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Topic: Its Conventional Wisdom

Topic: Its Conventional Wisdom

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Bobcatbob
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Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:14:42 PM

Its Conventional Wisdom

	Good call?
	Bad call?

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Play for the tie at home, the win on the road.

Do you agree?

Deciduous Forest Cat
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:17:43 PM

I have no problem with the call to go for two. I don't question the character or the guts of these guys or the staff. I just wonder if our players are being put in the best position to win. I really want to rail on some of those 3rd and long calls by the defense. We're in a good position to make a big stop and we're taking unnecessary chances.

Tyler
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:17:45 PM

Good call, especially after scoring on a hail mary with a huge swing in momentum

EastTennesseeBobcat
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:18:37 PM

I'm indifferent. I think maybe we kick it because we definitely had the advantage in the kicking game if we hold them, but I don't fault the effort. Brass balls.

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:20:53 PM

I favor going for two. But it doesn't matter.

This question is the proverbial sweeping the decks on the Titanic as it's about to hit the iceberg.

We got problems here. And they have nothing to do with this decision.

Where's the band?!
WHERE"S THE BAND?!

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Joe McKinley
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:21:36 PM

In this game you can make the case either way.

The momentum swing sets you up for a dramatic win.

On the other hand, I think we had the advantage in the kicking game which gives you a bit of a leg up in the OT.

Last year at North Texas, the call was a bit more obvious due to the weather conditions.

Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 10:29:07 PM

Joe McKinley wrote:

Not really. The win probabilities for an underdog are significantly weighted toward the 2-point attempt. This is accepted fact. When you are an underdog, whether you be at home or on the road, in a college football game you always take the opportunity to win the game, because tying the game suddenly returns the win probability back to the favorite.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE READ THIS PIECE. Skip to the part about JD Brookhart doing exactly what Frank Solich did tonight. He was successful, and everyone called his decision "gutsy." It wasn't gutsy, it was THE RIGHT STATISTICAL DECISION. When offered the chance to win on one play against a favored opponent, you take it.

(the whole "go for two on the road" phrase comes from the assumption that two equal teams are competing.)

PLEASE DEAR GOD READ THIS

http://cfn.scout.com/2/557921.htmlhttp://cfn.scout.com/2/...

I don't care what your experiences in life are. If you think we should have kicked the extra point you are wrong. You are as wrong as the person who holds a full house on the turn is when he curses himself for not folding after his opponent catches a quad on the river. Bad beats exist in the real world. Frank Solich made the right decision. In fact, the conditions under which it failed ought to sway you (if you are an irrational person who thinks numbers are the works of shamans and charlatans) because the play was not DEFENDED but failed because of BAD LUCK.

http://cfn.scout.com/2/557921.html

For emphasis. I didn't link you to one of several economic journal articles on the same topic because economics journals feature terribly-written articles by half-insane-half-genius economists crunching numbers in musty Ivy League basements.

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

Big Willy
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 11:15:39 PM

I assume we lined up and went for two. I think it would have been better to fake the kick and go for two. They wouldn't have expected a fake.

perimeterpost
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 11:21:24 PM

It was worth it just to hear Rob C say "guts". If I thought we were on our way to a 10 win season I would have said it was a bad call. Marshall has no kicking game, our kicker is great. But the reality is that we have a team that is lost and confused. If you're going to lose anyway, go out with your boots on, its less demoralizing than coming back, tying it up, and then falling apart in OT. Not being a defeatist, just saying it was worth a shot. And I don't even want to talk about the karmick double rainbow we're about to witness next week with EMU.

MY STATE. MY TEAM.

rw120555
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 11:35:20 PM

One of the things I learned from playing backgammon is that it is often better to try to win quickly than it is to let yourself die slowly. That is, going for it all on a single good percentage play often gives you a better chance than just letting things drag on and on and on.

Casper71
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/25/2010 11:53:43 PM

Willy, we scored a TD on a fake FG earlier. That would not have worked again.

Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 12:45:27 AM

rw120555 wrote:

This is a good way to explain why the 2-PAT is the optimal strategy without getting into the math.

realize that you have already beaten the odds once to tie at regulation and every successive iteration will present you with the same underdog odds. your likelihood of beating the odds in a repeated game gets smaller and smaller each iteration (overtime period).

Then consider that to guarantee victory, you are going to have to score a two-point conversion at some point. There is no other strategy that in a repeated game will ensure your victory. College football makes this convenient for us by forcing us to play the optimal strategy (and, alternatively, penalizing the favorite) after the second iteration (third, technically, since regulation was a game as well.)

