I’m going to create a mental picture for you.
Think of a college’s academic institution and athletic department as two separate black boxes with multiple medium sized pipes going in and out of each and one big black pipe going in between them. Dollars flow through these pipes as they are pulled and pushed from each of the two boxes. Going into the academic institution box you have things like student’s tuition and fees, taxpayer dollars, federal grants, and general alumni donations. Coming out of that same box you have things like professor payrolls, staff payrolls, academic scholarships, and facility costs. Into the athletic department box you have things like ticket sales, merchandise sales, TV revenues, and athletic alumni donations. Out of that box you have coaches payrolls, athletic department staff payrolls, athletic scholarships, and athletic facilities (maybe?).
Got the picture?
And, again, in-between these two black boxes you have that single big black pipe. This big black pipe acts as a release valve of sorts that allows the entire mechanism to ensure that the athletic department box can at least zero out its cash flow statement. The vast majority, over 90%, of schools have dollars flowing FROM the academic institution box through that big black pipe to the athletic department box. In short, in almost all cases taxpayers and tuition paying students support the athletic department because the athletic department otherwise has more dollars flowing out than it has flowing in.
Now the next point is counter intuitive. What do the small minority of colleges have in common that do have dollars flowing the other way through the big black pipe? What do all colleges that have dollars flowing from the athletic department box TOWARDS the academic institution box do? They all also have a TON of dollars flowing out of the athletic department box towards coaches payrolls, in particular college football coaches.
I’ve made the argument in this space before that the best investment a college could possibly make is in a college football coach. Well, this time I have another controversial proposal. Even if you take the leap of faith to attempt to step up your college football revenues by bringing in the big name coach what else can you do?
The debate over whether college athletes, again in particular college football players, should be paid is gaining more and more steam lately.
There are two counter arguments.
The first, as I just mentioned, is that when it’s all said and done the vast majority of athletic departments don’t have the dollars to pay college athletes because they’re already operating in the red and need to suck dollars from the academic institution to stay afloat.
The second most common argument is that colleges ARE already compensating college athletes in the form of an athletic scholarship. This is true. They are essentially getting compensated ~$100,000 over a 4 year period depending on the particular school and the corresponding tuition.
Well why don’t we consider the converse? If the majority of athletic department boxes are sucking dollars from the academic institution box then something is wrong. We need to get more granular within that athletic department box. Could it be that it does not make sense to send coach payrolls and athletic scholarships to areas that do not return ticket sales, merchandise sales, TV revenues, and athletic alumni donations? Does it make sense that a student’s tuition is more or a taxpayers take home pay is less because this machine needs those dollars to support a back-up left fielder whose team won’t bring in those same dollars?
If the majority of athletic departments broke even that would be one thing. In that instance we would still have the inequality that a few coaches and athletes are bringing in more than they are compensated and they support the compensation of the many coaches and athletes and the department at the end breaks even. But that’s not the case. Only a dozen or so schools operate in this way.
I propose that all college “non-revenue sports” (ie all college sports but College Football and Men’s College Basketball) become non-scholarship sports. Does it make sense to still have these sports? Absolutely! Does it make sense to compensate those athletes upwards of $100,000 if there is already such an imbalance? Absolutely not.
And who would disagree? You would certainly have the vote of the tuition paying (or more likely loan carrying) students and the taxpayers.
-hj
Written by Hujo on October 4th, 2011 with no comments.
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Between the NFL CBA getting signed, NFL free agency, the national debt standoff, and now the college football realignment talk there has been an abundance of journalism using anonymous sources. At the risk of being a complete amateur… not having taken a single journalism class nor participated in even a school newspaper… I have some thoughts I would like to get off my chest.
Having attributable sources seems very fundamental to being considered a credible news source. Merely citing an inside source without any transparency as to who that is leaves the media outlet very vulnerable. If being accurate mattered, which increasingly it has shown not to, but if it did and I was running a media outlet it would not be a risk I would be willing to take.
If, for instance, I’m the Athletic Director at the University of Texas and I want to apply pressure to another school in a way that is due to benefit me then I could provide you information that would be coming from an “inside source” that would intentionally mislead you.
Beyond the abundance of anonymous sources lately there seems to be a merging of the roles of Columnist and Reporter. On this front I very much believe in the separation of church and state. To me these are two very different roles that play by very different rules yet are complementary like a play-by-play man and a color commentator.
A reporter is essentially a faceless machine. A reporter produces unbiased, attributable facts. There should not be a picture of the reporter by the byline. That inherently makes the story about the reporter and his interpretation of the situations. Eventually we should be able to develop software that writes stories using inputs such us a box score, a transcript of a press conference, etc. A reporter should not be interviewed to see what they “think”. All in all in my mind reporter equals fact. Leg work is potentially necessary, thinking is not.
