Your mom wins championships!
I respectfully disagree with Ivan Maisel's argument that in college football, defense no longer wins championships. To clarify, I don't think defense wins championships; I think the question he engages is inane. Of course defense (alone) doesn't win championships. It never did. Outscoring Your Opponent is the key to winning championships. OYO itself is composed of two parts: Points Scored (suggestively, “Offense”) and Points Allowed (“Defense”). If PS - PA is positive, you win. This holds even if PS is small (Offense is bad) or PA is large (Defense is bad). Observe the formula PS - PA involves a sort of comparison between Offense and Defense.
Perennial pigskin paradigm questioned
Oh boy, you're pretty proud of that, aren't you? Ouch.
How many coaches have you heard say, "If they can't score, they can't win." The problem is, in the 21st century, they can score.
If I am understanding correctly, and I may not be because of the distracting missing question mark at the end of the first sentence (what is your livelihood again?), you are arguing that because offenses have improved, defenses are less important. Moreover, you regard this inference as self-evident.
I find your use of the term “21st century” pompous and annoying.
I'm not sure we can be friends.
Defense wins championships? Look again. USC scored 55 points to humiliate Oklahoma and win the 2004 national championship.
Hmm, I see. If only Oklahoma had found some way of reducing the number of points scored by USC, thereby keeping USC's point total below its own. Is there a component of a football team devoted to keeping the opponent's point total as low as possible? 'cause that would be really helpful.
Your question mark key totally works.
A championship? Defense can't guarantee even a winning season. Ask Tennessee. The Volunteers last season finished seventh in Division I-A in total defense, allowing 298.2 yards per game. They finished second in I-A in rushing defense, giving up only 82.5 yards per game. And those stats went unsullied by a bowl game, because Tennessee finished 5-6.
I would bet anything Tennessee Outscored Its Opponent only 5 out of 11 times!
Texas and USC, on the other hand, finished in the top three in total offense.
Measured by points/game, Texas' defense was 4th, USC's 27th. Tennessee? 18th.
By yards/game, Texas' defense was 6th, USC's 40th. Also, you are lying. Tennessee finished 12th by this metric. Also, why do you single out rushing defense? If they were 7th (as in 12th) overall and 2nd in rushing, perhaps they were worse in passing. In fact you won't find them in the top 50, 215.7 being greater than 209.5.
So you are totally full of shit with respect to Texas; its defense was very good. You are mostly full of shit with respect to Tennessee, having engaged in both lying and emphasizing an irrelevant fact.
Were you a better journalist/columnist, you would have mentioned how USC's defense performed last year. It actually supports your point! But only better, not good: the rankings in isolation don't tell the whole story. You'd probably want to take account of strength of schedule. You'd also want to consider how the data is distributed. 60 yards/game separate the 1st and 14th ranked defenses; 45 yards/game separate the 14th and 40th(=USC) ranked defenses. It should be noted that USC led the nation in turnovers gained, explaining the disparity in points/game and yards/game. In the end, the points matter.
But you like yards/game. Let's do that.
By Mr. Maisel's own logic, offense doesn't even guarantee a winning season. In conclusion, his method of using facts/lies to support his point fails miserably.
But let's see what the other side has to say. You were kind enough to interview them, Ivan, which in part makes up for the lying you did above.
"Look at the game. The best offense ever," [Ole Miss coach Ed] Orgeron said, referring to Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush & Co., "couldn't win it."
"If you look at the play of the game for the national championship, it was still a fourth-and-two," [Ohio State coach Jim] Tressel said, referring to when the Longhorns stuffed the Trojans' LenDale White at the Texas 45 with 2:09 to play and USC leading, 38-33. "It still comes down to that."
The master of alliteration replies:
Yes, but isn't that the equivalent of praising the pitching in a 15-13 Yankees' victory because Mariano Rivera got the last out?
Good analogy, but you are missing the point. Sure, it's the equivalent of praising Mariano after a bloodbath. It's also the equivalent of using one event to decide a question which should be decided by observing many events, describing their outcomes numerically, analyzing those numbers, and converting some numbers thus obtained into explanations.
Dear Sirs:
You should be interested in what wins games in general, not just what wins championships. Even if you only care about championships, you should still analyze the entire seasons of the major contenders, not just one game between two of them. Even if you only care about championship games, you should analyze more than one of them. Even if you only care about one championship game, you should analyze more than one of its plays. Finally, even if you only care about one play in one game, I believe that play pitted one (1) offense against one (1) defense. The defense prevailed in this instance, agreed. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY THIS MEANS DEFENSE IS MORE IMPORTANT.
