Days Off Before the BCS National Championship Game

The BCS Trophy

I'm going to come clean. I am a Florida Gators fan. It's where I went to school and where I did a lot of growing up. This blog isn't about that, but I wanted to let everyone know where I'm coming from. I was in my car the other day when out of nowhere I remembered how people said that the reason Ohio St. lost to Florida in the 2007 BCS title game was because of how many days off the Buckeyes had between their last game and the title game. I have a different hypothesis: the Gators were better.
But the argument some still make to this day sparked some curiosity in me. Does the length of time between a team's last game and the national title game have an impact on that team's performance? Since we are in the BCS era, I looked at BCS national title games in addition to bowl games that figured in split national titles. The numbers are interesting. Of the nine bowl games with national title implications where the teams had different days off between games, six of them were won by teams with fewer days off.
Of the three teams that had more days off and won, the only team that had a difference greater than eight games was.....Ohio State, which had 16 more off-days than Miami leading up to the 2003 title game. For the 2007 title game, Ohio State had 14 more off days than Florida. As evidenced, it seems as if teams that have many more off days tend to not do as well as teams that have played more recently. The data is very limited, however, as it only looks at nine games. I will expand the research in the days to come.
HOWEVER, when it comes to Ohio State, how can you argue one way for one game, but be unable to explain how they beat a potentially all-time great team in Miami in 2003 with many more days off? I'll say this much in Ohio State's defense, the 50 days off is the most - by five days - of any team to compete in the title game, and they did it twice. The average winning team had 35 days off between games, which seems to be about the optimal amount of time between games.
Here's an interesting stat from the research: When teams have a difference of seven or more off-days, the team with fewer days off has a 6-2 record. I will look at other games to increase sample size.

**Teams in bold are the winning teams when there was a difference in off-days
1999 BCS Title Game - Florida State (44 days off) vs. Tennessee (28 days off)
2000 BCS Title Game - Florida State (44 days off) vs. Virginia Tech (38 days off)
2001 BCS Title Game - Florida State (45 days off) vs. Oklahoma (31 days off)
2002 BCS Title Game - Nebraska (41 days off) vs. Miami (32 days off)
2003 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (42 days off) vs. Miami (26 days off)
2004 BCS Title Game - LSU (28 days off) vs. Oklahoma (28 days off)
2004 Rose Bowl - Michigan (40 days off) vs. USC (25 days off)
2005 BCS Title Game - USC (30 days off) vs. Oklahoma (30 days off)
2006 BCS Title Game - Texas (31 days off) vs. USC (31 days off)
2007 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (50 days off) vs. Florida (36 days off)
2008 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (50 days off) vs. LSU (36 days off)
2009 BCS Title Game - Florida (32 days off) vs. Oklahoma (32 days off)
2010 BCS Title Game - Alabama (32 days off) vs. Texas (32 days off)
2011 BCS Title Game - Auburn (36 days off) vs. Oregon (36 days off)
2012 BCS Title Game - Alabama (44 days off) vs. LSU (36 days off)

Dwight Howard is Breaking Orlando's Heart

I very briefly met Dwight Howard at an Orlando Magic charity golf tournament I was volunteering at when I was in graduate school. I was at hole 8, and my job was to greet the golfers and to answer any questions they may have had about the course. I met many different people and saw a few basketball players that day, but I cannot forget the sight of Dwight Howard. I've met many tall people before, but the sight of Howard was something that I had never seen since or before in person. The dude was huge. He was as tall as anyone I'd ever seen but built like a body builder. 

Just recently, I saw New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler at a Whole Foods in New York and he was a sight to behold, but he was nothing compared to Howard.

This guy can fly. 

I'll always remember Howard because he was one of the few people that day who actually took the time to acknowledge my presence by saying a friendly "what's up, man" and waving to me. That went a long way in forming my opinion of him. Since that day I became a fan of his the way we become fans of people we think are decent human beings.