Beyond that attributing a quote to a person is a fact. It is a fact if that is exactly what that person said. I’ve talked to reporters who don’t use a tape recorder and the overwhelming attitude now seems to be “as long as I’m fairly close to what their intent is its okay”. Maybe I’m a stickler but I completely disagree. Word for word is what should be expected.
My first encounter with this was when I was “quoted” in the high school yearbook. Yes the quote got the intent of what I was trying to say but the language was obviously not what I had previously used. Language can be very exact. “A” and “the” are different words. Just because words seem to be interchangeable to you doesn’t mean they will be interpreted that way by others and so long as the person consuming the media is consuming exactly what was provided then you should let the chips fall where they may. If that means your piece is littered with [sic] annotations and that ends up offending your source then so be it.
On to my expectation of the role of a Columnist. A Columnist can provide opinion, analysis, interpretation, and predictions. They are measured on their ability to provoke your thought through their opinions rather than their ability to report facts. As opposed to the reporter their picture should be by their byline.
The line between fact and opinion is probably harder to distinguish than you may think. In 2008 Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech finished with identical one loss records and each endured a loss to one of the other three. At the conclusion of the season the BCS ranked them Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech in that order. Texas beat Oklahoma in their October game 45-35.
That was the scenario and, I might add, those are all facts. Here is where it gets tricky, and what led to an argument with a friend. Both Mack Brown and Bob Stoops used guest appearances during games and press conferences to campaign why their team deserved to represent the Big 12 South in the Big 12 championship game. I argued that the points Mack Brown made were facts and let you draw your own conclusion while Bob Stoops provided his opinion. Here is how.
During an interview during the Oklahoma-OSU game after much coach speak Mack Brown made the statement “Every other conference in the country has a rule that in a 3-way tie the head to head winner of the top two schools as determined by the BCS would represent the division in the conference championship game”. Quick is that fact or opinion? That is a fact. It is something that could be evidenced by a rulebook. If he followed that statement by suggesting the Big 12, who lacked any rule, should use that as precedent then he would be providing an opinion. “Should” being what tips you off to the statement being an opinion.
Now contrast that to a statement made by Bob Stoops. During the press conference following the OU-OSU game he made the statement “If you consider the Texas win over Oklahoma then you have to consider the Texas Tech win over Texas as well as the Oklahoma win over Texas Tech. You have to consider that we scored 60 points or more in our last 5 games”. While those may be valid points they are most definitely opinion.
Did Texas Tech beat Texas and Oklahoma beat Texas Tech? Yes. Did Oklahoma score 60 points or more in their last 5 regular season games? Yes. Then why are those statements opinion and not fact? Because Stoops suggested you “have to consider” those things. Do you have to consider those facts? No. He produced facts and, in parallel, provided his opinion that you have to consider those facts.
Its a careful distinction and its semantics but that’s okay. For so many people journalism isn’t just a hobby its a profession. Its okay to have high expectations and standards.
-HJ
Written by Hujo on August 17th, 2011 with no comments.
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Occasionally Constitution talk will seem to creep into our narrative in spurts as it is right now and I always have the same thoughts that are too long winded to tweet and potentially controversial to status update on Facebook so I’ll go old school and resort to the ole blog.
Today you may have read the story of officials in San Francisco blocking cell phone signals on the BART to disallow potential protesters from relaying information to each other about the latest whereabouts of large numbers of SFPD. Additionally, in past weeks many Tea Partiers proposed a new Amendment, a Balanced Budget Amendment, to the United States Constitution that would ensure, similar to state governments, that the federal government operate at least at a break even and at most at a surplus on a year to year basis.
One of my favorite classes in high school was my Government class. This was surprising because I never took a huge interest in politics and, in fact, had a distaste for lawyers. I think it had a lot to do with the teacher I had which is usually the case in education. He made the ins and outs of learning the Constitution very interesting which coincided with my first trip to Washington DC shortly after. A couple of weekends ago I spent my first real touristy weekend in Washington DC since that original trip and it got a lot of my juices flowing on these same subjects.
I think we would all agree the importance of the Constitution in this country. The language was very carefully crafted. For instance, I will remember my high school Government teacher pointing out that nowhere in the Constitution did our Founding Fathers even mention the word “privacy”. I remember this being very surprising. True story… Google “Constitution”, Ctrl+F, P-R-I-V-A-C-Y, Hit Enter if you don’t believe me.
The other important thing to remember is that the Constitution is a living document meaning there are mechanisms in place to allow that language to be amended so long as those changes traverse equally carefully crafted processes with checks and balances. This is important because to withstand the test of time the document will need to evolve on some fronts.