So if you had a 33% chance to win the game, and you have a 45% chance of successfully completing the 2-PAT, take into account then that your overall odds will be reduced by the percentage of that iteration. Overtimes are non-timed periods so you would have to calculate what that constant modifier would be (what percentage of a game does one overtime period constitute) and the that would be how much your overall expected value would be.

Fortunately the dynamics of football make this even easier to illustrate. I said that to guarantee victory you will at some point have to score a 2-PAT. But what condition creates the decision path for the PAT? You have to score a touchdown, first.

Your 45% (i am making that up, there is an actual number that I looked up for the North Texas game when I explained this the first time because, assuming we and North Texas were even in ability (debate that as you may) we were the road team and thus the edge was with the home team. Anyway, that 45% is a far, far, far higher expected value than the likelihood of scoring a touchdown from the 25 yard line.

The same rule applies in a regular game situation if you're at the same point on the field. If your likelihood of reaching the end zone is 45%, and say we'll just give Matt Weller the benefit of the doubt and say he will make a field goal from that spot every time, the field goal is worth 2.9 points when compared against the expected value of going for the touchdown on fourth down.

You are helping your team lose by kicking the field goal. Obviously the pure points strategy only applies early in a tied game. The closer you get to the finish, based on the score, you can calculate whether to go for it or to kick. You'd like to think the football coaches would be aware of these basic odds -- a game of strategy and luck demands attention to them, as every good poker player knows the odds of every single decision he or she makes at the table -- but from what I've read they are woefully ignorant of them. One economist made a handy card that explains the odds for all game situations but it didn't get many takers.

Sports pundits argue today over the value of advanced statistical research in baseball over "gut feelings" and "trusting your eyes." But baseball is hundreds of years ahead of football when it comes to making decisions based on expected returns.

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

OhioCatFan
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 12:49:14 AM

Disagree with TB. In this case sending it in to OT gives MU a case of the nerves as they remember WVU game. All the MU fans around me were having fits saying things like, "Oh No, It's WVU all over again." The team couldn't escape having the same feeling. Statistics don't always capture the essence of a particular situation or moment in time.

iPhone post from Huntington.

Last Edited: 9/27/2010 12:37:28 AM by OhioCatFan

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Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 1:51:29 AM

OhioCatFan wrote:

Disagree with TB. In this case sending it in to OT gives MU a case of the nerves as they remember WVU game. All the MU fans around me were havings fits saying things like, "Oh No, It's WVU all over again." The team couldn't escape having the same feeling. Statistics don't always capture the essence of a particular situation or moment in time.

iPhone post from Huntington.

Not that you can quantify anxiety, nor reasonably assume an entire team would suffer from it, but the whole point is illustrated there. They lost because they were the underdog and they went to overtime. The anxiety isn't in regards to the overtime period, it's in the circumstances surrounding beating a favored rival. Only the neurotic have anxiety about doing what is expected to happen.

You go to the bathroom, and there is a probability of success and you hit the target and a probability of failure and pissing on the floor. The previous night you had food poisoning and threw up before you made it all the way to the toilet. The next day when you go to use the bathroom, do you have anxiety because of the mess you made the night before? No, because you've successfully hit the target for all of your life that you can remember. You have effectively eliminated failure as an option through the observation of success. But that same probability doesn't exist for when you got sick, because it's never a sure bet that you make it to a toilet in time.

So sure, you're emptying bodily substances into a toilet, but the rest of the situation is wildly different. In one you're accustomed to success and your confidence pushes the very idea of failure from your mind. The other one, well, that's why after you get sick once you tend to stay real close to that toilet bowl.

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

jdc1055
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 6:53:18 AM

You just scored a stunning last second touchdown. Marshall is reeling from it. The decision to go for two is sound. And even though I didn't get to see the replay of the 2 point conversion attempt it looked like the receiver that fell down was open uncovered. It was not the best camera work so I couldn't see exactly what did occur and it was not replayed where I had it streaming on my computer.

So now Frank has this in common with Tom Osborne. In the 1984 Orange Bowl, Turner Gill pitches to Jeff Smith on 4th and 8 and scores the touchdown. They can tie or win and Osborne chooses to go for 2. The pass attempt fails. Very few of the experts back then questioned Osborne and most all respected the call as the right one. I think this was too. Especially on the road as the underdog and with one of your very best defenders (Keller) on the sidelines on crutches. Overtime was a bigger risk with the offensive inconsistency.

Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 7:33:54 AM

jdc1055 wrote:

No, it was a bigger risk because we were underdogs.

We were underdogs because, among other reasons, we are an inconsistent team offensively.

