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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics here on the Wharton podcast
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network. This is Kade Massie hosting this week with twothirds of my colleagues, but the third third is on
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the way. Eric Bradlo is here already. He's on the seventh floor of Huntsman Hall Wharton campus. I can tell Shane's
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at home. I'm at home. Audi is on his way home at the moment. We'll be in here for
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the next hour talking sports analytics. We usually are most weeks of the year coming up on 12 years. We are a mayor I
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don't know less than two months now from our 12-year anniversary hitting probably
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average of 48 or 49 weeks a year. We got sports. We're going to talk about sports. We got some analytics. We're
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going to talk about analytics right now. We're going to do a regular show. We've
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got a guest here in the first half hour. We'll go open lines in the second half
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hour. Here peak football. Really peak football. We've got college football going to culminate a week from now, a
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week from last night. This is Tuesday. Show will go up Wednesday. Next Monday, college football championship. We'll
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talk about that in a sec. And of course, we trimmed the NFL playoff field a little bit over the weekend. Three days
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of NFL games. Good fun. Got it down to the quarterfinals. Who can talk to us about both college football and
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professional football? And any other lingering things we want to talk about, who better than our old friend Neil
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Payne. Neil Payne, good afternoon to you. Welcome to the show. >> Thanks for having me back, guys.
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>> Always delighted to have you. Neil, looks like he's calling from home, which
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is Arkansas. Bentonville. I want to say Bentonville, Arkansas. Is that right? Close. Almost.
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>> Good memory. >> Yeah. No, I'm always calling from home these days. Home is the office.
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>> Home is the office. Neil's Neil's blending. Um Neil, what are you thinking
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about this Monday? not Monday, this Tuesday morning when you know for our show, but also kind of in general. Neil,
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we should say, is runs one of the best Substacks in sports. You should subscribe to Neil's daily Substack. He's
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going to do something interesting every day. He from the first time we met Neil back in the beginning of the show, it
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was like, hold on, this it's not fair. This guy, he's good with numbers and
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words, and he still does that on a regular basis. Neil writes for ESPN. He writes for NASCAR. He writes for the
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Washington Post. He was one of the originals. He's an OG 538er. So, he's he's he's done the work and
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he's still doing the work. And you should sign up and listen to him. Neil, what are you thinking about today?
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>> Well, I had uh something up uh on Tuesday morning just about the what we
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could take away from the wild card round. I usually try to do those uh little editorial uh behind the curtain.
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Look, would love to do those on Monday coming out of a weekend because it gives me chance to kind of write digest things
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on a Sunday. Uh, and the Monday night wildcard extra thing that they added a few years ago uh messes with that a
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little. So, I had to find something else to to put on the docket for Monday. But
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then Tuesday got your traditional uh coming out of the weekend takeaways. And I think uh one of the big things on my
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mind and a lot of people's mind, it got spoiled a little bit by the fourth quarter of that uh Texans Steelers game,
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but just how close the games were, how many comebacks there were and just sort of back and forth uh battles. And I saw,
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you know, most people were happy about this and I was as a fan just, you know, thought it was amazing um television.
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I'm sure you guys uh would agree as well. Uh, but I saw some people being like, man, when it comes down to this,
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like, can we really say that the best team won in these games? Because if it's
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just going to be a coin flip, if it's just going to be about who kind of has
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the last possession or if it's sort of a 50/50 at the end, are we really getting
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uh the the the results that tell us who the best teams are? I think that presumes a lot about what the purpose of
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playoffs are. They're there to entertain us. And are we not entertained uh by
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what we saw? But I thought that was interesting. I thought I'd kind of pose it to you guys. Uh what you think about
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that argument almost sort of like was it too much of a good thing in terms of the
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excitement? >> Well, does it speak a little bit to the parody? I think I mean I think we do
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have there I mean I I I I I keep thinking about the fact that there's really kind of not teams that seem
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particularly dominant right now. um roll rolling into the playoffs like the I mean the obviously the Eagles and the
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Chiefs were kind of both uh um rolled in with crazy winning streaks and I guess the Texans technically have a big
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winning streak but don't really seem like an insurmountable force. So I it speaks to me kind of to the parody of
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both the wild card round and even now that we're to the divisionals and the number one seeds are in it. I still
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think the games are very, you know, like I I I I would put I wouldn't put that
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many uh games far off 50/50 in my mind. >> Yeah. Maybe I'll just jump just jumping
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in here. When I reflect back on all of the games, I'm not convinced the better
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team didn't win. I guess the one you could argue with, Neil, maybe you would
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have a different opinion, would be the Packers Bears game. You could argue that the Packers led for such a long period
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of time. But on the other hand, it wasn't like they committed three turnovers in the last 10 minutes of the
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game either. They just went three and out and they played 60-minute games in pro football, not shorter games than
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that. Um, nothing surprised me. I was at the Eagles game. I do think the better team won that game. And that's even a
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injured 49er team. I think the better team won that game. So, I don't look at
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any of the only one I would potentially make an argument for was the Packers potentially being a better team than the
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Bears. Like, and and what does it even mean, by the way? Like, from a statistical sense, do you mean if we
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could replay the game a large number of times, how many times would the other team win under, you know, some scenario
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like that? I don't think any of the games maybe to Shane's point also if
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that's the replication we're talking about except for Houston Pittsburgh
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which I think that game would end up the same 85% of the time >> the same outcome not the same score the
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same winner >> same outcome yeah same outcome I think the other five games were all within
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that band of margin of error >> I think by the way I think I think that the postgame win expectancy that The
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team that won was positive on that except for Buffalo. These vary of course. The one I saw, I forget whose it
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was. Buffalo was just below 50%. So they were the one team who won who didn't
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play in a way that would have suggested they won, but even they were almost that
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close. Audi was trying to get in. >> Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I
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think comes to mind as analysts in in some level, we've added a dimension to
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sports that has pulled it down by analyzing it through the lens of probability models, which forces you to
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ask, is this an estimation question? Are we inferring from the season and then the playoffs who has the highest
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parameter? And we're just trying to get that decision correct like like we're
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decision theorists. And I think Neil, you're pointing it out that that's not
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exactly the point. This is an athletic competition and we give the prize to the team that actually won. It's an
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interesting question that we can ask ourselves going forward. Who would win if they got to do this repeatedly as
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Eric just did, but is there even randomness in sports the way we like to we analyze it that way because it's the
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only tool that we have at our disposal. But does a team win because that there was an under or there was an underdog or
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a favorite lose because of just bad luck or did they lose because they didn't
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execute when it needed to get done and they should lose because of that. I'm
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not saying that and if we had to do it again they wouldn't they would be more
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likely to do the right thing. But they didn't get it done when it needed to get
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done and there's got to be some reward for that. And we I think we as anali an
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analysts have have turned people's attention away from that with measures like war for example in in various
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sports that use it which takes away from doing it when it counts. >> Just to be clear what you're talked
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about hypothetically and Neil's I assume jump in on this too is a memoryless
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replication. So it's not like the pack the the Packers get to say well we blew
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that 21 point lead or whatever. Let's play it differently this time. No, you're talking about
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>> memories memories tier, right? Um there's the randomness of like kind of the within team
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heterogeneity like I guess if we are kind of thinking about this as a parameter is it like a fixed parameter
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or is it like something where a team's kind of performance latent performance
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is a random draw from its distribution and what we're really interested in if
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the two teams are better is is there a difference in those two distributions of the team's performance but then even if
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you kind of were able to observe that there's on top of it the kind of in-game
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random ness of >> That's right. >> how things happen. >> That's right.
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>> But let let's let's I take Neil's question. Y'all dove in kind of the
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middle. I'm going to go high and low. At the at the at a high level, it's like
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hell no. There's no there's not too much randomness and too much chance. And
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there hell no is is let's real decidedly answer that. Hell no. We'll take that
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all day long. But there's also a a tournament design question. And of course, we also like we we love to turn
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to tournament design when we can. And we're watching college football play it
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out in front of us and we have over our lifetimes where they used to just vote. They just watched 11 games played and
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then voted on who they thought was the best. That was just who's got the highest alpha or the whatever parameter
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you want to say. Who's highest theta? Um and then they no that's that's too much
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of us deciding let's let let's let one game decide it. And they did that for a
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few years and then no no let's let three games decide. Let's choose four teams.
