(11-06-2016 11:36 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  We also have the lowest standard deviation in the league. At least we're consistent.

That has been an interesting quirk of the DBD (David Bailiff Decade).

Rice's 42-25 loss to Florida Atlantic produced the second-worst performance rating of the season at 17.84. The last two games have produced the worst two ratings of the season, which is not the direction one wants to be heading. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 29.45
@Army: 29.50
Baylor: 31.63
North Texas: 30.03
@Southern Mississippi: 30.83
Texas-San Antonio: 43.28
Prairie View A&M: 37.12
@Louisiana Tech: 14.06
Florida Atlantic: 17.84

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.16 62.90 12.02
2. Louisiana Tech 58.98 57.74 9.94
3. Middle Tennessee 56.80 50.03 13.17
4. Texas-San Antonio 46.58 44.93 16.87
5. Southern Mississippi 45.67 45.60 14.97
6. Old Dominion 45.18 47.51 14.21
7. Marshall 36.83 35.35 12.47
8. Charlotte 35.87 35.35 14.40
9. Texas-El Paso 35.71 31.09 18.65
10. Florida Atlantic 35.16 31.24 14.64
11. Florida International 35.02 34.49 8.80
12. North Texas 34.90 39.22 10.94
13. Rice 30.33 29.34 8.87

The performance ratings got shaken up a lot the past week due to some interesting results. UTSA's surprisingly easy win over Middle Tennessee was its fifth overall for the season, so the Roadrunners look like they have a good shot to qualify for a bowl game for the first time ever. Old Dominion reached that milestone with a victory over Marshall (oh, how the mighty from the 2013 C-USA championship game have fallen!). With relatively routine victories, Western Kentucky and Louisiana Tech appear headed to a championship game rematch of their regular-season matchup won by the Bulldogs.

Rice travels to Charlotte this week to take on the 49ers. After a slow start to the season, Charlotte has won three of its last four after the 49ers upset Southern Miss and now has an outside chance of becoming bowl-eligible (it helps that due to the uneven number of teams in C-USA's two divisions Charlotte misses out on having to play WKU in its own division this season). The 49ers' performances this season have been kind of bizarre - they've lost three of their four home games, beating only FCS opponent Elon, and all three of their C-USA victories have come on the road. With the Owls sitting at the bottom of the Massey power ratings, one might despair of their chances of winning a game on the road. However, with Charlotte's home woes and the fact that the teams in the bottom part of C-USA of are all pretty bad, pretty much anything could happen.

(11-08-2016 07:54 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  Rice's 42-25 loss to Florida Atlantic produced the second-worst performance rating of the season at 17.84. The last two games have produced the worst two ratings of the season, which is not the direction one wants to be heading. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 29.45
@Army: 29.50
Baylor: 31.63
North Texas: 30.03
@Southern Mississippi: 30.83
Texas-San Antonio: 43.28
Prairie View A&M: 37.12
@Louisiana Tech: 14.06
Florida Atlantic: 17.84

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.16 62.90 12.02
2. Louisiana Tech 58.98 57.74 9.94
3. Middle Tennessee 56.80 50.03 13.17
4. Texas-San Antonio 46.58 44.93 16.87
5. Southern Mississippi 45.67 45.60 14.97
6. Old Dominion 45.18 47.51 14.21
7. Marshall 36.83 35.35 12.47
8. Charlotte 35.87 35.35 14.40
9. Texas-El Paso 35.71 31.09 18.65
10. Florida Atlantic 35.16 31.24 14.64
11. Florida International 35.02 34.49 8.80
12. North Texas 34.90 39.22 10.94
13. Rice 30.33 29.34 8.87

The performance ratings got shaken up a lot the past week due to some interesting results. UTSA's surprisingly easy win over Middle Tennessee was its fifth overall for the season, so the Roadrunners look like they have a good shot to qualify for a bowl game for the first time ever. Old Dominion reached that milestone with a victory over Marshall (oh, how the mighty from the 2013 C-USA championship game have fallen!). With relatively routine victories, Western Kentucky and Louisiana Tech appear headed to a championship game rematch of their regular-season matchup won by the Bulldogs.

Rice travels to Charlotte this week to take on the 49ers. After a slow start to the season, Charlotte has won three of its last four after the 49ers upset Southern Miss and now has an outside chance of becoming bowl-eligible (it helps that due to the uneven number of teams in C-USA's two divisions Charlotte misses out on having to play WKU in its own division this season). The 49ers' performances this season have been kind of bizarre - they've lost three of their four home games, beating only FCS opponent Elon, and all three of their C-USA victories have come on the road. With the Owls sitting at the bottom of the Massey power ratings, one might despair of their chances of winning a game on the road. However, with Charlotte's home woes and the fact that the teams in the bottom part of C-USA of are all pretty bad, pretty much anything could happen.

