee now. Here comes the hard part: capitalizing on it and restoring UT to being a national title contender in the most competitive era the conference has ever known.

Maybe he can do it, maybe he can’t. The one thing we know for sure is that the ride won’t be boring.

A Look Back at Florida's 2005 Football Recruiting Class

David Wunderlich — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:39:02 -0500

National Signing Day is tomorrow, and the recruitniks are restless with excitement. I've already gone over why I don't follow recruiting closely, but the main reason why I don't go nuts over it is the same as why it's not worth going nuts over any professional drafts.

With a few exceptions, you generally won't know for years who will pan out and who won't. I would much rather look at past classes to see how they turned out years later, because you've seen how they've done and can revisit (hopefully) fond memories of seeing them play.

The members of everyone's recruiting class of 2005, at this point, has all either graduated or are now becoming fifth-year seniors. It was a transitional year for Florida, going from the Zook era to Meyer era. One would think that with both of them being known as great recruiters, that it would turn out all right for a transition year, but as you'll see, it was very much a star-crossed bunch.

Here they are in alphabetical order:

Avery Atkins - DB (4* Rivals / 5* Scout)

Atkins' career looked promising initially, but he quickly got into trouble off of the field. After essentially being kicked off the team, he transferred to Bethune Cookman, where his legal problems continued. After multiple arrests for domestic battery, he would be found dead in his car in an apparent suicide.

His is a sad story all around, one of a bright future wasted and unnecessary grief for those he mistreated.

Kalvin Baker - LB (3* / 4*)

Never played at linebacker and transferred to Tennessee State.

Nyan Boateng - WR (4*/ 3*)

He never found a way to get playing time behind guys like Dallas Baker, Andre Caldwell, and Percy Harvin. He transferred to Cal after the 2006 season to get more playing time, got arrested before leaving town, and had a decent year for the Bears last year.

Simon Codrington - OL (3* / 3*)

He played some as backup in 2006, but missed all of 2007 with a fractured wrist. His career ended due to injury.

Jon Demps - LB (4* / 4*)

He played in a couple of games in 2005, but missed 2006 and 2007 with injury issues. He also had some off-the-field problems. The last time his name surfaced was in December of '07 when he was arrested for throwing a sandwich at a Jimmy John's employee who simply wanted him to pay for a bag of chips.

No, he is not related to current running back Jeff Demps.

Brian Ellis - TE (3* / 3*)

He couldn't get an SAT or ACT score high enough to get into school, and went to a junior college in California. He switched to linebacker, signed with Purdue, but couldn't get into school there either.

Darryl Gresham, Jr. - LB (3* / 3*)

Was on the 2005 scout team, and only saw action in 2006 against Western Carolina. He left the team after the 2007 spring game.

Eddie Haupt - OL (3* / 4*)

He played sparingly from 2005-07, and his career ended due to injury.

Kestahn Moore - RB (3* / 4*)

He is part of an interesting bit of trivia, in that he's the only running back to start a season-opening game under Urban Meyer. He had an up-and-down time in Gainesville. Just as he was hitting his stride in 2007, fumble problems (especially against LSU) derailed his career.

Moore was good but not great, and he got passed up by others on the team because of a lack of explosiveness. He played some in all four seasons, and he was the best pass-blocking running back Urban Meyer has had at UF.

Dorian Munroe - S (4* / 4*)

He played some key minutes in relief of starting S Tony Joiner late in 2006, and he played often on defense and special teams in 2007. He was in line to get a starting role in 2008 before an ACL tear ended his season in August. He'll be back in 2009.

Louis Murphy - WR (3* / 3*)

He spent a couple years on campus before things finally began to click with him. He got himself on track in 2007, and he was a key target and deep threat for Tim Tebow in 2008.

He's one of the two or three best players of the class.

David Nelson - WR (4* / 4*)

Urban Meyer proclaimed him a waste of a scholarship for most of his time in Gainesville, and Nelson actually agrees. He admitted he didn't take things fully seriously until about midway through the 2008 season, at which point he began playing a lot better. He had key catches late in the season and might actually fulfill his promise in 2009.

Reggie Nelson - S (4* / 5*)

After spending a year in junior college in 2004, this Nelson made it to campus in 2005. He is the unquestioned best player of the class, earning the nickname "The Eraser" for correcting any mistakes the guys around him made. His outstanding coverage and bone crushing hits will live on in Gator football lore forever.

Jonathan Phillips - K (2* / 4*)

He kicked a random extra point every now and then for four years, and he decided to go to Miami (FL) law school after the 2007 season. Meyer convinced him to stay, and he won the kicking job in 2008. He had an outstanding season, missing just two total kicks (one of which was blocked due to poor protection up front).

Josh Portis - QB (4* / 4*)

Originally a Meyer recruit to Utah, he followed the head coach to Florida. Everyone assumed that he would be the guy to run the Real Urban Meyer Offense once Chris Leak graduated (or maybe even sooner). Instead, his crazy, meddling mother convinced him to transfer after the '05 season rather than lose another year of eligibility playing behind Leak.

He transferred to Maryland, where he never got higher than third on the depth chart. After sparse minutes in 2008, he once again transferred, this time to a small school called California (Pa.) for the spring semester. He has good athletic ability, but has never been able to translate it into being a polished quarterback.

Eric Sledge - ATH (3* / 3*)

He wanted to play receiver or safety, but the Florida coaches had him play linebacker. He transferred to Valdosta State in January 2007.