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And they're they're they're slowly expanding and they're saying we're more
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and more gonna let the this thing be decided on the field. And I think the more you do that, the more you allow
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chance to come into play, obviously because you're not just going to sit back as analysts and say who's the
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highest theta and let these two high thetas play each other. You're saying anything can happen. And here's Miami
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the last team in the field playing for the national championship. And two years ago, Ohio State or was it
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last year? Ohio State comes in as whatever they eight and won the next >> they were an eight seed. In fact, it was
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an eight versus a seven in the championship last year with Notre Dame and Ohio State. This year it's kind of
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the the the the two extremes of the spectrum, the 10 seed uh in Miami, which was really kind of the last uh quote
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unquote real team. And no offense to Tulain, no offense to James Madison, but they got in through maybe different
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means. and then Indiana, who of course seems like this just unstoppable uh juggernaut. Uh we we'll kind of see what
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happens in that game. But uh to your point, yes, it does introduce randomness and similar to the NFL. Uh but I think
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the college playoff, it feels a little less random just because we've seen the
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margins be, you know, it wasn't down to the wire. Some of the games were uh all
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the Old Miss games I feel like um you know uh were at on different levels, but then uh many of the games were very
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lopsided to which point you might be able to make a case that a smaller playoff than the 12 uh was justified
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because you had a lot of teams that were just sort of not competitive. Not just two lane uh and James Madison, but also
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some of the other teams just came out, you know, uh Oregon uh beat Texas Tech 23- nothing and then they turn around
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and get blown out by Indiana. Alabama, of course, loses 38-3, which is one of the most ridiculously lopsided games
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Alabama's ever been on the receiving end of. So, I think in some ways, uh you
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look at that, that's a little bit different than the NFL, right? Where it's like anybody could win. Here, it's
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like, h there's really only a core group of teams. We just didn't necessarily
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know who that core group was. Like you would have put Texas Tech ahead of Miami in any kind of ranking going into the
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playoff, but it's pretty clear that they belong, you know, where they are more so
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than than some of the teams that got knocked out. >> That's right. That's right. Well, so two
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quick things here. You're right. No question. College versus pro, especially this year, the
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parody is stronger. The matches are closer on the NFL side. But the other thing that's going on with this
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tournament design with college is you're deciding how much is deservingness versus how much is the best team. And
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best team is just, you know, um you're going to you're going to take a team
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like Ohio State who had two losses and put them in eight seed and if they play their way through, they're the best
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team. And if Miami plays their way to the championship, that's the best team.
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They weren't the most deserving teams in the field, but by broadening the field,
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you go deeper and you're so you're you're necessarily pushing it from
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deserving to the best. Um where they used to just pick two teams, they're picking the two most deserving at the
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time. >> So they broad they've broadened it over time. >> I also think for the tournament design
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part of it is, you know, you're trying to like like took Neil's kind of comment
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that like maybe we didn't need an you know, maybe it's almost like too big or
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whatever. We don't need that extra round. What you're trying to do is on
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average ex >> in the future project on average what the dispare how what the distribution of
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of talented teams at the top is going to be. >> Yeah. Shane some years it's like one or two. You got
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it. That's definitely those teams. Other years it's like eight that you >> Shane. That's what that's what the guys
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who run college football are doing. They're they're modeling distributions
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of talent and they're trying to pick the number of playoff teams. They're trying
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to pick the number of playoff teams that would extract the most entertainment from those district. That's exactly how
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they're deciding how to do this. Audi, >> I just want to add a little comment
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here. You you you use the word best as if the purpose of the tournament is to find out who's the best.
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Is that really true? I asked >> I said best versus deserving. There's always this tension in college football,
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best versus deserving. >> Who do what is the who do we call the the ch we call the winner of the
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tournament the champion? We don't call them the best. We call them agree 100%
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>> and we have to conclude on that that the purpose the team that wins is the
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championships is not necessarily the most deserving on the field or whatever it is
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>> every sport every sport every season develop I mean there's all sports are
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littered with great great great teams that didn't win their national championships by the way one last note
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on differencing this and play and and tournament design there's a fundamental
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difference and now this is being debated in college on how the tournament is seated or how the tournament is
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populated did and let let's just know the general in play in tournament design. You've got a qualifying stage
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and then you've got the knockout stage and we know this from that's the language we use in World Cup. But the
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same thing happens baseball. It'sund freaking 62 games of qualifying and then
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a few weeks of knockouts. And in in in NFL, the qualifying happens by divisions and the champs go. Even if you're a
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eight and nine or whatever the hell Carolina was this year, you're going to play. And you know, the wild cards are a
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way to take the edge off of that, but it's this automatic qualifying. Col in
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college, there's a little bit of automatic qualifying, but there's debates on that's exactly what they're
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debating right now. Next week is the meeting. We're going to expand the tournament probably. Are we gonna put in
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more automatic qualifiers or just a few and let people come in the other way? This NFL solved this problem years ago
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and we don't debate who should be in the playoffs or not. It's like it's a it's
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agreed upon. This is how it happens. You play divisional divisions matter and it's kind of nice in that way really.
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There's no committee deciding which of the NFL teams should everyone plays. Yeah. Roughly equivalent schedules which
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I think helps in the NFL compared with college. >> Hugely so. Hugely so. Okay. Neil, you're
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wearing a Buffalo Bills hat. So, so those of you not watching the video don't see this. Neil has one million
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sports hats, most of which we can view in his background. And today he's wearing the Bills hat. So, tell us about
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>> Well, I just uh you know, some of a few of my best friends are Bills fans and I
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just want them to get one. Uh you know, I think uh them surviving that Jacksonville game. I kind of uh circled
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that and I'm sure you guys talked about this last week as well as being like a
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game between two teams that probably should have been meeting like later in the playoffs than uh the the wild card
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round. And so the the survival of that is almost sort of like a test. Uh it's
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it's like a natural selection process I feel like where you get through that
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one. Uh it's it's certainly not going to be easy from there. uh and there's
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plenty left to do, but uh it almost gets uh weirdly uh less stressful I feel once
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you get that out of the way and you're kind of on equal footing like now every
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team has to play the same number of games uh and win the same number of games going forward to win the
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championship. And I kind of think Denver, like of all the different teams that the Bills could have drawn uh
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coming in, uh they got the tough one with Jacksonville, but now Denver, and I'm curious what you guys are are
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thinking on them, but they feel a little bit more like the paper tiger uh of uh in an AFC where it's really wide open.
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Anybody really at this point, you could envision them winning, but to be the number one seed in that kind of
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conference is not necessarily really a ringing endorsement the way it would be. And I wrote about this in my takeaways.
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Uh home field in general, home field was down this year uh in the past couple years versus what we kind of think of as
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being like oh two two and a half points per game. It's not quite that high anymore. And there have been years where
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it was lower for sure. Uh I think about the COVID year um which really across all sports exposed how valuable it was
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to have those fans in the stands. Uh but uh in the wild card the road teams went
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two and four. They had a a minus three point per game differential. Some of that was because what we were just
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talking about the the division winners in Carolina and Pittsburgh getting those home games. They were kind of plainly
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like the worst division winner is always going to be worse than the best wildard
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team. And so they were underdogs and they got beat. Uh Carolina to their credit actually kept it a lot closer
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than I thought they were going to against the Rams. But um that played a little bit of a role and uh but I even
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adjusted for what we would expect uh the road teams to do and it was still one of
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the worst performances by by home teams in a wildcard round uh since the merger I want to say which is again you know
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not the worst it's not historic uh and and some of that was a little bit less
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bad than you would expect based on who was playing but it just tells me again like playing at home not necessarily
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really the um huge boost that we have come to think of it as being over the years.
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>> Is the actually historically is the four seed usually an underdog compared to the
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five seed? You'd kind of think >> No, but I think their quality just if
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they were playing in a neutral sight I think almost always they would be worse. >> Like I feel like the five seed almost
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always has a better record than the four seed. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Because it's easier to beat three
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other teams than it is to beat, you know, however many non-division winners there are in the conference. uh out.