Uhhh, Charlotte changed QBs 4 games back (3-1 since with only 1 home game in that stretch--------in that home game, we blew a 13 point lead in the last 5 minutes AND missed a makeable FG on the last play for that one loss). Also, have had a number of key players return from injuries after missing numerous early season games. The team is a MUCH different one now than it was in September/early October.

(11-10-2016 12:58 PM)PSCNiner Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 07:54 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  Rice's 42-25 loss to Florida Atlantic produced the second-worst performance rating of the season at 17.84. The last two games have produced the worst two ratings of the season, which is not the direction one wants to be heading. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 29.45
@Army: 29.50
Baylor: 31.63
North Texas: 30.03
@Southern Mississippi: 30.83
Texas-San Antonio: 43.28
Prairie View A&M: 37.12
@Louisiana Tech: 14.06
Florida Atlantic: 17.84

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.16 62.90 12.02
2. Louisiana Tech 58.98 57.74 9.94
3. Middle Tennessee 56.80 50.03 13.17
4. Texas-San Antonio 46.58 44.93 16.87
5. Southern Mississippi 45.67 45.60 14.97
6. Old Dominion 45.18 47.51 14.21
7. Marshall 36.83 35.35 12.47
8. Charlotte 35.87 35.35 14.40
9. Texas-El Paso 35.71 31.09 18.65
10. Florida Atlantic 35.16 31.24 14.64
11. Florida International 35.02 34.49 8.80
12. North Texas 34.90 39.22 10.94
13. Rice 30.33 29.34 8.87

The performance ratings got shaken up a lot the past week due to some interesting results. UTSA's surprisingly easy win over Middle Tennessee was its fifth overall for the season, so the Roadrunners look like they have a good shot to qualify for a bowl game for the first time ever. Old Dominion reached that milestone with a victory over Marshall (oh, how the mighty from the 2013 C-USA championship game have fallen!). With relatively routine victories, Western Kentucky and Louisiana Tech appear headed to a championship game rematch of their regular-season matchup won by the Bulldogs.

Rice travels to Charlotte this week to take on the 49ers. After a slow start to the season, Charlotte has won three of its last four after the 49ers upset Southern Miss and now has an outside chance of becoming bowl-eligible (it helps that due to the uneven number of teams in C-USA's two divisions Charlotte misses out on having to play WKU in its own division this season). The 49ers' performances this season have been kind of bizarre - they've lost three of their four home games, beating only FCS opponent Elon, and all three of their C-USA victories have come on the road. With the Owls sitting at the bottom of the Massey power ratings, one might despair of their chances of winning a game on the road. However, with Charlotte's home woes and the fact that the teams in the bottom part of C-USA of are all pretty bad, pretty much anything could happen.

Uhhh, Charlotte changed QBs 4 games back (3-1 since with only 1 home game in that stretch--------in that home game, we blew a 13 point lead in the last 5 minutes AND missed a makeable FG on the last play for that one loss). Also, have had a number of key players return from injuries after missing numerous early season games. The team is a MUCH different one now than it was in September/early October.

sounds like a team headed a very different direction than Rice. 1-11 is looking like the real sad deal.

I am going to miss the UTEP game, GF has a daughter singing at the Renaissance Festival, which should be more enjoyable than being at Rice Stadium. Last home game I missed was SMU in 2006 and I was getting text messages every 30 seconds. Only other one I can think of from 1989 onwards was one game in 1990. I doubt I will even look for the score until I see the paper Sunday morning unless I just happen to see it. Sigh.........

Rice's 22-21 win over Charlotte was the first conference victory of the season and second overall, and it produced the second-best performance rating of the season at 37.76. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 30.02
@Army: 27.84
Baylor: 29.97
North Texas: 29.03
@Southern Mississippi: 29.80
Texas-San Antonio: 41.20
Prairie View A&M: 36.46
@Louisiana Tech: 14.68
Florida Atlantic: 17.87
@Charlotte: 37.76

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 61.88 63.45 12.72
2. Louisiana Tech 60.14 57.38 11.14
3. Middle Tennessee 56.45 46.02 17.21
4. Old Dominion 49.85 48.10 13.84
5. Southern Mississippi 45.80 44.68 14.68
6. Texas-San Antonio 41.87 42.64 15.51
7. Marshall 37.91 38.49 16.08
8. Texas-El Paso 35.26 30.98 18.42
9. Florida Atlantic 35.18 31.83 13.83
10. North Texas 34.96 37.17 11.89
11. Florida International 34.92 33.74 8.41
12. Charlotte 34.49 34.69 12.80
13. Rice 29.88 29.46 8.25

