KVN's and Hoffman's last home game! I, for one, will miss them. Both of them are in my top 10 list of favorite Cougs since I've been watching. Not on the list: Bret Engemann.
This is the first BYUTV game I've watched this year. I haven't missed Blaine. I don't mind what Blaine says, but his voice is kind of grating. On the flip side, I love McCann - he's a great play by play guy.
Maverik is sponsoring the opening kick. I used to get gas there all the time when I delivered pizza! In '98, the prices were as low as 90 cents a gallon. The cat drank unleaded instead of milk.
1st drive - BYU ball
Crowd is sparse. Weather looks terrible.
And Hoffman delivers on the 1st drive. Blaine makes the point that very few people can make that grab, and he's right. We've been spoiled with Hoffman.
We throw the fade to Ridley on 1st and goal. I hate the fade - it seems like such a low percentage play, but at least it was on 1st down.
Williams into the end zone! The crowd heads for the exits.
2nd drive - ISU ball
3 and out. They threw 3 passes, one was dropped. I like the fact that they're throwing so much - more potential for more possessions.
3rd drive - BYU ball
INT on the first play. Not a bad decision, just a bad throw.
4th drive - ISU ball
2 runs and they get down to the 20. My prediction is 49-7 so there better not be any FGs. I'm rooting for them to score a TD here.
D is looking pretty lackadaisacal.
There is a LOT of screaming going on. What are they doing to the fans there?
ISU totally chokes and has to kick a FG. There goes my prediction and the shut-out! The ISU coach has met his goal - he doesn't care how the rest of the game goes.
5th drive - BYU ball
We went for it - and Jamal takes it to the house! Really surprised we went for it. Williams finally breaks a big one, although it was against an FCS opponent.
6th drive - ISU ball
Fake punt! ISU came to play!
7th drive - BYU
Williams is touching the ball every play. What a hogball!
Hill keeps it. I don't want to see Hill run it again this game.
8th drive - ISU
Even though this game is pretty boring already, I loved attending these types of games growing up. No pressure, we knew we were going to kill the other team, so we punks usually deserted the old man and roamed the empty stadium and made jokes about passing efficiency and stats.
9th drive - BYU
Hoffman with a nice punt return. He gets lots of airtime on my glogs.
Hill runs it for a few yards. Bench him!
****End of 1st Q
These BYUTV graphics are pretty cool. I'm impressed.
Nice pass for a TD to Ridley! NOW it's time to bench Hill.
10th drive - ISU
Dinner update - Mel is picking up some burgers for us, and I just made Kraft Mac & Chemicals for H. Adelaide is still snoozin'. I can still remember the first time I had Mac & Chemicals - it was at the Judds house, I was probably 12 or 13 and I thought it was the best stuff ever. I had it sporadically at other people's houses until I moved out after high school, when I had it all the time, realized it was garbage, and haven't touched it since.
Fumble! Cougs jump on it.
11th drive - BYU
INT! Hill *should've* thrown it away if it was a good opponent, but I don't mind taking those chances there. Another foot and Hoffman might have a TD.
12th drive - ISU
BYU's D now is dominating. Almost had a pick or safety there.
13th drive - BYU
Hendrik hates the Cougar cat noise or whatever that thing is. He says, "I don't like the tiger. I just like the sock (Red Sox)." I don't think I'll have much influence over his favorite teams. He usually picks the other team when we're watching a game.
14th drive - ISU
Kaufusi with the pick 6! McCann called it - and KVN with the assist. 35-3 now, so we should hit 49 pretty easily.
15th drive - ISU
ISU now 2-for-2 on screen passes, both have been intercepted.
Nevermind! Overturned.
16th drive - BYU
Another INT. Terrible decision. Hill needs to realize that these are stat fests - not bad stat fests.
17th drive - ISU
I need them to score a FG here, and then kick an extra point after the FG. Here comes the kicking unit - Make that kick! Make that kick!
...and it's blocked. Didn't they hear what I was chanting?
18th drive - BYU
Hill is still out there. This guy is terrible - 3 INTs? Yank him!
Brown with an awesome run. I liked his battering ram move at the end.
Blaine is more concerned about Hill's stats than the Hansens. I didn't think that was possible.
Hill has made some absolutely terrible throws today. I'm not going to blame him, since we're up 32 and the weather is terrible. Grip could be bad.
Touchdown! 42-3. 84 points is not out of reach.
Blaine on kicker Sorenson: "He's been almost automatic from anywhere on the field this year." I will admit that he's been pretty solid this year inside of 40, but I think our standards after last year are beyond low.