Ryan Stamper - LB (4* / 4*)

He spent a season on the scout team in 2005 and hardly played at all in 2006. In 2007, he was still just a top reserve, but in 2008 he emerged as one of the linebacking corps' most versatile and consistent performers. He started a few games and spent time at all three positions.

He figures to have a prominent role again in 2009.

Ronnie Wilson - OL (3* / 4*)

He redshirted in 2005, but thanks to some injuries to guys ahead of him, he played often enough (and well enough) in 2006 to be named an honorable mention freshman All-American and was put on the SEC All-Freshman team by The Sporting News. In the offseason before the 2007 season, he discharged a semiautomatic weapon during an altercation, thereby getting himself thrown off the team.

He continued to pay his way to attend UF, and in 2008 Meyer allowed him to try to work his way back on the team. After spending some time on the defensive line and never playing a meaningful minute, he was once again kicked off the team after getting in a fight. He never got his scholarship back.

In Total

The class had only four players who became starters for a significant amount of time by now: Kestahn Moore, Louis Murphy, Reggie Nelson, and Jonathan Phillips. Ryan Stamper played significant minutes this year, even starting a few games, and along with Dorian Munroe will likely be a top contributor next season. David Nelson figures to be a key part of the receiver rotation if the second half of 2008 was not a mirage.

Two players had a single season of playing noticeable roles before getting kicked off the team: the late Avery Atkins and Ronnie Wilson. Josh Portis played spot duty for a season before transferring.

Of the 18 players of the class, six have been significant contributors now, four years later. Three had single notable seasons before leaving, and one has one last year to impress after a half-season of productivity. If you're counting at home, that leaves eight players who had no impact at all.

For a recruiting class that was ranked No. 15 by Rivals and No. 11 by Scout, the actual contributions are surprisingly low. Reggie Nelson (an All-American), Wilson, Munroe, and Moore (54 carries, 282 yards) were the only players to play a measurable role on the 2006 national title team. Only Murphy, Phillips, Stamper, and, to a lesser extent, Moore and David Nelson played measurable roles on the 2008 national title team.

Those are not good numbers. It speaks to the talent that Ron Zook left behind, as well as the outstanding quality of Meyer's subsequent classes. When you consider that a team has 44 starters and backups on offense and defense, not to mention special teams players, four or five contributors is not a high number.

As everyone pores over this year's classes and predicts fortune or doom, just remember that they don't always turn out as advertised.

Grading My 2008 College Football Predictions

David Wunderlich — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:32:59 -0500

Before I get into much that looks forward to 2009, I figure it's worth taking a look at how I did with my 2008 predictions to see what I can learn from it. After all, so many people toss so many forecasts around without ever going back and letting you know if they were good or bad.

Consider this some full disclosure before I predict anything about 2009.

Overall

My catchphrase for 2008 was "A Season of Titans." I meant that we would not see another chaotic season where good but not great teams struggled to lay weak claims on the title as we did in 2007. I foresaw at least one undefeated BCS conference champ and maybe more. I saw a possibility of another undefeated team in the Mountain West or WAC too.

It turned out that only Utah was undefeated team going into bowl season, and I did single out the Utes as a candidate for perfection. Even so, it was a season on titans. Once again there were a bunch of great teams all fighting for a chance to play for it all.

In 2007, we ended up with Ohio State in the BCS title game basically by default and LSU in it because no one was quite sure who else to put there. In 2008, we finished the year with no fewer than four teams that felt they had a legit claim to the title, and three of them received at least one vote in the final AP poll.

I claim this one as mostly right, because the BCS controversy was caused by having too many elite teams, not too few.

Team-Specific

Florida will pound Hawai'i. I predicted this in May, got some flak from an angry Hawai'i fan, and Florida ended up winning 56-10. It was similar to how I dismissed FAU as a credible threat in 2007, got flak from an angry Owl fan, and Florida ended up winning 59-20.

Why I keep making predictions about UF beating down opponents in guarantee games is probably the biggest question here. Is it too early to predict that the Gators will eviscerate FIU in 2009? Anyway, this was right.

FSU is a six-win team. I made the headline intentionally a little misleading, but I meant that the Seminoles would win six games against I-A competition. I didn't explicitly say it, but I also meant specifically in the regular season because bowl season is often a crapshoot.

As it turned out, FSU won eight regular season games with two coming against I-AA teams. I didn't get all the details right (Florida State didn't lose to Clemson, for instance), but I nailed the win total. They got six wins against I-A competition in the regular season.

Paul Johnson will do better than 7-5. This piece was mainly just background information on Johnson's career, but I did make a prediction at the end: "Paul Johnson’s track record indicates he should do better than the 7-5 records that Chan Gailey put up seemingly every year."

Georgia Tech went 9-4 in 2008. This one was also correct.

Next, I put together detailed predictions for the ACC and Big 12 before rolling everything else into one mega-post. So, let's take them piece by piece.

ACC

I predicted the top three in the Atlantic would be Clemson, Wake Forest, then Maryland. It ended up being Boston College and FSU at 5-3, then the rest of division tied at 4-4. I think Maryland technically ended up third since the Terps beat all of the three other 4-4 teams.

So, I got one of three correct. I obviously bit on the Clemson hype, but I figured if it was ever going to happen for the Tigers, this was the year. Instead, they quit on their coach after one week and slumped to another mediocre year. BC also out played my expectations; I wanted to put them higher but talked myself out of it. Oh well.

In the Coastal, I went Virginia Tech, UNC, then Georgia Tech. Swap the Tar Heels and Yellow Jackets and that was the actual order. Not bad for the chaotic ACC.

