SIAP: B1G Coaches on the most overrated statistic in football
I saw this a few days ago on r/CFB but hadn't seen it on the board yet.
Just like the title says, each coach tells us what they believe to be the most overrated statistic in college football. I'm not sure when this was recorded, but Frost and Chryst are not on here. Bonus points for any guesses about what Frost's response would have been.
Anyway, it gave me a good chuckle. Happy Monday, All!
October 10th, 2022 at 9:09 AM ^
I liked Harbaugh’s quote;
”Everything but points”
October 10th, 2022 at 11:11 AM ^
And he lives it. Understanding this would save a number of us some anxiety as we watch his teams just keep winning.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:09 AM ^
Not gonna lie, when Ferentz replied "offensive yardage" I had to check who tweeted this out to make sure it wasn't some kind of deep fake. But I guess that kind of summarizes Iowa football.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:17 AM ^
Let the investigation commence.
October 10th, 2022 at 10:27 AM ^
It's not crazy. They've had a ton of success and you can see they're a pain in the ass to play against even when you have a clear talent advantage.
Field position, turnovers, and making sure you only give up 3 instead of 7 and 0 instead of 3 has a lot of impact. We were only up 13 against them despite what felt like total domination at halfitme.
That said, as Seth alluded to, it's pretty tough to beat truly high-end teams like that. You're only built to win one way. But when you can't recruit at a very high level, building a strong identity as a program that gives you a chance to win every game ain't a bad way to go. We clown Kirk a lot, but there's a reason he's lasted as long as he has.
October 10th, 2022 at 10:32 AM ^
Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but given the smirk he had when he said that, I think Ferentz was in on the joke there.
Which is kind of funny to an outsider but would probably make me punch myself in the eye as an Iowa fan.
October 11th, 2022 at 9:11 PM ^
Uh, am I the only one here old enough to remember the days when we were regularly losing games and people were fine because, "dOn'T woRRy gUyZ, We gaINeD sO MaNy YarDZ!!!"
October 10th, 2022 at 9:12 AM ^
“All except points.” I love it. Illustrates that winning can be accomplished in a number of ways and it isn’t necessarily about a philosophy - super obvious Brohm, for example, believes in his style despite the evidence that his inability to run the ball and control the clock has killed Purdue at times. Same thing with Ferentz’s answer (eye roll). Happy our guy sees the big picture.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:13 AM ^
Mel Tucker, architect of the worst pass defense in FBS:
"Total pass defense."
October 10th, 2022 at 9:19 AM ^
MeL should actually argue points- because he’s getting paid no matter what
October 10th, 2022 at 10:43 AM ^
You missed an opportunity by capitalizing the L, but still spelling the name wrong. After last week, its MeLLLL.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:23 AM ^
I would have thought Mel's answer would be, "Being paid only what you're worth."
I guess that's not really a stat, but more an example of caveat emptor.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:28 AM ^
Sorry, Tuck. It's 10 yrs./95 million.
October 10th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
I thought he was being "tongue in cheek" like Kirk then I remembered he coaches MSU so no. Subtlety and nuance would not be his strong suit.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:16 AM ^
Ferentz -- "probably offensive yardage". Not sure if that was a joke or if he was serious, given that, you know, their offense sucks. I damn near spit my coffee.
EDIT: Franklin's response about penalties is a good one and I happen to agree. Because during the course of a normal game the penalties tend to balance out fairly evenly, usually. Unless it's Michigan - OSU 2016.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:36 AM ^
or UM-OSU 2006...
October 10th, 2022 at 10:15 AM ^
But... Crable...damn!
October 10th, 2022 at 9:50 AM ^
Not to mention how often teams with mediocre/good offenses often overcome penalties, especially on early downs.
Penalties CAN be killer depending on the situation but purely looking at # of penalties and penalty yards is dumb.
I'm going to now go rinse off since I agreed with Frames Janklin.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:18 AM ^
Gotta be how much you pay your head coach. Amirite, Mel?
October 10th, 2022 at 9:23 AM ^
boom.....roasted. +1 to you sir
October 10th, 2022 at 9:32 AM ^
Most self- serving, cover your ass responses:
Tuck: Total pass defense
Ferentz: Total offense
Allen: Time of possession
Although I agree with all the coaches who picked TOP.
October 10th, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^
Totally agree on all counts Comrade. TOP is the most overrated stat, and the Tuck/Ferentz answers were hilarious!
October 10th, 2022 at 12:20 PM ^
And Ryan Day stonewalling. Come up with something dude.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:35 AM ^
Tucker's response is hilarious...literally the one thing that they have been historically bad at, and it just happens to be the most overrated stat in all of football. At least he is putting his $ where his mouth is...this stat isn't important, so let's just go ahead and suck at it.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:37 AM ^
Frost's response would have been all stats that aren't '# of hard hits' are overrated.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:40 AM ^
BTW, where's Mickey Joseph's response?
October 10th, 2022 at 10:40 AM ^
Clearly it's the number of times your OL vomits during training camp.
October 10th, 2022 at 9:40 AM ^
Man...I listen to Franklin talk and he just comes off (at least to me) as the biggest douche I can think of in terms of coaching. Everything just sounds so fake. Cannot stand him.
Hope he kicks another FG down 30 on saturday.
October 10th, 2022 at 10:25 AM ^
Think Mel Tucker understands irony?
October 10th, 2022 at 10:27 AM ^
I thought wins were just a statistic...
/ducks
October 10th, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
At :19, you can see that Mel is drenched in sweat.
Just thinking about his pass defense clearly creates great stress and anxiety for him.
October 10th, 2022 at 1:18 PM ^
It really seems like he has something going on there. A few weeks ago he was absolutely drenched in sweat on a 60° day.
October 10th, 2022 at 12:19 PM ^
I don't like how they spoiled each coach's answer as a caption before the coach got a chance to finish speaking.
October 10th, 2022 at 12:38 PM ^
I was out mowing (in WV, not AZ) for hopefully the last time this year, and I was thinking about this question. What's somewhat ironic is that every one of those coaches employs a staff of people to do analytics and number crunching, so they care about the numbers beyond merely "points."
That said, what I was thinking about was that answer "points." The more precise answer is "point differential." A team with a point differential of +1 has probably lost about half their games, assuming a normal distribution of point differences in their games so far. But even a point differential of +20 might not tell the W-L story if the W's were blowouts over cupcakes, and the L's were heartbreak 1 point losses. However, a +20 where the mean=median=mode indicates a steamroller. Or SEC teams' non-conference games. ;-)
My personal favorite statistic is 3rd down conversion rate, as it will often (but not always) tell the story of a game. Some teams, however, rarely face 3rd downs ... they're all 1st-and-10, then 2nd-and-2, then 1st-and-10, 1st-and-10, TD.
I'm procrastinating. My wife has a honey-do list, and I'd rather not get into it ... :-)