Note: For some reason Jake’s account isn’t letting him post yet, so I’m posting this on his behalf.   Again, I’m delighted to have his contributions on here! - PhilipVU94

I will provide the counterpoint to Phillip’s football prediction that “2-10 is more likely than 4-8, and… 1-11 is more likely than 6-6”.  I think he’s wrong on both counts, and I’ll make my case without appealing to any of the sources of bias that Philip just critiqued.  I think that the over/under for Vanderbilt’s win total next year should be about 4 or 4.5.  And I even agree with Philip that many VU football sources have some subconscious bias, that Vanderbilt is less talented in 2008 than they were in 2007, that we will be underdogs in every SEC game, and that both Miami and Duke have a reasonable chance to pull an upset against us.

 

So how do I get to 4 wins?  First of all, I think he’s overstating how much Vanderbilt has lost since last season, on a points per game basis.  I’m judging this by his comment that we “might well be an underdog to Miami” – this would imply about 7 points of Vanderbilt regression since last season, based on last year’s point spread of about 12 and a 5 point adjustment for the home field advantage.  This would be a huge regression for a team that was already very weak on offense last year, and should not substantially regress on defense this year.  Is VU really going to score only 14 points per game – 6 points less than the worst team in the SEC in scoring offense last year?  The regression from last year is even bigger if you consider that last year’s point spread for that game was effected by an unlikely number of Vanderbilt injuries – the VU team that was “priced in” to those expectations was not the Vanderbilt team of last year’s preseason expectations.  I am not far from the expectations of one “pessimist” on the VandySports boards, who sees Vanderbilt as a likely 4 or 5 point favorite, although I might make the point spread more like 6 to 6.5.  Don’t forget that Miami lost a few starters of their own, and that Vanderbilt can expect a healthier team with better QB play than in the Miami game last season.

 

But from that point Phillip and I agree on the rest of the games – we’ll be underdogs to all SEC teams, to Wake Forest, we’ll be moderate favorites against Duke, and heavy favorites over Rice (Duke and Rice both being home games).

 

Phillip stops his analysis at this point and says “I really think 2-10 is more likely than 4-8, and I’m pretty certain 1-11 is more likely than 6-6.”  I think he will change his mind after reading the following.  I will split Vanderbilt’s games into three sections, and take a look at how many wins Vanderbilt is likely to get in each section.

 

Group A:

Rice

Duke

@Miami

 

These are games in which Vanderbilt will be favored.  The Rice game is heavily likely to go Vanderbilt’s way (~90%), and Vanderbilt has over a 50% chance to win each of the other two games.  Thus the most likely result is a 2-1 or 3-0 mark. 

 

Group B:

@ Ole Miss

@ Wake

@ Kentucky

South Carolina

@ Mississippi State

 

These are all games in which Vanderbilt will be an underdog, but not a prohibitive underdog.  Vanderbilt is likely to be *on average* a touchdown underdog or so in these games, and should have about a 30% chance to win the typical game from this group.  30% x 5 = 1.5 expected wins.  So it’s about equally likely that we would go 1-4 or 2-3 in these games.

 

Group C:

Florida

Tennessee

Auburn

@Georgia

 

Vanderbilt will be a heavy underdog in each of these games, between 10 and 20 points.  This gives Vanderbilt about a 20% chance to win each of these, implying that it’s likely that Vanderbilt will go 1-3 in this category.  This is similar to each of the last several years, in which Vanderbilt won one game (@SC, @UGA, @UT) seemingly against all odds.  Vanderbilt isn’t charmed, it’s not a “giant killer”, it just plays several games a year against teams that are heavy favorites over the Dores, and probability dictates an occasional upset.

 

So with 2 wins in group A, 1 or 2 wins in group B, and 1 win in group C, Vanderbilt seems poised for a 4 or 5 win season.  

 

What would a 2 win season look like?  Lets assume that if Vanderbilt wins an SEC game, it will win more than 2 games overall.  What are the odds of Vanderbilt losing all 8 SEC games?  Well, if you give them a 25% chance of winning each game on average, which would be consistent with a 10 point spread, then Vanderbilt’s chances of going winless in the SEC are about 10%.  That sounds about right to me. 

 

Is a 1-10 scenario more likely than 6-6?  Well, if we beat Rice, have a 50% chance against Duke and Miami, and only a 20% chance in each remaining game, Vanderbilt’s chances of going 1-10 are about 3.35%.  To go 6-6, Vandy would probably need to win one game from group C (~60% probability), three games from group A (~35% probability), and two games from group B (~50% probability).  That’s a 10.5% chance to win 6 or more games – three times as likely as 1-10!