Then again, I did have Clemson winning the conference. Oops.

Big 12

In the North, I picked the top three as Missouri, Kansas, and then Nebraska. Switch the Jayhawks and Huskers, and you've got the actual order. Really though, picking anyone else in the top three of this division would have been a big stretch.

Down South, I had the order Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and then Texas. Again, picking a different set of three would have been risky. I'm not sure who technically was second or third. UT and Tech were tied behind Oklahoma, and Tech beat Texas. Does that count as correct? I say close enough.

Like with Clemson, I figured that if greatness ever happened for Texas Tech, this would be the year. I'd say an 11-2 record qualifies, but they unfortunately didn't get a BCS bid.

I had Oklahoma over Missouri in the title game, and that was precisely what happened.

Big East

I called for the order to be West Virginia, Cincinnati, and then South Florida. Cincy won it, and then there was a three-way tie between WVU, Pitt, and Rutgers who all went 1-1 against each other.

The USF pick was rotten, but having Cincinnati in the top two was pretty good considering the consensus had the Bearcats fourth.

Big Ten

I had Ohio State first and Michigan State second. My reasoning was that Ohio State should have been one of the country's best teams, and I still feel like they should have been. The MSU pick was mostly out of the necessity of picking a team out of left field, and with the Spartans ending up third, it wasn't so bad.

I also specifically called for Wisconsin (preseason consensus No. 13) and Illinois (No. 20) to fall off from 2007 and not be that great. That was right on.

One huge problem though: "I have little faith that Jay Paterno’s 'Spread HD' will amount to much." That's about all I have to say about that. It really speaks for itself.

Pac-10

Honestly, I didn't do a whole heck of a lot of thinking about the conference when making my picks. I defaulted to USC as first just like everyone else, and I banked on a second year bump under Dennis Erickson to keep Arizona State in second place.

I think if I remember correctly, I wanted to put Oregon State second, but I talked myself out of it like I did with BC in the ACC. Since I have no written proof of it, I can't really take credit for it though.

SEC

In the East, I had Florida over Georgia. That happened, so rock on. In the West, I had Auburn over LSU. I could have sworn I ended up picking LSU, but I guess I changed that at the last second.

I was clearly flummoxed by the West division, much like the Gators who have lost to a team from it every year since 1999. I did pick Florida to win the league though.

BCS

I predicted that there would be no non-BCS teams in the BCS, so that right off was wrong. Even so, I had the Big East and ACC getting only one bid, and that was right. I also predicted that the Big 12 South would have two teams, and while I got the non-champ wrong (I said Texas Tech), I didn't pick Missouri as many did.

The other at-larges I picked were Arizona State, Georgia, and Michigan State. Whoops. My title game was half right, with Oklahoma and Ohio State being the selected teams.

I used some trends to make predictions. One was to predict that only one of the 2007 BCS at larges would make it back in 2008. It turned out that not a one made it back.

I also said we'd have six BCS teams that were picked to be first in their division/conference, two that were picked second, one that was picked third, and one from all the rest. This part was based on the preseason consensus.

Four consensus first place teams made it: Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and USC. Three that were picked second made it: Texas, Utah, and Florida. Two that were picked third made it: Penn State and Alabama. That leaves one from the rest, and that was Cincinnati, who was picked fourth. That's not spectacular, but it's not bad either.

Heisman

"For what it’s worth, I also expect Ohio State’s Chris Wells to win the Heisman, followed by Chase Daniel, Tim Tebow, and Pat White."

Injuries and team underachieving kept Beanie from having a shot, but I did correctly have Tebow third. Hooray? Not really, and honestly I don't care. The Heisman is a popularity contest graded on a scale that is not intuitive to me, so yeah, I blew it, but I'm not that upset about it.

Overall

I got a couple divisions pretty wrong (ACC Atlantic, SEC West), but overall I think I did well. I slipped up most spectacularly in giving Clemson the benefit of the doubt and believing that Ohio State had one more good run in them. I did best in predicting better things for Georgia Tech, Cincinnati, and Michigan State than the consensus did.

I think my biggest trapping was getting too caught up in that consensus, and falling prey too much to conventional wisdom when I wasn't sure what to do (like the Pac-10 below USC). It's probably impossible to avoid that entirely, but my biggest missteps came from when I conformed too closely and not the other way around.

Periodically during the offseason, I will be doing some things that both look back and look forward. Hopefully they will culminate in a better set of predictions for 2009.

Gator Football Team Sets Record In The Classroom

David Wunderlich — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:18:09 -0500

The Gator football team has not just experienced a renaissance on the football field over the past four years, the team grade point average has either increased or remained steady every season under Urban Meyer's watch as well.

This year's Gator football team not only won a national championship, but set a record for number of players on the winter SEC Honor Roll.

The Gators had 37 players on it, tying Vanderbilt for most in the conference. That number is also the most in UF history, breaking the previous record of 26.

Essentially, you have to either have a 3.0 GPA for the previous academic year or for your whole academic career, and you have to be on the team for the entire season.

Click on the link for the full list, which includes walk-ons and red shirts, and also for the full legaleseish requirements for being honored.

Here are the players who played a notable role this season, in alphabetical order:

John Brantley, backup quarterback

Tate Casey, tight end/H-back

Chas Henry, punter

Aaron Hernandez, starting tight end/H-back

Janoris Jenkins, starting cornerback and freshman All-American (according to TSN, Rivals, etc.)

