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Today in coincidences - washingtonismoney - 03-26-2015

https://twitter.com/StanfordFball/status/581152443330895872

https://twitter.com/StanfordFball/status/581177083675697152

No reason for this particular stroll down memory lane, I'm sure.

Re: Today in coincidences - Spiny_Norman - 03-26-2015

Three of those six passing champions were in consecutive years - Guy Benjamin in 1977, Steve Dils in 1978 and Turk Schonert in 1979. 

Re: Today in coincidences - yvonne - 03-26-2015

nice coincidence.

Re: Today in coincidences - donkey687 - 03-26-2015

I don't want to read too much into that, but I don't view those tweets as a good sign.  If you had a certain top recruit QB in your hip pocket ready to announce in your favor, I don't think those tweets would be necessary.  If you were trying to convince a recruit that he may be making a mistake, I think you would unleash propaganda like that trying for a last minute sell job.  I was hoping that he has been a silent commit and that a last minute sale job wasn't in order.  We shall find out soon.

Re: Today in coincidences - washingtonismoney - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 01:29 PM)donkey687 link Wrote:I don't want to read too much into that, but I don't view those tweets as a good sign.  If you had a certain top recruit QB in your hip pocket ready to announce in your favor, I don't think those tweets would be necessary.  If you were trying to convince a recruit that he may be making a mistake, I think you would unleash propaganda like that trying for a last minute sell job.  I was hoping that he has been a silent commit and that a last minute sale job wasn't in order.  We shall find out soon.

Who says the tweets are selling the recruit?

Re: Today in coincidences - terry - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 12:57 PM)ferrari link Wrote:I think I remember Plunkett's setting the NCAA single season passing record (in 1969 I think) so how could he have not won the passing title?

Plunkett never won an NCAA passing title.

In 1968 and 1969, the NCAA passing leader was determined by total completions.

In 1968, the NCAA passing leader was Chuck Hixson of SMU with 265 completions. Plunkett was 16th with 142 completions. Plunkett was 9th in passing yards and 14th in pass efficiency.

In 1969, the NCAA passing leader was John Reaves of Florida with 222 completions. Plunkett was 5th with 197 completions. Plunkett was 4th in passing yards and 5th in pass efficiency.

The NCAA changed its statistics policy in 1970. From 1970 to 1978, the NCAA passing leader was determined by completions per game.

In 1970, the NCAA passing leader was Son.ny Sixkiller of Washington with 18.6 completions per game. Plunkett was 6th with 17.4 completions per game. Plunkett was 3rd in total completions, 2nd in total yards, and 12th in pass efficiency.

Plunkett did graduate as the NCAA's all time leader in career passing yards and career total offense.

Stanford's six NCAA passing leaders were:

1953 - Bobby Garrett
1956 - John Brodie
1959 - D.ick Norman
1977 - Guy Benjamin
1978 - Steve Dils
1979 - Turk Schonert

The first three guys played when the leader was determined by total completions. The next two played when the leader was determined by completions per game. The last one played when the leader was determined by pass efficiency rating.

Re: Today in coincidences - Langdude - 03-26-2015

Thanks for the explanation, Terry. I was puzzled since I knew that Plunkett led the NCAA in passing yardage in 1970.

-m.

Re: Today in coincidences - washingtonismoney - 03-26-2015

https://twitter.com/StanfordFball/status/581209111150391296

Re: Today in coincidences - terry - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 02:26 PM)Langdude link Wrote:Thanks for the explanation, Terry. I was puzzled since I knew that Plunkett led the NCAA in passing yardage in 1970.

-m.

Plunkett officially was 2nd in the NCAA in passing yards in 1970 (2,715 yards), behind Bob Parker of Air Force (2,789 yards). Counting the Rose Bowl, Plunkett would have led the nation in passing yards (2,980 yards). But the NCAA did not include bowl games in the stats at that time. The NCAA does include bowl games in the stats now, but it did not go back and retroactively add bowl game stats to the old records.

Plunkett did break the NCAA career passing yards record in 1970.

Re: Today in coincidences - CornFed - 03-26-2015

"Plunkett did graduate as the NCAA's all time leader in career passing yards and career total offense."

Which means that his 7809 career passing yards is now 278th on the list of passing leaders.  His career total is a mere 11,400 yards short of the current leader in career yards, Case Keenum of Houston.

Think the game has evolved a bit.

Re: Today in coincidences - terry - 03-26-2015

Yep, the passing game definitely is different now. The stats just aren't comparable any more.

Also, Plunkett played when freshmen were ineligible, so his career stats were three-year totals.

Re: Today in coincidences - BostonCard - 03-26-2015

Best ever lists aren't meant to actually establish anything meaningful.  They are meant to be a topic of conversation for the people making them and reading them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The "which was Shaw's best season" thread generated an interesting discussion.  That's an end in itself.  Of course the question of which season was Shaw's best is totally academic and unimportant.  But it is a fun topic to talk about.