This is where my beef lays. I feel like anyone even mentions proposing an Amendment to the Constitution people knee jerk and flip out like that is an absurd suggestion. The Consitution has Amendments about the legality of alcohol and congressional pay raises. I think there are things that are worth defining that can at least exceed that bar.
A very controversial instance of this is when George W Bush had on his agenda a new Amendment which would define marriage. People flipped their shit. Noticed I intentionally worded that “a new Amendment which would define marriage” INSTEAD of “a new Amendment which would define marriage as being between one man and one woman”.
At the time I thought we should at least all be able to go that a civilization that has an institution of marriage and crafts its rules around that institution should at least DEFINE that institution. Whether that definition is that marriage should be between one man and one woman, any two people regardless of gender, one man and one or more women, or any number of humans is where the debate should lay. Obviously where that definition lays is very divisive but can we not all agree that simply having a definition would be appropriate?
This carries through to other controversial debates. For instance, abortion. Forget your stance on abortion and lets focus on a somewhat different question. Is it not reasonable that in the 21st century, in the United States we have a definition for when life begins? We can guarantee your freedom of religion and of the press but we can’t really say for certain when those freedoms begin? Something seems fundamentally wrong with that.
Is it the moment you are born? Most liberals even agreed that partial birth abortions are wrong. Beyond that I think that these types of definitions should be as objective and non-controversial as possible.
If the baby is mature enough to be safely separated from the woman is it “alive”? I think most would say yes. Then in that case perhaps a definition that so long as the community of scientists and health professionals determine a baby can be safely removed from the mother then the Constitution protects that baby’s life and all of the additional freedoms that are assumed. This way as we have medical advances that term will continue to advance until eventually there may be a time where there is no health reason for abortion at all.
All in all there are key definitions in our society that are critical yet undefined. There are two things I would hope we could agree on: 1. A definition, regardless of what it is, is important and 2. Constitutional Amendments are the mechanisms to introduce those definitions.
-HJ
Written by Hujo on August 16th, 2011 with no comments.
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I’ve finally come to realize and accept that Texas football will be an Independent come the 2013 season. Last summer started the domino effect and there were hints at it before but it wasn’t until recently that a convergence of factors led me to this conclusion. Here are those factors in detail.
1. Longhorn Network
If you look at the major independents in today’s football landscape they are able to support themselves with tv money. Notre Dame has their huge deal with NBC. BYU is launching BYU-owned BYUtv on Dish. The Longhorn Network will be somewhere inbetween NBC and BYUtv in terms of delivery costs but has no risk to Texas. Obviously UT haters are going to hope like hell that LHN flops so they can point and laugh. The real point (pun intended) is that Texas is going to laugh all the way to the bank regardless. ESPN owns the network and from here on out has all the risk.
Texas is getting $15 million a year either way which is way more than ND’s deal with NBC plus they don’t have the risk of actually having to own and manage the thing. To put that $15 million in perspective, that’s what a team is awarded for making a BCS game BEFORE they have to pay out their conference their cut. The LHN enables Texas to be financially independent regardless of if the actual upside of the exposure is ever realized.
2. Scheduling
The second clue they’re going independent is scheduling. Texas’ scheduling formula for the last decade plus has been to play one BCS school non-conference, play 3 strategic (Houston, Dallas, Florida) mid-majors, and their 8 conference games.
Well now that the Big 12-2 has added a 9th conference game (BCS game) you might think the non-conference formula would be changed to remove the game against the BCS school. It changed alright but in the other direction. Starting in 2013 Texas starts playing 2 BCS schools a year in the non-conference. USC, Cal, UCLA, Maryland, and most of all Notre Dame and BYU are on the slate in coming years which leads me to my next point…
What do we see all Independents do in scheduling? They schedule other independents. For this reason you see Notre Dame, Navy, Army, and going forward BYU play each other every year.
I really don’t think Texas plans to play BCS schools 11 of 12 games. So as crazy as that looks on paper I really think it’s all just posturing for the purpose of going Independent.
3. Fan base
The third reason I think they can go Independent is the size and loyalty of their fan base.
First, the size. Texas has more living alumni than any other school. At any given time they have more active students than any other school. Don’t let the Minnesotas and Arizona states of the world that total up and report out satellite campuses fool ya.
While they don’t have the in state fan hood market share like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Alabama I would be willing to guess that their smaller market share of a state with the population of Texas still results in a larger net number.
And onto loyalty. 5-7 is as bad as it gets. If Texas can still fill out that stadium with 98-102k per game in a season like 2010 then that shows they can take the occasional one on the chin.