Duke Lemmens, key part of defensive end rotation

Kestahn Moore, running back

Jonathan Phillips, kicker (grad school)

James Smith, long snapper

Caleb Sturgis, kickoff specialist

Tim Tebow, starting quarterback and general folk hero

Justin Trattou, starting defensive end

Phil Trautwein, starting left offensive tackle (grad school)

Jason Watkins, starting right offensive tackle

Major Wright, starting safety

Stewart Mandel of SI Not Quite Right in Latest College Football Playoff Critique

David Wunderlich — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:53:29 -0500

I am not one of those people who spend their time plotting the end of mainstream media. I generally don't comment on the work of people from the big print, TV, and internet outlets because there are already too many people who do and I try not to get to meta in my writing.

That said, I feel like commenting on Stewart Mandel's column on how the Arizona Cardinals make an easy case against playoffs for college football. Mandel is a long-time playoff skeptic, whereas I cannot remember wanting to preserve the bowl season instead of having a playoff. I don't have a problem with that; reasonable minds can find room to disagree without animosity.

On the surface, he is correct, but I don't think he gets it quite right. The Arizona Cardinals do illustrate one of the pitfalls of setting up a tournament: the time before it only matters inasmuch as it gets you into it. Once you clinch your playoff bid, the rest of the regular season has no meaning.

The Cardinals perhaps have one of the highest ceilings in the league, but they were not one of the best teams week in and week out. Their appearance in the Super Bowl, along with last year's Giants defeat of the 18-0 Patriots, show perfectly that the best team doesn't win the NFL Championship, merely the hottest team at the end of the season does.

Size Matters

However, Mandel forgets to account for the size of the NFL versus the size of the top division of college football. He, and many playoff opponents, are worried about the prospect of a three or four-loss team winning the National Championship just as now a seven-loss team could win the NFL Championship.

Well, the NFL admits 12 of its 32 teams into its postseason. That amounts to 37.5 percent of the league. If college football let the same proportion of teams into a tournament, you'd have 44 or 45 teams. Going off of the compilation of nearly all available rankings, that would allow several five-loss teams and even a few six-loss teams to be involved.

The main problem with the NFL's system is not that it has a tournament, but that its tournament is too big. On top of that, it pulls its teams using the vestigial AFC/NFC partition and the outdated concept of regional champions. That is how 9-7 Arizona and 8-8 San Diego get to go to the playoffs while 11-5 New England sits at home.

The Matter of Automatic Bids

On the second page of his piece, Mandel assures us that any college football playoff scheme would necessarily include automatic bids for the power conferences. After all, every sport with a tournament rewards division champions in this manner. That would mean that among the Floridas and Oklahomas, you get four-loss ACC Champion Virginia Tech with a shot to come out as champion if the Hokies got hot.

That's not an outrageous claim by any stretch, but I am not convinced that playoff bids for major conference champions is a done deal.

For one thing, I don't believe any eight or 16-team playoff is going to happen without first going through a plus-one (four team playoff) phase. Obviously, you can't promise auto bids to the champion of each of the six major conferences when there are only four openings. Therefore, the first playoff phase will absolutely not have auto bids for any conference champs.

If the playoff were to expand beyond a plus-one, the topic of automatic bids will surely come up. I'm not convinced it's as inevitable as Mandel thinks it is that we'll ever get beyond four teams, though.

You can shoehorn in a plus-one into the current system. It's a stretch, but it can be done. All the BCS would need to do is invite another bowl, probably the Cotton, into the first week of BCS games to ensure that 10 teams still get the prestige and cash that comes with going to the BCS. Then, the plus one game gets played when the current title game is.

The conferences still get their BCS auto bids and the major bowls keep their historical tie-ins in that scenario. If you go beyond that, though, then the last bits of the old traditional system will have to be completely scrapped. If you think that will come easy at any point in the future, you're underestimating the money (much less the emotions) invested in those ties.

But let's assume, for argument's sake, that eventually the decision is made to grow beyond four teams. That decision will not come quickly after the move to four teams. If there's one thing that's for sure, it's that the power brokers of college football are slower to make things happen than a split Congress.

In order to move to eight teams, people will have to give up the idea of the sanctity of winning a major conference. After all, they would have to be junking the auto bids to the major bowls. In addition, the plus-one will have set the precedent that college football's tournament only pulls the best teams and doesn't necessarily just blindly pull division winners.

Combine those facts with how intensely everyone (coaches, players, media, and fans alike) focuses on the top of the polls at the end of the season, and you have an environment where it is not a certainty that conference champions get auto bids to the tournament.

General Relativity

Finally, Mandel argues that an eight or 16-team playoff necessarily devalues the regular season, just like the NFL's and college basketball's tournaments have devalued their regular seasons.

I already explained why that is faulty logic for the NFL thanks to the discrepancy in league size. Sixteen teams out of 119 means 13.4 percent of teams are playing for it all. Proportionately, that comes out to an NFL playoff with just four teams. Narrow it to eight college teams, and you go back to the 1930s through early 1960s, when only two NFL teams played for it all (if necessary).

College basketball is a whole different animal. Basketball can be played more often than football can, so the sport has more regular season games. The Law of Diminishing Returns takes over from there, as every extra game adds less and less value.

The college basketball tournament is also proportionately larger than any proposed college football tournament. The 65-team tourney is the equivalent of a 22-team college football playoff, which is bigger than anyone wants.

The most popular setup for college football is an eight-team playoff, and that is the equivalent of a 23-team college basketball tournament. Do you think the regular season wouldn't be seen as more valuable if only 23 teams played in March? I sure do, though I wouldn't want to be on that selection committee.