19th drive - ISU
ISU runs it on first down, 3 minutes left. Call timeout! We could still score another!
Now taking guesses for total passes BYU will throw in the 2nd half. My guess: 10.
20th drive - BYU
Olsen comes out to practice his handing off. The first one was solid. I like what I see so far.
The 2nd handoff is just as successful. Olsen is on fire!
Olsen hands it off for a TD! 49-3. My prediction is in some serious trouble.
****Halftime
Hine with a TD on the first play. ISU's given up. We're going to have to start kneeling on it.
Olsen comes out after only 2 drives and 5 handoffs. His handoff efficiency was off the charts - something like 5-5, 130 yards, 2 touchdowns. Amazing!
Stewart goes back to pass and blows it by not throwing it. I don't care if nobody's open, you throw the ball! How many other chances will you ever get?
Olsen comes back in and hands it off for 30 more yards on the first play. This guy is uncanny. Heisman candidate!
We kick the FG and the band still plays the fight song. Not one person in the stands is seen rah-rah-rahing.
3rd quarter play selection: 8 plays, 8 runs. We may not even have a pass in the 2nd half. My 10 guess earlier is looking foolish.
Stewart throws a pass! And then is immediately benched.
He throws another pass - right in the dirt. Stewart's passing efficiency is negative.
Olsen throws 2 passes. If you had 4 second half passes, you win.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Rankings explanation
In my BYU-Wisconsin glog comments, Brian made the point that S Carolina was way overrated purely because of their preseason rankings. He's right (of course), and so I was thinking about how to do some sort of rankings that was purely based on this season's accomplishments and not some historic or conference bias. I thought of the RPI which is used in basketball to some extent, so I decided to make my own. I don't particularly trust the BCS "computer" rankings because the correlation of the AP rankings to the computer rankings is too high, so there HAS to be some sort of bias in their algorithm.
For my job, I do lots of data analysis, so this was right up my alley. I found a website that has all of the FBS teams and results for the season, pasted it into Excel, wrote a macro to get it into database format, then imported into SQL Server.
First, I did an initial calculation based on records and margins of victory. This would change week to week, for example after week 1, BYU's loss to Virginia wasn't that bad because Virginia was 1-0, but as Virginia kept losing and losing, it got worse and worse. The initial calculation would be the driver for strength of schedule (SOS). Each team was assigned a factor.
I then did the same analysis, but this time adding the SOS factor as the key driver. Each game was assigned a value. The highest value was FSU's victory over Clemson, and the lowest was South Florida's big loss to McNeese St (FCS team). Each FCS team was considered equal to the worst FBS team, which I know isn't terribly accurate, but you have to make assumptions when you don't have data.
Then I averaged all of these values and got the rankings. You'll see that my rankings are not too different than this week's BCS rankings. The main noticeable difference is that FSU is #1, but the biggest difference is LSU, who is 32nd in my rankings. S Carolina is only off by 3, UCLA is overrated by 7 spots, and ASU is underrated by 8 spots. Overall, this is the difference by conference for top 25 rankings:
You can see that the SEC, as I suspected, is overrated by an overall 24 spots, LSU the biggest offender. Most of the other conferences are pretty accurate, although the Big 12 is slightly underrated. "NA" is everybody not in those 5 conferences.
I was working on the data through week 11 for most of my analysis, but about 2 hours ago the website was updated. Through week 11, BYU would have been ranked 17th, and Wisconsin 18th.
In full disclosure, I did add *a little* conference bias. I gave a slight edge to all teams from the major 5 conferences listed above for SOS, plus Notre Dame and BYU. So this actually ends up being advantageous for the people playing these teams, not the actual teams. I thought it helped reflect reality, because the worst team in the SEC is much better than the worst team in the smaller conferences. But I didn't pick and choose the teams (aside from ND and BYU, since they are independent) who I gave the boost to, I just did it for all teams in those conferences, and it was all the same level of boost (1 factor point for the SOS - not that it means anything to you).
One major thing I have not yet considered is home field advantage, but I'm going to call it quits for this week because I've been doing this for almost 5 hours. Hendrik's at his Aunt Amber's, Mel and Adelaide are in Texas, and I don't have much to do. Let me know your thoughts - I'm open to suggestions for improvement, and would even share my code.
For my job, I do lots of data analysis, so this was right up my alley. I found a website that has all of the FBS teams and results for the season, pasted it into Excel, wrote a macro to get it into database format, then imported into SQL Server.
