The Luckiest Teams of 2009 (updated with Michigan 2008)

this confirms what I've been telling friends and family wrt Michigan's '09. and if we'd gotten that extra win, nobody'd be complaining/fretting for this season.

could you run this for '08 too? i assume Michigan was somewhat unlucky that season as well, as expected for any team that performs below average.

I'm a bit surprised that Michigan was the 20th-most unlucky team in the country, given that their win total was just one fewer than would have been predicted statistically. In contrast, I thought that the 2008 Michigan team was considerably more unlucky. (Did you do this analysis for 2008?)

Other data support your analysis. In games decided by 3 points or less, Michigan went 1-2. In games decided by 6 points or less, Michigan went 2-3. And that doesn't count the Illinois game, where Michigan was a yard away from going up by 2 touchdowns in the second half. One can quite easily see that, with just average luck, one of the three closer games, or the Illinois game, probably would have been a win.

Butler Butler Butler

great analysis. Always nice to see factors like this and I think the year in year out will most likely show something similar to the turnover factor in that it's extremely random but can have a major impact on the season. Here's to hoping that luck swings in our favor next year so we can hang on to RR for a few more years.

...good teams make their own luck. Of course there's no way to prove what's determinative, but things like Roundtree getting dragged down at the one foot line (UFR) shouldn't normally matter as punching it in from there should be a given (for a good team).

I'm convinced that an additional year of experience in RichRod's offense and the availability of two QBs who are not true freshman is going to allow the team to make a lot more of its own luck on offense in 2010.

I agree with you, man

A onside kick recovery against and a miss PAT--two plays that if percentages fall as they should dont happen--in the Purdue game is what separated us from a bowl game and about 75 percent less angst this off season.

Its a fine line. Always.

Also: Great diary as always by the Mathlete

Northwestern's luck was aided by a senior QB. Its funny how teams with experienced and good QBs seem to make their won luck

Good post, their were so many things that didn't go our way in the Purdue game. This year though hopefully the little things go our way.

Iowa was pretty lucky last season. Lucky that MSU let them score a TD in like a minute and lucky that they blocked 2 FG in a row against Northern Iowa.

Whew, I saw that and instantly was terrified that Michigan was somehow "lucky" last year--regardless of how horrible their luck actually was.

It's interesting that MSU came in below Michigan in the Big 10. Notre Dame I'll buy, but MSU didn't seem like things went too badly for them (outside of the normalized "Sparty Error" that affects them at all times).

the difference between exceeding expectations and performing below them is a really thin line. Like 3 inches against Illinois. Or an on-side kick against Purdue. Or a clear-headed tate Forcier against Iowa on the last drive. Or a 1 inch longer arm on Brandon Graham against Ohio St and Terrel Pryor's screen pass for the TD.

Great job by The Mathlete as always.

FEEL unlucky...

check the correlation between '08/'09 luck and quarterback experience, or just experience more generally?

I'm sure our luck looked even worse because we had huge ball security problems that year.

I have a hard time believing that Northwestern won 6 games more than it statistically should have over two years.

Also, what is the average luck over all teams you studied. Off the top of my head it seems like luck (as you have defined it) should be a zero sum game. If one team is lucky, his opponent is unlucky. Thus it seems everything should average to zero in the end.

...the "luck" aspect of football can be boiled down to two or three big plays per game most often seem to dictate the outcome. We just didn't see enough of those last year.

On the plus side, the times they are a-changin.'

I'm not surprised that Northwestern is at the top. They have been infuriatingly lucky ever since Gary Barnett was coaching them.

have my babies? I want little mathletes.

great post. I wonder if you took this further back how would Northwestern, OSU, M appear. M for obvious reasons. Northwestern and OSU because it seems like Northwestern has been getting lucky like this for YEARS. The whole 2001 OSU national championship seemed ridiculously lucky and Tresselball in general seems to get really lucky.

I've found that net turnovers are fairly well correlated with the disparity of the matchup. How to measure the disparity? The closing spread on the game. For every 23 points a team is favored, they will average a +1 in net turnovers. Its a linear relationship.

So if a -23 point favorite suffers a -2 in the turnover category, they've been unlucky to the tune of about 3 turnovers, or about 10 points in that game.

If you run the numbers for all of Div I in 2009 Michigan does come up on the short end of the stick. But I can't recall that they made my Div I "most unlucky" list.

could you send me the data on this for the ACC? I'd love to write a post about this, crediting you, or perhaps you write one and I'll link to that. Great work.

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