Keep It in Perspective

If you're going to prophesy doom for the college football regular season based on the dynamics of other sports' regular and postseasons, then you have to make sure you're comparing apples and apples.

An eight or 16-team playoff for college football really is not that big. The smallest postseason tournament in major American sports is Major League Baseball's, where eight of 30 teams get to go. Even it has problems with seemingly unworthy teams winning championships, but that has more to do with the selection process than the size. Proportionately, the baseball postseason is equivalent to about a 32-team college football playoff.

In general, I am for an eight-team playoff where the best eight teams are selected. Go back through every final BCS poll (start with this year and work your way back) and look at the scores rather than the rankings and records. You'll find that there is a significant gap between either the No. 7 and No. 8 team or the No. 8 and No. 9 team in nine of the BCS's 11 seasons.

Not only is the complaint of the No. 9 team who got left out weaker than that of the No. 3 team who got left out, but you can see that generally there is a drop off after about No. 7 or No. 8. I interpret that as even more evidence as to why eight is the right number.

Conclusion

Yes, Stewart Mandel is correct in asserting that the Arizona Cardinals' presence in the Super Bowl is evidence of a problem with playoff systems.

What he got wrong is that the problem lies not in the concept of a tournament in general, but in the NFL Playoffs' size and selection process. He then continues to draw more analogies with other sports without addressing properly those issues of size and selection process.

I generally enjoy Mandel's work, especially in the way that he tends not to overreact and try to write instant history as so many do. This time, though, his analysis wasn't quite right.

Converting Between the NFL and College Passer Ratings

David Wunderlich — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:51:57 -0500

As long as quarterbacks have played the central role of offensive football, people have tried to quantify who is the best. Various methods have been concocted to do just that, and many more are being devised even today.

The two most widely-cited measures are passer rating and passing efficiency. The former is used by the NFL, while the latter is used by the NCAA.

They both are complex formulas, and if you want the details, hit up the passer rating Wikipedia page. Despite their differences, they use the same four components: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and interceptions per attempt. What differs is how the parts are weighted.

The NFL's passer rating imposes a ceiling and floor on the four parts, so it has a lower boundary at zero and an upper boundary of 158.3. The idea is not to let outliers, good or bad, have undue influence on the rating.

If you're curious, the answer is yes, the pro game has seen its share of both perfect games and zero games.

The NCAA's passing efficiency has no such boundaries against outliers. The maximum score occurs when someone completes every pass for a 99-yard touchdown and the minimum score occurs when someone completes every pass for a 99-yard loss.

You are correct in assuming we've never seen anyone log a maximum or minimum score.

Despite there being pros and cons to each system, they are generally kept apart. The passer ratings of college quarterbacks and the passing efficiency of NFL quarterbacks are not widely reported.

Here are some tables that show some insight into how the systems differ and how we might compare the relative performances of collegiate and professional quarterbacks.

For the sake of brevity, I have included only the top 10 of each category in the tables.

I Said Relative Performance

Before we get into numbers, I want to stress that any comparisons done between college and pro quarterbacks are meant to viewed in relative terms.

The NFL obviously has tougher defenses than college does, but the NFL also has better offensive lines and, well, quarterbacks, too. I don't think anyone would argue that the Peyton Manning of today is not better than the version of himself that lost to Florida four times at Tennessee.

Take the inter-division comparisons with a grain of salt, and know that this (like football) is in the end just for fun.

NFL Passing Efficiencies

I will start with passing efficiency of the primary NFL starting quarterbacks. I got my stats on them from ESPN's stats page for the regular season, so if you're looking for the passer rating standings, there you go.

*2008 NFL Passing Efficiency*
Rank	Player	Team	Passing Efficiency	Pass. Rat. Rank
1	P. Rivers	SD	154.6	1
2	D. Brees	NO	144.4	4
3	K. Warner	ARI	143.3	3
4	C. Pennington	MIA	142.1	2
5	M. Schaub	HOU	141.1	7
6	A. Rodgers	GB	139.3	6
7	P. Manning	IND	139.1	5
8	T. Romo	DAL	138.5	8
9	M. Ryan	ATL	134.7	11
10	J. Garcia	TB	132.8	9

Here, Philip Rivers still rules the roost. There's a little movement in the rankings, but no one slides more than two spots one way or the other.

None of these numbers really pop out though, even Rivers' mark. That is because college quarterbacks routinely achieve loftier numbers, such as Sam Bradford's 180.3 mark that led the college game in 2008.

For comparison, Rivers' efficiency score would land him at 14th-best in the country between Ball State's Nate Davis and Nebraska's Joe Ganz. There is a good reason why college quarterbacks can go higher than the pro guys, and while I think you know what it is, I'll take a look at it later.

The lowest passer efficiency score was by Cleveland's Derek Anderson. He managed a 103.0 passing efficiency. By comparison, the 100th-ranked college passer was Kentucky's Mike Hartline with a 104.7 score.

College Passer Ratings

Now it's time to see how the big men on campus fared using the NFL's report card. Their stats came from the NCAA stats site.

*2008 NCAA I-A Passer Ratings*
Rank	Player	Team	Passer Rating	Pass. Eff. Rank
1	S. Bradford	OU	127.0	1
2	T. Tebow	UF	122.1	4
3	C. McCoy	TEXAS	121.6	3
4	D. Johnson	TULSA	117.7	2
5	C. Clement	RICE	116.5	7
6	M. Sanchez	USC	113.0	6
7	G. Harrell	TTU	112.9	8
8	C. Keenum	HOU	110.9	9
9	Z. Robinson	OKST	110.2	5
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	107.5	10

As you can see, the college guys do better overall on the NFL's scale too. In fact, Bradford's season would shatter Peyton Manning's all-time record of 121.1 for a single season. The other two Heisman finalists would edge him out too, for that matter.

