Trojan schadenfreude - Printable Version

Trojan schadenfreude - Printable Version

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RE: Trojan schadenfreude - BostonCard - 09-12-2018

(09-12-2018, 03:36 PM)stupac2 Wrote: But what definitely doesn't make any sense is to compare Helton with a #3 overall QB and Sark with a 3rd rounder. Given how much of Helton's tenure is taken up with Darnold as the QB and how much better than part was then the rest of his oeuvre, it doesn't make sense to include it. When you actually do the apples-to-apples comparison of the two coaches with the same team and measured against what their opponents typically yielded, Sark was significantly better. Full stop.

Helton has had <1 year and a couple games with a QB not named Darnold. In terms of number of quarterbacks, that is two, and the jury is still out on what he has done with one of them. If Daniels does get to be as good as advertised by the middle of this year, and Helton gets 2.5 years where he is comparable to Darnold, then the assessment looks very different than if Daniels never quite asserts himself and the next three years are Kessler-esque (or if Helton has to switch QB's at some point in the next couple years).

BC

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - CTcard - 09-12-2018

(09-12-2018, 03:36 PM)stupac2 Wrote: Sark was significantly better. Full stop.

Well, I am certainly not going to make any more effort to convince you anything about Helton or Sark. Will try to say a few words about choosing stats and errors.

First, what is a good stat for the comparison we are trying to make?
Yards per play has some advantages - the numbers are easily available and do make an adjustment for pace of play.

YPP has some disadvantages - primarily that it is very heavily influenced by style of play.
As an example, for most purposes I'd would rate a 1 play 80 yard drive as equally effective as a 10 play 80 yards drive, but of course they are drastically different in yards per play.

YPP is worse that total yards as a comparative stat for two teams within one game (since the two teams typically have about the same number of possessions). Here it's not so bad, but there is better.

I would advocate for per game FEIs available at Brian Fremeau's site, bcftoys.com.
FEI is drive based, which I think is the best normalization for efficiency - and in general there is a ton of interesting stuff on this web site so it's worth looking at.

What difference is meaningful?
I have the numbers to do this with FEI, so I continue with that.

Over the first 5 games of 2015 $C came in at an average FEI of 0.200 and over the last 9 at 0.121.* That would be the difference between #8 for 2015 and #26. [Which seems about right, as it sandwiches $C's overall ranking at 17.]

That doesn't seem a brobdingnagian difference to me, but might to you. More importantly, the difference between the two values if 0.08 but the standard deviation in the set is 0.23. Pretty clearly those two numbers are not reliably different from each other.

*Fremeau uses a weighting of game FEIs to get season FEIs, and doesn't completely explain how. The numbers indicate that there is about a 70% scaling from a simple average to his weighted average, so I have used that above.

Throwing out data
Concentrating on one season does keep the talent level as even as possible, but also makes a very small data set with big variation (as just noted). It also eliminates any development in Helton after first 1/2 season as head coach.

Adding more data inherently means differences in the talent pool. While QB is the most important position, it isn't the only position and its certainly not clear that otherwise all-things-are-equal.

There is no exact better here, but if one goes for the larger data set you cannot simply choose to eliminate 60+% of the games for one guy and have a meaningful measure.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - CompSci87 - 09-12-2018

It seems to me there's a lot of small sample size effect here, along with allocating too much credit or blame to the head coach. When Helton replaced Sark, the rest of the coaching staff initially remained the same, and I'm sure Helton didn't immediately change everything. Small sample size includes small number of QBs, small number of games, small number of assistant coach hires, etc., etc. So it's fun to make comparisons, but I don't think they prove much.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - washingtonismoney - 09-13-2018

Kiffin is a bit of a strange case. At his best I think he's definitely better than Helton. Considering the sanctions, his 2011 SC team is more impressive than anything Helton's put together. On the other hand, Kiffin's really bad teams were total dead zones. While Helton has had some embarrassments nothing quite matches a Kiffin meltdown. Overall I think I prefer Helton to Kiffin but it's not clear-cut for me.*

*(I'm not considering various Kiffin antics here; Helton is, of course, a clear-cut winner in the category of "least likely to dominate the internet because of a dumb story.")

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - stupac2 - 09-13-2018

(09-12-2018, 08:08 PM)CTcard Wrote: Stuff

Look, I get all that, I know the sample size is small, I know there are other confounding factors, etc etc. You know I'm a physicist, I understand this stuff. (Although saying the difference between #9 and #26 is significant is kinda rich, it's the difference between at best the Holiday Bowl vs contending for a NY6 game, but leave all that aside.)

The point is that you get a natural experiment. You just can't sensibly compare completely different situations. Like, who's better, Tom Brady or Joe Montana? Who cares? It doesn't make any sense and there's no way to decide it. But there is a sensible way to decide this one, because both guys played games with the same exact players and staff. And by every measure I've seen Sark's team performed better! You can harp on it not being statistically significant if you want, but if you want to make the case that Sark was putting a worse product on the field and you find out that every way of actually looking at the team's performance says Sark's team was better, then I think it's hugely intellectually dishonest to conclude the opposite.