The last point with regard to the fan base that I’ll make regards their logo. It sounds silly but I think their logo goes farther than you would think.
In the business world you hear all about the importance of branding and image. Well Texas has a logo that, while I think it’s pretty cool, even if it weren’t there is no competition. College football is about as weak as it gets in this department. So many schools attempt at a logo is a block letter or maybe they fancy it up and go with a couple intertwined block letters. Quickly off the top of your head besides Texas what other school even pretends to have a logo?
The reason this matters is because to be independent you need support beyond what people directly associated to your school can provide and it’s much more alluring to adopt a brand with a cool logo than a block letter(s) that means nothing to you.
Analysis:
Now that I’ve convinced you Texas can and will go Independent, what are my thoughts you ask. And I’m so glad you did.
Well my dream move came and went last summer. My ultimate dream was of a move to the Pac16 which would be the first domino to drop in what would eventually become 3 16-team superconferences. The current 6 BCS Conferences would whittle down to 48 teams that would operate independently from the other 72 teams of FBS fluff we have and would eventually play into a playoff tournament. 12 game regular seasons, 8 division games, 4 non-division, eliminates non-conf/midmajors/fluff BCS schools (read: Iowa States of the world) and end it all with a playoff.
Well that dream came and went. We’re left with the best in game environment in sports playing within the stupidest, least progressively scheduled and structured system in sports.
I would be fine with going independent. As the season nears the realization that this 10 team conference is a joke is really starting to set in. The lack of a conference title game is going to in evidently cost somebody a shot at a national championship game at the end of the season and everybody is going to be standing around looking stupid asking “how did this happen?”
The flexibility that it allows scheduling is appealing to me. It would be very important to me that we continue to play OU. I would hope that an Independent announcement would be accompanied by a 10 year agreement with OU to play in Dallas.
I could really careless if we continue to play Texas A&M. The two factors that most contributed to the Pac16 not coming to fruition in my mind are 1. ESPN’s offer for the LHN and 2. Texas A&Ms hissy fit about following big brother Texas out west despite their desire to become the next Ole Miss of the SEC.
I hate the Texas A&M game, I really do. I’ve been to it 5 times and win or
lose it’s never fun. I’ve been when we’ve won 50-20 and been when we’ve lost. It’s the exact opposite of the OU game. Instead of all the students being there, even the ones that like football like in Dallas, much fewer students are there because its Thanksgiving night.
On top of that when you win you’re just relieved you didn’t lose and when you lose, well, you lost to the Aggies. We could never play that game again and I’d be fine.
I would hope we would keep up the Texas Tech game but it definitely wouldn’t be a deal breaker. Beyond that I could take or leave every other Big 12 school.
I could foresee a schedule as follows. Some are already scheduled (USC, ND, BYU) as mentioned before, some are obvious (OU, TTU, A&M), for others I’ve provided an explanation.
Rice (Houston recruiting footprint)
USC
SMU (Dallas recruiting footprint)
BYU
OU
UCF (Florida recruiting footprint)
Notre Dame
Texas Tech
Arkansas (Rekindle rivalry; Beef up SOS)
Navy (Independents stick together philosophy; old school 1963 Roger Staubach NC game rematch)
Texas A&M
Rutgers (Week of Conf Champ games when very few games televised; appeases ESPN’s LHN desire for Northeast media market exposure)
This scheduling formula consists of 3 mid-majors, 3 Independents, 5 fairly competitive BCS games, and a media play. This isn’t any less than what most teams are already doing.
Other variations I could see on a season by season basis include Okie State replacing a UCF/Rutgers/Navy, UNT/TCU replacing SMU, Tulane/Houston replacing Rice, and WVU/UConn/Maryland replacing Rutgers.
Written by Hujo on August 12th, 2011 with 2 comments.
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After college I worked a season at Beaver Creek Ski Resort in Colorado. It was during this time that I first heard the adage “Skiing is easy to learn but hard to master, while snowboarding is hard to learn but easy to master”.
It just occurred to me that in this way snowboarding is to craps as blackjack is to skiing.
Summer after sophomore year of college I picked up the book Bringing Down the House. This is the story of the MIT team of kids who would fly to Vegas and use the High/Low card counting system to beat blackjack. The book eventually was made into a horrible Disney-ed up movie “21″.
It’s one of my favorite books of all time and I became very interested in blackjack. I bought two other books: Blackjack in the 21st Century and Playing Blackjack as a Business.
I could hardly wait to turn 21. The next summer I worked a summer internship in Houston. During the week I would study different mathematical betting systems like the Martingale system and the Kelly criterion. I would practice counting cards and playing basic strategy.