There was a bit more movement in these standings after conversion than in the NFL standings, with Oklahoma State's Zac Robinson taking the biggest fall at four spots. I don't know if that has more to do with formulaic differences, but I have a feeling it has more to do with the fact that there are a lot of quarterbacks in I-A college football.

The bunching that ensues means small real drops could get magnified as relative drops.

The lowest passer rating in the pros was by the Browns' Anderson again with a score of 66.5. Kentucky's Hartline, Mr. 100th Place in college, had a rating of 69.4.

You know there has to be something inflating the college stats. I mean the No. 32 college quarterback in passer rating was Illinois' Juice Williams, and he managed to post an 86.4 rating. That would tie him for 14th place in the NFL with Eli Manning and Donovan McNabb.

Adjusted College Passer Ratings

The inflation factor was something we all know. They're sweet, they're fluffy, they're cupcakes.

As I said above, I'm looking to judge relative value. NFL teams don't get to stock up to a third of their schedule with arena league teams, but the top college teams can schedule anywhere from three to five teams (depending on the conference) that cannot compete on the top team's level.

In 2008, the power conferences were the six BCS leagues plus the Mountain West Conference. Because I'm feeling charitable, and because their name is in the BCS contracts too, I counted the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame as a power team for this part too.

So, I took the top 10 quarterbacks from these conferences and took out all stats against teams that are not power teams. You can argue that in 2008 Central Michigan and Troy were much better foes than, say, Washington or Washington State, and you'd probably be right. Even so, I had to draw the line somewhere.

Here is what the passing efficiency stats look like for the top college quarterbacks from power teams against power teams:

*Top QBs from Power Teams Against Power Teams*
Rank	Player	Team	Pass. Eff. Adj.	Pass. Eff.	Diff.
1	S. Bradford	OU	181.0	180.8	+0.2
2	T. Tebow	UF	166.3	172.4	-6.0
3	M. Sanchez	USC	164.6	164.6	-
4	C. McCoy	TEXAS	163.0	173.8	-10.8
5	G. Harrell	TTU	162.7	160.0	2.7
6	Z. Robinson	OKST	155.8	166.8	-11.0
7	J. Ganz	NEB	153.4	153.7	-0.3
8	M. Stafford	UGA	150.6	153.5	-3.0
9	B. Johnson	UTAH	148.4	149.4	-1.0
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	146.7	159.4	-12.7

Bradford and Sanchez's numbers didn't change much because Oklahoma played only one cupcake (I-AA Chattanooga) and USC didn't play any.

You can see, however, that three of the other five Big 12 quarterbacks and Tebow benefited some from feasting on weaker, non-conference competition. At least in Tebow's case he didn't fall behind anyone as a result.

No one else changed that dramatically, though Texas Tech's Graham Harrell somehow got better against better competition.

Philip Rivers moves up into seventh place now that we've focused on quarterbacks from the top of Div. I-A and only how they do against other top teams. The college quarterbacks still have crappy BCS conference teams on their side, but at least the empty calories have been removed.

Finally, let's take a look at the passer ratings of the college players.

Adjusted College Passer Ratings

This table contains the same guys, only this time it's using the NFL's system.

*Top QBs from Power Teams Against Power Teams*
Rank	Player	Team	Pass. Rat. Adj.	Pass. Rat.	Diff.
1	S. Bradford	OU	126.8	127.0	1
2	T. Tebow	UF	117.6	122.1	-4.5
3	G. Harrell	TTU	115.9	112.9	3.0
4	M. Sanchez	USC	113.0	113.0	-
5	C. McCoy	TEXAS	112.0	121.6	-9.6
6	J. Ganz	NEB	103.8	103.0	0.9
7	B. Johnson	UTAH	103.2	103.5	-0.3
8	Z. Robinson	OKST	103.0	110.2	-7.2
9	M. Stafford	UGA	98.5	101.7	-3.2
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	97.2	107.5	-10.3

So Peyton's record is still falling at the hands of the new Heisman winner, but no one else is breaking it this year. Philip Rivers also moves up a spot to sixth, behind only the three Heisman finalists, USC's new blue chipper, and a guy who runs an offense called the "Air Raid." Not bad, Phil.

Missouri's Chase Daniel again takes a hard hit in the rankings. This is no surprise to readers of the excellent Dr. Saturday site, where editor Matt Hinton showed that Daniel was only able to light up bad defenses this past season. Maybe it was the thumb injury, or maybe he wasn't that good. I don't know if we'll ever find out.

Even as Daniel struggled to post big numbers against teams with a pulse, his adjusted passer rating was still higher than 30 of the 32 regular starting NFL quarterbacks. Why are there so many college quarterbacks with monster passer ratings?

Think Spectrums

I don't mean to keep singling out Mike Hartline; I promise I have nothing against him. He just happened to finish exactly 100th in passing efficiency, so that got him chosen as the representative for the bottom of the college football quarterback pecking order.

His adjusted passing efficiency is 97.6, and his adjusted passer rating is 62.3. The former is higher than the efficiency for the NFL's worst regular, Derek Anderson, but the latter is lower than the former Oregon State turnover machine's rating.

In other words, they are about even when it comes to performance relative to their rankings within their respective leagues.

