Football analysis and strategy from Chris B. Brown
New podcast with the Solid Verbal on the BCS bowl games
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New podcast with the Solid Verbal on the BCS bowl games
I did a podcast with the great Ty and Dan of the Solid Verbal, previewing all the BCS bowl games. Listen to it here (and on iTunes as well).
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Q&A on Holgorsen’s West Virginia “Airraid”
It’s up over at the great Clemson blog, ShakintheSouthland, in anticipation of the Orange Bowl between Clemson and West Virginia. One clarification: In the Q&A I say I “agree” with Holgorsen’s preference for fullbacks over tight-ends. It should say that I “disagree”:
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Things that are self-recommending – football statistics edition
Bill Connelly — the college football expert for Football Outsiders — has a new SBN Blog, Football Study Hall; such a fact is high on the list of self-recommending things. The idea for the site is to provide a one-stop shop for advanced stats for college football, with a bit more of a fan-flavor than…
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Smart Notes – Bill Simmons, football in 1938, Mark Cuban – 2/19/2011
Football has changed. The New Yorker (yes) writes about one of the handful of most famous football players of the day, in 1938, and this is what it had to say: Bill Platt is just about what you’d expect the captain of a Yale football team to be — tall, heavy, blond, and offhand. We…
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Smart Notes – Trick passes, Rich Rodriguez, Emory Bellard- 2/12/2011
This has already gone everywhere: There are two lessons to this: (1) this kind of trickery doesn’t always translate well to actual playing time, and obviously playing quarterback requires a lot of skills beyond this sort of thing and (2) this is still great stuff, but, related to (1), the football being an extension of…
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Smart Links – 2/9/2011
First, the chill: Explanation here. See also this paean to collegiate sports, also courtesy of EDSBS. – Are schools getting better at gaming the NCAA’s rules system? Blutarsky summarizes: “So while major infractions over the past decade maintained the same pace as they did in the 1990s, the NCAA categorized them more mildly (the “didn’t…
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Smart Notes – Venn Diagrams, Bowl Ratings, Kragthorpe – 1/20/2011
On the Diagrammatic and Mechanical Representation of Propositions and Reasonings, via Google Books. (Click to enlarge.) – Bowl Ratings drop 9%, via WizOfOdds: A lot of this was predictable since so many bowls were moved to being on ESPN (and thus not on network television), but still an interesting datapoint. – The Fulmer Cup lives,…
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Smart Notes – Brady Hoke, Belichick, Chip Kelly’s offense next year – 1/12/2011
Hoke-a-mania. Michigan has hired Brady Hoke, prodigal son most recently of San Diego State. I don’t know much about Hoke — seems like a solid guy and he obviously wanted the job. The rumor is he’s bringing Al Borges with him to be offensive coordinator; I’m already getting lots of questions about his so-called “Gulf…
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Limiting possessions key to victory?
Chase, from the comments: I agree that blitzing is not necessarily a good underdog strategy, because limiting possessions seems to be the biggest underdog key. People talk about controlling the clock, but that doesn’t make any sense in a vacuum. When Miami held the ball for over three times as long as the Colts in…
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Smart Links – Strategery round-up – 1/3/2011
Along the Olentangy has some great previews of Arkansas in anticipation of Ohio State’s bowl game. As Ross notes, Petrino’s likes to gash the opposite over the top with big plays, including on the great “Mills” pass Spurrier made famous: And when not throwing the deep ball, Petrino’s favorite series is the shallow or drive…
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