Basic strategy being the mathematically perfect hit/stand/double/split decision based on your hand and the dealers up card. You don’t always win when playing basic strategy but you give yourself the mathematically best opportunity to win over the long run.
My roommate would jokingly “worry” about my growing library of books, nightly computer simulation sessions, and biweekly solo trips to Lake Charles.
What I learned in all of this is 3 fold. 1. There is no such thing as a betting system that will make you money. 2. Counting cards in a casino while trying to maintain social norms with fellow players is damn near impossible. 3. Playing mistake free basic strategy alone is a tough task.
While most people “know how” to play blackjack very few can play perfect basic strategy.
Most people know if the dealer has a 7 or higher to hit until you have 17. Most people known if the dealer is showing a 2-6 the idea is not to bust yourself. Most people know when to double on 11 and 10 and to always split Aces and 8s.
However, to play basic strategy most people DON’T know the particulars of when to split or double or what to do on soft hands (hands with Aces).
Now I know a lot of you out there are thinking, oh whatever, I know how to play Blackjack.
Quick test:
What do you do with a pair of 6s against a 3?
What do you do with a Soft 14 against a 4?
What about a Soft 15 against a 4?
What about 9 against a 3?
What about 12 against a 3?
.
.
.
.
.
.
If you said Split, Hit, Double, Double, Hit then maybe you do have what it takes.
For everyone else reading this I assume you’re convinced by now that playing perfect basic strategy is not what it’s advertised to be.
On top of that when basic strategy was developed the house advantage was only 0.48%. Since then casinos started implementing rules like “Dealers must hit soft 17″, Blackjack pays 6 to 5, Players can’t split aces, Players can’t re-split after splitting, etc.
Since blackjack is such a popular game and it’s easy to quickly learn and understand, casinos have carved out small changes to work that house advantage up over 1% and AGAIN that’s only because of the rules and assumes you play perfect basic strategy (hint: you aren’t).
A basic strategy card has 280 decisions. Who wants to memorize that? Of those 280 decisions 180 involve soft hands or pairs which are the hardest to remember. Something to note, not all decisions are equally likely to present themselves but the point remains. Long story short it’s hard to get a low house advantage in blackjack.
Now let’s look at the snowboarder gambling game: Craps.
At face value craps is intimidating. Groups of people standing around the tub cheering is intimidating. Flying chips and dice are intimidating. Three dealers and a stickman are intimidating. Hell the complexity of the felt alone is intimidating.
But would you believe me if I told you the house advantage on the Pass Line is 1.41% and involves memorizing 6 decisions (really 3 decisions)?
Beyond minimizing the house advantage your money is proven to last longer in Craps than in Blackjack which is probably equally surprising.
On average a player gets dealt 70 hands of blackjack per hour. Very few hands push meaning the house advantage is being applied in almost every hand. A craps table produces on average 48 rolls per hour. On top of that nearly 70% of rolls push if you’re playing the Pass Line.
Now let’s talk about those rolls that don’t push and the decisions you have to make.
Placing a Pass Line bet is as simple betting a $5 chip (or the Table Min Limit) in the lane labeled Pass Lane right in front of you.
If on the first roll a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 is rolled you have a decision hence 6 decisions. Notice these are the 6 numbers on the felt on either side of the 7 (the most common roll). Luckily the result of the decisions for 4, 5, and 6 are the same as 10, 9, and 8 respectively.
If a 6 or 8 is rolled you’ll want to place a second bet called an odds bet that is divisible by 5. Divisible by 5 because this bet pays 6 to 5 and table games don’t pay fractions of a dollar and they round down.
If a 5 or 9 is rolled you’ll want to place an odds bet that is an even amount. Even because it pays 3 to 2.
If a 4 or 10 is rolled your odds bet can be any amount since it pays 2 to 1 there won’t be partials.
6 or 8 divisible by 5. 5 or 9 even. 4 or 10 any bet goes.
THOSE are all of the decisions you have to make.
Now you’re probably interested in what happens if a 2, 3, 7, 11, or 12 are rolled on the first roll as well as how you win/lose on the second or subsequent rolls.
Fair enough but the point is even if you didn’t know and followed the 6 (3) decisions I’ve laid out so far you’d be at a 1.41% house advantage.
Well since you are wondering I’ll tell you…
A 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll, the “coming out” roll, lose the pass line bet.
A 7 or 11 on the coming out roll and you win the Pass Line bet.
A 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 sets “the point”. Once the point is set and you place your odds bet, the game is what will be rolled first a 7 or the point?
If the point set on the coming out roll is 6 your odds bet is that a 6 will be rolled again before a 7.
2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12s push.
