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Friday, April 28, 2006
IDS News: IU researcher designs football strategy device
nmsnc points out this “sabermetricish stuff in football”.
Senior scientist Charles Bower from the IU physics department and partner Frank Frigo of Louisville have created ZEUS, an “off-the-shelf laptop” that simulates different conclusions to football games based on the decisions made during plays, according to a press release. It’s designed to help football coaches make quick play decisions during games.
...Bower provided an example of a play in which ZEUS can be applied to help a coach make a decision based on solid statistical data. A coach weighs the outcome of a crucial decision during a play and has to consider the consequences. For example, at fourth down and a few yards, should the team punt the ball or go for the first down? This tool allows the coach to see what the chances of success of each decision are.
ZEUS can help predict what the team will gain or lose from the number of decisions available to the coach at that point in the game.
Repoz
Posted: April 28, 2006 at 09:24 AM | 33 comment(s)
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the chances of coaches adopting that stategy approaches zero
It's weird, but I rarely if ever punted when playing football video games... it just felt like if I had a better than 50% chance of getting the first and I wasn't going to give a guy more than a field goal, it was better to go for it.
Sometimes I wonder if the punt on 4th down thing is just a vestige of the game remaining from when you couldn't throw a forward pass.
Depends on field position and kickers (are Aussie style kickers more proficient at the coffin corner kick?), but teams should go for it more often than they do. OTOH, you're looking at it from the perspective of maximizing gains, while alot of coaches are more interested in minimizing their losses. The game theory term for this escapes me at the moment.
It's called "covering your ass."
John Madden thought it was unrealistic that people weren't punting, so he demanded that fourth downs be made harder to convert in an attempt to force players to use conventional strategy.
don't resort to technical terminology in here
if true, that's astonishing (I've never played these games, so I don't know anything about them)
he demanded that they convert true statistical probabilities into "everybody knows it's true" probabilities?
there should be a Greek word for that
Semper ubi sub ubi.
I don't get that at all. If you are playing for field position, doesn't it make more sense to try to grind out 5 yards and then punt? It's like getting an extra 5 yards of carry on your punt. I guess if you were fighting the clock it might be worthwhile to just punt. But you need to have a better punter than the opponent (or have the wind to help you), or else they could just punt it back to you and you've gained nothing.
I would think that from a video game standpoint, increasing the intensity and general tension of the player in conventionally highly intense moments (bottom of the 9th, 2 outs - 4th and 1, time ticking down, etc) would be a *good thing*, even if statistics indicate those situations are no different than the same situation in the 1st inning or 1st quarter.
But that's more an aesthetic than statistical viewpoint.
I think that the results of a play on Madden have very little to do with "true statistical probabilities."
Maximin strategy.
Not necessarily. The punters and kickers back then were typically the quarterback or other player rather than a specialized position. This way, a team could line up a common formation (like the single-wing) and punt the ball when the defense had no one deep and hope that it would roll/bounce more than five extra yards. Michigan with Brian Griese and the Eagles with Cunningham have both used the quick-kick recently to some success.
On a related note, the new Viking uniforms are absolute hideous. Just awful.
Back to baseball...
Not Greek, but it reminded me of my Latin I class and "Civis Romanus."
Oh, and the IU football team needs all the help it can get. Good to see the academics are pitching in.
I assume Weis has that same info, though its worth noting that Weis last year also had a very poor defense, too
I distinctly remember the Eagles doing this (not on first down, of course) with Cunningham in a 1989 game at the Meadowlands. Cunningham boomed the ball and got a tremendous Astroturf roll.
Ninety-one-yard punt. Yeah, I'd call that . . . successful.
Nah, that wasn't a quick kick. Cunningham just waved the punter off the field on 4th down, but it was clear that a punt was coming. I think Dave Meggett was back to field it, but he totally misplayed it.
There was a hell of a wind that day too.
Strange, though, as I remember the year, the location, the yardage, and what I was doing precisely at that moment. But I didn't remember the specific situation. Funny the way memory works.
I never knew that Randy was Sam Cunningham's brother.
Of course, the way this was implemented was completely hamhanded. Instead of just making the defense tougher on 4th downs, they make the offense more inept -- e.g., you're more likely to throw a perfect pass to a wide open receiver who drops it than you are to have a situation where all of your receivers are well-covered.
Anyway, I have the version from a few years ago, where that is the case. That edition also has very poor re-creations of goal-line situations. Dunno if that's been improved in more recent editions.
Bad Doctor is correct. It was fourth down and Max Runager, the Iggles punter was more known for his accuracy than his distance, so they had Cunningham punt. Cunningham booted the ball 60 yards in the air and it bounced another 31.
Thanks go out to Jerry Izenberg and No Medals For Trying.
You're referring to this Bellman Equation paper by David Romer: http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/dromer/papers/nber9024.pdf
Most coaches know about this paper, but Belichick is probably more likely to understand it, given his economics background.
Similar analysis has been done by William Krasker on footballcommentary.com.
A more extreme view recommends never punting because the play calling strategies associated four down mindset will result in a more efficient offense:
http://actualturnoverratio.blogspot.com/
The rule change convinced coaches to attempt fewer long field goals, and as a byproduct attempt more conversions. The maximin mentality is there, but not as strong as it used to be.
I've long thought that there were stadium effects in football; similar to park effects in baseball. I was fooling around for an hour or so with the results in the New York Giants games for the past 10 seasons. It might mena little, but the Giants games in the Meadowlands averaged 39.90123457 ponts per game (both teams) while their away games averaged 37.16455696 points.
I was surprised, I figured that Giants Stadium would keep the scores down; at least in the latter part of the year. But it's not like football schedules are anywhere near balanced as baseball skeds.
I love that you present these numbers to eight decimal places.
I just copied them and pasted them from the spreadsheet.
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