Bobcat Attack - Ohio Football - A Critically Flawed Approach to an Open-Ended Problem

Ohio Football Topic

Topic: A Critically Flawed Approach to an Open-Ended Problem

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bshot44

10/22/2015 12:59 PM

Facts.

MAC Since 2012

NIU 25-2
BGSU 19-7
Toledo 18-6
Ball St 17-7
CMU 14-10
Buffalo 12-11
Ohio 12-12
Kent 12-12
WMU 9-15
Akron 7-17
Miami 5-19
UMass 5-19
EMU 3-21

vs. "MAC Elite" since 2012 (over. 500 teams)

NIU 9-2
Toledo 7-5
Ball St 5-6
BGSU 2-6
Kent 2-8
WMU 2-10
CMU 1-8
Akron 1-8
Buffalo 0-8
UMass 0-8
Ohio 0-10
Miami 0-10
EMU 0-15

vs. "MAC Non-Elite" since 2012 (.500 or below)

BGSU 17-1
NIU 16-0
CMU 13-2
Ball St 12-1
Ohio 12-2
Buffalo 12-3
Toledo 11-1
Kent 10-4
WMU 7-5
Akron 6-9
Miami 5-9
UMass 5-11
EMU 3-6

We are a middle of the road (closer to the bottom than the top) program recently in this league. Totally unacceptable. Should be competing for titles and we barely battling to be .500.

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OhioCatFan

10/22/2015 2:07 PM

The rhetoric of some on here is beginning to resemble that of my old Buddy Chuck Landon. In a word, that's UNEXCEPTABLE! ;-)

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Casper71

10/22/2015 2:15 PM

Some people's attitudes towards this program remind me of the quote: YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

The facts speak for themselves and the records speak for themselves. This ship has sailed. It doesn't get much if any better than 2010 or so. I wish I could say I was wrong but all I can say is I am glad we are no longer the EMU of the conference! We have moved from poor to average with a flash of good every once in a while. We're all gonna have to learn to accept that for now.

Last Edited: 10/22/2015 2:16:55 PM by Casper71

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Monroe Slavin

10/22/2015 2:44 PM

bshot44 wrote:expand_more

I'm not sure that "facts" are allowed in these threads.

Oh. My bad. Facts are somewhat allowed....They just won't be acknowledged by many people.

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bshot44

10/22/2015 3:03 PM

Casper71 wrote:expand_more

Amen. I feel like so many try to sugarcoat everything. We are no longer the EMU...that is true...and we are all thankful for that.

But there are people who think we are closer to NIU than we are to EMU...and I'm not so sure of that all the time. We show it from time to time....but we are not there consistently.

"They are who we thought they were" Dennis Green nailed it. This Bobcat program is who they are. A middle-of-the-pack team in a middle-of-the-pack league. I wish it weren't the case, but until the facts change...it's the cold, hard truth.

Last Edited: 10/22/2015 3:03:49 PM by bshot44

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LuckySparrow

10/22/2015 5:51 PM

While injuries are no excuse, they certainly play a large role in the W/L records posted above.

We tend to start seasons off pretty well, with Ws against weaker MAC teams and non-conference foes.

We tend to play the MAC Elite towards the end of the season. And for the past few seasons (now, including this one since all our LBs are hurt) we have been demoralized by injuries it seems. This has lead to getting slaughtered but the MAC Elite over and over.

To win a MAC title, I feel like you need a lot of things to break your way, injuries being one of them. Your team needs to be on the upswing as the season ages. I feel like Solich has acknowledged this problem and tweaked practices so that our team will be stronger towards the end of a long season.

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The Situation

10/22/2015 6:50 PM

Monroe Slavin wrote:expand_more

You don't specifically state what the 73% that such as me exclude. I'm presuming that it's the games in Solich's first 10 years.
[/QUOTE]You mean like here?

The Situation wrote:expand_more

In your spare time you've drawn a defined circle around a specific grouping of teams over a number of seasons. And you've chosen to exclude 73% of the games outside of that circle. These are Ohio football games played during the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons.

Oh here?

The Situation wrote:expand_more

I cut you off mid-sentence, and politely request the justification for excluding 73% of the data over that three season period (2012-2014).