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>> So, does anyone here is anyone here a Denver or Bonex believer? Looking at
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Massie Peabody rankings through last week, so they Denver sat out anyway, so it shouldn't matter, but we had them
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like >> ninth in the league. And you know, there's a lot of smashing up there
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together. >> There's not that much separation, but ninth is >> is weird for the number one seed in the
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AFC, right? >> I mean, they won so many close games. I I expect that that's probably part of
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it. They got a little bit of that 2024 Chiefs syndrome where it's like, you know, how much do they keep winning, but
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how much do we really believe in them going forward? So, I think that's probably playing into
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>> I'll tell you what I am a fan of. I'm a fan of Shawn Payeyton and I think if
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anyone can figure out a way I think Buffalo is the better team in that game, I would much rather have Josh Allen than
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Bon Knicks. It's not even I mean I don't even want to talk about the same planet
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here but I just have a feeling that's the game I know everyone's saying I
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think you even knew was the word Neil maybe paper tiger or whatever it is. I just think Denver's going to figure out
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a way to win that game and I most if they do most of that credit and I'm I want Buffalo to win the game. Let me
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just be clear. I give most of the credit to Shawn Peyton because I don't think
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they have a great offensive team. I think Shawn Peyton's going to figure out
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a way to win that game. I think he's going to potentially when maybe using Audi's words when it comes down to the
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key moment of the game, who do I trust more as a coach, Shawn Payeyton or do I trust? Was it McDermott? Is that the
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coach of the Bills? Who do I trust more? I trust Shawn Payeyton. >> And I I also think defense is uh I I
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mean I I view this, you know, very much through a lens covered by what what what
00:21:03
could hurt Drake May in the playoffs. Uh my golden boy. and and and what scares me is Denver Broncos's defense. Houston
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Tech I I mean basically I think pass rush um is the way you know that that's
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the way I talk myself into Denver you know being able I I do think the Bills are a bigger challenge actually to
00:21:23
Denver than whoever comes out of the Pats versus Texans. But I you know I I think both the Texans and Broncos have
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these very very good defenses. And I mean I I know it's not predictive, you know, season to season, game to game and
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the same, but I do think it kind of it can carry a team in the playoffs and we've seen it before.
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>> Let me ask given what you saw yesterday, how do you feel about Houston New
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England? Like is there anything to learn Neil from the 30 to whatever three thrashing of the Steelers? Is there
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anything to learn from New England playing so well, not offensively particularly, they didn't play well
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offensively, but defensively? Like do you how much I asked the same thing last week. How much do you basianly update
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your beliefs about these team strengths given what you observed in these playoff
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games? Anything more than a regular season game or no? It's just it's a game's a game and there it is.
00:22:17
>> Well, uh you know, I think there's also there's the recency factor. You know, I
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have something in my model on uh my substack that weights more recent games more except for week 18 where we filter
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out those pesky games where they're not uh playing starters. But so I think that
00:22:32
that matters just saying like what kind of form is a team in now. I think if you're going to uh try your hardest and
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kind of show your best uh level of yourself, you're going to do that in the playoffs. But uh to those games, you
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know, I think point differential might be a little misleading about the Texans Steelers game cuz that was a 9 to7 game
00:22:53
going into the fourth quarter. It was sort of, >> you know, a little scary uh for Houston
00:22:58
until uh Aaron Rodgers turned into a pumpkin in front of us. You know, he had he's had an amazing career, but that was
00:23:05
>> and wasn't his fault. Wasn't his fault. That receiver went the wrong way.
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>> Yeah. I mean, it's just uh was was kind of a disastrous ending there and they
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kind of ran up the uh the the score at the end. Uh so I don't know that I would
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kind of classify that as being different in kind than >> the Patriots, you know, their offense
00:23:22
was really, you know, not as good as we've seen it be certainly, but the defense was amazing and they really uh
00:23:29
shut down Herbert. How much of that was also like if they're going to get the
00:23:32
pass rush in there against the Chargers, like what team would be better and what
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quarterback in Herbert would be better to to be able to kind of unleash the the pass rush against? Uh so that could have
00:23:43
also been matchups. Uh we kind of hinted at this earlier when we were talking about the meaning of the best team. How
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much do you take away from certain games? I mean, the matchups seem to be also as important as sort of the the
00:23:55
overall quality of the teams from like a power rating perspective when we're
00:23:59
talking about who wins and loses these playoff games. When I updated my basian uh dist posterior after watching uh the
00:24:07
Patriots game, I noted it was heavily it was heavily updated by the fact that Drake May five sacked five times. I
00:24:14
mean, we lose sight lost a little sight of it because the Patriots were doing even more to Herbert, but Drake May was
00:24:19
sacked five times. two fumbles, you know, and I mean that's against the Chargers and now they're going up
00:24:25
against the Texans, which have the best pass rush I think in all of football. I mean, Neil, you could probably give more
00:24:30
sophisticated insight than that, but >> that sounds right to me. >> Well, the Texans and Broncos, you know,
00:24:35
the the Bills are like scarily the worst defense the Patriots like kind of left that the Patriots would face on on that
00:24:42
side. So yeah, I mean I I uh I was cheering hard for the Steelers. As much as that it's hard to kind of based on
00:24:49
historical reasons, I was cheering hard for the Steelers last night. Too bad. >> Bet you were just noting that the Texans
00:24:54
are an underdog. They're going to to New England, of course, but they're a
00:24:57
three-point underdog. The way y'all are talking about it, you're making a good
00:24:59
case for that not being the case. Ai was trying to get in earlier. >> Yeah. I uh I just Eric says something
00:25:06
that I wanted to react to about Shawn Payton. Um this is a interesting question. We all have our opinions about
00:25:13
coaches and their ability to win. Is there a data analytical tool in football that allows us to measure the quality of
00:25:21
a coach? Obviously, not very accurately, but at least as with some reasonable expectation. I mean, you're the king of
00:25:27
the the the metrics, right? So, what do we got out there for coaches? Anything? >> Uh, well, I mean, certainly the the
00:25:34
stuff around decision- making in particular moments. I think you can go through and kind of say like how often
00:25:40
have coaches made the optimal decision, how much how much have they helped or hurt their team going? Um
00:25:47
>> we do fourth downs of course, but beyond that, how about others? >> Uh some of it is also like the tactical
00:25:54
stuff, you know, I know that PFF uh like all of the kind of X's and O's measures
00:26:00
that we have. Football is very interesting. I I was even looking at this in the context of Justin Herbert
00:26:04
where they were saying uh stat you know analytics nerds can't shield Justin Herbert uh from criticism after this
00:26:12
loss or whatever and I was like well who are the analytics nerds that are sort of
00:26:17
supporting Justin Herbert. It's really more of the kind of tape grinder types
00:26:20
which I think have become synonymous with analytics nerds in football but only football and I find that I mean
00:26:27
that's way beyond the scope of this conversation but I find that endlessly uh interesting that in every other sport
00:26:34
the people that use numbers and yes we watch games but we don't have that trained expertise of the kind of
00:26:39
watching tape are the the analytics nerds and then in football somehow the people that watch the tape religiously
00:26:46
uh more so than even rely relying on the numbers are regarded as the kind of nerds desour of the sport. So they would
00:26:54
have things to say about um you know tactically what coaches are doing in particular situations maybe on defense
00:27:00
in ways that the numbers are kind of blind to. Famously football you know very difficult to quantify and only over
00:27:07
the course of you know a large sample can we really get a sense of coaches that bring maybe a certain amount of
00:27:14
stability or kind of improve their teams chances uh in in some small amount. and
00:27:19
and it's very ironic that we saw two of the best at that uh John Harbaugh and
00:27:24
Mike Tomlin leaving their teams uh you know over this off season uh whether by choice or by um non-choice. So I think
00:27:32
that that's really interesting that um coaching in the NFL is so opaque even to
00:27:39
the people making the decisions that you can have a coach who is currently regarded as one of the best coaches. You
00:27:45
can fire that coach or let them go. they will immediately become the most sought-after coach to the point that if
00:27:51
if it was a blind resume, you would hire that coach for your open position despite just firing that coach. And so,
00:27:58
it's just a very interesting uh decision process because we're all trying to make
00:28:02
these decisions about ultimately people that are uh leading 53 plus uh people and even larger groups
00:28:11
than that if you include the assistant coaches and the support staff. And uh they're doing it in 17game increments
00:28:17
and a lot can happen. Most of those games are decided by one score or less as increasingly so. And we're trying to
00:28:24
make sweeping judgments about their performance in the context of what are ultimately pretty small samples to act
00:28:31
off of. >> A lot of people want to get in. No new questions, just observations riffing on
00:28:35
this thing that we just we've just been talking about. >> Yeah. So what would be wrong, Neil, with
00:28:39
doing the following? Like let's imagine we treat each game obviously as two teams playing so a paired comparison
00:28:45
model right and so whether you do something more sophisticated may offensive defensive team strengths
00:28:51
whatever you want to put in there why not why can't you just put in a coaching
00:28:54
dummy variable you observe a large number of games in some sense you'll get some sort of statistically shrunken
00:29:02
residual estimate that can be attributed to the coach of the game and there you get an estimate you would get on a line
00:29:09
let's say Right now, you could put all the coaches on a line. Um, there you go.