 

While the Vanderbilt Optimists are overconfident that losing starters won’t hurt Vanderbilt that much and that the likes of Duke and Miami won’t beat us, Philip is in a way making the same mistake by seemingly ignoring the extremely high probability that Vanderbilt will win an SEC game in which it is an underdog.  It is intuitively appealing to make season W-L predictions on a game by game basis, but when a team (like Vanderbilt) is an underdog about 3 times as often as it is a favorite, it is more likely to pull an upset in a given year than to be upset.  Luck is an equalizer that, while cursed by Vanderbilt fans who think the bounces never go our way, is perversely the team’s only realistic chance at going bowling.  Fortune favors the underdog. 

 

So if you put a gun to my head and make me pick a win total for Vandy next year, I’d say that Vanderbilt will be the favorite in three games, it will probably pull off an upset one more time than it gets upset, and that’s how it will get to a 4-8 result.  

 

But here’s hoping that the breaks go our way – that we evade the injury bug, make the unlikely fieldgoal, benefit from the blown call, and that just 55% of the countless unpredictable elements of the game of football break towards Vanderbilt.  Here’s hoping that the 10% chance of 6 wins finally becomes a reality this year, because the real risk of emotional pain for a Vanderbilt fan is not in having hope during just one more disappointing season, the risk is in giving up at precisely the wrong time.

I mean that in a couple of different ways.   College football has become such a morass of cheating and of actors posing as college students that, as much as I love some things about it, I really think it would be best for everyone if the sport just collapsed under its own dishonesty, birthing something more idealistic in its place.   But that’s a topic for another day.   Today, what I mean is, to hell with the 2008 Vanderbilt football season.   I’ve written it off.

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From Marginal Revolution, via Matthew Yglesias, comes this fascinating graphic of IQ (or Wunderlic) by position:

So Vanderbilt ought to be an offensive juggernaut year after year.  Or something.

I’d like to welcome Jake Lowery who’ll be guest blogging here.   I’ve already reposted one post by him, Jake and I have always seen eye-to-eye on a lot (the value of luck metrics) but not everything (he’s a good deal less pessimistic about this football season, for one thing).   In either case I know that anything he writes here is bound to be well-written and well-reasoned.

If you, Dear Reader, would like to guest-blog, come join the party!   The more the merrier — just shoot me an email or comment.

Some discussion about Duke football came up on VandySports, and I made what I guess some would consider a brash comment about our relative fortunes this year. I have no idea what will transpire but I wanted to archive this as a record of a time that others have suggested I may be Chicken Little. I don’t know what “fine” constitutes, but for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that if VU gets to 4-8 this year then I will admit I have underestimated this year’s team.

dynamitedore Post #2499 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply NMLink: Duke Football Posted on 6/20 7:10 PM | IP: Logged
VandyinArk Post #354 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply That is just plain sad! Posted on 6/20 9:52 PM | IP: Logged
Andrew Kerr Lieutendant Commander Post #1753 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply I’m betting this legal strategy is not getting much attention from Cutcliffe’s new coaching staff as they hit the road to recruit this summer.New Slogan: “Duke Football: It Can Only Get Better!” Andrew Kerr Posted on 6/20 11:01 PM | IP: Logged
PhilipVU94 Post #9743 Tha HSV MyFanPage Find Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Edit | Reply Duke may well have a better team than Vanderbilt this year. Save the Shield, the PhilipVU94 sports blog Combative as ever, but polite enough to keep it away from the VandySports cheerleading squad Posted on 6/21 1:09 PM | IP: Logged
vandykid83 Post #394 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply Philip come on man.. seriously.. Duke isn’t close to Vandy! seriously Posted on 6/21 3:03 PM | IP: Logged

