Outstanding listen as always. The coaches/agents tandem is very much akin to economic cartels. It would be very interesting to see an analysis on how much of an impact towards team wins coaches actually have, amidst all the other noise that contributes to on field results. May start working on that. My guess is, not enough to justify the money.
Did a bit of work on Clemson-specific data from 2008-2024, looking only at regular season games since bowls get wonky with participation and alternative goals etc.
In that time frame, I’ve accounted for 16 different on and off field variables, such as who was the listed offensive/defensive coordinator, who was starting qb, how many all Americans or all conference players were on the team, head coach’s salary rank among all fbs, etc.
Everything Ive included explains only about 15% of the variation in wins/losses outcomes, which is pretty low in the analytics world. The missing 85% is made of whatever wasn’t included, like what the left guard had for lunch before every game, kick off temperature, AD’s mood that week, etc. But I think mostly importantly it shows that, no matter how sophisticated a scheme is or how organized a staff is, 22 guys and 1 ball is roughly directed chaos, at best.
For those interested, Clemson does have a significant increase in win probably playing at home (no surprise). Night games home/away do not seem to matter. They have been significantly worse against the cocks in the timeframe than the rest of their competition. Trevor Lawrence apparently contributed to team wins 7x as much as Deshaun Watson did. But the biggest impact came from unaccounted for (see; institutional, cultural, fundraising, etc.) factors.
If anyone wants to see the data, just reach out to me or subscribe to @realpolytalk because I’ll be doing a deep dive on Clemson’s managerial economics at the end of the season.
Outstanding listen as always. The coaches/agents tandem is very much akin to economic cartels. It would be very interesting to see an analysis on how much of an impact towards team wins coaches actually have, amidst all the other noise that contributes to on field results. May start working on that. My guess is, not enough to justify the money.
Did a bit of work on Clemson-specific data from 2008-2024, looking only at regular season games since bowls get wonky with participation and alternative goals etc.
In that time frame, I’ve accounted for 16 different on and off field variables, such as who was the listed offensive/defensive coordinator, who was starting qb, how many all Americans or all conference players were on the team, head coach’s salary rank among all fbs, etc.
Everything Ive included explains only about 15% of the variation in wins/losses outcomes, which is pretty low in the analytics world. The missing 85% is made of whatever wasn’t included, like what the left guard had for lunch before every game, kick off temperature, AD’s mood that week, etc. But I think mostly importantly it shows that, no matter how sophisticated a scheme is or how organized a staff is, 22 guys and 1 ball is roughly directed chaos, at best.
For those interested, Clemson does have a significant increase in win probably playing at home (no surprise). Night games home/away do not seem to matter. They have been significantly worse against the cocks in the timeframe than the rest of their competition. Trevor Lawrence apparently contributed to team wins 7x as much as Deshaun Watson did. But the biggest impact came from unaccounted for (see; institutional, cultural, fundraising, etc.) factors.
If anyone wants to see the data, just reach out to me or subscribe to @realpolytalk because I’ll be doing a deep dive on Clemson’s managerial economics at the end of the season.