My first job out of graduate school was with the New Orleans Hornets as a salesperson. I was fortunate enough to get tickets for the NBA's 2008 All-Star Game and festivities, and was at New Orleans Arena when Howard put on his Superman cape and electrified the building with his super dunk (it was more like a nasty throw down). I cheered for him and the Magic during the 2009 Finals, when Howard broke out as a legitimate superstar. Like I said, I'm a fan. 

But things change, and people also change. All you ever saw in the media was how lovable and friendly Howard seemed to be. I coupled my one encounter with him and what the media showed and I bought into the persona of Howard being quite possibly the coolest basketball player on the planet. 

A year later, and Howard's reputation has taken a beating. The latest news is that he's demanding a trade to the Brooklyn Nets after he had committed to staying with the Orlando Magic only a few months ago (by the way, New York sports talk is going banana-crazy over the prospect of Howard in Brooklyn). He's been blamed for firing a respected head coach, the resignation of the team's President, and the firing of the team's general manager and six members of the team's scouting department.

It's like he's left a trail of burning, charred debris in Orlando and he's running for the exits. He's made mistakes, but I'm still a Howard fan because I think he's a good person. I hope that as his fame has grown that he hasn't lost his moral compass. I can understand Howard's frustration with the Magic organization. The talent that has been around him will never be enough to compete with Miami, Boston, or a healthy Chicago. 

I could go on and on about what I think he should do, or what I hope ends up happening. But I think Howard is going to force his way out of Orlando, and the city will have its heart broken once again. I can only think about how many titles Orlando would have if Shaquille O'Neal had never left, or what kind of impact Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill would have had if Hill had managed to stay healthy. Shaq left Orlando in 1996 when he bolted for Los Angeles. Howard came along eight years later to try and erase the haunting memory of losing Shaq. Now it seems that rather than helping to heal some old wounds, Howard is going to open new ones. 

The city built a beautiful new arena, with Howard intended to be its crowned jewel. But again, another transcendent talent wants to pack his bags and leave that small market for the glitz of a metropolis. This is sports now at the beginning of the 21st century -- money and fame meant to create a loyalty it could never buy. The result of which is a bitter backlash of unmet expectations from everyone involved that can only be derived from the promises of wealth and fame. Howard was never immune from it all, but we wanted him to be. I'm going to keep cheering for Dwight, cheer for him to come as close as he can to that night in New Orleans when he was Superman.

Coaches on the Hot Seat Using Win Gain Differential

Earlier this summer I introduced a stat called the win gain. Essentially, it takes a look at a coach's first four years as well as the last year of his predecessor. For instance, in order to calculate Urban Meyer's win gain at Florida, we would take the Gators' record in Ron Zook's last season, and then we would look at the total wins in each of Meyer's first four seasons. Zook's final season yielded a 7-6 season, after which Meyer was able to reel off 9-3, 13-1, 9-4, and 13-1 seasons in his first four years. After four seasons, Meyer had a positive win gain of 6 - a very good number.

The hottest seat in America belongs to WSU's Paul Wulff.

In a previous post, I established that a positive win gain of any sort almost automatically insured a coach would keep their job for at least another season. A neutral win gain and coaches were still likely to keep their jobs, and a negative win gain after four years meant that a coach was likely to lose their job.

Which coaches entering their fourth year in a BCS conference are on the hot seat, and what records must they reach in order to keep their jobs? First, let's take a look at the guys that appear to be safe. Including Hawaii, which made a BCS Bowl appearance in the 2008 Sugar Bowl, there are 11 coaches entering their fourth seasons among BCS teams. The coaches that are safe are Bobby Petrino, Houston Nutt, Bo Pelini, Mike Sherman, Art Briles, and David Cutcliffe. What would it take for any of these coaches to be fired? Let's take a look.