Besides the Owls' win over the 49ers, Marshall kept the madness going by knocking off Middle Tennessee 42-17 for only the second C-USA win this season for the Thundering Herd, while the Blue Raiders have now lost their last two by 20+ points to supposedly weaker competition. Western Kentucky wiped out North Texas 45-7, and Louisiana Tech wiped out UTSA 63-35 to keep both the Hilltoppers and Bulldogs headed toward the C-USA championship game.

This week's opponent for the Owls is their longest continuous conference rival currently, UTEP, in the home and conference finale. The Owls and Miners are the only teams in C-USA with just one conference win, so this game is likely the Pillow Fight of the Week in Division I FBS and possibly for the season as well. Like Rice, UTEP has a win over an FCS team in Houston Baptist, and also beat New Mexico State, which is hardly better than an FCS team. The one conference win came at UTSA in a quintuple-overtime game. Those three wins produced higher performance ratings (in the 48 to 49 range) than anything the Owls have done, but the Miners also have some terrible losses. In fact, they had the worst performance rating of any C-USA team this season in their 66-14 loss to Army, which came in at -9.37 (the only negative rating for a C-USA team this season); the Owls only lost to Army by 17. Last week the Miners played the Owls' previous opponent, Florida Atlantic, and performed much better than Rice, as FAU had to drive 96 yards for a touchdown with 25 seconds left in the game for a 35-31 win. Running a Mann-Whitney U-test on the performance ratings data shows no significant difference between the teams at the 5% level, as I suspect the case is with all of the bottom C-USA teams, so this game looks like another case of the teams being so bad that anything could happen.

We should have scheduled Mann Whitney U.

(11-15-2016 03:55 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  We should have scheduled Mann Whitney U.

You are making some assumptions that may not be valid.

(11-15-2016 07:06 AM)temchugh Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 03:55 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  We should have scheduled Mann Whitney U.

You are making some assumptions that may not be valid.

I'm just saying... It would be a good test

(11-15-2016 07:26 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 07:06 AM)temchugh Wrote:  

(11-15-2016 03:55 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  We should have scheduled Mann Whitney U.

You are making some assumptions that may not be valid.

I'm just saying... It would be a good test

Maybe we need to invest in more pillows.

Rice's 44-24 win over UTEP was easily the best performance by the Owls this season, registering a 48.60 performance rating. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 31.08
@Army: 27.98
Baylor: 27.33
North Texas: 29.78
@Southern Mississippi: 27.95
Texas-San Antonio: 41.21
Prairie View A&M: 36.70
@Louisiana Tech: 15.31
Florida Atlantic: 16.16
@Charlotte: 37.99
Texas-El Paso: 48.60

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.24 63.63 12.12
2. Louisiana Tech 60.36 57.42 11.44
3. Middle Tennessee 56.37 46.54 16.71
4. Old Dominion 54.04 47.66 13.19
5. Texas-San Antonio 48.66 44.02 15.26
6. Southern Mississippi 42.95 42.48 13.85
7. Charlotte 36.52 34.03 12.37
8. North Texas 35.74 38.40 10.85
9. Florida International 34.99 34.31 9.87
11. Marshall 33.95 36.20 16.25
11. Texas-El Paso 33.06 28.88 18.66
12. Florida Atlantic 32.66 31.73 13.22
13. Rice 29.78 30.92 9.98

You can see there's a noticeable dichotomy in the rankings, with the top six teams significantly ahead of the bottom seven. The top six and bottom seven have split the games within their groups, while the top six have won most of their games against the bottom seven (which is why they're the top six). Louisiana Tech has already clinched the West Division. Western Kentucky can clinch the East Division with a victory at Marshall. If the Hilltoppers lose, Old Dominion can win the East by beating Florida International. Tech, WKU, ODU, and Middle Tennessee have secured bowl eligibility; Southern Miss can do it with a win over the Bulldogs, and North Texas and UTSA can join them with wins over UTEP and Charlotte, respectively.

Rice concludes its season with a game against Stanford in Palo Alto. By the numbers, the Cardinal will be the strongest team the Owls have faced this season. In two blowout losses to the Pac-12's Washington schools, Stanford compiled performance ratings in the low 40s, below Rice's rating for the UTEP game. However, the other nine games have produced a rating at least 15 point higher than that, topped by two 90+ performances against Southern Cal and Oregon. With these data, it's highly unlikely that the Owls will win their season finale.