00:29:14
What would be wrong with >> contributing the entire team effect to the coach? Is your estimate?
00:29:18
>> Well, that's So, all right. So, that might be one problem. Sounds like you're
00:29:22
estimating. >> But, but let me just say it. So, the answer is at the moment, yes. But I
00:29:27
haven't told you also what I'm going to condition on. I'm conditioning on
00:29:30
offensive team strength, defensive team strength. >> Okay. But now, now you're making the
00:29:33
opposite problem, which is you're you're some of the coaching values going to
00:29:37
show up. Those aren't exog index. >> Well, you could have variables for
00:29:42
individual players for instance like the starting quarterback or you know other key players and sort it's the Brady
00:29:49
Bellich problem, right? Even there you you don't have you can't get them uh you
00:29:54
know the two indicators are like hopelessly confounded. Well >> yeah and I think the biggest problem
00:29:59
there you could totally do that Eric. I actually uh you know I don't have a problem with that but I think uh it
00:30:05
would be if you're doing shrinkage it would most coaches would be shrunk down
00:30:09
to basically zero and the sample size that it would take to kind of distinguish them is probably well longer
00:30:15
than the average coach's tenure. Uh and so you end up with basically this uh
00:30:20
selection effect as well where like the only coaches that we would have any sense of whether they were actually good
00:30:26
or not are the ones who are allowed to keep coaching long enough which then biases it toward being the best coaches
00:30:32
anyway. >> So and so my view is just my own personal view is um I'm okay with that
00:30:38
like in the sense of that is what we can say. We can say something about that. As
00:30:44
you said, great coaches get to stay longer. Successful coaches get to stay longer. There's other big mass of
00:30:51
coaches that we can't really distinguish from zero. And that's our jobs as
00:30:55
statistitians. We're going to tell the public like, I'll make it up. You think,
00:30:59
I don't know, pick Demo Ryan, by the way, right now seems pretty good. He's
00:31:04
won more playoff games than a lot of coaches already, you know, but we don't
00:31:08
have enough evidence to say Deique Ryan's right now is a great coach. He might be, but it's hard to know. I I
00:31:13
think that's an accurate reflection of uncertainty is my only comment. >> That's I think that's that'd be great,
00:31:18
right? That's a that's that's a that's a service actually, but it also reflects
00:31:23
the limits of our models. And um one question is just like those old, you know, essays every people do every now
00:31:29
and then like they ask scientists, what do you believe that you can't prove? you
00:31:33
know, it's like you can't you can't publish this stuff, but like given the
00:31:36
chance to opine, who would you say is a good coach even though you don't have
00:31:39
the data? One of the problems is that there are so many different elements of coaching that contribute and they're not
00:31:45
necessarily related. So guys, Eric asked for a study. I'll give you a study. This
00:31:50
is a athletic study. So their quant these days is Austin Mock and he looked at fourth down decisions this season by
00:32:01
the coaches in on with teams in the playoffs and asked how often the decision the coach made matches the
00:32:08
decision of some model presumably the athletics model. So the sample sizes are small that they must have conditioned to
00:32:15
a small group of fourth down decisions but they range from like 12 to 25. So, we can kind of dismiss it on that ground
00:32:22
alone. But then he ranks the coaches top to bottom. And Demo Ryan, who I just heard lauded here, is third from bottom.
00:32:32
By the way, Harbaugh, Jim Harbaugh, bottom. Tomlin next to bottom. I think we knew that one. Demo Ryan's
00:32:40
third from bottom. Who's the top? Matt Laflur who just got roasted for his second half management. Right. Nick
00:32:47
Serani who's out. Vrabel, Shane's new favorite guy, Vrabel, number three. So
00:32:52
that's just but that's just one dimension and coaching's coaches contribute across many many many
00:32:58
dimensions. >> By the way, just to your point, just to build on what you're saying, Kate, and
00:33:01
it was same sort of criticism Shane just made of me, it's not a criticism. I
00:33:05
think the Brill Winer model, if that's what you guys call it, by the way, would
00:33:08
say that right wrong is not even the right metric. If someone if it's 5149 and someone chooses the 51 like I'm
00:33:16
gonna say yeah you made the right decision or you made the wrongest and why don't we use those probabilities and
00:33:21
add those up in some way. >> Yeah they don't do it right. The analysis that we showed is the vast
00:33:26
majority of fourth down decisions are either obvious and we they generally exclude those or and this is a good
00:33:34
indeterminate as in we don't have enough cases know the right move. So if you do
00:33:40
that generally in a game, you don't really have too many across even a season of of really tough I'm not saying
00:33:48
not I say tough calls decisions that the c that the coach made that were really obviously wrong. Right. and and and then
00:33:54
you have to throw in the level of costly because one of the things that we discovered was that there are lots of u
00:33:59
decisions that are obviously wrong in the first quarter but they don't cost you that much because decision bad
00:34:06
fourth down decisions in the first quarter aren't going to throw the game by 10%. They just a little bit because
00:34:12
the game is barely started. So whatever the bad decision can but they but they're knowable and they're measurable.
00:34:17
So in other words, you could cost yourself one and a half% of win probability with a with a uncertainty
00:34:23
that's that's minimous. We know that's the right move and you blew it, but it
00:34:27
didn't cost you that much. And most of the people who go through this, they don't look at that that effect size. Um,
00:34:32
and that of course is very dependent on the quarter that you're making that bad
00:34:35
decision. Fourth quarter bad decisions are horrendous because they're levered.
00:34:39
>> Okay. Well, let's let's just wrap this conversation by going back to Eric and
00:34:42
asking, okay, then what is it about Shawn Peyton, Eric? Is it the is it the academic essay? What do you believe that
00:34:49
you can't prove or is there something specific about his coaching that you like that gives you confidence in him?
00:34:55
>> Yeah, I just have I I'll look at this. I'll actually do the analysis off air.
00:34:59
I'll post it on WMoney Mo. I just have a sense if one used whether it's Massiepuddy,
00:35:06
PFF, uh could be Neil's prediction model that Shawn Payton's teams over a long period
00:35:13
of time if we computed residual wins, I I would think he's going to have a significant number of residual wins
00:35:21
above and beyond. If I looked at that histogram of residual wins divided by let's I'll norm it by the sample size.