The included data as described by Paul Graham in his "Ohio vs. Top of the MAC" thread:

2012
Kent - Lost 28-6 (-22)
Ball State - Lost 52-27 (-25)
Bowling Green - Lost 26-14 (12)

3/13 games played = 23%

2013
CMU - Lost 26-23 (-3)
Buffalo - Lost 30-3 (-27)
Bowling Green - Lost 49-0 (-49)

3/13 games played = 23%

2014
CMU - Lost 28-10 (-18)
Bowling Green - Lost 31-13 (-18)
WMU - Lost 42-21 (-19)
NIU - Lost 21-14 (-7)

3/12 games played = 25%

The excluded data over that period = 29/38 = 76%

This included list is more or less the "what MAC teams have we beaten in the last 2.57654321 years" rant you usually cram into any thread.

And as MonroeClassmate so astutely pointed out, some of the weakest teams in the MAC can cost you a trip to Detroit. Therefore, (even for those solely focused on the MAC Championship), excluding Ohio's record against the weakest MAC teams is a critically flawed approach.

Monroe Slavin wrote:expand_more

Your analysis seems to fail on two key points.

You're not even critiquing my original post. You're functionally worthless at reading comprehension. This is no surprise to me at this point. Your critique addressed incorrect assumptions YOU MADE UP BETWEEN YOUR OWN EARS!

[QUOTE=The Situation] The story was written to intentionally exclude the recommendation of the firm. That recommendation is left to the reader's imagination. As the reader sees fit, the tangible change may come in the form of a higher paid coach, new play calling, more BiGMaNZzzZz, a bigger stadium, a new conference, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps even a few readers could imagine the firm recommends no tangible action.

This story isn't about my opinion of the state of the Ohio Bobcats football program or about what I'd like to see done. This story isn't about suppressing other's opinion. You can plug in my opinion or your own into this story and the results will be the same. The approach was critically flawed, none of us would have landed a deal with such a brazen display of self-serving data manipulation.

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The Situation

10/22/2015 6:56 PM

Moreover, for all of the posters on this message board who have been down-right effusive about the "against top teams in the MAC stats" you would think at least one could at least try and come up with a quantifiable justification for excluding a majority of the data from the very data set they use to "prove their point".

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The Situation

10/22/2015 8:02 PM

Delete Pending wrote:expand_more

"Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change..."

OH GOD I HOPE MY CHILDREN NEVER GO TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.
[/QUOTE]That quote was taken severely out of context. If your children are anything like their father I hope they never go to journalism school.

[QUOTE=The Situation] Step outside of yourself for a moment. Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change of your choosing to the Ohio Bobcat football program.

If you think you and your "any man" income can impart a tangible change of your choosing on the Ohio Bobcats football program then I will refer you to the serenity prayer. God speed.

P.S.

If by chance you're implying I'm a school of business guy, I'll just address that by saying I'm an engineer.

Last Edited: 10/22/2015 8:04:15 PM by The Situation

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Paul Graham

10/23/2015 10:54 AM

The Situation wrote:expand_more

Ok, I'll take the bait. And I'll do so in the style of the OP...

Lets imagine that you work at Apple back in the mid 2000's and you are tasked with testing the accuracy of the GPS receiver in the iPhone 3G prototype. You're given the phone (don't lose it!), a secondary $10,000 dual-frequency GPS receiver that can provide you the "ground truth" (don't lose it!) and some software that records and displays the difference between the phone's position and the ground truth (or the "error").

You're driving around the suburbs in Cupertino and so far so good..the phone is providing the expected accuracy (10-20m or so??). You drive through Mountain View, Palo Alto...you stop in Palo Alto to get some coffee at Philz (a Mint Mohito) and suddenly the phone rings. Its Jobs himself! He needs you to drive into San Francisco and test the GPS there because he frequently gets lost navigating the city. You jump back in the car and head off.

You finally get to San Francisco (stupid traffic!) and you enter the Financial District...and suddenly the software is registering large deviations from the ground truth: 150m, 345m, 501m, 237m! You start to panic. Did I break something? Did I spill some Mint Mohito on the prototype? Oh lord Steve will have my head for this!

You drive back to Cupertino and tell the engineering staff and Jobs you broke the phone and submit your letter of resignation. They laugh loudly and inform you that nothing is broken...you just encountered the classic Urban Canyon phenomenon where GPS performs poorly when the receiver is surrounded by large buildings. But Jobs has a look of consternation across his face...

***And here's the important part.****

Jobs is concerned because even though only 27% of the GPS data showed significant deviation from the ground truth, that 27% demonstrated a significant flaw in the receiver. It's fine that 73% of the data showed the receiver performing well, but that was in a not-so challenging environment. He needs the GPS to work in places like downtown Chicago, Manhattan, Shanghai, etc... So he sets his engineering staff to work on reducing the error.

