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Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-25-2015

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/25279664/pac-12-expert-picks-overrated-underrated-predicted-order-of-finish

Three out of the seven talking heads picked Stanford as the most underrated team in the league (ASU was next with two, then Cal and Arizona with one each)
Four out of the seven talking heads picked USC as the most overrated team in the league (UCLA was next with two, Utah had one).

Despite that, only one person picked us to win the Pac-12 North (Fornelli, and he didn't pick us as underrated).  The consensus order for the Pac-12 North seems to be:

Oregon
Stanford
[gap]
Cal
Washington
[gap]
OSU/WSU

The South was more in flux, other than Colorado being universally picked last, and Utah picked by almost all to be fifith.  The order looks to be:
ASU
USC
UCLA
Arizona
[gap]
Utah
[chasm]
Colorado

My favorite set of predictions, by Dennis Dodd:

Quote:Most overrated team: UCLA. Seventeen starters without a returning quarterback doesn't make a lot of sense to me in a quarterback league. My lingering memory of the Bruins is that gag job against Stanford.

Most underrated team: Stanford. Unlike half the league, the Cardinal have an established returning quarterback (Kevin Hogan), and the offensive line is typically loaded. Oh, and Oregon comes to town. Why can't Stanford win the North?

Bold conference prediction: Cal's Jared Goff will go through his career without playing in a bowl or finishing a season with a winning record. He'll also be taken in the first round of the 2016 NFL draft.

BC

Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-25-2015

I took it more as being harsh about Goff's supporting cast (particularly the O-line and defense, and perhaps the coaching) than of Goff himself.  I view Goff as Cal's equivalent of Trent Edwards; Trent was a good QB in an absolutely awful situation.

BC

Re: Overrated/Underrated - JJJ - 08-25-2015

Should I be worried that I agree with some talking heads' views?

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CornFed - 08-25-2015

(08-25-2015, 05:46 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:I took it more as being harsh about Goff's supporting cast (particularly the O-line and defense, and perhaps the coaching) than of Goff himself.  I view Goff as Low APR U's equivalent of Trent Edwards; Trent was a good QB in an absolutely awful situation.

BC

I didn't realize Edwards was a first round pick.  And, of course, there's Elway.

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CrazedZooChimp - 08-26-2015

(08-25-2015, 06:13 PM)CornFed link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12578.msg125552#msg125552 date=1440549964]
I took it more as being harsh about Goff's supporting cast (particularly the O-line and defense, and perhaps the coaching) than of Goff himself.  I view Goff as Low APR U's equivalent of Trent Edwards; Trent was a good QB in an absolutely awful situation.

BC

I didn't realize Edwards was a first round pick.  And, of course, there's Elway.
[/quote]

He was actually a third round pick.  But his NFL career was generally less bad than the two first round QB picks that year (Russell and Quinn), so he was basically like a first round pick.

Man, that was a really bad QB draft...

Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-26-2015

(08-25-2015, 06:13 PM)CornFed link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12578.msg125552#msg125552 date=1440549964]
I took it more as being harsh about Goff's supporting cast (particularly the O-line and defense, and perhaps the coaching) than of Goff himself.  I view Goff as Low APR U's equivalent of Trent Edwards; Trent was a good QB in an absolutely awful situation.

BC

I didn't realize Edwards was a first round pick.  And, of course, there's Elway.
[/quote]

The analogy doesn't extend that far.  Also Edwards' numbers weren't that great while at Stanford; I suspect Goff will end his career near the top of the Cal record books.  But the point is that in both cases, an outstanding QB was saddled with a poor supporting cast and a poor coach (definitely true for TE, possibly true for Goff).

BC

Re: Overrated/Underrated - OutsiderFan - 08-26-2015

Goff has way more offensive talent around him than Trent Edwards did.

I think Dodd's prediction on Ca.l is crazy.  I view them as a 7-8 win team and basically would be shocked if they didn't win 6 to become bowl-eligibile and go to one.  Ca.l may have the highest scoring offense in the Pac-12 this season.  I know that may not mean a lot, but the defense is much improved and actually has some OK depth for the first time in three seasons.

