secfans.com breaks down the PSU game

Submitted by poseidon7902 on November 1st, 2018 at 8:45 PM

Decent break down of the stats and trends to break down how Michigan and PSU will play out.  They talk the teams as a whole including player breakdowns for Shea and Trace up till about the 15 minute mark, then start to break down the computer models and stats.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv7U23-iopU

 

bronxblue

November 1st, 2018 at 9:53 PM ^

This was posted earlier, and the same holds true now as it does then - their model is fine, but when a core part of it is "raw" numbers not accounting for quality of opponent, I am skeptical.

Njia

November 1st, 2018 at 10:37 PM ^

I finally got around to watching the clip after seeing the discussion thread a few days ago. My sense is that the intangible that their model (and no model, really) can account for is the style of coaching. Harbaugh does not care whether he wins by 1 or 50 points; he just wants the "W." That's a very NFL-based perspective, and it impacts the game planning as well as in-game decisions that he makes.

Franklin, by contrast, is 100% a college coach. He seems to want to score as many points as possible, and goes for the big home-run plays on almost every drive. That's a highly variable style of coaching; and, when combined with his nonsensical, in-game decisions (like icing his own kicker with a saved timeout, or reverting to tendencies that have been game-planned by the opposing defense when the game is on the line in the 4th quarter) lead to points scored against his team, and points not scored by his own team.