voluntaryXchange

2019 Heisman Wish

I do not understand how anyone could vote against Jalen Hurts.

His performance is unprecedented.

And yet, he is not the favorite.

This is nuts.

If you don’t know the Hurts story, here goes.

• As a true freshman,† he led Alabama to the national championship game. Alabama lost by 4 points, after Clemson put together three 65+ yard drives in the last 14 minutes (and took the lead for the first time with 1 second left to play).
• As a true sophomore, he led Alabama to the national championship game again, but was benched at halftime. Tagovailoa came in and Alabama came back won.
• As a true junior he was benched in favor of Tagovailoa. He was hurt in the SEC Championship game when Alabama was behind. In came Hurts, and Alabama came back and won the game. Oh, and Tagovailoa was back for the national championship, which Alabama lost, and in which Hurts did not play.
• He then graduated from Alabama halfway through his junior year, and used his onetime graduate student exemption to transfer to Oklahoma without having to sit out a year.
• Now, Oklahoma is a very good team this year, and is on a five season tear through the Big 12. But, it isn’t nothing to be 12-1, conference champion, and back in the top 4 playing for a national championship. And they’ve done it with Hurts (as a true senior) at quarterback.

No one has ever taken 2 colleges this high in the college rankings.

† The modifier “true” when applied to college athletes implies an exact number of years after high school. So a true freshman is one year out of high school and is almost always 18, and so on through 2, 3, and 4 years, and ages 19, 20, and 21.

Be Coachable

Bob Bowman: “The most important thing is, he’s very coachable.”

That’s a lesson most people could stand to learn. I know I could (although I’ve gotten better at this, with effort).

This video came from the vXyoungman, who was a competitive swimmer in high school.†

He brought this up to me in trying to explain what he got out of athletics (he’s a music major who wants to be concert pianist). He’s fairly assertive that a big problem in music is that a lot of players aren’t very coachable, and a lot of music “coaches” aren’t very constructive.

FWIW: He loves VV, the professor he’s worked with for 2 years.

† The video comes from an ABC show I’ve never heard of from 2009-10, Shaq vs.

So True: Are the Patriots the Best Team Ever?

Check this out. It’s a scan of the front page of the weekend section of the Wall Street Journal  from November 2, 2007.

First look at the headline I circled at the bottom left: “Is New England the best NFL team ever?” Arguably, yes.

Second, look at the circled date at the top right: November 2, 2007. That’s 12 years ago next week.

And we’re still dealing with New England being the best team ever. Yikes.

N.B. I grew up a Buffalo Bills fan. It’s still hard to deal with the fact that New England made the Super Bowl in 1985 before the Bills did (in 1990). Geez … they didn’t even make the playoffs much in the old days.

Congratulations

The local Cedar High School Lady Reds basketball team won the 4A Utah championship tonight.

They finished the season undefeated, 25-0.

AND, they did it mostly without using their bench, fielding 3 juniors and 2 sophomores.

They were ranked # 3 in the state (divisions 5A and 6A are bigger schools, and each has a team ranked higher). On the way they beat the # 7 team by 13 points, and the # 10 team by 10 points, and … oh yeah … they won two earlier playoff games by 19 and 22 points.

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I am absolutely a fair weather fan.

We went to the first playoff game because it was the last home game of the band director, Mr. Shirts, who we love. The vXgirl is first flute!

But, we went to the rest of the games because it’s fun to be part of a championship. I’m 54, and this is the first time I’ve been in the stands for any championship of any sport.

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It also could be the last championship for the school’s current team name. It’s been voted out … you know … cultural sensitivity.

Funny, I didn’t seen anyone who voted against it at any of the games.

Oh. Come. On. (Alabama Edition)

I mostly gave up football in 2001, and college football long before that. But I tuned into the Alabama vs. Georgia game on Saturday.

Bum Phillips described how good Bear Bryant was roughly as: “He can take his’n and beat your’n, and then turn around and beat his’n with your’n”.

Alabama did something close to that to Georgia on Saturday.

A year ago, Georgia dominated them and their star quarterback. So Alabama put in a freshman and came back and won the game.

This year, Georgia dominated the now sophomore. And when he got dinged for good, Alabama put in the starter from most of last year (who’s been on the bench for 11 months now), and he came back and won this game.

WTF.

And that’s coming from someone who loved Alabama football when they were a kid, still has a soft spot for them, got hired by Alabama for my first job as a professor (and stayed there for two years), and whose wife is an alma mater.

Trivia: Football Edition

The 4-3 defense was invented by the Giants in the mid-50s to get Sam Huff off the line to make tackles. Before that, teams were playing a 5-2-4.

From the obituary for Dick Modzelewski.