ATL14straight Post #15816 Nashville MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply Originally posted by vandykid83: Philip come on man.. seriously.. Duke isn’t close to Vandy! seriously Fwiw, Duke just landed a stud DT out of a state (GA) that we recruit “well”, former GT commit John Drew (rated as a 4* by Rivals). We can’t seem to get a stud DT for some reason… Posted on 6/21 4:57 PM | IP: Logged
JesseWJohnson Post #16871 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply Or a “stud” DT as so deemed by Rivals. And I don’t think Duke will have a better team than Vanderbilt. There’s really nothing substantial to back that up aside from predetermining that Vanderbilt won’t be that good. Even if you do that, you fall into the mistake of thinking that Duke will be better than they were last year, or the past 10 years. Their defense has to get a lot better than 92nd in the nation and the offense has to get better than 117th in the nation. I’m sure they’ll improve under Cutcliffe down the road, but I don’t think they are going to win many games this season. Posted on 6/21 6:33 PM | IP: Logged
PhilipVU94 Post #9744 Tha HSV MyFanPage Find Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Edit | Reply It’s just a speculative remark, not masquerading as anything more. Time will tell. All I know about Duke football this year is from a glance through the Phil Steele book. Apparently Cutcliffe inherited a bit of talent but who knows? I am however extremely confident that Vanderbilt football is going to suck very badly in 2008. Obviously the past 15 years or so, Vanderbilt football >>> Duke football, but that wasn’t the scope of my remark. Save the Shield, the PhilipVU94 sports blog Combative as ever, but polite enough to keep it away from the VandySports cheerleading squad Posted on 6/22 12:36 PM | IP: Logged
VandyinArk Post #356 MyFanPage Add Buddy	Re: Judge Agrees:Duke Football As Bad As It Gets Reply I’m equally confident that they will do fine.

The United States begins qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa today, against Barbados at 2 pm Pacific (4 pm Central) in Carson, CA. ESPN2 will have the TV right after today’s Euro games. Here’s the complete layout for CONCACAF (i.e., North American) qualifying.   And a Barbados newspaper report: US will test Bajan’s mettle.
We’ve become a constant in the WC finals since those crazy overmatched days of 1990, so it would be pretty surprising if we failed to make it out of the CONCACAF rounds this time. It would be astonishing if we failed to beat Barbados handily, since back in 2000 for the 2002 WC we beat them by 11-0 aggregate over two games.

One thing I noticed on the official site is that US Soccer now is endorsing “official bars” where you can watch the game with other fans. That’s a great idea, except that they only include three metro markets. Ah well, they’re just starting this program.

With the college sports lull, I keep meaning to make a scope-defying post on the European soccer championships going on in Switzerland and Austria.   What finally prompted me to post was a great headline from L’Equipe:

LA FRANCE, PAYS BAS

(France, low country — which is literally what they call the Netherlands in French, “low country”)

Anyway, I’m enjoying the ESPN coverage, even though I mostly am doing work while it’s on and not paying a lot of attention.   I have trouble speaking intelligently about soccer even when I am paying a lot of attention, but I love the spectacle of big international competitions.   And unlike past years, ESPN seems to be respecting the spectacle by showing us the national anthems and pregame ceremony rather than cutting into the live feed 5 seconds before kickoff.

My two favorite European national sides are Spain and Netherlands, and those have been the two most impressive teams so far though not in that order.  (I guess Croatia has a good argument to be in that group too after beating Germany.)

Interestingly Netherlands could really screw up the French and Italians by resting all their players for the last game vs. Romania.   The Dutch are already assured of first in the group, and Romania could clinch 2nd by beating them, leaving both World Cup finalists eliminated.   Group of Death, indeed.

You can make a very strong case that the average standard of teams in the 16-team Euro is much higher on average than in the first round of the 32-team World Cup.  I don’t even think that’s debatable, actually.

Of course it’s old news that Vanderbilt baseball lost two games out of three played in the NCAAs, both to a pretty mediocre Oklahoma team that for its part showed no sign of ever seriously challenging national seed Arizona State. I agree with those who’ve noted that the end of the game was sadly fitting, with VU taking the lead on a furious comeback in the top of the ninth only to lose on a home run in the bottom half of the inning. But I do want to express a couple of thoughts about the program.

I only glanced at Vandy Sports after the second loss, but I saw pretty much what I expected to see. A surprisingly deep cynicism appears to have set in. People generally appreciate the job Tim Corbin has done, and no one really disputes that we’re fortunate to have him as coach. But there does appear to be a weird sense that the program’s somehow in decline, past its sell-by date.

This strikes me as bizarrely wrong-headed. In fact, the main reason why it strikes me thus will be familiar to Vandy Sports regulars and other people who know how I generally approach sports. In the past year I’ve learned that I’m what the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator calls strongly “intuitive”, even though it has little to do with intuition. I see the world in terms of patterns, and I’m always trying to fit specific short-term data into the bigger picture.

So then, in 2007 VU had a banner year, winning the SEC and being seeded #1 nationally. But we lost two games to mediocre Michigan and didn’t make it out of the regional. Obviously if I had my choice, I’d rather be Oregon State with a mediocre seed and another national championship. But when it comes to gauging the health of the program, it’s much more important to have a great season and be the #1 seed. The positive predictive value of a great season followed by a lousy postseason is much stronger than the predictive value of having a lousy season followed a great postseason.