Bobby Petrino is coming off a 10-win season and Sugar Bowl appearance and has a positive win gain of 2. A seven-win season could have some Razorback fans angry given their high expectations and could be enough to force Petrino out of town. Petrino has Arkansas on the upswing and many would not be shocked if they are in the hunt for the SEC West title late in the season.

Houston Nutt is coming off a disastrous 4-8 season, but his first two seasons at Mississippi included two 9-4 campaigns. If Nutt can only muster a three-win season, he may be packing his bags out of Mississippi. However, his team is expected to improve upon last year's miserable record.

Bo Pelini has gone 9-4, 10-4, and 10-4 in his first three seasons. He has a positive win gain of five, so it would take about a five-win season to get him out of town. Not gonna happen.

Mike Sherman is coming off a successful 9-4 season and Texas A&M is considered by many a dark horse candidate to win the Big 12, and even make a run at the national title. Sherman has a positive win gain of 2, so barring a season where he only wins six games, he should be safe.

Art Briles has brought optimism to the Baylor program by recruiting blue-chip players like quarterback Robert Griffin. After posting consecutive 4-8 seasons in his first two years, Briles finally broke out with a 7-6 campaign in 2010. This year, his Baylor squad is expected to be a middle-of-the pack team capable of competing with almost everyone on its schedule. Unless Baylor reverts to another four-win season, Briles should come back to the lead an emerging Baylor program.

David Cutcliffe inherited a one-win program at Duke and has since gone 4-8, 5-7, and 3-9. He has a positive win gain of 2, so unless he posts a one-win season, which he won't, he'll be safe to coach at Duke for another season and hopefully take the perennially lowly Duke football team to a bowl game.

We now come to the five coaches that are on the hot seat heading into their fourth season. You might be surprised to see the first coach on this list.

Paul Johnson brought the option attack from Navy to Georgia Tech and was widely successful in his first season, capturing coach of the year honors for the Yellow Jackets. In his second season, his team won the ACC Championship. Then came the third season and an ugly 6-7 campaign. After three seasons, Johnson has a negative win gain of -1. It is very likely that another six-win campaign at Georgia Tech, along with recent NCAA sanctions, would be enough for Johnson's exit. Johnson needs at least a seven-win season to make an argument for keeping his job.

Dabo Swinney is actually only entering his third full season as head coach, after taking over Tommy Bowden midseason in 2008 and going 4-3 the rest of the way. In his second season, he led the Tigers to the ACC Championship game where Clemson lost to Georgia Tech. But last season the Tigers reverted to 6-7, despite a very talented roster. There's a lot of pressure this season for Swinney to make Clemson competitive again, and he needs an eight-win season to keep his job.

Greg McMackin is coming off a 10-win season at Hawaii, so he should be a lock to keep his job after his fourth season, right? Wrong. His first two seasons, McMackin went 7-7 and 6-7, before his 10-game breakthrough. McMackin needs to show that a 10-win season was no fluke and also at least another seven-win season to keep his job.

Rick Neuheisel has gone 4-8, 7-6, and 4-8 at UCLA and was expected to compete with neighboring Southern Cal. Ouch, that hasn't even come close to happening. He needs to win at least seven games -- prior to a bowl game -- to have a good shot at keeping his job.

Paul Wulff has gone 2-11, 1-11, and 2-10 in three seasons at Washington St. I don't see any silver lining here, but if he can somehow win at least six games to make a case for keeping his job. It will take a seven-win season to absolutely keep his job. But even that might be asking for too much.

Among coaches entering their fifth season, Nick Saban, Mark Dantonio, and Tom O'Brien are safe. But Dennis Erickson at Arizona St. needs at least eight wins -- prior to a bowl game -- given ASU's high expectations this season and the fact that the Erickson era has been a major disappointment following a 10-win inaugural season.

Will Miami Scandal Signal the End of ACC Football?

Was this guy's stolen money worth it Miami? 