The odds bet is the best bet in the casino. That bet alone has literally zero house advantage. There are 6 ways to roll a 7. There are 5 ways to roll a 6. Therefore the odds of rolling a 6 before a 7 should pay 6 to 5 and they do.
The catch is the original Pass Line bet still only pays even money but over the long term combine the two bets and you have your 1.41% house advantage.
In Blackjack you learn that Insurance is a suckers bet meaning it’s a side bet with a very high house advantage and it should be ignored.
Well in Craps you have tons of similar situations that you have to put blinders on to.
The Field, the Hardways, C & Es, Direct Points, etc are all bets with huge house advantages that you should stray away from.
As antithetical as most people would presume Craps can be a hard game to learn but a very easy game to master.
-Hunter
Written by Hujo on August 1st, 2011 with no comments.
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Its the reason your mom made sure you had clean new clothes for the first day of school. Its the reason when you’re sitting in the lobby before an interview you focus on a firm handshake, solid eye contact, and a confident smile. First impressions go a long way. I’ve heard it said it takes 17 encounters to overcome a bad first impression. The impact of bad first impressions is the reason Mack Brown will never get his due respect and why I think he’ll retire after this year.
The impact of first impressions is especially true with college football coaches now a days. We expect coaches to come right in and by their second year challenge for a national championship. Those who do, Bob Stoops, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, are cemented in our minds as solid coaches. The twist to it is that your first impression only takes affect when the public becomes aware of you.
Mike Leach is respected in college football for being a solid coach and making the most of a somewhat limited situation. I think he somewhat benefits from college football’s current place in today’s sports landscape. His best seasons at Texas Tech were last year’s 11-2 finish and 2005’s 9-3 finish, both somewhat disappointing because of the losses in bowl games. All other seasons he has lost at least 4 games. I would argue that Texas Tech’s place in the Big XII somewhat analagous to North Carolina’s place in the ACC. Mack Brown’s last two years at North Carolina they went 10-2 and 11-1, both seasons finishing with Gator bowl wins, and a top 10 finish and a top 5 finish. The problem is nobody was watching. This wasn’t Mack Brown’s first impression.
The next year, in 1998 Mack Brown goes to Texas and takes over a 4-7 team. In the first year they go 9-3 with a Cotton Bowl win. People say its easy to win at Texas and USC yet the coaches before Mack Brown and Pete Carroll didn’t nor did the coaches before them. But again, this turn around wasn’t his first impression.
It wasn’t until 2000 when Texas bought a house in the Top 10 and started losing to OU every year that the public really became aware of Mack Brown. This was about the same time that Bob Stoops broke on the scene. Their contrasts in personality couldn’t have been greater. Bob Stoops was the guys guy coach. Tons of attitude, tons of swagger, no excuses, cut throat, very edgey. Mack Brown was the grandfather figure, tried to stand for something bigger than football, preaches the student-athlete concept, deflected all credit, and assumed all responsibility for failure. Meanwhile he was still winning 10 games every year and winning bowl games.
Over the last 5 years the tides have turned but nobody cares because that first impression is cemented. Mack Brown has now won a national championship. He’s won 7 of his last 8 bowl games. The best teams of this decade that Texas could prove itself against are USC, Ohio State, OU, LSU, and over the last 5 years, Florida. He’s beaten Southern Cal in Southern California, beaten Ohio State 2 of 3, OU 4 of the last 5, LSU in the Cotton Bowl, and has a better than 0% chance of beating Florida in the National Championship.
My point is none of it matters because of the first impression. Lets say Texas runs the table and beats Florida in the Rose Bowl. Mack Brown will have won more games than any coach this decade, will have two national championships, will have beaten every major power of the era, will have won 8 of his last 9 bowl games, and will be undefeated in 4 BCS bowls. Despite all of that Mack Brown still won’t be one of the first 3 names out of people’s mouths when they’re breaking down the best college football coaches.
People have noticed in Mack’s tone this year that he is very philosophical. He realizes his legacy has been cemented. He realizes Will Muschamp has been promised his job I’m sure with the expectation that it would come sooner than later.
But what the hell. Mack Brown is still the best coach in the country in my book because I know the numbers and I know what the unprecedented consistency means. So screw impressions and respect, lets go out with a bang.
-hj
Written by Hujo on October 30th, 2009 with 1 comment.
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With this week being the gameweek of the Texas-Oklahoma game, the best rivalry in college football, I felt it appropriate to roll out my thesis on why hate of all things Longhorn is so often inconsistent.