Your reasoning is poor and it doesn't support your position. You are as wrong as the sorry excuse for a writer who interviewed you ALTHOUGH, it seems, you are (unlike said writer) not a liar. Then again, I am learning your opinions from said liar, so I can't be positive.
Good luck next season.
Regards.
But back to your arc, author:
The advent of the passing game in general and the spread offense in particular has changed the eternal equation of the game.
Ooh, again, if only teams could react to improvements in offense!
If offense hasn't shoved defense off its throne, it has forced it to move over and share. Defense, by itself, is no longer enough.
DEFENSE BY ITSELF WAS NEVER ENOUGH. I HATE YOU.
Statistics back up the theory that offenses are moving the line of scrimmage farther forward than ever before. The average amount of total offense per game, points per game, and yards per play for all I-A teams has reached a level in each of the last five seasons that it had never reached prior to 2001.
You are using the word “statistics” to intimidate readers. You could have just stated those statistics and drawn your conclusions, but instead you chose to start by asserting authority without justification. Incidentally, I am not intimidated, see, e.g., all of the crap regarding Texas, USC, Tennessee above.
Now you're going to interview West Virginia coach and offensive innovator Rich Rodriguez, who's going to say all aspects of the game are important. Then Nebraska coach Bill Callahan is going to observe that "You gotta score points nowadays." But before all of that happens, you, Ivan Maisel, are going to embarrass yourself:
But before we all whip out our calculators and compare football cosines...
Did you mean for this to be homoerotic? What about mathematically illiterate? You succeeded on both counts.
In other sports news, the Boston Red Sox have decided to spend their past five games (a) losing two games to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to prepare for (b) getting swept by the Kansas City Royals. Yes, these Kansas City Royals. Rufffff.
Perennial pigskin paradigm questioned
Oh boy, you're pretty proud of that, aren't you? Ouch.
How many coaches have you heard say, "If they can't score, they can't win." The problem is, in the 21st century, they can score.
If I am understanding correctly, and I may not be because of the distracting missing question mark at the end of the first sentence (what is your livelihood again?), you are arguing that because offenses have improved, defenses are less important. Moreover, you regard this inference as self-evident.
I find your use of the term “21st century” pompous and annoying.
I'm not sure we can be friends.
Defense wins championships? Look again. USC scored 55 points to humiliate Oklahoma and win the 2004 national championship.
Hmm, I see. If only Oklahoma had found some way of reducing the number of points scored by USC, thereby keeping USC's point total below its own. Is there a component of a football team devoted to keeping the opponent's point total as low as possible? 'cause that would be really helpful.
Your question mark key totally works.
A championship? Defense can't guarantee even a winning season. Ask Tennessee. The Volunteers last season finished seventh in Division I-A in total defense, allowing 298.2 yards per game. They finished second in I-A in rushing defense, giving up only 82.5 yards per game. And those stats went unsullied by a bowl game, because Tennessee finished 5-6.
I would bet anything Tennessee Outscored Its Opponent only 5 out of 11 times!
Texas and USC, on the other hand, finished in the top three in total offense.
Measured by points/game, Texas' defense was 4th, USC's 27th. Tennessee? 18th.
By yards/game, Texas' defense was 6th, USC's 40th. Also, you are lying. Tennessee finished 12th by this metric. Also, why do you single out rushing defense? If they were 7th (as in 12th) overall and 2nd in rushing, perhaps they were worse in passing. In fact you won't find them in the top 50, 215.7 being greater than 209.5.
So you are totally full of shit with respect to Texas; its defense was very good. You are mostly full of shit with respect to Tennessee, having engaged in both lying and emphasizing an irrelevant fact.
Were you a better journalist/columnist, you would have mentioned how USC's defense performed last year. It actually supports your point! But only better, not good: the rankings in isolation don't tell the whole story. You'd probably want to take account of strength of schedule. You'd also want to consider how the data is distributed. 60 yards/game separate the 1st and 14th ranked defenses; 45 yards/game separate the 14th and 40th(=USC) ranked defenses. It should be noted that USC led the nation in turnovers gained, explaining the disparity in points/game and yards/game. In the end, the points matter.
But you like yards/game. Let's do that.
- Arizona State finished 4th in offense yards/game and ended 7-5 after beating Rutgers in the Insight Bowl.
- Minnesota finished 5th in offense yards/game and ended 7-5 after losing in the Music City Bowl.
- IT GETS MUCH BETTER.
- Michigan State finished 6th in offense yards/game and ended 5-6. These stats also went unsullied by a bowl game, to borrow your awkward phrase, person who earns income by writing. Notice a few things:
- 6th is actually 6th
- 6th is better than 12th
- 6th is better than 7th, a comparison we might need to make if you are allowed to lie to make your point
- Do you have room for dessert? Hawaii was 11th in offense yards/game and finished 5-7.