Ever since I heard about the Miami allegations, I've been in a daze. The worst part will be the wait to find out what happens. It's been more than a year since the allegations at North Carolina, and they still don't know what kind of sanctions they're going to face, but they suspended a ton of players, Butch Davis was fired, and their athletic director is going to step down. In other words, a lot of bad stuff has happened at UNC, and this Miami scandal is much bigger than North Carolina's. The Shapiro story doesn't so much show a renegade program, but a program that purposely looked the other way, and that's bad enough. One of my friends thinks Miami is going to get off easier than Southern Cal, but I think he's in denial. The process needs to be played out, but I'll come out and say I believe about 80 percent of what Shapiro is saying, and even if only a quarter of what he said is true, it's still the worst story about a program in more than 15 years (Alabama).

What I think will happen: 2 year bowl ban, about 35 scholarships reduced over a 3-year period, and a ban from TV for one year. I hope it's not that bad, but a part of me thinks the sanctions could be much worse. If I were working at Miami, I'd suggest voluntarily giving up going to a bowl game this year so that future football players aren't penalized. The biggest tragedy of all? Just as Shapiro was out of the picture, and the Hurricanes landed a great coach in Al Golden, and a lot of optimism was building around the program, none of it will matter. I think Golden sticks around for one season, proves his worth this season, and then leaves for Penn St. when Joe Paterno retires after this season. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but if I am, it's a result of the hangover I'm still feeling from reading the Yahoo! story. It's enough to make any college football fan sick to their stomach, and I'm not naive enough to think things like this aren't happening all over the country. Let me put it this way, does your school have millionaire alumni with outsized egos with a large interest in athletics? Yes, it does. You should be worried too.

Now to the question I asked at the beginning. Will this Miami scandal signal the end of ACC football? I watched the 30 for 30 documentary on Southern Methodist and everyone mentioned how the SMU scandal had the effect of destroying the Southwest Conference. If Miami is penalized the way I think it's going to be, and North Carolina also gets hit hard, then we're talking about a conference with some severe limitations. Throw in the fact that Florida St. and Virginia Tech have been mentioned as possible candidates to join the SEC, and the ACC looks like a radically different conference.

There has been speculation about the six current BCS conferences combining into four super conferences, with the Big East and Big XII being dismantled. But the Miami situation puts the ACC in a very fragile situation. It could be that the Big XII, with Oklahoma, Texas, up-and-comers Oklahoma St., and middle-tier Missouri and Texas Tech survives to expand to 16 teams, and the ACC and Big East are forced to join one of the four remaining conferences. Imagine if Florida St. joins the SEC, the banner program for the ACC would be Virginia Tech, and then who? A rebuilding Miami would be years away from being competitive again, so the second banner team would be Georgia Tech? Maryland? Boston College? And who would they pick up? USF? Pittsburgh? Syracuse? In other words, the ACC would be in the same category as the Big East, by far the two weakest conferences of the six BCS conferences.

The repercussions for Miami will last a long time. I think it's going to be a much harsher repeat of the mid-90's when the NCAA imposed a one-year bowl ban and a reduction of 24 scholarships over two years. Who's to blame? First and foremost, the Miami administration for chasing money and enabling a booster like Nevin Shapiro, then Shapiro for just coming into the consciousness of Miami athletics, and then all the players who knowingly broke the rules and disregarded Randy Shannon's warnings to stay away from Shapiro. The NCAA is going to put the "U" in for extended nap time, let's just see where the dominoes fall for the rest of the teams affected by Miami's inability to monitor itself.

AP Preseason vs. Final Polls

When it comes to picking a champion prior to a season beginning, it makes sense to stick with the prohibitive favorite. But if one is trying to pick a national champion, the AP Poll can lend a good framework with some exceptions. Take a look at the preseason Top 10 poll from the 2010 season. There were two teams, Florida and Texas, that started the season ranked in the Top 5 but that did not even finish in the Top 25. Texas finished with a 5-7 record. Nebraska, Virginia Tech, and Iowa finished outside of the Top 10, with Virginia Tech finishing 16th, Nebraska 20th, and Iowa outside of the rankings. So which teams managed to finish in the Top 10 that started in the AP Top 10? Alabama (1st to 10th), Ohio State (2nd to 5th), Boise State (3rd to 9th), TCU (6th to 2nd), and Oklahoma (7th to 6th). Two of the teams that started the season in the Top 10 finished the season in the Top 5. 

