[washingtonismoney]

P.S. I noticed that the article said Ca.l had a record of 3-9 last year, but an "adjusted" record of 7-5. The idea of an "adjusted" record seems pretty silly to me. If there's one bottom-line statistic that really means something, it's the W/L record.

He adjusts the record to what they would've had if they had played a perfectly average team with that particular week's performance. It's to reflect that, say, losing by 3 to N.D. is a lot different than losing by 3 to UW. What statistics/analytics people ultimately care about is performance over achievement, which is a valuable perspective. While players and fans care most about winning Rose Bowls and Pac-12 championships (or equivalent), the question of "how good is a particular team?" is much better answered with reference to performance over achievement.

(The classic example was, by the way, N.D. in 2012. Irish fans were able to delude themselves about the true capabilities of the team because of what the team achieved. Everyone else knew they'd suck because of how they'd performed. Guess who was right when the tide changed.)

[washingtonismoney]

P.S. I noticed that the article said Ca.l had a record of 3-9 last year, but an "adjusted" record of 7-5. The idea of an "adjusted" record seems pretty silly to me. If there's one bottom-line statistic that really means something, it's the W/L record.

He adjusts the record to what they would've had if they had played a perfectly average team with that particular week's performance. It's to reflect that, say, losing by 3 to N.D. is a lot different than losing by 3 to UW. What statistics/analytics people ultimately care about is performance over achievement, which is a valuable perspective. While players and fans care most about winning Rose Bowls and Pac-12 championships (or equivalent), the question of "how good is a particular team?" is much better answered with reference to performance over achievement.

(The classic example was, by the way, N.D. in 2012. Irish fans were able to delude themselves about the true capabilities of the team because of what the team achieved. Everyone else knew they'd suck because of how they'd performed. Guess who was right when the tide changed.)