Industrial Touchdown Complex and Guarantees

The ITC
I was looking at an interesting statistic this morning - Touchdowns per offensive play. What team in the ACC is a touchdown producing machine? Here's the ranking of the 12 ACC teams' percentage of O plays that go the distance:

12. UVA - 2.96%
11. Duke - 3.13%
10. VT - 3.38%
9. Wake Forest - 3.39%
8. BC - 3.92%
7. MD - 4.30%
6. NCSU - 4.43%
5. Clemson - 4.81%
4. GT - 5.00%
3. Miami - 5.11%
2. UNC - 5.45%
1. FSU - 5.66%

And in an even more interesting look, here's the breakdown of percentage of defensive and special teams plays that result in a defensive or return TD:

12. MD - 0.10%
11. UVA - 0.11%
10. NCSU - 0.31%
9. Clemson - 0.32%
6. GT - 0.33%
6. Wake - 0.33%
6. Miami - 0.33%
5. Duke - 0.35%
4. VT - 0.58%
3. UNC - 0.59%
2. FSU - 0.69%
1. BC - 0.83%

And finally, here's the breakdown of how often every ACC team scored per defensive/offensive/special teams play. PAT's and 2PT attempts are not factored in while FG's, safeties, and all TD's are:

12. MD - 1.96%
11. UVA - 2.47%
10. NCSU - 2.74%
9. Clemson - 2.82%
8. GT - 3.02%
7. Wake - 3.09%
6. Miami - 3.22%
5. Duke - 3.31%
4. VT - 3.47%
3. UNC - 3.61%
2. FSU - 3.66%
1. BC - 4.60%

So basically, because BC has such a good scoring D and special teams, they make up for having a below average offense. VT's offense needs to pick it up when their defense is kicking so much ass. Interesting numbers, in my opinion. Take what you want from them. I kind of think of them as a frustration factor. When you put up points, you're happy. Your team gets momentum. It deflates the other team. It affects the outcome of the game directly. Scoring quickly also affects the crowd.

Guarantees
Here are some guarantees that you can take to the bank:

5. The primary GT QB will not pass for 50% - Hasn't happened since Reggie's freshman year 5 seasons ago.
4. A GT rusher will rush for 1,000 yards - Has happened 4 of the last 6 seasons.
3. A Tech school will make the ACCCG - This has happened every year since the inception of the ACCCG. Both are preseason favorites in all the polls/magazines.
2. GT will make a bowl - The vast number of bowls guarantees GT at least a bowl birth at the end of the season continuing the 12 season post-season participation streak. At least 6 wins will come from our relatively favorable schedule.
1. Tech will win against GA in ATL - Tech is 21-16-1 following a win against Georgia. Tech is 12-8-1 in Atlanta following a W. Let's take hold of the momentum.

ACC Media Day as a Predictor

Predicting an ACC Division Champion is like predicting the weather. You kinda think it's gonna rain because it's cloudy. There's a 90% chance it'll rain (BC/VT) but sometimes the rain gives way to blizzards (Wake) or sunshine (GT). Here's a quick breakdown of preseason picks from the ACC Media Days in July since 2005 (full expansion).



For historical and logical reasons, FSU and VT are typically the preseason favorites. What's fun is seeing the major blunders of the ACC Media and how their hype kinda destroyed our respectability last season. Who knew Clemson would suck?


The biggest jump in the black was Wake's ridiculous 2006 ACCC run while Clemson and FSU managed to blow themselves in 2008 and 2006, respectively. Interestingly enough, the media is fairly accurate averaging around 0.83 places off per team wth Wake being the least predictable team in the ACC followed closely by BC.


What's nice to see with the Delta is that GT is in the black. I'd much rather be sitting in VT's place where they average a 1st place prediction and average a 1st place finish every year but finishing above expectations is much better than constantly letting your fans down (we're looking at you Miami).

Notes:
^{1) Rankings are 1-6 for finish in division based on preseason ACC Media Polling or Postseason ACC Record.
2) ACC Champion after ACC Championship game not regular season champions (hence why started counting after 2005).
3) Negative Delta in 3rd graph means overrated, Positive Delta means underrated.}

My Personal Predictions
Atlantic
1. FSU
2. BC
3. NCSU
4. Wake
5. Clemson
6. MD

Coastal
1. GT
2. VT
3. UNC
4. UVA
5. Miami
6. Duke

I like Ponder and the FSU defense better than NCSU's Glassman Wilson. BC is up there 'cause of their annual ACC clinic on defense. GT-VT is the game of the year for the Coastal (in ATL gives Tech the edge). UNC is like NCSU in the Coastal and hinges too much on the health of their QB. By midseason, I see both both UNC/NCSU's QBs missing starts due to injury resulting in L's.