This is intuitively obvious to me (ah, so that’s why the MBTI calls it “intuitive”!), but I seemingly either forget that I need to make this point anew every time or I just don’t know how to make it convincingly. Large samples of games, innings pitched, free throws attempted, whatever, have great predictive value. Small samples don’t have great predictive value. I realize that the notion that certain teams can just rise to the occasion “when the games matter” is irrevocably imprinted in the mythos of sport, that nothing I write will ever convince most sports fans that teams don’t just will themselves to victory. And I realize that the happenstance of having a mediocre team win in 2007 that happened to come from the same school as the somewhat better team that won in 2006 further reinforces what people want to believe.* But I don’t care, playoffs are still small samples and as such are a poor means to judge where a program stands. You can call your double-elim tournament the “Intergalactical Championship for the Ages” if you want, but a weekend of baseball games is simply not a good barometer of where a certain program stands!

Now, 2008 has been a disappointing follow-up. The pitching was plainly not that great, but adequate. I harbored hopes of a postseason miracle run — if a regional 3 can win the whole thing, surely a 2 can also — but it would be just that, a miracle run, a sure sign that the universe owed us and was settling the debt. I’m mildly surprised that we couldn’t do better against OU, but we weren’t a great team this year. And now we lose Pedro, so everyone seems to be morose.

Has VU baseball already seen its best days? That’s an absurd conclusion, one that’s totally unwarranted by losing two games and a couple of pitchers in 2007 and a great hitter in 2008. We might not have another season where everything falls into place leading up to Selection Monday like it did in 2007. We may never be another national #1 seed. But based on Tim Corbin’s track record building a program from just absolute rubble and selling some of the very best young baseball players in the country on coming to Vanderbilt, I see know reason to think that we won’t be a presence in Super Regionals in the coming years. If I followed baseball recruiting more closely I could cite the names, but I’m MBTI intuitive, remember? Specific names are fun to watch for a few seasons, but the pattern is what matters. I see no reason to think that the forces that led to 2007, only a few years after total irrelevance of the program, aren’t still in place to produce more banner years.

Is the pattern of postseason disappointment now so established that it’s insurmountable? What, you mean like how Kansas always chokes in the men’s basketball tournament?

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*I’m really not trying to run down OSU’s accomplishment of winning two straight championships. I’m sure that the experience of winning in ‘06 helped them some in ‘07, just because these are human beings playing the game. It’s natural to feel more comfortable with the pressure of the CWS when you’ve already won it the previous year. So let’s say that familiarity and confidence added .100 to the expected value of the team batting average and shaved 0.5 runs off the expected ERA. Fine. Even with that somewhat better performance, I don’t think OSU as a regional 3-seed would win more than 5% of the tournaments over a large sample, and even that seems generous. But my estimate for some other arbitrary 3-seed, say California, might be 1%. OSU’s experience accounts for the difference between 5% and 1%, but it didn’t make them anywhere close to favorites to win the whole thing in ‘07. Fair? Conversely Vanderbilst wasn’t as heavy favorites as they might have been had they had more postseason experience, but they certainly weren’t underdogs to make it out of the first weekend.

It’s NCAA baseball tournament time. As poor a baseball fan as I’ve been all season, I am getting into the ‘Dores’ adventure to Tempe. However, things have gotten to critical condition very quickly, and VU will have to win its next 4 games in 3 days for the season to go beyond the regional.

If I’d been following the season perhaps I’d have some sort of intelligent analysis, or at least some analysis that I could pretend was intelligent.

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My life has been a bit of a whirlwind lately.  My job situation now allows me to live anywhere within a reasonable driving distance from Huntsville, and I’m evaluating whether I’d like to live in the Memphis/Southaven/Tunica area and become a regular at the poker tables.   That’s my biggest excuse for being such a passive VU spring sports follower.

But there’s lots to follow.   Baseball’s found itself with a glorious sweep in Knoxville.    Now the ‘Dores have a last-gasp series vs. Georgia, seeking to make up a 3-game deficit with 6 to play.    In Game 1 VU leads 6-3.

Women’s tennis won its first match and take on Kentucky tomorrow in Nashville.   Wish I didn’t have other plans; I’d love a tennis-baseball doubleheader.

Men’s tennis heads to Oxford for an NCAA first round match.

Women’s golf is in the NCAA’s in Athens, but doesn’t look likely to advance I would infer.

Lacrosse goes to Princeton for the NCAA’s.

See VUCommodores for more.