In fact, this year's Big Game is shaping up to have the most offensive fireworks between both teams combined, in my memory.

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CTcard - 08-26-2015

(08-25-2015, 05:02 PM)garvin link Wrote:Pretty harsh line about Goff. I thought they made an h-word improvement between 2013 and 2014. 

Today the ESPN Pac 12 blog (article written by Dave Lombardi) had their preseason rating of the Pac 12 QBs.
http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/90134/pac-12-preseason-quarterback-rankings

To be different, they rated Goff #1 and Kessler #3 (Hogan #5). Their knock on Kessler was, "he tallied only four touchdowns and three interceptions against teams that finished in the Top 25".

So I thought it might be interesting to look at those top 25 games, and I included Goff, Kessler and Hogan (more is too much work). Turns out they each played five games against teams in the top 25. These aren't  exactly the games against the best defenses, but some reasonable proxy for that.

Turns out Lombardi's description is roughly correct. Kessler seemed to struggle more against these top teams than did the other two - which also means he racked up better stats versus the weak teams than the other two. On efficiency, Hogan and Goff were in a dead heat - as they basically were overall on the season.

So, vs teams finishing in the top 25.

Kessler - 109/163, 6.6 yds/att, 126.5 PER
Goff  -  120/200, 7.5 yds/att, 137.3 PER
Hogan - 95/144, 7.4 yds/att, 136.3 PER




Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 11:21 AM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:Goff has way more offensive talent around him than Trent Edwards did.

I think Dodd's prediction on Ca.l is crazy.  I view them as a 7-8 win team and basically would be shocked if they didn't win 6 to become bowl-eligibile and go to one.  Ca.l may have the highest scoring offense in the Pac-12 this season.  I know that may not mean a lot, but the defense is much improved and actually has some OK depth for the first time in three seasons.

In fact, this year's Big Game is shaping up to have the most offensive fireworks between both teams combined, in my memory.

You are much more tied into Cal than I am, but looking at their schedule, I see four games that should be easy wins: Grambling, San Diego State, Washington State, and Oregon State and one game that seems like a likely win: Washington (I think Cal is a better team, especially with the QB situation unsettled and the defensive departures at UW... but the game is in Seattle).  Then I simply struggle to see where they get their next couple wins.  Of the remaining seven games, five are against pre-season ranked teams (Stanford, UCLA, USC, Oregon, and ASU), and the other two are on the road against decent teams (Utah and Texas).  In fact, the schedule is absolutely dismal for Cal, since almost all the hard games (save USC and ASU) are away and the home games are against cupcakes.

A quick parousal of ESPN's analysis basically mirrors my thinking:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/fpi?id=25&year=2015

They are favored in the five games I identified (all but UW with a 75% or better win probability), and are underdogs in the remaining seven, though ASU is more or less a pick 'em, and Utah and USC can be considered a winnable games.

I suppose this shows a potential path to six or seven wins (win the five games you are favored in and one or two of the mild underdog games).  Eight wins seems a stretch unless ESPN is underrating Cal, or requires sweeping the three winnable games or scoring one majorish upset.

BC

[Add: A quick simulation using a binomial distribution and the win probabilities listed gives a median number of wins as 6, the average as 6.4 and a 70% chance of having 5 - 7 wins.  If the ESPN projections are correct, the probability of having 7 or more wins is 46% and of having 8 (or more) is 21%.  So, I guess there is a path there to 7 or 8 wins, but it seems six is the more likely than 7 wins, and 5 is more likely than 8.  Here are the probabilities:

wins/probability
0/<0.1%
1/<0.1%
2/0.1%
3/1.4%
4/6.9%
5/18.1%
6/28.1%
7/24.6%
8/14%
9/5.1%
10/1.25%
11/0.2%
12/<0.1%

Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-26-2015

The same exercise for Stanford:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/fpi?id=24&year=2015

We are favored in all but two games (at USC, and home against Oregon), by 75% or more in most.  Two of the games are essentially pick 'ems (Oregon and UCLA).