00:35:28
So, it's the residual wins per game played that I think Shawn Payton would be out in the right tail of that
00:35:35
distribution. >> Yeah. And I this one we actually can fit because you need to throw in Drew Brees
00:35:41
as an indicator and we do actually have separation because Drew Brees played a few years in San Diego, right? And so
00:35:48
you could try and separate out like I'm just, you know, the just kind of thinking about this model here. Again,
00:35:53
one of the things you'd probably want to condition on his quarterback. And for so
00:35:57
much of Shawn Pton's very successful career, he's had Drew Brees as his quarterback. And so that would be kind
00:36:03
of, you know, you'd have to be kind of a portioning out those wins between Drew
00:36:07
Brees and Shawn Payeyton. And you'd have to kind of their relative record without
00:36:11
each other is kind of where you'd end up separating out that partial credit. And
00:36:15
kind of >> Breeze is an example of how you you probably could play with heterogeneity
00:36:19
within quarterback. I don't know if anyone ever did this with with Brady. I >> mean, Bichc early years of Brady were
00:36:25
not as good as the middle and late years of Brady. The late years of Breeze were
00:36:29
a negative. That was a drag on Shawn Pay at the end. >> Was like Tom Roth the late years of
00:36:34
Rothllessberger, you know, I mean, that was a big part of Tomlin's kind of time
00:36:37
in Pittsburgh. >> Interesting. Okay. Well, why don't we we're keeping Neil longer than we
00:36:41
expected to. So, why don't we wrap and let's give Neil give give him a moment
00:36:45
to say something about the college football. Between now and our next show, next Monday night, Indiana and Miami
00:36:51
will play for the national championship in Miami. But we're looking at, what are
00:36:55
we looking at here, guys? We're looking at a 8 and a half point line. Indiana's
00:36:59
favored by eight and a half. If you listen to the pundits, Miami might as well not show up. It's ridiculous the
00:37:04
rhetoric around this thing. Any thoughts on this game, Neil? >> Yeah, I I think these types of games
00:37:09
always tend to uh be closer than maybe it seems based on a team coming in. And you have to think no uh no further back
00:37:19
than the Miami in a championship game against Ohio State in 2002 when they had a potential to be considered the best
00:37:28
team of all time. The Hurricanes did. Uh and they ended up losing that game. Questionable call in overtime, but they
00:37:35
still lost. Uh to our point earlier, it's about who wins and loses. Um, and so with Indiana now, the chatter is
00:37:42
about them potentially being the best team of all time. Certainly the way they've gone through the playoffs. And I
00:37:48
think that's kind of an interesting uh wrinkle that the playoff adds to these
00:37:52
kind of GOAT conversations because in the past you would play your regular season, you play your conference
00:37:57
championship, so you'd get some good teams in there and then you play like one extra game. Uh, if it was Miami, you
00:38:03
know, in 2001, they played that championship game against who was it? Nebraska that they just absolutely
00:38:08
destroyed. Uh, and it's just, okay, that's it. You really beat the the the
00:38:12
brakes off of another good team here. And I looked at this last year for Ohio State. They beat the most number of good
00:38:19
teams in a single season of any team in the history of college football. Now, they played more games than anyone else
00:38:24
also by virtue of the expanded playoff, but it forces you to prove it over this sequence of pretty tough opponents. And
00:38:32
what Indiana has done, I mean, they beat uh Oregon by 30 plus points. They beat Alabama by 30 plus points. They have
00:38:38
kind of gone and laid waste to the teams that they have. So, they blow out Miami
00:38:42
in this one. I think you could make a case. It's It reminded me so I was having this conversation um the other
00:38:47
day on Substack with someone that I was thinking about Yukon a couple years ago where uh Yukon had a great team. They
00:38:55
were the defending national champs actually. And uh during the regular season, it wasn't like best of all time.
00:39:01
we wouldn't put it up there with, you know, the the the great like UCLA teams
00:39:05
or Indiana in the 70s or whatever, but you look at what they did in the NCAA tournament and I think they didn't have
00:39:12
a single game that they didn't win by double digits and they were just blowing
00:39:16
the doors off of people all tournament long. So, I think we might with the expansions of these playoffs in all the
00:39:23
different sports, we might have like a different category where instead of saying like, okay, greatest team of all
00:39:28
time, you could carve out a little space for like greatest team in the playoffs specifically, what was the greatest
00:39:34
performance? And I think Yukon 2024, I think it was, was arguably the greatest college B men's college basketball
00:39:41
single tournament performance of all time, even if they weren't the greatest
00:39:44
team across the whole season. And you could say that about Indiana as well. Now, they've had a great season in
00:39:49
general. I know the metrics are not quite as high on them as some of the other great teams of the past, but if
00:39:55
they end up again blowing out Miami in this championship game, which is possible. I don't think it's going to
00:40:00
happen, but it it could certainly happen the way that they've been doing it, you
00:40:04
got to kind of give them their flowers as potentially being the best in these games that we've decided count a lot
00:40:10
more, and there's more of them than ever. The the the greatest playoff team of all time. people beingware the hubris
00:40:17
of that inevitability. Eli Manning want to stop that. >> Yeah. No, no question the inevitability
00:40:22
thing is is is is relevant this week, but I love Neil's distinction and actually it takes us all the way back to
00:40:29
the beginning of our conversation between the team with the best parameter value
00:40:34
>> versus the team that does the most on the field. And whenever like so we I
00:40:39
just saw this uh we just got this um the the Twitter Andrew Persal our our friend
00:40:45
who does fantastic college football analytics looked at the best teams of like the last 10 years because
00:40:52
everyone's making this fuss about Indiana and Indiana's like or maybe the
00:40:56
last 20. Indiana's like eighth and they're almost a half a standard deviation off the top which is you know
00:41:04
like maybe it's a point4 so it's like four or five points off the top but that
00:41:09
was the stacked air that was the unbelievable Alabama Georgia three deep going to the NFL era and they don't
00:41:16
rival that and Neil's saying yeah yeah that's one question that's the theta
00:41:20
question the who's got the best parameter the different question now that we're playing these long playoffs
00:41:24
is who does the best and that's now it's more like March Madness and it's a whole
00:41:28
different standard. That's cool. Very cool. And now Indiana has a chance. Let's see Indiana has a chance. Neil, we
00:41:35
should let you go. Thanks for making time for us. It's always a delight to talk to you.
00:41:39
>> Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. Love to talk football
00:41:42
and other sports with you. >> Absolutely. Neil Payne, get on his Substack daily. Substack from Neil.
00:41:49
We'll cover you across a wide range of sports, giving you both good analytics
00:41:53
and good writing. Neil Payne. That's the first half of Wharton Moneyball. Come
00:41:58
back and join us after the break for the second half. Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to the second half of
00:42:03
this week's show. Just off the phones with Neil Payne. Neil calling in from his home office in Bentonville,
00:42:10
Arkansas. Long time friend of the show. Probably original. He probably gets to count as the original friend of the
00:42:16
show. He kind of helped back in the day. He goes back as far as Deion Simkins, our associate producer, goes back um
00:42:25
talking mostly NFL liberty college football with Neil. Good stuff as usual. Gentlemen, um why don't we take the
00:42:32
moment? We've got 15 20 minutes here. Curious what you guys been thinking about. We've got the big sports. We can
00:42:38
stay there if that's what's on your mind. We've got other sports if that's
00:42:42
what's on your mind. We're just before h uh we're just before the Olympics. We're
00:42:48
mid hockey. We're midNBA. There's golf controversy going on. There's all kinds of stuff. So, I'm
00:42:54
curious, gentlemen, in the world of sports, what has caught your eye? I've got a kind of a fun hockey one. Um,
00:43:03
I would I just kind of noticed I was checking out kind of the current points leaders in the NHL. And not not
00:43:08
surprisingly, Nate Mc Nathan McKinnon and Conor McDavid are number one, number two. They're currently tied both at 78
00:43:15
points. But if you look at plus minus, which is, you know, something people commonly look at for uh for comparing
00:43:21
these two, Nate McKinnon's at plus 48. Conor McDavid's at plus two. >> Wow.
00:43:28
>> Yeah. >> Now, hold on. Is that >> he's he's tied for the league lead in
00:43:34
points, but his plus minus is barely above zero. >> But maybe Edmonton sucks. Maybe their
00:43:40
defense sucks. Maybe it's his linemates. >> Yes. No, I mean I think it's such a nice
00:43:44
stark illustration of kind of the problems with just looking at some aggregate thing like plus minus where
00:43:50
you're not adjusting for the kind of context of of what the players are doing
00:43:55
with and in his case he's an incredible goal scorer on a poorest team that allows a ton of goals too. So he's on
00:44:03
the ice for a lot of goals and I mean he does bear some responsibilities to that
00:44:07
but trying to partial that out that's why you need to adjust these types of things. I just think it I thought it was
00:44:13
kind of a a cool cool comparison between us. >> That's it's a great example, Shane. I I
00:44:18
I used to think that hockey plus minus was this great measure and then I was going to use it for something and I
00:44:24
wrote Namita, our old friend Namita Nandukumar who's um >> a student of Shane's and then has gone
00:44:30
on was with the Eagles briefly and has been with the >> Kraken since their beginning. They're
00:44:35
Kraken a year before they even started. So Nimid is like don't do anything with
00:44:40
this. It's like plus you need the sample size you need is more or less what she
00:44:44
said. The sample size you need to say anything about plus minus at the individual level is in the multiple
00:44:49
seasons. You just you can't you can't begin to do something with. So you've
00:44:52
get given us a great illustration of that. Um what else gentlemen? Aie Eric. >> So so I obviously am a huge tennis fan
00:45:01
that Australian Open's coming up. Um, I would be surprised if like I'm trying to decide at this
00:45:11
point. Would I take center against the field? I know I would take center and Alcarz
00:45:18
against the field easily. Easily on the men's side. The women's side, it's hard
00:45:24
to know. I mean, Sabalanka is having such a great start to the season and is such a strong player, but the women's
00:45:29
game has proven that, you know, I forget there was one stretch of like four straight years where there were
00:45:35
literally 16 different Grand Slam champions. So, I think that's hard to do on the women's side, but I think it
00:45:41
would hard to find any legitimate betting odds any that wouldn't say matter of fact, I'd
00:45:48
have to give you odds if I took center and Alcarez and you got the field. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's not interesting.