Texan OU fan
There are essentially two types of Sooners: 1. Sooners born and raised in Oklahoma and 2. Sooners from Dallas/North Texas. Oklahomans largely hate all things Texas, University or otherwise. Texan Sooners generally still are “Texans” in every sense of the word but because Texans and Oklahomans are rivals naturally the flagship universities of each are rivals so they’re expected to develop at least a distaste towards the University of Texas.
The irony is the Texan Sooners don’t abandon their Texas loyalty. Texans are hated for being an overly prideful brand of people. They’re very confident bordering on cocky about what they stand for. They’re perceived as loud and arrogant and it’s a mandate that everything they’re associated with is the biggest and best and they’ll make sure you know about it. They consider themselves the biggest and best and belitte smaller less significant counterparts.
The irony is that these are naturally all the EXACT same reputations and critcisms the University of Texas embodies. Texan Sooners will defend themselves as Texans to their true Oklahoman counterparts and pay a premium dollarwise to go to school there, don’t really like or take pride in the place they live in, and they’ll be damned if on graduation day they’re not on the last helicopter out of Saigon leaving the state.
How you defend yourself for embodying one reputation yet hate a school that embodies that same reputation and all the while adopting a schools reputation that embodies a rival state I don’t know.
Texas Sucks
OU is all about being anti-Texas. Again a subset of this group focuses the hate on all things Texan the other qualifies their hate as only applying to a school. It’s ironic that a portion of the stadium chants Texas Sucks and truly means it and another group chants the same thing while thinking I hope it’s clear this hate only applies to one school.
An analogous situation that I consider as a lifelong Catholic is if I were to attend the nations largest Baptist school, Baylor, and let’s pretend Baylor is archrivals with the nations largest catholic school, Notre Dame. Could I bring myself to chant or wear “Catholics Suck”? No freaking way. I can’t tell you how dirty that would feel.
Cowboy-fan Longhorn haters
Another top criticism of Longhorns is that so many Longhorn fans just jump on the Longhorns because they want to associate themselves with something successful. If you go to the innercities of Texas cities or find your way to the border you’ll find tons of people sporting Longhorn gear on Saturdays just because it’s the cool thing to do.
Many Longhorn-haters are very critical that there are so many “T Shirt” fan Longhorn fans yet those exact same haters are dying hard for the Dallas Cowboys on Sundays.
This concept on Saturdays is apparently so repulseful it results in hating a school yet that concept doesn’t apply on Sundays to an organization that is 10x the violator and in neither circumstance any fault of the organization itself
Austin Loving Longhorn haters
So many Longhorn haters allegedly didn’t even consider moving to Austin, very possibly the coolest city in the country for young adults, at age 18 because they preferred the metropolises that are College Station, Lubbock, and Norman where after graduation they would never again wish to live.
Yet at age 22 magically overnight Austin becomes the coolest place to live/visit for these very same people. I wonder if they do realize if you go to the University of Texas you do get to live in Austin. All the bar districts, pretty sites and scenary, quirkiness and artisticness, parks, tubing, live music, rivers and lakes, outdoor activities, BBQ, Mexican Food, easy living and general celebration of all things young and active that are available to these haters post graduation are available to UT students starting at age 18.
I wonder how many actually made a visit to Austin or were just too intimidated by a huge, urban campus. It’s one thing if you grew up in a town of population 200 but quite another if you had 500+ in your HS graduating class.
I know I was open minded enough to visit Austin, College Station, Lubbock, and Purdue in HS and the decision was easy.
Hating Diverse Groups
I often wonder who Longhorn haters envision they are hating. Do they hate Liberals? People with colored hair and peircings? T shirt fans? Asians? Geeks? City dwellers? Generic white washed surban kids? Texas lovers? Non-Texans? Non-Americans? Grunge cigarette smoking coffee drinking live music lovers? Frat/Sororities?
The University of Texas is probably the most diverse campus in the country. I will suggest that if you can bring youself to hate all of these people you are quite an angry individual!
If you are an Oklahoma born, Texas hating, Cowboy hating, Austin hating, everybody hater, first I have to call you out as being my own personal anti Christ but I have to hand it to you… At least you’re consistent.
Case Closed
***Longhorn haters commence hating and nausea
Written by Hujo on October 12th, 2009 with no comments.
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Last week with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter Texas Tech with a 5 point lead over the University of Houston made the highly controversial decision to go for it on 4th and Goal from the 1 rather than choose to attempt the surefire field goal to go up 8. The decision to go for it was followed by a playcall decision to try a QB sneak which got stuffed. Long story short, Houston go two more full possessions while Texas Tech got one and Houston of course won the game. Mike Leach after the game was second guessed why he made the decision to go for it by anybody and everybody.