That is why there are a lot of college guys at the top of the hypothetical combined rankings. There would be a lot at the bottom of them too, and plenty in the middle as well. After all, there are 119 teams in Div. I-A but only 32 NFL teams.

Quarterbacking quality is a spectrum, and college football simply has more guys to put on its range than the NFL does.

My goal wasn't to try to tell you that college quarterbacks are better than pro quarterbacks because, as I said at the beginning, that's patently untrue. I only wanted to show how the two major systems of rating quarterbacks compare so you can have some sort of reference when seeing one or the other.

Neither method is perfect, and there might even be a better one out there. Until you can convince the NFL or NCAA to adopt it though, passer rating and passing efficiency the big ones we've all got.

Now, at least, you can eyeball the differences in them and make a pretty good guess as to how college and pro quarterbacks are doing relative to each other and their respective leagues.

Gators Decide on the NFL Draft: Brandon Spikes is Staying, Percy Harvin is Gone

David Wunderlich — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:19:29 -0500

The decision as to whether to turn pro or not depends on a lot of things.

One consideration is which position you play. Some positions, like running back and defensive line, easily translate to the next level. Others, like quarterback and receiver, are notoriously difficult to play well in a rookie season.

Another consideration is the years draft class. If your position is stocked with good guys, the numbers dictate that someone is going to fall to the second round when he could be a first rounder in a normal year.

From there you can go forever on smaller considerations like the type of scheme you come from, whether you’re injury-prone, and things like that.

The second consideration appears to be why Brandon Spikes will again be in Gainesville next season. With higher profile guys like Rey Maualuga and James Laurinaitis coming out, this year’s draft is stocked at linebacker.

While Spikes made a lot of improvement this season, most notably in leadership and pass coverage, he reportedly would be the guy who gets bumped to the second round. For that reason, it makes sense for Spikes to come back.

Percy Harvin is leaving however. I don’t think it was considerations one or two that got him, but more likely a host of other ones. The primary concern would be his injury-prone nature. I’ve said it several times: it makes more sense to be paid millions to rehab than to do it for a scholarship.

He also is coming out at the right time. Similar players like Ted Ginn and DeSean Jackson, who play a lot like Harvin, did well last season. Plus, Harvin can operate the wildcat that is so en vogue.

He will have stiff competition for draft position from Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin, but if he can be healthy by the combine, Harvin will do fine. The fact that he can be both a credible running back and receiver means he can have a nice long career in the mold of a Brian Westbrook or a Marshall Faulk.

I am very excited about the 2009 Gator defense, now that it officially has every member of the two-deep coming back. It could end up being the best in school history. It will definitely have a shot of getting there statistically thanks to the schedule rotating Miami, Hawai’i, and Ole Miss out for Troy, FAU, and Mississippi State.

I also wish nothing but the best to Percy Harvin in the NFL. I have no doubt that if he can keep in one piece, he will excel on the next level. Thanks for being an awesome Gator, Percy, and you might give me a reason to actually pay attention to some part of the pro game next fall.

2008 College Football Review: Potential Risers and Fallers

David Wunderlich — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:21:08 -0500

Before last season, I looked at teams' records in close games to see if they were potential risers or fallers from the previous season. The rationale is that in close games, luck determines the outcome as much as anything. If a team was particularly lucky or unlucky in 2007, you'd figure they would regress to the mean in 2008 and rise or fall accordingly (all else being equal).

All else is not equal, so it's an imperfect method. However, few teams change dramatically from one season to the next, so it works pretty well at predicting which way the teams it singles out will go.

I chose to look at games decided by eight points or less because a touchdown and two-point conversion could tie them. If a team's difference between close games won and lost was three or more, I labeled it a potential riser or faller. If the difference was two, I put the team on a "wait list."

I later found out that this type of study is something Phil Steele puts in his magazine every season, but he uses seven points instead of eight. I also looked only at BCS teams, whereas I think he does all of I-A. Either way, here's how the 2008 bunch (by my figures) made out.

Potential Risers

First, let's start with the positive.

Seven teams were picked as risers: Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan State, UCLA, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Washington. In my write-up, I expressed doubt that UCLA was going to do it, and I hinted that Washington might not either.

As it turns out, those two Pac-10 teams were the only potential risers who did not improve their records. All others won at least two more games, and Minnesota even won a robust six more games than in 2007. Together, the potential risers improved their records by an average of 1.43 wins.

The teams that were wait-listed were Alabama, Arizona, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Ole Miss. UL was the only underachiever of the bunch, and like Minnesota, Ole Miss saw a six-game uptick in its wins. Alabama was close, winning five more in 2008 than in 2007.

Together, the wait list teams increased their win counts by an average of 2.8 games.

In all, the potential risers and wait list teams increased their win counts by an average of exactly two wins apiece.

Potential Fallers

Now on to the harbingers of doom.

Eight teams were identified as potential fallers: Arizona State, Boston College, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Northwestern, Oregon State, and Virginia. I expressed some skepticism towards ASU and Northwestern falling off, and I ended up half right.

Northwestern was the only team of the bunch to improve its record, winning three additional games in 2008. Oregon State held steady with a 9-4 mark in two straight seasons. The Sun Devils fell the hardest, winning five fewer games in 2008. Together, the potential fallers won 2.13 fewer games than in 2007.

The teams on the wait list were UConn, LSU, NC State, Texas, and Wisconsin. The Wolfpack and Longhorns bucked the trend, winning one and two more games, respectively, in 2008 than they did in 2007. Defending champ LSU dropped off the farthest, winning four fewer games. Together, the wait list teams won 0.8 fewer games in 2008 than in 2007.