Congratulations, Frank Reich

One thing I am super glad about is that Frank Reich got a (winning) Super Bowl ring, as offensive coordinator for the Eagles.

Frank Reich was the backup when the Bills lost 4 Super Bowls in a row, and he played a majority of Super Bowl XXVII.

Frank Reich is the answer to a fairly common football trivia question: what quarterback led the biggest comeback in both college football and the NFL? (Do note that it’s now the second biggest college football comeback).

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Yes, this is a navel-gazing appreciation from a Bills fan.

We didn’t know Reich was any good either. Then Kelly went down for 3 weeks early in the 1989 season.

Reich had played a few downs in 1985 (pre-Kelly) and 1986. Then he had gotten no snaps at all for 2 straight seasons.

And he got the start on Monday Night Football against the top team in the league, the Los Angeles Rams. He won. In a comeback during the 2 minute warning. Then he won 2 more games. And went back to the bench. The Bills flamed out that year, losing 3 of the last 4, and their playoff game to a dropped touchdown in the last minute.

It was clear to everyone by mid-October that 1990 might be the Bills year. Many people forget that the Bills went to the Meadowlands and beat the Giants before the Super Bowl. The Bills also knocked out Phil Simms for the season. Funny that: the Giants knocked out Jim Kelly for a few weeks later in that quarter. In came Frank Reich for about 40 minutes to preserve the lead. The next week was against Miami in Buffalo, for both the division title and the number one seed in the AFC playoffs. I was there. No one had any doubts. Reich won by 10 points, and it wasn’t that close. Reich got a losing ring that year.

Another year of mop-up duty followed, and Reich got another losing ring.

The Bills started showing signs of coaching weakness in 1992. Reich did backup until the final game. The Bills and Oilers had a heated rivalry at the time, and Kelly was injured in the final game, and the Bills ended up as a wild card. The next week they played … the Oilers.

The Oilers had won the previous week 27-0, and got up 35-3 on the Bills halfway through the third quarter. Then Reich led 4 touchdown drives in 7 minutes. The Bills came coming, and won the game with a 5th Reich-led touchdown drive a quarter later.

People forget that Reich started the next game too. The wild card Bills went to Three Rivers Stadium to play the top seeded Steelers (who had already beaten the Kelly-led Bills in mid-season). Reich beat them too, 24-3.

People also forget that Reich played most of Super Bowl XXVII. The Cowboys knocked out Kelly in the second quarter. That was the blowout game, when the Bills had 9 turnovers. The Bills were losing the game 14-7 and the turnover battle 3-0 when Reich came in. And you know what? There was hope for the Bills. Yes, I was an optimist, but I made the point towards the end of the third quarter that if you’re winning the turnover battle 5-0 and your only up by 2 touchdowns on a top team … you might be in more trouble than you guess. Maybe the Cowboys needed those 4 more turnovers. If it helps to get your mind on this, the Bills fumbled 9 times and recovered 4 of them. Do ya’ think they thought they were jinxed?

He went back to the bench for 1993, and played in a few games in 1994 too.

In 1994, Reich went in the expansion draft, and became the Carolina Panthers first starting quarterback. He didn’t last too long, had an OK season with the Jets, and closed out his career with the Lions.

Why I’m Rooting for Brady and the Patriots Today

I am not a Patriots fan. I am not a Tom Brady fan.

Heck, I haven’t been a football fan since the 20th century. But everyone watches the Super Bowl, right?

Plus, I grew up a Buffalo Bills fan. The Patiots were the also-ran’s of their divisions for most of their first 40 years. They never won anything because … the Patriots sucked. There didn’t need to be another reason.

But I’m rooting for Brady today. And the Patriots.

All because of this nonsense over Brady’s 11 year old son kissing him on the lips.

To me, this is the worst case of over-the-line, infantile trolling, that I’ve yet come across.

It’s completely uncalled for, clueless about being a father, clueless about being a son … even clueless about kissing on the lips. Objecting to it is projection of a rather depraved sort.

Fathers deserve better.

Sons deserve better.

Eleven-year olds deserve better.

That Last Play

What was Georgia thinking?

I’ve watched that last play by Alabama — in slow-motion from behind the quarterback — about 20 times now.

A lot of people blame Georgia’s “cover 2” defense.

Maybe, but I don’t think so.

In cover 2, the two safeties are deep, and they each cover half the field. If it was a cover 2, the safety on the offense’s left should have closed with the intended receiver and prevented a catch.

But it’s not so simple: neither Georgia safety commits to that cover 2 on the flags.

Think about that: Alabama sent 4 receivers deep, with 2 going to either flag, and both safeties sat on the hashmarks. This includes the safety on the strong/right side who had 2+ receivers coming into his area the whole play.