AP 2010 Preseason Top 10 Poll

1	Alabama (54)	0-0	1491
2	Ohio State (3)	0-0	1400
3	Boise State (1)	0-0	1336
4	Florida	0-0	1237
5	Texas (1)	0-0	1223
6	TCU	0-0	1160
7	Oklahoma (1)	0-0	1104
8	Nebraska	0-0	1033
9	Iowa	0-0	1007
10	Virginia Tech	0-0	973

   
AP 2010 Final Top 10 Poll 

1	Auburn (56)	14-0	1472
2	TCU (3)	13-0	1392
3	Oregon	12-1	1379
4	Stanford	12-1	1300
5	Ohio State	12-1	1220
6	Oklahoma	12-2	1108
7	Wisconsin	11-2	1055
8	LSU	11-2	1051
9	Boise State	12-1	1031
10	Alabama	10-3	961

Now let's look at where three teams that finished in the Top 5 that did not start in the Top 10, started in the preseason rankings. Auburn won the national championship and was ranked 22nd in the AP Preseason, Oregon finished third and started 11th, and Stanford finished 4th while starting unranked.
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Remarkably, out of the teams that started in the Top 10 in the 2009 season, seven finished in the Top 10. And of the teams to finish in the Top 5, four of them started in the Top 10.


AP 2009 Preseason Top 10 Poll

1	Florida (58)	0-0	1498
2	Texas (2)	0-0	1424
3	Oklahoma	0-0	1370
4	USC	0-0	1313
5	Alabama	0-0	1156
6	Ohio State	0-0	1113
7	Virginia Tech	0-0	1054
8	Ole Miss	0-0	1047
9	Oklahoma State	0-0	989
9	Penn State	0-0	989

AP 2009 Final Top 10 Poll

1	Alabama (60)	14-0	1500
2	Texas	13-1	1399
3	Florida	13-1	1370
4	Boise State	14-0	1366
5	Ohio State	11-2	1224
6	TCU	12-1	1163
7	Iowa	11-2	1126
8	Cincinnati	12-1	1060
9	Penn State	11-2	1016
10	Virginia Tech	10-3	953

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Of the teams to begin in the Top 10 in 2008, only four finished in the Top 10. Three of the teams in the final Top 5 began the season in the Top 10. For the most part it seems as if the AP Poll does a good job of pegging a few elite teams, but misses on surprise teams and other teams that are simply overrated. Of the past three AP Polls, two teams from the Top 4 have played in the BCS Championship Game, meaning that in the past three years you had a greater chance of looking outside of the Top 4 to find a national title game participant than in looking in the Top 4. However, look at the Top 5, and in the past three years, 4 of the six participants have started in the Top 5. 


AP 2008 Preseason Top 10 Poll

1	Georgia (22)	0-0	1528
2	Ohio State (21)	0-0	1506
3	USC (12)	0-0	1490
4	Oklahoma (4)	0-0	1444
5	Florida (6)	0-0	1415
6	Missouri	0-0	1266
7	LSU	0-0	1135
8	West Virginia	0-0	1116
9	Clemson	0-0	1105
10	Auburn	0-0	968

AP 2008 Final Top 10 Poll

1	Florida (48)	13-1	1606
2	Utah (16)	13-0	1519
3	USC (1)	12-1	1481
4	Texas	12-1	1478
5	Oklahoma	12-2	1391
6	Alabama	12-2	1264
7	TCU	11-2	1193
8	Penn State	11-2	1153
9	Ohio State	10-3	1013
10	Oregon	10-3	997