(11-24-2016 10:20 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  Rice's 44-24 win over UTEP was easily the best performance by the Owls this season, registering a 48.60 performance rating. Here's how the season has gone so far:

@Western Kentucky: 31.08
@Army: 27.98
Baylor: 27.33
North Texas: 29.78
@Southern Mississippi: 27.95
Texas-San Antonio: 41.21
Prairie View A&M: 36.70
@Louisiana Tech: 15.31
Florida Atlantic: 16.16
@Charlotte: 37.99
Texas-El Paso: 48.60

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.24 63.63 12.12
2. Louisiana Tech 60.36 57.42 11.44
3. Middle Tennessee 56.37 46.54 16.71
4. Old Dominion 54.04 47.66 13.19
5. Texas-San Antonio 48.66 44.02 15.26
6. Southern Mississippi 42.95 42.48 13.85
7. Charlotte 36.52 34.03 12.37
8. North Texas 35.74 38.40 10.85
9. Florida International 34.99 34.31 9.87
11. Marshall 33.95 36.20 16.25
11. Texas-El Paso 33.06 28.88 18.66
12. Florida Atlantic 32.66 31.73 13.22
13. Rice 29.78 30.92 9.98

You can see there's a noticeable dichotomy in the rankings, with the top six teams significantly ahead of the bottom seven. The top six and bottom seven have split the games within their groups, while the top six have won most of their games against the bottom seven (which is why they're the top six). Louisiana Tech has already clinched the West Division. Western Kentucky can clinch the East Division with a victory at Marshall. If the Hilltoppers lose, Old Dominion can win the East by beating Florida International. Tech, WKU, ODU, and Middle Tennessee have secured bowl eligibility; Southern Miss can do it with a win over the Bulldogs, and North Texas and UTSA can join them with wins over UTEP and Charlotte, respectively.

Rice concludes its season with a game against Stanford in Palo Alto. By the numbers, the Cardinal will be the strongest team the Owls have faced this season. In two blowout losses to the Pac-12's Washington schools, Stanford compiled performance ratings in the low 40s, below Rice's rating for the UTEP game. However, the other nine games have produced a rating at least 15 point higher than that, topped by two 90+ performances against Southern Cal and Oregon. With these data, it's highly unlikely that the Owls will win their season finale.

I don't think its these data that make it highly unlikely the Owls will win their season (and hopefully this coaching staff's) finale.

While Rice lost to Stanford 41-17, the relative closeness of the game meant that it actually had the highest performance rating of the season at 51.33. Here's how the season went:

@Western Kentucky: 32.44
@Army: 28.32
Baylor: 23.85
North Texas: 26.17
@Southern Mississippi: 31.97
Texas-San Antonio: 41.78
Prairie View A&M: 38.72
@Louisiana Tech: 12.98
Florida Atlantic: 15.21
@Charlotte: 38.19
Texas-El Paso: 50.88
@Stanford: 51.33

With the last two games being the highest-rated of the season (and in fact the two highest-rated since the Hawai'i Bowl victory to end the 2014 season), David Bailiff may have managed to save his job, at least for one more season, and the median rating for the season, 32.20, is about the same as the median rating for 2015 (32.96) and might actually finish higher depending on the results from bowl games. Hopefully, next year Bailiff can get it going before ten games of the season have passed....

Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 62.96 65.77 13.99
2. Louisiana Tech 59.57 55.48 12.64
3. Middle Tennessee 54.17 47.26 15.80
4. Old Dominion 50.53 48.50 12.24
5. Texas-San Antonio 46.56 44.92 14.22
6. Southern Mississippi 43.68 44.71 15.40
7. Charlotte 35.02 33.88 12.91
8. Florida International 34.92 34.41 10.24
9. Texas-El Paso 34.89 31.46 20.04
10. North Texas 33.86 35.36 13.75
11. Florida Atlantic 33.45 31.53 13.09
12. Rice 32.20 32.65 12.29
13. Marshall 31.20 33.47 18.38

It's interesting to note that the two bottom teams in this ranking are the two that faced off in the C-USA championship game three seasons ago. As for this season's championship game, Western Kentucky clinched a spot in it with a 60-6 wipeout of Marshall. Thanks to Louisiana Tech's loss to Southern Miss, the game will be played in Bowling Green, unlike the regular season matchup in Ruston where the Bulldogs handed the Hilltoppers their only C-USA loss of the season. USM's win made them bowl-eligible, and UTSA joined them by defeating Charlotte.

At the conclusion of the bowl games, I'll post a wrapup with the final numbers for the season.