00:45:54
The center thing though is interesting. Like Doug, what what do you think peak odds were among the big three? Like any
00:46:02
given grand slam, >> who what was the peak? Any one of them had >> doll at the French.
00:46:10
>> That's not close. And >> but how high did that get? >> Is this kind of peak for a single
00:46:15
person? >> That's what I'm asking. >> Like kind of over I mean because
00:46:18
obviously the big three kind of sucked from each other. >> Okay. So you want to go back to like the
00:46:22
Borg Mess Wimbletons or something. I don't I don't I mean that that would interesting
00:46:29
empirical question. I do kind of feel like I mean or or there there was the Australian that won like everything in
00:46:35
the 50s. >> Labor >> people wanted to go far back. >> So uh but there's but Eric's introducing
00:46:41
this interesting threshold. Has anybody ever crossed the you know odds on favorite threshold? a single player in a
00:46:49
mass in a professional grand slam. A grand slam. >> Crazy to think in like a four round
00:46:53
tournament that you would ever get to that point to be honest. >> Right. Right. Is it only four rounds? Is
00:46:58
it I thought it was like >> six seven rounds. Sorry. Seven. Seven. Seven. >> Yeah. I guess maybe relevant rounds.
00:47:03
Probabilistically relevant rounds. I mean >> 3.7. Um. >> All right. Eric's Eric's working with
00:47:11
his friend chat GPT to answer our question. And while he's doing that an answer, we just made it up.
00:47:18
>> No, this question. >> Do I get Should I do a caught my eye before we wait?
00:47:22
>> No. No. Eric's got the answer, I think. >> No, I don't have it yet, but it's
00:47:26
looking. >> Okay. >> But I'm predicting it's going to be Nadal at the French in sometime where
00:47:31
Djokovic wasn't as great yet on Clay, but was never great. I'm going to guess
00:47:37
Nadal in 2016 or 17 on >> what what was the max probability pre-turn? >> I'm going to guess
00:47:47
60%. >> My goodness. Well into odds on favorite. Interesting. Okay. >> On the dollar ranch over those years.
00:47:54
>> Hey, by the way, Eric, on the tennis front, by >> the way, as it's doing thinking, by the
00:47:58
way, in 2006, it just said Federer was minus 250 at Wimbledon. >> What? Really? That's incredible. Did he win?
00:48:10
Not of >> It's now checking. Let's not tax sport GPT with that. >> It's checking Borg 1980 at Wimbledon.
00:48:20
Remember, he was the four-time defending champion at that point. >> So, it's checking that. So, well, let me
00:48:26
just say regardless of whether it finds the maximum or the minimum, however you want to phrase it, we have now evidence
00:48:32
of someone that's been what, 625, something like that, minus 250. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's
00:48:37
impressive. That's a good thing to to know about. I would not have known. By
00:48:40
the way, I haven't read the article yet, but a friend sent it. The New Yorker has
00:48:44
a big article on Alcarez and Center. The budding rivalry of Carlos Alcarez and Yanik Center. Um, sounds like it might
00:48:50
be interesting reading. Audi Winer, what caught your eye, buddy? >> All right. Well, actually, I was on I
00:48:54
was on in Puerto Rico celebrating my wife's uh big birthday with the with the
00:48:58
family. So, I didn't watch very much for it was a terrible time to go. We were in
00:49:01
the air while the Eagles were playing. In fact, we flew into Philadelphia airport watching the end of the game and
00:49:06
and we had black news blackout. I predicted I I didn't expect them to win, but I that was not what caught my eye.
00:49:12
What catches my eye is that January 20th is coming up and Eric knows that that's
00:49:19
the date the announcement of the Hall of Fame. So before we have next show, so we
00:49:23
should make some forecast, guys. We always do this. Who who's going to get in?
00:49:28
>> It's g it's going to be on it. It'll be the day of our recording next week, the
00:49:32
20th. Um >> could be after before. I'm not sure where they're going to.
00:49:36
>> It's after. It's usually what 700 p.m. 6 or 7 between 6:00 and 7 p.m. on the MLB
00:49:40
network. >> All right. So that gives you some time to research it. So they I'll just give
00:49:44
you the a rundown and we'll make our our predictions. >> Isn't it Is there any uncertainty, Audi?
00:49:48
Isn't it Carlos Beltron and Andrew Jones and no one else? >> So Okay. So, Belran is going to make
00:49:54
>> Andrew Jones um he's around 83%. And you could have a substantial fall back when
00:50:00
you when the publicly announced ballots and what actually happens. But I think Jones is going to make it. Um so those
00:50:07
are the two obvious ones. I don't think anyone else is going to make it. What's
00:50:10
actually interesting is where where the rest of them are going to lie, right? So
00:50:14
the big jumps this year were really surprising. Um, uh, Chase Utley is in pushing 70 right now. So, he's only in
00:50:23
his what, his third year. That I'd have to forecast he's going to be a Hall of
00:50:27
Famer before this is >> he will be for sure. >> You'd argue that he'd has to be as well.
00:50:32
Here's another one that surprised me because I thought I mean his final tally
00:50:36
last year was in the 20s. Right now, Pettit is approaching 60%. Andy Pettit thought that is a surprise and he's in
00:50:44
his eighth. Um, will he make it or not? No, certainly not this year. There's
00:50:48
nobody else who's any is anywhere close to just the Beltran and Jones, which may
00:50:52
be the reason why some of the other guys are bumping up just because there's just
00:50:55
not that many. >> Yeah, I guess it could be both a light year just specifically this year. It
00:51:03
could also be I mean maybe Hul you know we we have to start reappraising starting pitchers and maybe you know
00:51:11
like somebody like Addy Pett's career looks extra I think you know like like
00:51:15
maybe like like as as a starting pitcher kind of dies out as a as as an ent like
00:51:20
may maybe there's some kind of you know a renewed appreciation from some of the
00:51:25
for some of the recent starters that like were on the margins. But here's a here's a that of all the first time
00:51:31
ballot people none of them is going to stay >> what does it take >> five% I think
00:51:39
>> remind remind us what the first time >> oh interesting >> so there's nobody who came up this year
00:51:45
who of really any substantial quality and that makes it was kind of wide open so the group is Ryan Braun uh Sinshu Chu
00:51:52
Edwin Carnosion Gonzalez Alex Gordon Cole Hamills Oh. Uh, no. Sorry. Cole Hamls is up. Sorry, I missed that. He's
00:52:00
going to stay. >> I was I going to say Cole Hamls will probably get >> Yeah, Cole Hamls is going to stay. I
00:52:05
missed him. >> What's the base rate of staying? What's the base rate of first year guys
00:52:10
sticking around? >> That's a great question. I don't know the answer. I would imagine it's higher
00:52:14
than this one out of 15, right? This year it's probably >> What does it do to get what do you have
00:52:20
to do to qualify? Yeah, I was going to say that we need to know more about the selection process of how the builds like
00:52:25
like is is it something where they just like somebody's added to the to the ballot?
00:52:31
>> It's 10 years. I believe it's 10 years. >> Yeah. So, there's a there's a time
00:52:33
eligibility, but there's a lot of player lot. >> There's not it's not a deterministic
00:52:38
process that gets on the ballot, right? It's like some kind of opaque selection.
00:52:42
>> Committee nominates. >> I don't know. Rick Pcell is on it. He's
00:52:46
got no votes. >> No, no, but it's a good question. I don't actually know how someone gets on
00:52:50
the ballot. I know how long they how they stay on the ballot. I know how the maximum time, but how they get there.
00:52:58
>> They should be has the answer. And I was correct. >> One one second there. Stay with this for
00:53:03
just a quick sec. They should contract with people like Audi who have models for who's going to win. And they should
00:53:11
it's just higher in the funnel. It's earlier in the pipeline. The same model
00:53:14
would be great for nominating players, right? I mean, you could argue we don't
00:53:18
know what the consideration set was, but maybe they did a bad job of nominating players this year, if only one. I don't
00:53:25
know. You could certainly you could quantify that process if you wanted to through through Audi's models.
