(09-12-2012 10:09 PM)cmadler Wrote:  

(09-12-2012 09:56 AM)emu steve Wrote:  For those not into statistics and probablity, games are essentially chance events, not pure chance like the lottery or rolling dice, but it is still probablity, none the less.

Last night a weakened Boston Red Sox team beat the Yankees.

In baseball a very good team might win say 12 of 18 games vs. a clearly inferior team during their season series.

Interesting that you bring this up, because I've almost posted something about it several times. This basically goes to the theory underpinning English's offensive strategy.

If you think about any game of chance (even as simple as just a single roll of dice or even a single coin flip), if you repeat it many times, you'll see a distribution fairly close to what you'd expect. For example, if you flip a fair coin 1000 times, you're probably going to be reasonably close to 50% heads, and they odds of getting something like 75% heads are very low. (There is a formula, called the Poisson distribution, to figure out the actual likelihood of that, but I don't remember it, and it's beside the point.) On the other hand, if you flip a coin just four times, you have a reasonably good shot (about 1/3) of getting three heads flips. This is called the law of small numbers.

So, applying that to sports, treat each possession in a football game as a flip of a slightly weighted coin. Imagine that heads represents EMU, while tails is Purdue, but instead of a 50/50 coin, you have a 40% chance of heads and a 60% chance of tails. If you have a relatively small number of flips (possessions), there is a greater possibility of getting an outlier (a result other than the 40/60 you'd expect), but the more times you flip (the more possessions you play), they more likely the result is to approach the "expected" result.

In other words, by running the ball so much, you keep the clock moving, and reduce the total number of possessions, which gives you, as an underdog, more of a chance for an abnormal result (upset). More possessions is like more flips of the coin, and the longer you go on, the more likely the "normal" result (or something near it) becomes.

Cmadler also described Murphy's coaching philosophy for the '11/'12 season.

Underdogs in hoops try to minimize the number of possessions and hope to get blind lucky with the trey (although we didn't have good behind-the-arc shooters).

This is the beauty of March Madness.

In probability one looks for the outlier game, the game which might happen say once in 20 occurrences, the ranked team shoots 45% but the underdog keeps the possessions down and shoots 60% behind the arc.

Ohio Bobcats did that to Georgetown in 2010. Classic underdog win in the NCAAs.

(09-14-2012 08:32 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear cmadler,
I like the way you described the odds of any probability. I also agree with the comparison to running the ball to eliminate the other team from getting more chances in those odds, but here is the rub with me. Eastern's running game has not kept the opposing team off the field, and therefore needs something else to help sustain those odds. We have all suggested more passing on first or second down regardless of the yardage needed. I know besides calling for Karcher to be removed, I have suggested reverses, maybe a true option play that Air Force ran against Michigan, true screen passes, etc. The other teams know what we are going to do seventy percent of the time, so it becomes easy to defend for their defense. Maybe this is why there may be a morale problem. The team is working hard, but have no confidence in the play calling.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that play-calling is atrocious. I'd like to see reverses, some shovel passes, etc. Given Gillett's running ability, a quarterback throwback could be really effective if there's a WR or RB who can execute it. I also think Gillett seems much more comfortable throwing on the run, plus if the defense commits too early he can also keep it, so I'd like to see him rolling out more often (with a pass/keep option).

A triple-option offense run out of the wishbone would make a lot of sense for the team we have now, but I don't think that's English's long-term vision for the team, and it would have taken a lot of effort to install -- probably too much to make it worth just using for one year. But they could certainly be using more of those elements.

A triple-option offense run out of the wishbone would make a lot of sense for the team we have now, but I don't think that's English's long-term vision for the team, and it would have taken a lot of effort to install -- probably too much to make it worth just using for one year. But they could certainly be using more of those elements.
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How about for one game?

Matter of fact, they should take the bye week and try it and see if it doesn't confuse the hell out of Kent.

Do remember Kent is our second MAC game.

(09-14-2012 09:07 AM)cmadler Wrote:  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that play-calling is atrocious. I'd like to see reverses, some shovel passes, etc. Given Gillett's running ability, a quarterback throwback could be really effective if there's a WR or RB who can execute it. I also think Gillett seems much more comfortable throwing on the run, plus if the defense commits too early he can also keep it, so I'd like to see him rolling out more often (with a pass/keep option).

A triple-option offense run out of the wishbone would make a lot of sense for the team we have now, but I don't think that's English's long-term vision for the team, and it would have taken a lot of effort to install -- probably too much to make it worth just using for one year. But they could certainly be using more of those elements.

One other thing I noticed that's a change for the worse from last year...even though 2011 was run-heavy with weak play-calling, there was a good variation in formations and quite a lot of pre-snap motion. Even though the plays were often the same, the different looks and the motion worked to confuse (and hence slow down) defenses. This was something that several opposing coaches commented on last year, and it's something that we haven't really seen so far this year.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the schedule plays out. I think English and the team needs to do better than lets say 3 wins in my opinion this year for a contract extension. Otherwise see what he does in the final year of his contract next year and do what they did with Genyk either renew or non renew it based on his record.

(09-14-2012 10:36 AM)emu79 Wrote:  It will be interesting to see how the rest of the schedule plays out. I think English and the team needs to do better than lets say 3 wins in my opinion this year for a contract extension. Otherwise see what he does in the final year of his contract next year and do what they did with Genyk either renew or non renew it based on his record.

I haven't seen English's contract (Murhphy's is public, though).

Murphy doesn't appear to have a rollover in his contract.

I wonder if English has a rollover which would become effective after this season is over.

IF English doesn't have a rollover, then the decision on an extension can be made next year.

It seemed like a weird contract extension. His yearly salary is virtually the same. Only the bonuses were adjusted and new ones were added. The 210,000 buyout is still in the contract, so if he leaves, he'll have to fork up some dough.

Personally, I think he stays another year unless we have a big year and make the NIT or (*gasp*) the Big Dance. next year's team has potential to be even better than this year's, so I think he'll try to maximize his resume. I don't trust him to stay as far as I can throw him, but I think that's how it will play out.

I'm over the whole Magic debacle, basically in "forgive but never forget" mode. This team has too much potential for us to dwell on that situation. If that keeps you from going to the Convo, then I'm sorry. You'll be missing out on a pretty exciting team.