Thoughts are welcome. Preseason ACC Media Day should be late July.

The Director's Cup: ACC-ANALyzed

The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics of American Athletics of America releases a rating system every year ranking every athletic program by the number of bullshit sports by the quality of the athletic teams competing in NCAA sanctioned sports.

This year the NACDA announced the winner as Stanford (again) and runnerup UNC. However, upon further investigation I have found that the system for crowning a champion is designed strictly for big ass athletic programs like Stanford to win rather than smaller more efficient programs such as FSU or Wake (small as in # of teams small).

First, let me explain the scoring system. The NACDA uses an exponential function to assign points. The input is final standing in the NCAA tournament (or CFB polls) and the function is based on the total number of postseason teams. The output ranges from 100 points (Champion) to 25 points (making the tournament). Certain sports with odd numbers of teams or non-tournament systems have special scoring systems.

The scoring system only accounts for the 20 best teams fielded (10M/10W), which automatically puts 50% of the ACC at a disadvantage as only UNC, Maryland, UVA, Duke, BC, and NC State have 20 or more teams.

The final overall tally:
2. UNC - 1184.25
8. UVA - 1059.00
15. FSU - 945.00
17. Duke - 891.80
28. MD - 668.80
37. Wake - 580.25
43. Miami - 491.00
46. VT - 459.25
48. GT - 452.38
53. CU - 397.00
74. NCSU - 265.30
75. BC - 262.00

This is merely a total of the 20 best teams so schools like Stanford and UNC with 30 or so teams can dominate especially in sports with smaller postseasons where Final 4 or Elite 8 status is almost guaranteed. For example, you have to beat 6 teams to win March Madness but you only have to beat 4 teams to win the Frozen Four. So schools in less-popular sports are automatically racking up big time points.

A breakdown of actual efficiencies shows a slightly different ranking of the ACC teams. If the teams were ranked by actual teams earning points in the NACDA system, FSU would win as 100% of their teams earned points (earned postseason births). UNC was second with 82% of their teams. The worst was BC with only 26% of their teams earning postseason births. The ACC received points by 59% of their competing teams for comparison's sake.

This BC fact is particularly disturbing in that they've also got the most NCAA teams of the ACC with 31, placed the lowest percentage of teams into postseason play, and got the least amount of NACDA points out of the entire ACC (despite their voluminous team advantage). I know their hockey team normally kicks ass but they've gotta do something with the rest of their dead weight programs, in my opinion.

Another interesting way to look at the system is actual team efficiency or "How many points did each school earn per competing team?" Once again FSU won with 55.59 points/team wth UNC and UVA close behind with 44.97 and 42.36 points/team, respectively. BC had 8.45 points/team.

1. FSU - 55.59 p/t
2. UNC - 44.97 p/t
3. UVA - 42.36 p/t
4. Wake - 36.27 p/t
5. Duke - 34.20 p/t
6. Miami - 32.73 p/t
7. GT - 30.16 p/t
8. VT - 27.01 p/t
9. MD - 24.77 p/t
10. CU - 20.89 p/t
11. NCSU - 11.05 p/t
12. BC - 8.45 p/t

I like the idea of awarding points based on postseason appearances but my main problem is the over-valuation of smaller tournaments. It is much more difficult to earn a bid for the Men's/Women's Basketball tournament then it would be to the fencing tournament as there are a lot less teams competing in fencing. The system should account for tournament size and regular season competition field size (more teams = more points).

Otherwise, I find the system intriguing because it is good to have a uniform "objective" metric to evaluate athletic departments. I think it's also good because it adds "weight" to sports that normally get very little (if any) coverage.

Thoughts are welcome.

SI's 50 Richest Athletes - GT Represented...