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OhioCatFan

10/23/2015 11:43 AM

Paul Graham wrote:expand_more

. . . Jobs is concerned because even though only 27% of the GPS data showed significant deviation from the ground truth, that 27% demonstrated a significant flaw in the receiver. It's fine that 73% of the data showed the receiver performing well, but that was in a not-so challenging environment. He needs the GPS to work in places like downtown Chicago, Manhattan, Shanghai, etc... So he sets his engineering staff to work on reducing the error.

And, do you recall a key to solving this problem? They added cellphone tower triangulation into the algorithm. I'm at a loss to figure out the football equivalent of that.

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Brian Smith (No, not that one)

10/23/2015 1:54 PM

The Situation wrote:expand_more

Delete Pending wrote:expand_more

"Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change..."

OH GOD I HOPE MY CHILDREN NEVER GO TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.

That quote was taken severely out of context. If your children are anything like their father I hope they never go to journalism school.

1. Oh wow. You actually read that seriously. You actually read one of my posts seriously. I purposely didn't quote you because I had no points to make, I had no fight in the inane discussion and I went for a pithy little joke. Do as everyone else does on here, ignore it, and move on with this fascinating thousands-of-words exchange about whether people on a message board are valid in criticizing a g'd Mid-American Conference football program. Because it matters very much. All of this matters very much and we should get very angry and very upset about it because it's football. It deserves all these words and time and angst.

2. If you can't take light ribbing about corporate jargon, good luck out there.

3. SYNERGY!

4. If my children want to go to journalism school, I will start laughing at them and show them one of my pay stubs from 2007 and then put my checkbook in a padlocked box so my wife won't be convinced by their doe eyes to write them a check to go to journalism school in the year 2033, a place everyone is illiterate and went to business school.

5. I BROUGHT IT ALL BACK AROUND!

Last Edited: 10/23/2015 2:10:47 PM by Brian Smith (No, not that one)

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El Gato Roberto

10/23/2015 2:56 PM

Last Saturday, I sat in the stands at Ryan Field on the campus of Northwestern U (see what I did there) and found myself surrounded by Iowa fans. This is one of the features of going to a game at NU - there is always ample seating for the visitors and as a result you get to meet a lot of interesting people. Last year we attended the Nebraska game (AKA The Knowledge Bowl -"what's the 'N' for?" ) The Nebraska guys I met chatted me up because I was wearing my Ohio sweatshirt (purple is not in my color wheel) their defining characteristic was an undoubting passion and commitment to the Huskers and that they knew most of the players' first names. Now the Iowa fans I met were remarkably different. They had passion, but were not as aggressive. They were a pretty self-effacing bunch, in fact. Many of the ones around me seemed micro-focused on their dissatisfaction with their Head Coach. While the game was still in question I was impressed at the bile and overall negative feelings toward their coach. When things went their way it was chalked up a "gift from Northwestern". As the lead grew they never seemed satisfied, in fact, there were many of them who actually seemed disappointed that Northwestern was such an easy opponent. They had become accustomed to their dissatisfaction.

As I left my little section of the stadium I thought to myself how miserable it must be to not take the time to enjoy the moment. Maybe there's just too much Cub fan in me for my own good.

Last Edited: 10/23/2015 3:21:39 PM by El Gato Roberto

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OU_Country

10/23/2015 3:11 PM

El Gato Roberto, the group of Iowa fans you describe sound like a lot of Bengals fans I hear on the radio or talk to. They can't enjoy the fact that they root for a team that's headed to a fifth straight playoff spot, and instead still focus on Andy or Marvin's past "failures".

Maybe being a Cubs or Browns fan isn't as bad as I make it out to be. Hmmmm....

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Monroe Slavin

10/23/2015 4:46 PM

Manny--

Swept up in your emotional dislike of me, you're not going to get the following. But I swear it's posted with good intent and to help you.

I write stuff on these threads that's difficult to understand at times. Sometimes, I do it go goof around. Sometimes I do it because I'm an idieot and I'm not expressing my thoughts clearly.

In your posts here, you are not clear.

You titled this thread 'a critically flawed approach.' I get that you meant to say that others are pursuing a bad approach. But when you title your thread that way, it seems as if you're saying that you're going to present a flawed approach. Better title: Here's what some of you don't get.' Something like that.

You wrote: "you've drawn a defined circle around a specific grouping of teams over a number of seasons. And you've chosen to exclude 73% of the games outside of that circle. These are Ohio football games played during the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons."