Finally, as I already said, "expanding the sample size" to include games with teams that the other didn't coach isn't reasonable as a comparison. Helton was gifted Darnold, as far as I can tell he had nothing whatsoever to do with his recruitment, apparently Wilcox lead it (so he actually fired the guy who got him his star QB). Then there was the Browne debacle, where we have to read the tea leaves but basically everyone was saying Darnold outperformed Browne but Helton started Browne until he was basically facing a mutiny. Then the QBs he's recruited since then have apparently all been terrible, to the point where he needed a true freshman to come in a year early and get the job.

Like, yeah, that's better than a guy who's getting drunk on the job and sleeping with with booster's wives or whatever the hell Sark was doing, but to look at the evidence before us and say that Helton has performed well rather than being carried by a high draft pick (that he didn't even want to play!) is baffling to me. I'd be shocked if Helton is still coaching there in 2020.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - ATLCard - 09-13-2018

I'm not sure what this debate is about. I love Helton, think he is a fantastic coach, and hope he stays at USC forever. The same way I loved Sarkisian, thought he was a fantastic coach, and hoped he would stay at USC forever. You probably have to go all the way back to Pete Carroll to find a terrible USC coach who should have been fired long before he left on his own.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - BostonCard - 09-13-2018

(09-13-2018, 11:55 AM)ATLcardinal Wrote: I'm not sure what this debate is about. I love Helton, think he is a fantastic coach, and hope he stays at USC forever. The same way I loved Sarkisian, thought he was a fantastic coach, and hoped he would stay at USC forever. You probably have to go all the way back to Pete Carroll to find a terrible USC coach who should have been fired long before he left on his own.

this!

And I would say that I think Lane Kiffin was my favorite SC coach ever. I would also like to say that I loved Sonny Dykes at Cal and thought he was a fantastic coach who should have never been let go, though Tom Holme was my all time favorite at Cal, and I loved Charlie Weiss at Notre Dame.

BC

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - CTcard - 09-13-2018

(09-13-2018, 01:22 PM)BostonCard Wrote: And I would say that I think Lane Kiffin was my favorite SC coach ever.

Well, mine would have to be Paul (can't)Hackett.
Three years at $C: 19-18 overall, 10-14 in conference.
Willingham managed to beat him twice.
Unfortunately, they fired him which led to the disastrous reign of Pete Carroll.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - stupac2 - 09-13-2018

(09-13-2018, 11:55 AM)ATLcardinal Wrote: I'm not sure what this debate is about. I love Helton, think he is a fantastic coach, and hope he stays at USC forever. The same way I loved Sarkisian, thought he was a fantastic coach, and hoped he would stay at USC forever. You probably have to go all the way back to Pete Carroll to find a terrible USC coach who should have been fired long before he left on his own.

Right, I love Helton because I think hiring him was a massive mistake, and extending him a disastrous one.

Unrelated, I always remember that you're a former player's parent, and I always think that it's Henry Anderson, am I remembering correctly? He looked pretty good with the Jets!

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - martyup - 09-13-2018

I would like to thank Michigan for hiring Harbaugh away from Stanford. Had he stayed longer, Shaw might have been poached for a HC position elsewhere.

[Image: busey_clapping.gif~c200]

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - oldalum - 09-13-2018

fixed it for you :)

(09-13-2018, 04:20 PM)martyup Wrote: I would like to thank Michigan the 49ers for hiring Harbaugh away from Stanford. Had he stayed longer, Shaw might have been poached for a HC position elsewhere.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - ATLCard - 09-13-2018

Good memory, but different Atlanta Cardinal, not Henry Anderson's dad

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - JPR36 - 09-13-2018

(09-13-2018, 04:20 PM)martyup Wrote: I would like to thank Michigan for hiring Harbaugh away from Stanford. Had he stayed longer, Shaw might have been poached for a HC position elsewhere.

I'd like to thank them too. Only problem is they didn't.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - stupac2 - 09-14-2018

(09-13-2018, 04:49 PM)ATLcardinal Wrote: Good memory, but different Atlanta Cardinal, not Henry Anderson's dad

Too bad! I wonder if he's still around, I enjoyed the occasional post from someone with inside info, even though Anderson's been off the team for a while now.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - murky - 09-14-2018

(09-13-2018, 04:20 PM)martyup Wrote: I would like to thank Michigan for hiring Harbaugh away from Stanford. Had he stayed longer, Shaw might have been poached for a HC position elsewhere.

Harbaugh went to the NFL from Stanford.

RE: Trojan schadenfreude - martyup - 09-14-2018

(09-13-2018, 04:20 PM)martyup Wrote: I would like to thank Michigan for hiring Harbaugh away from Stanford. Had he stayed longer, Shaw might have been poached for a HC position elsewhere.

Holy cr@p, my memory sucks hardballs!