Sports Illustrated released an article with the 50 highest paid American athletes of 2009. GT had Starbury and Teixeira represented on the the list at #17 and #14, respectively. I went through the list and broke down the players by college/conference. It's pretty interesting seeing the way sports pay their players as well. No surprise to me is that 22 of the 50 athletes are NBA guys, 14 are from the MLB, 9 from the NFL, 3 from the PGA, and Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon finish the list off. The highest paid is obviously Tiger by almost double.

8 of the top 50 are from the ACC, which ain't too shabby. Especially considering it's three different sports. The Pac 10 has 6 of the top 50, the Big East has 5 all from the NBA, the SEC has 4, and the Big 12 and Big 10 both have 2 represented. This means that 20 of the top 50 highest paid American athletes didn't attend a four year university before going pro. Pretty interesting.

The most represented university on the list of athletes was UNC with 3. GT's 2 were tied with Tennessee, Syracuse, and Arizona. There were 19 Division I universities with only one representative in the top 50. No one from uga made the list...

I thought the article was interesting. Any thoughts?

Around the ACC

NC State
-Linebacker Nate Irving apparently fell asleep at the wheel. He suffered a broken leg and collapsed lung. That sucks.

Duke
-Coach K is the highest paid employee at Duke. Does this really surprise anyone? I figured the Department Head of Foreign Lit would be making $2.5 mil easy.
-Duke guard Elliot Williams is transferring to Memphis.

UNC
-Good read by Yahoos!/Rivals about the importance of college seniors in the NBA.

Conference Misalignment

As an environmental engineer I like to look at pollution numbers, energy efficiency, consumption, waste, etc.. So something that has interested me as of late is the distance-to-travel for ACC/SEC teams. I took Atlanta as a central point for ACC comparisons while Athens (the cesspool) is the center of the SEC world. Just for the Hell of it, I also came up with an interesting scenario.

ACC-SEC comparison
Looking at the ACC, GT is approximately 474 driving miles from all other 11 ACC foes. GA is 348. This means that at a rate of 60 mph, Georgie is 2 hours closer driving distance to all of its SEC brethren than Tech is to its ACC foes. That sucks. Comparing divisions, Tech's Coastal Division average drive is only 4 miles less than the ACC average at a whopping 470 driving miles. Georgie, in contrast, is 279 driving miles from Eastern Division foes making the average driving distance a ridiculous 3 hours less than Tech's average driving distance. That's pretty terrible, too.

Obviously, Miami, BC, and MD don't help Tech fans with driving times. But then again the ACC is spread so thin across the East Coast that removing those three teams only makes the ACC slightly worse than the SEC's actual average driving distance. When arguing conference supremacy, the SEC can definitely state proximity as a huge plus. Hell, I would've gone to almost every game if the average drive was only 4 or so hours. Then again, you can't really fly into most SEC cities anyways so you better be willing to drive.

Regional/Dream/Ridiculous Scenario
I've kind of been toying with the idea of a playoff that involves MASSIVE conference realignment across the board. Regionals divided up by proximity. The goal is to save energy, reduce transport time, and ultimately save money. I don't have the regions completely sectioned up but I think by 2050 or whenever gasoline has to be rationed, we'll be seeing something similar to this. Like the 1910's schedules where Tech would only go to one road game and teams would only play 5-6 games a year. I'll work up a post on this when I have more free time.

If Tech were to take its 11 closest I-A opponents to form a new ATL-centralized conference, the conference would include: Tech, Georgia, Auburn, Clemson, UAB, Troy, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, MTSU, Vandy, and FSU. Think about that. That's a lot of natural rivalries that could be reborn. Georgie, Auburn, and Clemson are obvious. Alabama brings back images of the epic Bryant-Dodd danceoffs. FSU is always close and ridiculous. Tech fans generally trust UT about as far as we can throw Phil Fulmer. The others are good fillers. The average drive time would reduce from the ACC's staggering 8 hours to a manageable 3 hours. Damn, that would be nice.

Interestingly enough, in the 50's an "Airplane Conference" was proposed by members of the current Pac 10, the Service Academies, and other dominant East Coast teams (like GT). The idea, at the time, was to create a super conference but the Pentagon didn't like the idea of flying college football teams back and forth across the country all season.

The Georgia Tech Universe Schedule

Now, I've been trying to explain to people why you can't use season stats to explain college football teams. I like using NFL stats generally moreso because of the parity and talent depth at the pro level. To me, college football is much more reliant on individual game performances and matchups less so than the NFL, which is moreso about warroom coaching and consistency.