In all, the potential fallers and their wait list brethren won 1.62 fewer games than in 2007.

Conclusion

This particular form of prognostication was not 100 percent accurate, but I challenge you to find one that is. Eighteen of the 25 teams identified by this method went in the direction predicted, and one held steady. Even counting Oregon State as a miss, that is still a 72 percent hit rate.

Who are the potential risers and fallers for 2009? Stay tuned because I haven't run the numbers yet, but once I have them done I'll let you know.

Florida-Oklahoma: The B/R Guide To the BCS Championship Game

David Wunderlich — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:01:13 -0500

BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Florida Gators vs. Oklahoma Sooners

Jan. 8, 2009, 8 p.m. EST

Dolphins Stadium, Miami, FL

Opening Spread: Florida -3

How they got here…

The No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners blitzed through the regular season to the tune of a 12-1 record. They set a record for most points scored in a season with a game to spare. Their only slip-up was a 45-35 loss to Texas, the team they controversially passed up in order to make it to the conference title game. OU destroyed Missouri to claim yet another Big 12 title in the Bob Stoops era.

The No. 2 Florida Gators didn’t get off to the most graceful start, and they fell by one point at home in a shocker to Ole Miss. After an emotional promise by quarterback Tim Tebow that he would make the team play better, UF tore through the rest of the season like a well-oiled buzz saw. They defeated the previously unbeaten Alabama Crimson Tide in an instant-classic SEC Championship Game to punch their ticket to Miami.

Statistically speaking…

Oklahoma famously became the first team to score 60 points in five consecutive games. Their ability to score in big quantities was in large part due to their hurry up offense which allowed them to run a nation-best 79.69 plays per game.

Florida was historically good at blowouts too. This year’s Gators became the first team ever to win six consecutive SEC games by 28 points or more. They tied the record set by the 1996 Florida team with five conference games won by 30 points or more.

A more fully-fleshed out analysis on how pace and timing may or may not affect each teams' defensive stats is here.

Using my score projection system that generates scores based on how teams did relative to their opposition throughout the year (see here for details, if you want them), this game projects as a 41-39 Florida win. Partisanship aside, I hope it will be that close because it would be nice to end a season with a thriller for the first time since 2005.

Oklahoma will win if…

It controls the tempo of the game.

While Florida has been employing some creative tactics in practice for simulating the fast-paced Sooner offense, there’s no substitute for seeing it in a game. Only one team is used to playing up tempo, and it won’t be the guys in orange and blue.

Florida’s defense, and especially the line, has relied a lot on substitution to stay fresh this season, but the fast pace will prevent them from switching guys in and out as much as they want to. If Oklahoma can sustain the pace against a normally disruptive defense, those Gator defenders may find themselves gassed as the game wears on.

Given the lightning-fast ability to score that the OU offense has, the snowball effect is very familiar to Sooner fans. Because Florida has the ability to score quickly too, any lead that isn’t big isn’t safe. Pushing the tempo and getting some easier points that way would be a tremendous help to the cause.

Florida will win if…

It really is the faster team by a noticeable margin.

Oklahoma’s offensive line is big, but Texas DE Brian Orakpo showed how speed can be used to get by it:

Defensive line speed is not the end of it though. The fast guys on offense—you know the names: Harvin, Demps, Rainey, Murphy, etc.—will need to be used appropriately and liberally to make sure the Gators can get a lead and extend it. As I said, small leads are almost worthless in this game.

Oklahoma recruits some of the nation’s best and generally cleans up in Texas, which is one of the three best recruiting states along with Florida and California. The personnel in crimson and cream will not have any slouches, and it’s impossible to say definitively that Florida is worlds faster thanks to the often spurious origins of 40-yard dash times.

Few teams emphasize speed and use it better than Florida does. The Gators must squeeze every ounce of it out in order to beat a very talented Oklahoma team.

Prediction…

For all the talk about how neither team has seen some aspect of the other yet, the most underreported I’ve seen is how Oklahoma has yet to see a power option offense like Florida’s. The Gators already have seen the tall pocket passer-type in Matthew Stafford, but no one in the Big 12 is anywhere close to being as physical as Tim Tebow is.

Baylor’s Robert Griffin is a pure runner, and guys like Texas’ Colt McCoy and Oklahoma State’s Zac Robinson do just fine for themselves when they take off and run. The difference with the Florida quarterback? Let’s just say no one would bestow a nickname on any of the excellent signal callers of the Big 12 like “The Hammer” or “Baby Rhino,” the two monikers Tebow picked up in his first year on campus.

Tebow personifies the toughness that Florida brings. For all the talk of UF being the “finesse” team when compared to Alabama before the SEC Championship Game, Florida’s players love to mix it up with the best of them. Oklahoma sure does too, but only team that pushed back at them as hard as Florida will was Texas and we all know how that turned out.

My general feeling is that this game will end with Florida prevailing with a score in the mid-40s to Oklahoma in the upper-30s. I am not going to be so naive as to think that Florida can shut down the Sooner offense entirely. At the same time, Florida’s offense won’t be shut down either.

I fully expect to see a close game throughout with several lead changes. In the end, I can’t pick against this Florida team. It has exceeded my expectations on a weekly basis since October, and I have a feeling one more surprise is in store tonight.

B/R Expert Picks…

Trey Bradley: Oklahoma

Michael Cline: Florida

GeorgiaDawg: Florida

Justin Goar: Florida

Lisa Horne: Florida

Miami Mitch: Florida

Brian Scott: Florida

David Wunderlich: Florida