You guys are thinking too hard about this.

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

ayfkm
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 9:07:54 AM

jdc, back then, there was no overtime. There is no comparison between the two games.

Last Edited: 9/26/2010 9:08:48 AM by ayfkm

Flomo-genized
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 9:37:56 AM

I liked the call to go for two initially, but once Marshall called time out to regroup I would have switched it up and played for OT. The two teams were sufficiently evenly matched that I don't think Burke's point about underdogs should have weighed much on the decision. That having been said, I can't fault Frank for going for the win.

Last Edited: 9/26/2010 9:45:28 AM by Flomo-genized

Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 10:16:48 AM

Flomo-genized wrote:

The only way the two teams could be evenly matched would be if Marshall had a significant injury. I simply cannot buy that if the teams played 100 overtime periods we would win more than about 25 of them.

Consider, too, that we already "beaten the odds" by connecting on the Hail Mary in the first place, which was a "bad beat" for Marshall. It would have been silly to willingly hand the odds advantage back to the Herd.

Last Edited: 9/26/2010 10:19:36 AM by Tim Burke

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

Flomo-genized
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 10:50:10 AM

The current Sagarin predictor ratings put Marshall at 63.30, and OU at 63.00. Admittedly that isn't the be-all, end-all, but I do think that the two teams were much more evenly matched than us only winning 1/4th of the time. Add in our momentum, and our apparent advantage in the kicking game, and I think that a reasonable case could be made that OT was the better bet than a one-play shot at victory.

That having been said, like I noted earlier, I can't really fault them for going for it. I just don't think that underdog status should have played much of a role, given the above.

Last Edited: 9/26/2010 10:54:22 AM by Flomo-genized

Big Willy
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 1:27:45 PM

jdc1055 wrote:

So now Frank has this in common with Tom Osborne. In the 1984 Orange Bowl, Turner Gill pitches to Jeff Smith on 4th and 8 and scores the touchdown. They can tie or win and Osborne chooses to go for 2. The pass attempt fails. Very few of the experts back then questioned Osborne and most all respected the call as the right one. I think this was too. Especially on the road as the underdog and with one of your very best defenders (Keller) on the sidelines on crutches. Overtime was a bigger risk with the offensive inconsistency.

That was a totally different situation. There was no overtime back then. If there had been an overtime rule, Osborne probably would have kicked for the tie and tried to win in OT. He was going for a National Championship with the win. He didn't want the game to end in a tie.

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 1:35:05 PM

WHO GIVES A FLIP. WE PLAYED SO POORLY AND STUPIDLY FOR ALMOST ALL OF THE REST OF THE GAME. IT WAS JUST PURE LUCK THAT WE GOT IN THAT POSITION (COMPLETED THE HAIL MARY). GAWD, IF WE'D'VE GOTTEN THE TWO, MANY OF YOU WOULD BE THINKING THAT WE'RE ACTUALLY PLAYING WELL AND ON OUR WAY TO A GOOD SEASON.

HEY, IT'S NATIONAL GIVE UP ANOTHER THIRD DOWN COMPLETION TO AN 0-3 TEAM DAY!

or maybe you prefer

NATIONAL USE THE PISTOL AS THE BASIS FOR RUNNING THE OPTION DAY!

then there's always

NATIONAL YANK YOUR QB JUST AFTER HE'S PASSED FOR A THIRD DOWN CONVERSION DAY!

Big Willy
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 1:40:25 PM

Casper71 wrote:

Willy, we scored a TD on a fake FG earlier. That would not have worked again.

I still think they would have been surprised. I believe most coaches would have kicked the extra point in that situation and that is probably what Marshall would have thought we were doing.

newb
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 3:53:39 PM

With the preceding penalty bringing us half the distance to the goal, we were too close for the extra point. Had to go for two. The whole team was in agreement. if Riley wasn't pushed down (as seen on replay by everyone but the refs) we would have had a fair shot. Whether or not he would have caught it we will never know.

Tim Burke
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RE: Its Conventional Wisdom

Posted: 9/26/2010 5:09:19 PM

Flomo-genized wrote:

Home field advantage has to be added onto that. Momentum does not exist.. I wish everyone here would stop pretending it does.

In order for you to have a better chance at winning in overtime than going for two, you will have had to turn your team into an enormous favorite. Remember: overtime is very short, so whatever advantage you claim to have had, ones that are entirely subjective and arbitrary, would have had to be so big as to make us a MASSIVE FAVORITE to overcome the weight of our being an underdog the entire game. We're talking like Ohio State-EMU level. 90-10.

Ohio '99 EMU '00 USF '08(?)

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