In college football, you have many factors that lead to the rise and fall of college football teams. A major factor is "Who have you played?" or "Who have they played?" A look at the GT Universe Schedule shows the intracacies of the GT schedule. Momentum can be garnered or totally lost merely a game before someone plays us (read: one loss in CFB can ruin a season). The Universe Schedule also shows how comparable teams are to one another through the idea of "common opponents." That's a big time NCAA basketball buzzword but I like the idea for CFB as well since no one ever really likes to stray out of their region.

Any thoughts out there? I'm thinking the entire US should be broken down into 12-16 regionals to coincide with a major playoff configuration.

ACC Championship Announced (Primetime)

That's right. The ACC got an evening slot to put its championship game.

Only one catch...it's on ESPN. Previously the ACC Championship has been held at 1pm on ABC.
So pick your poison, 1pm or 8pm? Local Channel or Basic Cable? Does the channel preference really matter to you? Everyone has basic cable anyways, so give me the 8pm slot. At worse case it will give me time to get my pre-game on longer.

Will it affect game attendance? Probably not. However, it will be interesting to see how this game at a later time matches up against the SEC and Big 12 Championship Games that same day.

Out of Conference SOS rankings

One of the biggest arguments in college football is who is the best conference. I am a strong advocate of the best team and the best conference is that who plays the hardest out-of-conference schedule because in-conference schedules are flawed. cgb over at CollegeGameBalls came up with a unique formula to analyze the Big 6 Out of Conference Schedules. cgb came up with the following formula for SOS:

S_t = (((0.9 * H) + (1.1 * A) + (0.7 * h) + (0.8 * a) -(0.9 * C)) / (H + A + h + a + C))

H = Home games against BCS teams (and Notre Dame)
A = Neutral or Away games against BCS teams (and Notre Dame)
h = Home games against non-BCS teams
a = Away games against non-BCS teams
C = Cupcakes, games against any team that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories ie 1aa teams.

Here are the ACC's stats:

Pac 10 S_c = 0.653
Big 12 S_c = 0.564583
Big Ten S_c = 0.4863
Big East S_c = 0.44
SEC S_c = 0.425
ACC S_c = 0.377083


The ACC is dead last. NCSU, Duke, and UNC hurt the conference by scheduling 2 cupcakes each, wasting a game and throwing it down the toilet. Georgia Tech is tied for 2nd with Florida State and has a score of 0.55. This is attributed to away games at both Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, along with a home game vs. Georgia. It does pay to have an in-state rival in another conference. "Surprisingly", cgb has VT ranked #1. You can call out cgb and claim foul play (as I did!) but in reality when you look at their schedule, they don't play 1-AA cupcakes. It's the way a schedule should be.

Got problems with these rankings? What are your thoughts?

ACC Coaches sophomore slump or jump

I like to look at numbers to draw conclusions. I was thinking about the term "sophomore slump" and wanted to pull some coaches' stats out for predictions of CPJ's second year. So here's the most recent 2-year tenured coaches' freshman/sophomore records at all 12 ACC gigs:

It's nice to know that on average most coaches got better in their second years. That makes sense. In fact, only four of twelve coaches didn't improve in their sophomores seasons: Roof, Amato, Gailey, and Bunting. Amato needed P. Rivers, Bunting was terrible, Roof was at Duke, and Gailey was Gailey. Otherwise, I think the numbers are pretty interesting. It would be totally cool if CPJ followed the trend and won 0.83 more games next year and lost 0.25 less games. That's a +1.08 net. I'll take a 10 win season any day.

NFL Draft Thoughts III

ACC
The ACC faired pretty in the 2009 NFL Draft having 4 players selected in the top 10. Heyward-Bey was a pretty big shock but then again the Raiders are always shocking in the Draft.

The ACC had 33 players selected, which was second behind the SEC for most picks. Maryland and UNC had the most ACC players selected in the '09 Draft with 5 apiece (Tech was tied with Clemson/UVA at 4). Miami, interestingly enough, didn't have a player selected until the 6th round. This ended a 14 year streak of first round draft picks from the U. Not surprising considering all of the talent in Florida has been going to UF or leaving the state since Ron Zook took over the Gators and Coker started coaching the U.

