RiseToTheTop
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2013
- Messages
- 25,197
- Likes
- 40,644
ESPN Tennessee spring wrap
- Thread starter Freak
- Start date
No. Not luck alone. I don't actually believe in luck but none the less they got some very favorable bounces and they have a "formula" that works WHEN they have the players. When I say "works", it makes them a bowl team... not a champion. They need much better recruiting to get there... but would that throw the formula off?
The formula is they play very good O and consistent but not spectacular D. Outside of Auburn last year, they avg'd allowing about 23 ppg with a range of 3 to 31 pts. Ten of their 14 opponents scored between 14 and 28 pts.
That has been their formula without exception for the past 7 or 8 years which have been Pinkel's most successful. So how does that play this year? Do they have the kinds of playmakers on O to make that formula work? Do they have the kinds of D players needed to achieve that level of consistency? I don't see them and especially after the loss of DGB.
His method for getting enough talent has been pretty simple. He often goes after small school players who don't get publicity. He sprinkles in some higher ranked skill players and looks for "projects" at OL, DL, LB, and DB. That consistency positions them to take advantage if UT, USCe, UGA, and UF don't field good and talented teams. It doesn't give them enough talent to beat those teams when they do field good teams.
If at least two of the historic big 3 in the East field teams up to their past standards... neither MU nor USCe can win the East.
Were you one of the ones not long ago telling me that success is a matter of "Jimmy's and Joe's" and not "X's and O's" when I questioned the quality of coaching last fall? Hard to keep track since I was getting so much hate. I said at the time that if Jones and crew were the right guys then coaching would at some point start to make a big difference. That notion was treated like a menora at the Inquisition.
Do you think Pinkel is that good? Serious question. I'm not completely sure.
FWIW, Mizzou was uniquely able to have patience with Pinkel in his first few years. Their fans weren't used to winning anyway. More often than not, they had been the doormat for OU, Nebraska, Texas, etc. I doubt there's another SEC program that could or would do that. Even UK has higher hopes and expectations.
Ericvol2096
Quiz'N'Vol
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2007
- Messages
- 17,291
- Likes
- 24,785
VolFan4Life87
Negatron
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
- Messages
- 5,897
- Likes
- 4,116
No definitely wasn't me. I think there are a variety of factors that determine success on the field; to single out one as the most critical or unimportant is not accurate.
I haven't followed Pinkel well enough to say for sure, but it appears (from the surface anyways) that he and his staff have a good system in place. In his 13 seasons at the helm, Mizzou has only posted 3 losing seasons and is 5-4 in bowls. Certainly not a Nick Saban, but as I said they seem to have had somewhat consistent success. Mizzou as a fan base & AD have definitely been patient. I hope this time around we can remain patient too. At no time do I feel 5-7 or even 6-6 is "good" but UT hasn't been this down since the late 70's and I don't know that we could survive another coaching change without at least intermittent success during Jones' tenure.
VolAllen
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 7,056
- Likes
- 7,870
Talent explains the majority of wins. Over a pretty lengthy time line, this has held true for Mizzou. Last year was an exception. When you have a relatively long time line of performing to what talent would predict, it is dangerous to extrapolate outwards from the exception. It is more helpful to review why the exception might have happened.
The problem with these supposed experts is that they tend to look to last year to extrapolate to next year. That is simply lazy and sloppy. The same reason that these so-called experts couldn't predict Auburn's 2013 season (or Mizzou for that matter), is the same reason they are predicting Mizzou's 2014 season. It isn't that they don't know football, it is that they haven't quite stumbled upon what really drives wins and losses.
VolFan4Life87
Negatron
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
- Messages
- 5,897
- Likes
- 4,116
Daj I was hoping you'd weigh in - so does the recruiting rankings of Mizzou's last several years predict their typical 8-9 win seasons, last year being the exception? Their recruiting, from a high level look, seems on par with some pretty bad teams. Are they on the plus side of expectations/predictions?
VolAllen
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 7,056
- Likes
- 7,870
I also think confidence plays a huge part in performance. If the team is ranked top 15 in preseason, picked to win the East, starts the schedule with some easy teams and gets big wins early, I think they may think they're better than they actually are, which could lead to playing "balls out", as opposed to throwing in the towel mid season (bray, hunter, come to mind).