With all of the postseason games having been played, the final numbers for Rice's 2016 season are in:

@Western Kentucky: 36.12
@Army: 31.47
Baylor: 31.04
North Texas: 28.40
@Southern Mississippi: 33.68
Texas-San Antonio: 42.75
Prairie View A&M: 36.17
@Louisiana Tech: 14.09
Florida Atlantic: 16.55
@Charlotte: 38.62
Texas-El Paso: 52.67
@Stanford: 48.53

Most of these numbers went up after bowl season, likely because Rice's opponents went 6-2 during that time (and one loss necessarily had to occur because two of the Owls' opponents faced each other in a bowl game). Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 65.01 67.21 13.45
2. Louisiana Tech 58.75 56.72 11.69
3. Middle Tennessee 53.75 46.29 16.03
4. Old Dominion 49.44 50.52 10.77
5. Texas-San Antonio 48.68 45.14 13.75
6. Southern Mississippi 45.10 46.20 15.33
7. Texas-El Paso 36.02 32.97 19.40
8. North Texas 34.91 37.40 13.78
9. Rice 34.90 34.17 11.34
10. Florida International 34.88 34.76 11.61
11. Charlotte 34.32 34.46 13.13
12. Florida Atlantic 33.65 33.24 12.26
13. Marshall 31.96 34.76 17.91

Here's a graph of how the Owls' performance rating varied during the 2016 season, with least-squares regression line and accompanying equation and Pearson's R:


Rice 2016 by Jonathan Sadow, on Flickr

Despite the worse record, Rice's median performance rating actually was a couple of points higher than in 2015, mainly because the average power rating of the Owls' 2016 opponents was nearly nine points higher than that of the 2015 opponents, suggesting that improvement from 2015 might have been masked by the harder schedule (maybe that's why Karlgaard decided to keep Bailiff!). The last time Rice's median performance rating for a season was in this range, in 2011, the rating for the following season jumped about ten points, and the Owls qualified for a bowl game. We'll see if Bailiff can pull it off again....

Can we reject the hypothesis that starting QB was irrelevant to performance?

Looks like we had best games at end of year--did the QB change help that?


I can't think of anything more damning to say about DB than that he started an inferior QB for 10 games before making a change.

(01-15-2017 02:35 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  With all of the postseason games having been played, the final numbers for Rice's 2016 season are in:

@Western Kentucky: 36.12
@Army: 31.47
Baylor: 31.04
North Texas: 28.40
@Southern Mississippi: 33.68
Texas-San Antonio: 42.75
Prairie View A&M: 36.17
@Louisiana Tech: 14.09
Florida Atlantic: 16.55
@Charlotte: 38.62
Texas-El Paso: 52.67
@Stanford: 48.53

Most of these numbers went up after bowl season, likely because Rice's opponents went 6-2 during that time (and one loss necessarily had to occur because two of the Owls' opponents faced each other in a bowl game). Here are the numbers for all Conference USA members:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Western Kentucky 65.01 67.21 13.45
2. Louisiana Tech 58.75 56.72 11.69
3. Middle Tennessee 53.75 46.29 16.03
4. Old Dominion 49.44 50.52 10.77
5. Texas-San Antonio 48.68 45.14 13.75
6. Southern Mississippi 45.10 46.20 15.33
7. Texas-El Paso 36.02 32.97 19.40
8. North Texas 34.91 37.40 13.78
9. Rice 34.90 34.17 11.34
10. Florida International 34.88 34.76 11.61
11. Charlotte 34.32 34.46 13.13
12. Florida Atlantic 33.65 33.24 12.26
13. Marshall 31.96 34.76 17.91

Here's a graph of how the Owls' performance rating varied during the 2016 season, with least-squares regression line and accompanying equation and Pearson's R:


Rice 2016 by Jonathan Sadow, on Flickr

Despite the worse record, Rice's median performance rating actually was a couple of points higher than in 2015, mainly because the average power rating of the Owls' 2016 opponents was nearly nine points higher than that of the 2015 opponents, suggesting that improvement from 2015 might have been masked by the harder schedule (maybe that's why Karlgaard decided to keep Bailiff!). The last time Rice's median performance rating for a season was in this range, in 2011, the rating for the following season jumped about ten points, and the Owls qualified for a bowl game. We'll see if Bailiff can pull it off again....

Jonathon,

We had a 2-game period where we had a lot of players out with the flu or some other bug that was going around (had a QB out for wisdom teeth removal as well . . ), and some players I believe played 'under the weather'.

Looking at the graph, any chance there was a correlation with the dip?