Georgia Tech
Generally speaking, you're always disappointed with where your hometown players are selected. You're happy Calvin was selected #2 but you wished he was #1. So when Michael Johnson fell to the 3rd round, there was little surprise that the Yellow Jacket Family freaked out considering his dominating senior season that appeared "inconsistent" to NFL scouts.

I'm incredibly happy both our DT's got drafted. Honestly, there probably aren't any other teams in the country that had three players drafted off their starting DL. And I'm positive Derrick Morgan will end up on a roster in a couple years.

Atlanta Falcons
I've gotta talk about the ATL hometown team. The Falcons drafted all defense except one OT. It makes a whole lot of sense since we lost 5 defensive starters (including GT's Keith Brooking). Overall the Falcons draft was great but there's gonna be a helluva young secondary next year with little experience for a couple years to come.

The Falcons also finally picked a GT player since coincidentally Keith Brooking's selection in 1998. Vance Walker will definitely find a spot for at least a couple of seasons and we'll see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself starting in 2-3 years.

Any thoughts on the sporting weekend are welcome unless they pertain to a certain baseball series.

NFL Draft Thoughts

I was thinking about draft picks today and who GT should be sending to the NFL. It got me wondering about ACC draft picks in general (as it did for Tomahawk Nation). Let's assume NFL draft picks are a legitimate method of quantitative analysis for talent.

Since 2000, the ACC has had 269 players drafted (excluding supplemental), which is around 30 per year. The addition of Miami, VT, and BC increased our talent pool tremendously. The increased interest of a twelve team conference increased the yearly average of picks of the old nine from 20 picks/year to 25 picks/year. So anyone that says the addition has negatively affected the average quality of ACC players or ACC play in general is dumb. Actually the only loser right now in the expansion is Miami but that's an entirely different story.

Now, what does it take talent-wise to win in the ACC? Here's a linear regression based on ACC draft picks/year related to total wins/year: 0.375*(NFL picks) + 5.7584 = Total Wins. So basically, no draft picks equates to about 5-6 wins and each draft pick on your team gives you a third of a win. Not too bad.

Using draft picks as an indicator of coaching prowess (winning more with less) is also interesting. If you were to take the draft picks required to win and rank the programs since 2000, here's what you'd get (years with 0 picks = 0.9 picks and BC stats only back to '04/Miami and VT back to '03):

12. Miami - 1.38 wins/pick
11. Duke - 1.70 wins/pick
10. FSU - 1.8 wins/pick
9. VT - 2.34 wins/pick
8. UNC - 2.65 wins/pick
7. NCSU - 2.85 wins/pick
6. Clemson - 2.85 wins/pick
5. UVA - 3.24 wins/pick
4. Wake - 4.08 wins/pick
3. MD - 4.19 wins/pick
2. GT - 4.65 wins/pick
1. BC - 5.46 wins/pick

Looking at the numbers, I can see why Amato, Bunting, Bowden, and Coker were terminated. They were collecting talent but not winning. Now, you must also account for the fact that this is a logarithm with a ~10-11 win plateau while your number of draft picks can go up to 85 (if you're Team America). Hence, VT appears to be poorly coached but in actuality wins a lot and gets a lot draft picks.

Gailey's termination came because he wasn't getting that extra win. Maybe developing 1 or so more NFL prospects a year would've meant Gailey'd still be at Tech. You never know.

ACC football musings

Apparently Cutcliffe, like America, decided Zach Asack's name was too ironic to play quarterback and is moving the career punching bag to safety. Asack was suspended in '06 for plagiarism and has been stuck behind Thaddeus Lewis ever since. In case you were wondering, he's been sacked 27 times in his career.

Andy Staples wrote an interesting article about Russell Wilson on SI.com. Too bad all of this hype is for naught 'cause Jon Dwyer will take ACC POTY back to back seasons.

And finally FSU is fighting their win forfeitures. I understand their case. GT had a similar (not identical) situation but personally I think FSU's record should remain blemished. The sheer level of cheating was pretty reDUNKulous. However, why are they only attacking FSU when the NCAA truly needs to audit a lot of school's approaches to treatment of athletes in academia. If the NCAA wants to get on a high horse about FSU, why not other schools that relegate athletes to "General Studies" and "Communications" majors? Schools that truly don't care about educating their student athletes should all be punished.

So goes life.