By Mr. Maisel's own logic, offense doesn't even guarantee a winning season. In conclusion, his method of using facts/lies to support his point fails miserably.
But let's see what the other side has to say. You were kind enough to interview them, Ivan, which in part makes up for the lying you did above.
"Look at the game. The best offense ever," [Ole Miss coach Ed] Orgeron said, referring to Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush & Co., "couldn't win it."
"If you look at the play of the game for the national championship, it was still a fourth-and-two," [Ohio State coach Jim] Tressel said, referring to when the Longhorns stuffed the Trojans' LenDale White at the Texas 45 with 2:09 to play and USC leading, 38-33. "It still comes down to that."
The master of alliteration replies:
Yes, but isn't that the equivalent of praising the pitching in a 15-13 Yankees' victory because Mariano Rivera got the last out?
Good analogy, but you are missing the point. Sure, it's the equivalent of praising Mariano after a bloodbath. It's also the equivalent of using one event to decide a question which should be decided by observing many events, describing their outcomes numerically, analyzing those numbers, and converting some numbers thus obtained into explanations.
Dear Sirs:
You should be interested in what wins games in general, not just what wins championships. Even if you only care about championships, you should still analyze the entire seasons of the major contenders, not just one game between two of them. Even if you only care about championship games, you should analyze more than one of them. Even if you only care about one championship game, you should analyze more than one of its plays. Finally, even if you only care about one play in one game, I believe that play pitted one (1) offense against one (1) defense. The defense prevailed in this instance, agreed. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY THIS MEANS DEFENSE IS MORE IMPORTANT.
Your reasoning is poor and it doesn't support your position. You are as wrong as the sorry excuse for a writer who interviewed you ALTHOUGH, it seems, you are (unlike said writer) not a liar. Then again, I am learning your opinions from said liar, so I can't be positive.
Good luck next season.
Regards.
But back to your arc, author:
The advent of the passing game in general and the spread offense in particular has changed the eternal equation of the game.
Ooh, again, if only teams could react to improvements in offense!
If offense hasn't shoved defense off its throne, it has forced it to move over and share. Defense, by itself, is no longer enough.
DEFENSE BY ITSELF WAS NEVER ENOUGH. I HATE YOU.
Statistics back up the theory that offenses are moving the line of scrimmage farther forward than ever before. The average amount of total offense per game, points per game, and yards per play for all I-A teams has reached a level in each of the last five seasons that it had never reached prior to 2001.
You are using the word “statistics” to intimidate readers. You could have just stated those statistics and drawn your conclusions, but instead you chose to start by asserting authority without justification. Incidentally, I am not intimidated, see, e.g., all of the crap regarding Texas, USC, Tennessee above.
Now you're going to interview West Virginia coach and offensive innovator Rich Rodriguez, who's going to say all aspects of the game are important. Then Nebraska coach Bill Callahan is going to observe that "You gotta score points nowadays." But before all of that happens, you, Ivan Maisel, are going to embarrass yourself:
But before we all whip out our calculators and compare football cosines...
Did you mean for this to be homoerotic? What about mathematically illiterate? You succeeded on both counts.
In other sports news, the Boston Red Sox have decided to spend their past five games (a) losing two games to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to prepare for (b) getting swept by the Kansas City Royals. Yes, these Kansas City Royals. Rufffff.
posted by robusteza at 11:24 PM
¡ subscribe !
1 Comments:
The continued success of people who say ridiculous things as sports commentators is interesting. Seems like there are a couple of possible explanations:
1) Market failure. Either there is a lack of supply of smart people who want to be sports commentators (this seems highly unlikely) or there is no good way to evaluate talent before handing someone a job, at which point s/he is difficult to remove. This also seems unlikely. Couldn't you just read what they wrote and realize they're idiots? Especially if you run a company like Walt Disney that is worth many billions.
2) It's hard to write smart things on a regular basis. This is certainly true, but the level of crap that comes out of some people's mouth on a regular basis makes me think that it's not just a matter of the occasional off day.
3) There is a specific market that wants to hear sports analyzed on the basis of one cliche and truism versus another. This is my pick for a theory. There's a certain segment of the population (i.e. people who think the broadcaster affects the outcome of the game) that views sports (and life?) through the lens of easy one-liners and cliches. You can disabuse them of this, but you need to replace it with a similarly non-complex cute aphorism. So, "Defense Wins Championships" can be overturned, but only by, "Office Wins Championships". There may or may not be a relationship to the success of such similarly ridiculous, but equally easy to remember, phrases as, "Flip-flopper", "Death Tax", and, of course, "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit."
Post a Comment
<< Home