Yes, Tagovailoa did look off the defenders to the right, but the defenders don’t react much to that.

Arguably, Davonta Smith is not even the most wide open receiver on that play. Check out the video: Alabama sends 5 receivers, 4 of them deep, and they get 3 open deep and 1 going short. That only happens in zone.

Georgia’s defense was layered 4-5-2. The disguise is that it was man-to-man for the two corners on the end of that five. If you look up the middle, 2 of the 3 guys from the middle line and the 2 safeties have the middle locked down the whole play. Inexplicably, one of those 5 drops into an underneath zone on the far right and is defending against something that isn’t there.

And, do the Pythagorean theorem: Tagovailoa made a throw 45 yards down field, and 15 yards to the side, which is a 50 yard throw. If he has to go ballistic to make that distance, the safety can close. But he didn’t: it’s pretty much a frozen rope.

So here’s what Georgia was doing: 1) they took away the middle, 2) they defended against the scramble to the much broader right/strong side, and 3) they bet the true freshman didn’t have the arm yet to wing it 50 yards.

The more I watch that view from behind the quarterback, the more certain I get that Georgia did exactly what it wanted. They ended up with a 1-1 on the left, a 3-2 matchup in the middle, a 2-2 on the deep right, and a stalker on the short right. The key is the safeties on the crossovers: 2 white shirts cross over the middle and the safeties do nothing! Their job was not to get drawn away from the middle. Tagovailoa tried, and when they didn’t move, he went outside to a 1-1 on his near side. That’s much safer than the overnumbered middle, or into the heavier traffic on the messier far right side.

That’s not a bad bet on Georgia’s part. Guys aren’t fully developed at that age. And how many could actually throw it 50 yards at that age? Admittedly I wasn’t a quarterback, but I’m a big guy and I could do about 35. We all lie that we could do better (that’s why coaches look at your out routes to gauge your distance).

Why would Georgia do that? Because they were defending against the field goal not the touchdown. They had Alabama out of range, and the didn’t want a short pass over the middle, or a scramble to the strong/right side to get them back into range.

This is a better story than the cover 2 failure one going around. And it also doesn’t excuse the cornerback who missed the chuck on Smith. Not only did he get a step, but he got it to the inside, making for a shorter quicker throw.

Here's the video. You might want to go to the original, since I can't get this embed to show the full width. And you should pause it at about the 23 second mark, just before the ball is thrown, with the view from behind the quarterback. Look at both safeties. The story of the look off works best if one safety falls for it. But it’s far less likely to have been a successful look off if neither safety fell for it: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me … unless my plan is to sit the safeties on the hashmarks to take away the middle and they are doing their job. Oh … and look at the center right almost on the edge of the video as the Georgia defender makes his chuck, and clears on his receiver to distinctly turn upfield to defend against the scramble. That’s where the missing man is … and not over the top of Davonta Smith.

Georgia chose to cover the deep middle, the short middle, the deep right, and the short right. Georgia chose to leave open the short left (it’s the near side, where congestion is the defense’s friend in college ball), and to leave the deep left in single coverage.

No chuck, good move, pure speed, good read, tight throw, game over.

So stop blaming that poor Georgia safety: he did not break the coverage he was assigned to, and he hustled to get in the picture at the end of the play.

Why Macro Is So Hard: What Passes for an Expert

This is actually an addendum to a topic that’s already part of the canon (here’s an example, and it’s been in the principles lecture on this topic for years).

So, here’s Deadspin’s headline from another example:

Florida's Go-To Stadium Economist Is A
Hack, A Shill, And Also Not An Economist

Everyone should know by now that sports stadiums and arenas are a very bad investment for their communities.

In this particular case, Tampa is building a stadium for a team that doesn’t even have Tampa in its name.

Wha, wha, what?

Tampa is building a stadium for the Toronto Blue Jays to use for spring training.

(Now, if you’ve never been to spring training, it is a thing, but not a big thing. We’re talking about 15 or so games, held over 5 weeks, that average about 5K fans a piece.)

For perspective, Tampa is spending 4 times on this stadium what my university is spending on a new business building.

Maybe one reason is they hired a consultant who produced an economic report indicating that it was a good way to spend their money:

If Bonn’s studies don’t sound very economically robust, perhaps it is because Bonn isn’t actually an economist! He is a professor at FSU’s school of hospitality, where he teaches marketing and wine-tasting, and his degree is in resource development.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean Bonn can’t do the economic work; I also do not have a degree in economics. Then again, I don’t charge $23,000 for economic impact studies …

For clarity, Bonn wrote the report, and the “I” in the quote is the author of the linked piece on Deadspin.

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