I had a debate with a friend where I played devil’s advocate about whether the statistically correct there was to go for it or kick it. If I were a head coach I’m sure I would have a 4th quarter card for these types of situations much like the card coaches keep in their pocket for when to go for 2 (http://www.normhitzges.com/thechart.htm) and the Basic Strategy cards Vegas lets you use at Blackjack tables to know when to Hit, Stand, Double, or Split based on your total and the Dealer’s up card (http://bit.ly/BAs7T).
My college roommate and I used to always relate running the ball on 3rd down and 5 in a tie game to standing on 15 with the dealer showing a 7. It seems like the conservative play in the short run because you keep yourself alive but its the statistically riskier situation in the long run.
Going back to my how to play the lottery like an engineer post (http://www.hujoblogger.com/?p=175) when I introduced the concept of expected value. To recap expected value is the average per trial value that results as the number of trials approaches infinity weighting the different possible outcomes by the percent chance of each scenario.
I figure you can do the same with this football situation. There are a handful number of decisions and outcomes that could have happened in those last 10 minutes all with their own different frequencies and effects on the score. Based on my best guesses for inputs I figure Texas Tech’s +5 point differential before Leach’s monumental decision results in an expected value of +8.25 when going for it and +6.14 when settling for the easy field goal. Likewise the go for it decision results in a win 86% of the time while the field goal results in a win 83%. Feel free to enter your own inputs here (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApUJc7oLcYG5dHhhLWczZm1DRGIwOTZKRHo5UVdyQ2c&hl=en).
Based on the crassness of the assumptions and probable inaccuracy of the inputs these small differences are almost certainly not statistically signficant. That being said I’m sure there are people at least at the NFL level out there Moneyball-ing these types of situations.
Written by Hujo on October 4th, 2009 with 1 comment.
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Just read a column (http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/08/05/urban-meyers-rich-but-are-taxpayers-footing-too-much-of-the-bi/) about escalating coaches salaries. I wrote a blog post 3 or 4 years ago about college football program revenue and coaching salaries (http://www.hujoblogger.com/?p=45). I made the similar point of profit margins in college football versus normal industries.
My arguments to the Fanhouse post:
1. He argues that the primary reason college football program margins are so high is because colleges don’t pay tax on profits like corporations. Like he mentioned tax is going to be ~30% and only on profit. The real reason their margins are so high is because 85 of their “employees”, read: scholarship athletes, are only being “paid” ~$25,000/yr (Estimated cost of being a student). That is a very important point.
2. In mentioning the escalating coaches salaries he fails to mention how their escalation rate compares to the escalating program revenues and profits they correspond to. In 2004-2005 Texas Football brought in $53.2 million, $38.7 million of which was profit. In 2007-08 they generated $72.95 million, $52.9 million of which was profit. Despite escalating coaches salaries the program’s profit margin remained the same, ~73%.
The Texas football program is able to help support 18 other varsity sports programs, since men’s basketball is the only other to make its money back, and still has $19 million left over after that.
My question is will capping coaches salaries mean more coaches jump to the NFL which results in curbing the escalating profits football programs earn for their schools? If so then wouldn’t that be the worst move in terms of “public value” we could possibly make?
http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/whyut/basics/finances/index.html
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2337810
http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/06/15/texas-is-tops-in-sports-revenue/
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Response from clay.travis@gmail.com:
Great point on number one. I could have included that, but thought it was clear. Of course lots of people won’t notice this.
Best contra argument is that actual athletic department total profits are slim after the nonrevenue sports are included. But the point remains, not taxing football and treating it as a nonprofit helps fuel the arms race.
On its face the nfl should pay much higher salaries than major college football. But they don’t.
Good email though.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Written by Hujo on August 5th, 2009 with no comments.
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As someone with a math and science background and an engineering degree I always kind of poopooed the concept of “soft skills” and communication. In my job as a consultant I have definitely learned a lot more about soft skills than I have hard technical skills.
Effective communication is one thing I have focused on the most. I think there are three easy keys to get started. The first two are just to speak loudly and confidently. The third change is a change in the content of what you say not just how you speak and that is to be as specific and precise as possible. This is ESPECIALLY true in email where tone is hard and sometimes impossible to detect.
The most concrete goal I can think of to set is to try to go one day, maybe just in writing and responding to emails, but don’t use any pronouns or ambiguous language. Don’t use He, She, Us, It, There, They, That, Thing, This, Those, Stuff, We, Them, Their, Kind of, or Sort of. Notice how much less confusion and how many less clarifying questions and email responses you get. Using ambiguous language and pronouns is more efficient in the immediate but is largely more inefficient in the long run. Just a thought.
-hj
Written by Hujo on April 17th, 2009 with no comments.
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