00:53:31
>> Okay, Eric was going to answer his. >> It was it was extremely close. It's
00:53:35
Nadal at the 2018 French Open. He was minus 255, which has an implied odds of 71.8%.
00:53:42
Then Nadal at the 2010 French, Federer at the 2006 Australian, and Federer at the 2007 Wimbledon were all minus 250.
00:53:52
>> I would never have thought that a single player. I would never I would I was so
00:53:56
wrong on that. That's amazing. >> Okay. Um All right. So, let's let's And
00:54:02
where do you have Do you know centers market odds right now for the Australian? >> I can find that quickly.
00:54:08
>> Um All right. When does the tournament start, Eric? It starts I think it's got
00:54:14
to be next week. He's minus Well, I mean I know there's the vague in it, but he's
00:54:22
minus 110. >> Okay. So, he's right at it. Right at it. >> He's right at it.
00:54:27
>> Um All right. So, has the Estrian gained uh um respect in recent time? >> Is it dropped respect? I mean, when when
00:54:37
did it become the fourth major and why does it get to be the fourth major? I think it's been the fourth major since
00:54:42
about 1970s, the '7s. But you understand like I think if you look at this another
00:54:48
thing you could say is impressive about the you know we it it's hard to compare
00:54:53
across eras like most of the great players in the 70s didn't play the Australia and so like I don't remember
00:54:59
how many times Mackenroe played it but let's say he was a professional for 15
00:55:03
years I'm making that up age 18 to 32 33 I I'm guessing he played it no more than
00:55:08
four times five times. So, I think there's a deflation of these guys who have like 7 to 10 majors. I'm not saying
00:55:15
they'd be up at the big three, but you wouldn't surprise me if they were in the
00:55:18
closer to the 10 to 14 bracket had they played most of the majors. I think it's
00:55:23
also true for the women on the women's side as well. You know, you have Chris
00:55:26
Everett and Alberta with 18 majors. I don't I have to look at Stephie Grath who's got like 22 or 23. I'm not
00:55:33
convinced she played the Australian that long. And by the way, she retired at like age 32 also.
00:55:39
That's interesting. That's >> Yeah. Where did we decide along the way
00:55:43
that there was four majors in tennis and four majors in golf? Because it's kind
00:55:47
of a weak one in both sets, >> right? And now there are claim now claims for
00:55:53
>> a clear there there's a clear fourth one in >> but why is why is four the s you would
00:55:58
have thought everything else is in threes. Why is why are those four? >> Why are there four majors?
00:56:04
Historically it's I I fascinating. >> All right guys, let me give you Yeah, I want to go back to what also you
00:56:10
talked about with Neil Payne. >> I just don't I really don't think I mean
00:56:15
I I hope I'm wrong because I want to see a competitive game. I don't think Miami should show up.
00:56:25
>> Like I really think like I it's I find it hard to argue >> that you're a stronger team than Oregon
00:56:34
or Alabama. I'm not saying on any given day. I'm just saying if let's go back to
00:56:39
what we talked about with Neil. >> If I think I I'm just going to make the
00:56:42
following statement. >> If >> Indiana played a thousand memoryless games
00:56:50
against Oregon, Alabama, Miami, I think the spread would be the highest in against Miami.
00:56:59
>> Yeah, possible. Now, what what's different here is if Carson Beck I mean
00:57:04
I'm just going to tell some stories, all right? They're just stories and we
00:57:06
should short these stories in general, but Carson Beck is a seventh year quarterback. He was he was quite good in
00:57:12
his fifth year. He was good enough in his fifth year to be offered a $4 million contract to go play a sixth year
00:57:18
and now he's in his seventh year and he's playing what looks to be some of
00:57:22
his best football. Miami is so that's something that seems to have changed over time. They've got, everybody
00:57:28
recognizes they have great line play. Mario Crystal is known for his emphasis on line play and it allows them to do
00:57:35
some things some colleges just can't do. They can just move. They they don't lose
00:57:39
yardage. For example, I think probably have the lowest number of tackles for loss on the offensive side of anybody in
00:57:45
the NCAA. And they are disruptive on the defensive line. So they've got athletes
00:57:51
at at receivers. So they've you you can tell a story, but it's going to it's
00:57:56
going to depend on Beck really being a good Carson Beck and those guys being real dis disruptive on the front lines.
00:58:03
You know, anytime sports starts being talked about as inevitably as the Hoosers have been talked about and I
00:58:11
mean you couldn't even you could even listen to that game the other night. I
00:58:14
mean it's like they've turned this Cinderella into the New York Yankees.
00:58:17
It's like they've somehow now we're pulling against Indiana that they've
00:58:20
done that. The media has done that to us in about 15 seconds because they're
00:58:25
making it so inevitable. I I have no flavor and taste at all for the Miami Hurricanes. But I think it'd be kind of
00:58:32
fun if they went up there and and upset the Hooers. Okay, let me let me related to college football. Let me give you my
00:58:39
what caught my eye. Y'all probably don't know what's going on in the portal right
00:58:43
now. This is the second full year of portal. They've limited the number of portal windows to one. So, we're in the
00:58:50
portal window. It's a two-eek window. The guys playing the championship have a
00:58:55
few extra days when that championship game is over. But here's the main portal
00:58:58
window. Two two weeks. How many players do you think the teams that are losing the most players are
00:59:05
losing on an 85 scholarship team? What do you think? How many players do you think
00:59:12
have been left announced? Join the portal for the team who's lost the most players.
00:59:21
10 to 15. >> That's I was going to guess slightly higher, but 15 to 20. But Shane's number
00:59:26
doesn't bother me. >> I'm making that out really out of thin air, but I think that's the exercise
00:59:30
anyway. Right. >> What What did you say, Shane? >> I'm making that completely up, but
00:59:34
that's >> What' you say? >> 10 to 15. Sorry. >> Okay, guys. I may have never asked a
00:59:39
question of you that you're more wrong on than this. D2. D2. Oklahoma State, who lost their
00:59:48
coach, 62 of the 85 players. Now, Iowa State, their coach goes to Penn State. How many of their players left? Nine.
00:59:57
Go down to teams. Now, here's the thing that's unbelievable. Maybe it's not
01:00:01
surprising since they lost their coaches. Here's what's new this year. the the blueb blood teams that have
01:00:08
stacked years of five-star recruits that have been crushing high school recruiting rankings for years have these
01:00:13
guys that are third string. They've been they're sophomores. They're still not
01:00:18
playing, but they're really highly recruited. They're being raided. Ohio State has lost 29 players. Ohio
01:00:25
State 29 players. Notre Dame 29 players. Texas more than 20 players. It's a whole
01:00:32
new world. Like we're we're watching college football change right in front
01:00:36
of us this month with the portal. It's a whole new world. It's going to change
01:00:40
high school recruiting. It's going to change the number of scholarships these
01:00:44
teams offer. They're not going to keep 105 players because they can't pay 105
01:00:48
players. So, they're going to have smaller rosters. They're flat out letting they're letting they have to let
01:00:54
some guys go because they can't keep up with BYU wants to hire. they want to get
01:00:59
somebody or Kansas State wants to get somebody and they can't. It is transformational.
01:01:06
>> So Kade, what to you is the implications of that for I'll call it I mean
01:01:11
obviously it's don't count on anyone being there a second year which means
01:01:16
like maybe you should do a pulsing strategy which I'm making a number up. Let's say you have 20 million to spend
01:01:22
on recruits. Maybe you should spend 40 million zero 40 million hero because you you might as well try to maximize years
01:01:30
that have a down year etc etc. >> Well, ironically people were doing just the opposite when
01:01:38
we were growing up the teams that won national championships were senior heavy teams and then they would all graduate
01:01:44
and they'd go through this cycle. that was cyclical. And then about 20 years
01:01:48
ago, 15 years ago, the Alabama of the world figure out a way to like stack talent and not ever have the rebuild.