Simulating 10,000 seasons with a binomial probability, here's what I get:
wins/prob
0/< 0.1%
1/ <0.1%
2/ <0.1%
3/ <0.1%
4/ 0.2%
5/ 1.2%
6/ 4.9%
7/ 13.7%
8/ 24.1%
9/ 27.2%
10/ 20.2%
11/ 7.3%
12/ 1.2%

Median is 9 wins, most likely range is 8 to 10 wins (71% chance).  We have a 28.7% chance of winning double digit games, and a 56% chance of winning at least 9.

BC

Re: Overrated/Underrated - pefloresjr - 08-26-2015

6-7 wins is where I see Cal.  I am always worried about Big Game.  I think last year's game got out of hand when we got an unusual number of turnovers and some close calls were overturned by video replay.  (Video replay, where were you in 1982?!)  If we are not so fortunate in this year's game and have a 10-14 point lead in the second half, it is quite possible we will get too conservative and give Cal's high octane offense a chance to make a late surge.  Or, God forbid, if we get behind and have some unfortunate turnovers ourselves, it might be hard to completely shut down Cal's offense enough for us to come back.  This is of course, just the worries born from being a Stanford fan since 1982.

Cheers,
Pete F. 

Re: Overrated/Underrated - OutsiderFan - 08-26-2015

The thing that these statistics don't take into account is that the teams this year are not the teams from last year.  There are new players, new combinations of players. Some have more experience now.  In Ca.l's case, it's year three after a coaching change at a rebuilding project.  Typically these days, year three is where the biggest jump in competitiveness happens. 

When you add in the fact Goff might be the best QB in the conference, with the best WRs in the conference potentially as well, I'm betting on that to re-set the par for what is expected from Ca.l.  Of course, they will lose a lot of those talented passing game pieces after this season, possibly including Goff, so this year may in some way be an anomaly for them, and they could very well revert to the mean in 2016.

But we're not talking about 2016. We're talking about 2015.  You have a a great QB and quality RBs, an improved though still suspect OL, and a better but still not great or likely even better than mediocre defense.  Still, a team like that can jump up and surprise a few opponents, particularly if Goff leads the way.

My take on Ca.l is if they lose to Texas they go 7-5.  If they beat Texas they go 8-4.



 




Re: Overrated/Underrated - CTcard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 01:30 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:The same exercise for Stanford:

I'd have to think that is too much effort to expend based upon input numbers that have no information content at this time.

I cannot find an explanation from ESPN as to what goes into their FPI [perhaps just because their newish mobile-friendly site is quite difficult to manage], but whatever the inputs there clearly is no 2015 performance information included.

[Guess I am in danger of getting into broken record territory here.]

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CTcard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 01:59 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:My take on Ca.l is if they lose to Texas they go 7-5.  If they beat Texas they go 8-4.

Presumably you would have them beating:
Grambling, San Diego State, WSU, OSU, UW.
That's 5 wins.

Which two of the following are you also penciling in as wins:
@Utah, @UCLA, S.-C., @Oregon, @Stanford, ASU?

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CornFed - 08-26-2015

What I take from Stanford's numbers above is that we are 12 times more likely than C.al to go undefeated.  So you're telling me there's a chance!!!!  :D

Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 02:00 PM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12578.msg125614#msg125614 date=1440621024]
The same exercise for Stanford:

I'd have to think that is too much effort to expend based upon input numbers that have no information content at this time.

I cannot find an explanation from ESPN as to what goes into their FPI [perhaps just because their newish mobile-friendly site is quite difficult to manage], but whatever the inputs there clearly is no 2015 performance information included.
[/quote]

I agree that at this point any system, whether quasi-mathematical or not is really not much more than an educated guess.  A reasonable argument can be made that what I did was garbage in/garbage out, and a better model of things would be Bayesian, since the games occur sequentially, the results of one game give us some information about the next one, and thus are not completely  independent.