This is also my theory on subpar QB play for us. A guy needs to feel that he's good enough to be the starter and that he's got everyone on the teams support. Not saying he should have a huge ego, but he should definitely be confident in his game. Waiting around all Summer in a qb competition isn't what's best for that, in my opinion.
Why should it?
Home winning streaks are one of the many meaningless statistics used to discuss football, in my opinion.
"Most people think the occurrence of winning streaks indicates momentum or a "hot team", but...long winning streaks are simply random." From Mathletics by W.L. Winston.
This book has an interesting discussion of probability of outcomes of wins. The book uses an example of a baseball season to illustrate this point. Say that team A has a 60% chance of winning every game they play (a pretty good team), in a 162 game regular season, there is a 20% chance that team will have a run of wins that is longer than 10 games.
This is actually a great illustration to use in football, and here is why. The book Scorecasting illustrates that in college football, any home team has a 55% chance of winning the game (you see this translated to a point spread of about 3 points at home for a team that would be considered an even match on a neutral field).
So basically you can mix those two illustrations and say that a home team has a 60% chance of winning a football game, and if that is the case, in a string of 160 home games, it is mathematically definable (20%) there will be a series of 10 or more wins, and that is just simple randomness in action.
Williams-Brice Stadium was opened in 1934. I don't know the actual number of games played, but let's low ball and estimate and say that 5 games a year for 80 years have been played. That is 400 home games. If it is 20% likely that a team will win 10 or more games in a row in a 160 game season, how likely is it that a team wins 17 in a row, or more, in a 400 game time line?
The key to understanding this concept can be found in more depth by understanding the so-called "Wald-Wolfowitz Runs Test." The bottom line is to just divorce yourself from the idea that streaks, such as home winning streaks, are connected to each other (meaning that the outcomes of the games are totally independent of each other, or to restate, the number of wins strung together does not effect the outcome of the next game).
To illustrate this another way, let's say that you flip a coin 100 times. The last 10 flips were heads. If someone was to tell you to predict what the next flip would be it seems that you would say "heads" because the ten previous were heads. In reality, the next flip is still only 50% likely to be heads, and 50% likely to be tails. The next event is totally unconnected to the previous, no matter how much we believe otherwise.
Last edited:
Off the top of my head (I haven't really reviewed Mizzou's numbers in a bit), Mizzou's over-performance last year was impressive, but the year before was indicative of what talent would predict.
If you go back to before Mizzou joined the SEC, I believe they tended to perform right around talent expectations the majority of the time. The difference is that the BIG XII doesn't recruit nearly as well as the SEC, so Mizzou could recruit about how they have been and appear to be a bit better.
It is about perception. Texas A&M performs about as talent would predict, yet the one win against Bama has flung the legend of Manziel into orbit and tends to over value all things Aggies. Or, Auburn's win over Bama pushed them into the national championship game, while Auburn (Malzahn) performed EXACTLY as talent would predict (his loss against a lessor talented LSU was washed by a win against a more talented Bama).
VolAllen
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 7,056
- Likes
- 7,870
I agree. But use our team as an example. Over the past several years, they've been beat up by the preseason press. Mentally, they've gone into the past 5 seasons with low self esteem, and played to that. When you're told you're going to suck, and then you go play Oregon in game 2 (or whatever) and lose by 50...mentally you are defeated. And MOST 19 year olds can't overcome that.
I personally don't believe the media has had anything to do with the vast majority of our wins or losses over the past 5 seasons.
Dooley had a history of under-performing in relation to talent by a substantial margin, almost every year he was a coach. He was fired by UT for it.
Kiff had a substantial history of under-performing in relation to talent by a substantial margin, almost every year he was a coach. He was fired by USC for it.
Butch, left with a roster with some interesting problems by the prior two yahoos, who has a substantial history of over-performing in relation to talent, was -2 in relation to talent last year (an improvement over 2012's -4). His two losses to teams with inferior talent were to the two teams who were over-performing by the largest margin in the SEC. Those two games might have been where your discussion of confidence comes in to play. Did Butch's team have an aversion to winning, faced by two teams breaming with confidence? Maybe that explains it.
But if you look at UT's season last year, 10 of 12 games were predicted by talent. That means that talent was correct 83% of the time.
Last edited:
VolAllen
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 7,056
- Likes
- 7,870
VN Store