You have a lost referent that makes your lead sentence impossible to understand. What is 'the circle' and 'the number of seasons'? You don't clearly define these term. Arguing with me that you do--well, that's more a judgment for the reader, the intended audience to make than the writer. (It doesn't help if I know what I meant if my audience doesn't grasp what I mean.)

I took 'circle' to be Solich's whole career at Ohio. Apparently (from your later posts), the circle is only those games played in 2012, 2013 and 2014. 'Number of seasons'--don't see that clearly defined anywhere. I might get it if I read and re-read your initial post and pieced it together--but that's not my job as the reader.

In a later post in this thread, you said that you were describing the games which Paul pointed to in his 'how have we fared against the top of the MAC in 2012-14.' How in the heck was I supposed to know that. It's not stated explicitly in your lead post here and, again, it sure wasn't anyhow clear until you did state it in a later post in this thread.

You should have just more clearly stated: Some of you are looking only at 2012-14 and taking only 27% of the games played in those three seasons.

Let me stop to breathe and continue this in another post...this one's too long already.

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Monroe Slavin

10/23/2015 4:52 PM

(continuing)

And, you tend to 'write like an engineer.' Excuse the necessary length I have to go to in these posts to identify and explain, but, my goodness your lead post in this thread is long and wandering and more stream-of-consciousness than clear and coherent. Again, I'm not trying to upset you. I'm trying to help.

Then, you have flaws in your logic. That we beat a team that beat a team that won the MAC is silly. You could do that linking and probably prove that we beat a team that beat a team, etc that beat the national title game winner so we were the best team in college football in a given year.

Those who share my point of view, who get that life is about key moments and that not every game or experience is of equal value (so, everyone does not get a trophy), understand that beating teams that are clearly worse than us brings no particular credit. If we played a series of elementary schools, we'd go undefeated. Would that have everyone thinking that we were a terrific team?

Against a mediocre team, the result only matters if we lose. Then, it matters in a hurtful way. Beating a team that's truly mediocre has to be assumed--no particular credit for that.

So, only certain games really matter: The games against the top teams in MAC. Because if we win those games, we've beaten a worthy opponent and, in many cases, inflicted a loss on a team that was truly competing against us for the division or conference championship.

Beat miami and we have a W but no gain no true advantage over true competition for the East title . Beat BG and we gain a division win and inflict a hurtful loss on a true foe for the division title.

I know that we'll never agree on this but I don't get how you can look at Paul's thread about how we've fared against the top of MAC starting with (and since) 2012 and not be very, very concerned. That's over a 3 year spread. And most of those losses were horrible. Did you see them all? I did.

Why only look at the games against MAC? Because why be in MAC if winning it's title is not paramount?

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Paul Graham

10/23/2015 5:36 PM

OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more

Paul Graham wrote:expand_more

And, do you recall a key to solving this problem? They added cellphone tower triangulation into the algorithm. I'm at a loss to figure out the football equivalent of that.

cellphone tower=BIGMANZ??? :)

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OhioCatFan

10/23/2015 5:57 PM

Paul Graham wrote:expand_more

cellphone tower=BIGMANZ??? :)

Might work. Will Irons qualify as a BIGMANZ if he plays in non-garbage time and runs people over?

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Bcat2

10/23/2015 6:01 PM

OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more

Paul Graham wrote:expand_more

cellphone tower=BIGMANZ??? :)

Might work. Will Irons qualify as a BIGMANZ if he plays in non-garbage time and runs people over?

A healthy Lowery would qualify.

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The Situation

10/23/2015 7:02 PM

Delete Pending wrote:expand_more

The Situation wrote:expand_more

Delete Pending wrote:expand_more

"Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change..."

OH GOD I HOPE MY CHILDREN NEVER GO TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.

That quote was taken severely out of context. If your children are anything like their father I hope they never go to journalism school.

Did you really write all that to say "you don't care" to a guy who just returned from a 9 month hiatus from BA? Put your money where your mouth is and disappear.

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The Situation

10/23/2015 7:03 PM

Monroe,

Lol.

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The Situation

10/23/2015 7:13 PM

Paul, in your story the 73% of data got the protagonist to San Francisco. In the football comparison the 73% of data can't even be used. Your guy never even gets to San Francisco.

And that's be trying to relate as much as possible, otherwise I don't see the connection to the original post. But nice effort.

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Mark Lembright '85

10/23/2015 9:39 PM

OU_Country wrote:expand_more

Let me tell ya, IT SURE AIN't EASY BEING A BROWNS!! The Browns drive me nuts.

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Paul Graham

10/24/2015 1:40 AM

The Situation wrote:expand_more

Ok, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree! :)

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