BC

Re: Today in coincidences - terry - 03-26-2015

Another thing to remember about the statistics --

Plunkett played when a 10 game season was normal. Only a handful of teams went to bowl games and played 11 games. A normal career was 30 games -- three seasons of 10 games.

Now, 12 games is the baseline for a season. More than half of the major conference teams play 13 games. Some teams play 14 or 15 games. So a normal career is more than 50 games. That really makes a difference when looking at career records. And that's without even considering the difference in style of play.

Re: Today in coincidences - BostonCard - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 09:54 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=11935.msg115583#msg115583 date=1427430535]
Best ever lists aren't meant to actually establish anything meaningful.  They are meant to be a topic of conversation for the people making them and reading them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The "which was Shaw's best season" thread generated an interesting discussion.  That's an end in itself.  Of course the question of which season was Shaw's best is totally academic and unimportant.  But it is a fun topic to talk about.

BC

Oh, I agree.  I just smile when I see lists of "Greatest Stanford (name a position)" and it is heavily weighted to the last 10 - 15 years.  Rarely see Frankie Albert, John Brodie, Pop Warner, Gene Washington, BBall players who changed the game, etc.  Best Song is rarely more than 10 years old.  Greatest Invention usually came about within the past 10 years.  Just something for old men to ponder.
[/quote]

I think that is recency bias.  You remember something you saw recently. Plus, many of us weren't around to see Albert, Brodie, Warner, Washington, Lusetti, or in my case, even Lichti.  When so much of that is subjective, it is hard to rate or understand people you didn't witness or experience.

As to inventions... actually most "greatest inventions" are old.  We venerate the lightbulb, telegraph, and telephone.  There's a reason the expression "greatest invention since sliced bread" is such.  Even the transistor and computer are hardly recent inventions.  In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of an invention in the last 10 years except maybe the smart phone, and wikipedia tells me, "Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993." so there.

BC

Re: Today in coincidences - Mick - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 10:25 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=11935.msg115586#msg115586 date=1427432081]
[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=11935.msg115583#msg115583 date=1427430535]
Best ever lists aren't meant to actually establish anything meaningful.  They are meant to be a topic of conversation for the people making them and reading them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The "which was Shaw's best season" thread generated an interesting discussion.  That's an end in itself.  Of course the question of which season was Shaw's best is totally academic and unimportant.  But it is a fun topic to talk about.

BC

Oh, I agree.  I just smile when I see lists of "Greatest Stanford (name a position)" and it is heavily weighted to the last 10 - 15 years.  Rarely see Frankie Albert, John Brodie, Pop Warner, Gene Washington, BBall players who changed the game, etc.  Best Song is rarely more than 10 years old.  Greatest Invention usually came about within the past 10 years.  Just something for old men to ponder.
[/quote]

I think that is recency bias.  You remember something you saw recently. Plus, many of us weren't around to see Albert, Brodie, Warner, Washington, Lusetti, or in my case, even Lichti.  When so much of that is subjective, it is hard to rate or understand people you didn't witness or experience.

As to inventions... actually most "greatest inventions" are old.  We venerate the lightbulb, telegraph, and telephone.  There's a reason the expression "greatest invention since sliced bread" is such.  Even the transistor and computer are hardly recent inventions.  In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of an invention in the last 10 years except maybe the smart phone, and wikipedia tells me, "Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993." so there.

BC
[/quote]

Props to the wheel, wedge, lever, inclined plane, nail, printing press, compass, telephone, light bulb, internal combustion engine, penicillin and contraceptives.

Re: Today in coincidences - Nan3cy - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 09:17 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=terry link=topic=11935.msg115554#msg115554 date=1427417175]
Yep, the passing game definitely is different now. The stats just aren't comparable any more.

Also, Plunkett played when freshmen were ineligible, so his career stats were three-year totals.

This is why "Best Ever" lists are almost always irrelevant.  I had a fraternity brother who set the then Single season rushing record for Stanford at something like 970 yards.  If you happen to meet an 80 year old who was a consensus All American you will be amazed at how small he is.
[/quote]

My son's dentist when he was a kid was an offensive guard under Walsh I. Big guy, but not brobdingnagian - I told him once that the current (then 1991-2) offensive line would eat him for lunch and he just smiled and said, "True. But let's put it this way: WE protected our quarterback." (three sacks during the year vs. nearly three a game, if I remember correctly)

Re: Today in coincidences - yvonne - 03-26-2015

(03-26-2015, 10:43 PM)Nan3cy link Wrote:My son's dentist when he was a kid was an offensive guard under Walsh I.

Wow, that's really impressive. Most kids don't learn to block that early.

Re: Today in coincidences - BostonCard - 03-27-2015

(03-26-2015, 11:29 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:[quote author=Nan3cy link=topic=11935.msg115599#msg115599 date=1427434983]

My son's dentist when he was a kid was an offensive guard under Walsh I.

Wow, that's really impressive. Most kids don't learn to block that early.
[/quote]

"Kid" is a relative term.  They may be 6'5" but they all seem like kids to me these days.

BC