01:01:54
They just quit having rebuild years. And now with the portal, teams feel like they can always just go get they lose
01:01:59
their best quarterback, they'll go get the best the next best quarterback in on
01:02:02
the market. And so I think it's kind of the psychology is the opposite of that,
01:02:06
Eric. Like we never have to rebuild. We'll just go buy a new team. >> You're not I mean they have to compete
01:02:11
with people. So it's we'll see. I mean, everybody can't buy a new team. Doesn't
01:02:14
work for everybody. I'm sorry, Shane. Go ahead. >> No, I was just going to say like if you
01:02:17
did this kind of calculation of a mobility like conditioning more on like the top like the start like like they
01:02:23
say the top 50 on a team or something like that because you you said it was like the number of scholarships they
01:02:28
give out. So I don't I don't know how many of these are getting into like kind
01:02:32
of the third stringer like is this mostly third stringers moving around or is it like like obviously there's a lot
01:02:39
more fluidity in the market but like how much of the top talent is kind of moving
01:02:42
around? top talent moves. But what's different this year is that top talent hasn't historically left the top teams.
01:02:49
In fact, talent they've been they've been they've let their bottom people go
01:02:53
and they've retracted. But this year, for the first time, teams are getting rated the first year and second year
01:02:59
players who are sit on the bench, but they're the they used to they're the
01:03:02
future of the team. They're the high school recruits that won the high school
01:03:04
recruiting classes. They're the guys we're excited about. They're being
01:03:09
poached, and that's a that's a whole new thing. It's a whole new world.
01:03:13
um that yeah the optim the equilibrium here is not obvious the optimization isn't obvious and they're having to try
01:03:18
to figure it out real time. So wait, so what does this mean >> in terms of why would you give someone a
01:03:24
lot of money in an NIL deal or whatever that deal that payment is for a for a freshman who's going to sit because he's
01:03:31
not good enough to start yet and he's going to go to >> he's going to go to BYU and start he
01:03:39
wouldn't have started at Notre Dame. >> I see. >> But he's he's going to go start at a
01:03:44
team that's lesser. That's that's analogy. >> It sounds like we're we're dividing
01:03:48
college sports into AAA, double A, and single A. And you're going to move up
01:03:53
>> the way you're doing it. >> That's what we thought. That's what we
01:03:56
thought. That's what we thought at this year's challenge. >> Well, with the fluidity to move between
01:04:01
organizations, which is not something you have in baseball. >> Well, and that but Indiana, Texas Tech,
01:04:08
BYU, they're showing us that money can level the playing field. And one way to
01:04:13
get there faster is to go steal guys that aren't yet on the field for these other teams. And they do other things as
01:04:21
well. They compete for talent everywhere. But this particular dynamic is new. >> That's how Indiana is, right? I mean, we
01:04:26
talk about let me give me let me explain this. If you get someone who's like a top four
01:04:33
star recruit and offensive lineman, not gonna be able to start for the best teams, aren't they likely now to go to a
01:04:41
weaker team, never not going to compete for a championship team, but will get a lot of money and will play and then a
01:04:48
second year will move up to a a better team for probably more money, but likely to start and then maybe their third or
01:04:54
fourth year go to a competitive team and then and then get the most money. That sounds to me like it's it's double
01:05:00
single A double A triple A more more teams are competitive viable than they used to be. So when Indiana's playing
01:05:07
for the national championship and Texas Tech was in the final eight um you've
01:05:12
just got a lot you've got dozens of teams that could do it. >> Kate, can teams not sign players to
01:05:18
multi-year NIL enforcable contracts? >> Um that's a I don't know the answer
01:05:24
definitively. It's ask enough that we believe the answer is no. Not enforcable
01:05:33
because if they could they would and you don't see it >> right. Okay. >> Something something you are seeing now.
01:05:39
So Texas Tech got the top quarterback by most people's account. The Cincinnati
01:05:43
quarterback went to Texas Tech and he my my understanding is he had a clause in his contract that if another team
01:05:52
signed him, they had to pay a like a million dollars to Cincinnati. And I believe Tech had to honor that and paid
01:05:59
them. And now what does that feel like? That feels like world soccer. That feels
01:06:04
like transfer fee. >> Transfer payment. >> Freaking transfer fee. So that may be the world that we get
01:06:10
into. So it's a different way of enforcing it, right, Eric? It's not that
01:06:12
the that the players accountable that the guy who hires them has to pay the team, right? Maybe that's the world
01:06:18
we're going to be in. >> Yeah. And obviously if you make that fee large enough, then people aren't going
01:06:24
to transfer in a multi-year way. There is a cost by which you wouldn't pay it.
01:06:28
>> There there is they won't they won't they won't take you. But it's I mean
01:06:31
they won't be able to give you money. They can get you to come and and play for the team, but they won't be able to
01:06:35
pay you, right? How can the player not be able to transfer a school? >> No, the player can. Player can.
01:06:42
>> Absolutely. Yeah, >> that you just have to. He's restricted. I We'll find out what those kind of
01:06:46
contracts will will stand up in in court. But let me tell you from a from a fan from a fans perspective, it's rough
01:06:53
to have this much turnover. I mean, college triple historically, you see, you hear about the guys when they're in
01:06:58
high school being recruited. You look forward to seeing them like play it when games are out of control. You get to see
01:07:03
that guy play when he's young and then you watch him grow into a player and that's just being blown up right now
01:07:08
just completely. >> I think it's Don't you think that has tremendous uh possibility potential
01:07:13
being incredibly detrimental to the sport? >> Yes. I I I mean it's it's
01:07:19
everyone kind of knows it's out of >> what's that Shane? >> Did they say that too and free agency
01:07:23
came into baseball? Yeah, that's a fair question and it's like will the fans
01:07:28
really lose interest and um can coaches I mean coaches now have to recruit their
01:07:32
entire roster again every year like every year they not only are recruiting people to come in they have to
01:07:37
re-recruit their own players and they have to decide which players to let go. I cannot imagine the job of these
01:07:42
coaches. >> Okay. >> How long do you think it'll take just quickly on the same topic? How long do
01:07:46
you think it'll take for us to assess your point earlier Kade that maybe this
01:07:50
is leading to a good outcome at the team level that there's more of a opportunity
01:07:55
a distribution of teams that can win and maybe and the other related question to
01:08:00
me is with play people changing around all the time will this affect performance early performance in the NFL
01:08:07
because players have now played under a bunch of different systems they're not
01:08:12
thinking about the NFL as their objective they are, but they can make so much money in college that maybe they
01:08:19
can sacrifice. I'm just wondering when will when we'll be able to make a
01:08:23
statement other than we don't know >> on those two issues. >> Well, you two very different issues. Of
01:08:29
course, I think un unquestionably the first one is true that we have more parody now than we've had in a long time
01:08:36
in college football and has to be a great thing. Indiana, Texas Tech, Miami in there for the first time in forever.
01:08:42
I mean, everyone recognized that's a good thing. That second question, I thought you were going to go a different
01:08:46
direction was like, does this hurt play? Like early season gonna be a little rougher because everybody's on a new
01:08:51
team, but you went a different direction, which is how does this affect NFL prep? No question that some players
01:08:56
are sticking around longer because of that contract that's available now. They
01:09:00
they some players do better with their fifth or sixth year of college instead of going to pros. And so maybe that
01:09:06
leaves some of those guys better developed for the NFL, but also it could be that mostly those are guys that
01:09:11
aren't going to have much of an NFL. be interesting to see when you know since
01:09:14
many of us have connections with teams do teams start using measures of the >> how variable someone's whether it's
01:09:23
coaching staff how many teams they've played for etc in their predictive models I'm sure they I'm sure they do I
01:09:29
would just be interested to see what those predictive models say about someone's NFL performance as a function
01:09:34
of how many different teams they've been on the size of their NIL contracts etc
01:09:40
etc >> well you have an interesting intuition here that working under different
01:09:43
systems, multiple systems is good for your learning and learning is a trait that people want. That's an interesting
01:09:48
intuition. Okay, fellas, why don't we wrap it there? Remember, we do have between now and the next show, the
01:09:54
quarterfinals in the NFL and the finals in college football and the Hall of Fame
01:09:58
announcement one week from today. All right, guys. Why don't we why don't we
01:10:01
let it go? Thanks for the full show for the whole crew here on behalf of Derek Bradley, Audi Winer, Shane Jensen, for
01:10:07
Dion Simpkins, the boss man keeping us on track. Marissa Raina, our producer D Patel, the boss lady. Appreciate you
01:10:15
guys. Thanks y'all for listening. Come back and join us next time. Between now
01:10:17
and then, enjoy your sports.