And yet, I still found the exercise somewhat useful even if the specific numbers are garbage.  First, the results correlate reasonably well with others, based on "gut feelings" and subjective analyses by both us and professionals; I think an 8 - 10 win season is certainly the most likely outcome for us.  Secondly, it gives us a sense of a range of what to expect.  It looks very unlikely that we would fail to get 6 wins; thus we have every reason to expect a bowl game.  Likewise, an 11-1 or 12-0 regular season is very unlikely but not impossible; couple that with a 50% probability of winning the Pac-12 championship if we do wind up 11-1, and I think making the playoffs is very unlikely but high enough to give me hope that there is a chance.

Josh

Re: Overrated/Underrated - CTcard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 02:15 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:First, the results correlate reasonably well with others, based on "gut feelings" and subjective analyses by both us and professionals;

I am sure you realize that there is a certain irony that proceeding through a substantial statistical analysis is justified because it agrees with gut feelings.


But, if you find it useful then it is useful to you.
It's just that, as you know, this is one of my pet peeves - a professional hazard.

Re: Overrated/Underrated - OutsiderFan - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 02:06 PM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12578.msg125620#msg125620 date=1440622770]

My take on Ca.l is if they lose to Texas they go 7-5.  If they beat Texas they go 8-4.

Presumably you would have them beating:
Grambling, San Diego State, WSU, OSU, UW.
That's 5 wins.

Which two of the following are you also penciling in as wins:
@Utah, @UCLA, S.-C., @Oregon, @Stanford, ASU?
[/quote]

They have a shot against Texas, think they'll beat Utah, and UCLA.  And I wouldn't rule out a victory against ASU, USC, or Stanford. Think there is some intangible stuff with this Ca.l team that hasn't been present for a while.




Re: Overrated/Underrated - BostonCard - 08-26-2015

(08-26-2015, 03:30 PM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=12578.msg125628#msg125628 date=1440623749]
First, the results correlate reasonably well with others, based on "gut feelings" and subjective analyses by both us and professionals;

I am sure you realize that there is a certain irony that proceeding through a substantial statistical analysis is justified because it agrees with gut feelings.


But, if you find it useful then it is useful to you.
It's just that, as you know, this is one of my pet peeves - a professional hazard.
[/quote]

Sorry, I did not mean to suggest that the statistical analysis was useful because it agreed with my gut feelings and that it would not have had it disagreed with what my gut feeling.  I am very attuned to the possibility of epistemic closure (which is a professional hazard for me), and have joined you in the past of being critical of relying too much on the "eyeball test" and being overly dismissive of data when it disagreed with what the "eyeball test" was saying.  Were there a discrepancy between what ESPN's stats said and what I thought, it would have been a good reason to to re-examine my assumptions about the team, not proof that the statistical analysis was useless.  Even with the agreement between a semi-statistical method, gut feel, and talking heads, I am concerned about the possibility of "herding" (that is, that the various different methods are overly correlated, say, because my "gut feeling" is unduly influenced by preseason votes or by the math).

As an example, having looked at the results of the data, I have come to the conclusion that OutsiderFan's projections of Cal, while on the optimistic side, are not wild and crazy.  While my gut feeling was that I was not convinced that Cal would get their sixth win, let alone their seventh or eighth, looking at things more closely, I have come around to believing that OutsiderFan is more likely to be right than Dodd, though I don't think it would be fair to label Dodd's predictions as "crazy".

BC

Re: Overrated/Underrated - washingtonismoney - 08-26-2015

I'm surprised, though, that there's such resistance to using statistically-based forecasts at all -- I don't want to misconstrue your position, CTCard, but it seems like you're skeptical of most efforts to statistically forecast the results of an upcoming season. The persistence of certain schools in the AP rankings provides a prima facie case that a very simple heuristic, for instance, could predict the results of a season reasonably well.

So why not statistics? You have some objection, I gather, to hidden methodologies. Is that all?