First, I did an initial calculation based on records and margins of victory. This would change week to week, for example after week 1, BYU's loss to Virginia wasn't that bad because Virginia was 1-0, but as Virginia kept losing and losing, it got worse and worse. The initial calculation would be the driver for strength of schedule (SOS). Each team was assigned a factor.
I then did the same analysis, but this time adding the SOS factor as the key driver. Each game was assigned a value. The highest value was FSU's victory over Clemson, and the lowest was South Florida's big loss to McNeese St (FCS team). Each FCS team was considered equal to the worst FBS team, which I know isn't terribly accurate, but you have to make assumptions when you don't have data.
Then I averaged all of these values and got the rankings. You'll see that my rankings are not too different than this week's BCS rankings. The main noticeable difference is that FSU is #1, but the biggest difference is LSU, who is 32nd in my rankings. S Carolina is only off by 3, UCLA is overrated by 7 spots, and ASU is underrated by 8 spots. Overall, this is the difference by conference for top 25 rankings:
| SEC | 24 |
| ACC | -3 |
| Pac | 1 |
| Big 10 | -3 |
| NA | -2 |
| Big 12 | -5 |
You can see that the SEC, as I suspected, is overrated by an overall 24 spots, LSU the biggest offender. Most of the other conferences are pretty accurate, although the Big 12 is slightly underrated. "NA" is everybody not in those 5 conferences.
I was working on the data through week 11 for most of my analysis, but about 2 hours ago the website was updated. Through week 11, BYU would have been ranked 17th, and Wisconsin 18th.
In full disclosure, I did add *a little* conference bias. I gave a slight edge to all teams from the major 5 conferences listed above for SOS, plus Notre Dame and BYU. So this actually ends up being advantageous for the people playing these teams, not the actual teams. I thought it helped reflect reality, because the worst team in the SEC is much better than the worst team in the smaller conferences. But I didn't pick and choose the teams (aside from ND and BYU, since they are independent) who I gave the boost to, I just did it for all teams in those conferences, and it was all the same level of boost (1 factor point for the SOS - not that it means anything to you).
One major thing I have not yet considered is home field advantage, but I'm going to call it quits for this week because I've been doing this for almost 5 hours. Hendrik's at his Aunt Amber's, Mel and Adelaide are in Texas, and I don't have much to do. Let me know your thoughts - I'm open to suggestions for improvement, and would even share my code.
My CFB Rankings after week 12 - Purely Computer-based with no bias
| Rank | Team | Factor | |
| 1 | Florida State | 1.534 | |
| 2 | Alabama | 1.480 | |
| 3 | Baylor | 1.396 | |
| 4 | Ohio State | 1.293 | |
| 5 | Stanford | 1.257 | |
| 6 | Missouri | 1.129 | |
| 7 | Oregon | 1.118 | |
| 8 | Clemson | 1.105 | |
| 9 | Auburn | 1.081 | |
| 10 | Fresno State | 0.962 | |
| 11 | Arizona State | 0.940 | |
| 12 | Oklahoma State | 0.923 | |
| 13 | South Carolina | 0.907 | |
| 14 | Central Florida | 0.899 | |
| 15 | Michigan State | 0.896 | |
| 16 | Oklahoma | 0.841 | |
| 17 | Texas A&M | 0.836 | |
| 18 | Northern Illinois | 0.819 | |
| 19 | Wisconsin | 0.797 | |
| 20 | UCLA | 0.792 | |
| 21 | Miami FL | 0.791 | |
| 22 | Louisville | 0.755 | |
| 23 | Texas | 0.734 | |
| 24 | Virginia Tech | 0.734 | |
| 25 | Minnesota | 0.718 | |
| 26 | Brigham Young | 0.705 | |
| 27 | Ball State | 0.668 | |
| 28 | Duke | 0.665 | |
| 29 | Georgia | 0.656 | |
| 30 | Southern California | 0.644 | |
| 31 | Houston | 0.636 | |
| 32 | Louisiana State | 0.636 | |
| 33 | Georgia Tech | 0.632 | |
| 34 | Notre Dame | 0.605 | |
| 35 | Nebraska | 0.598 | |
| 36 | Washington | 0.596 | |
| 37 | Mississippi | 0.593 | |
| 38 | Michigan | 0.590 | |
| 39 | East Carolina | 0.585 | |
| 40 | Buffalo | 0.520 | |
| 41 | Louisiana-Lafayette | 0.480 | |
| 42 | Texas Tech | 0.475 | |
| 43 | Arizona | 0.447 | |
| 44 | North Texas | 0.401 | |
| 45 | Pittsburgh | 0.386 | |
| 46 | Oregon State | 0.361 | |
| 47 | Iowa | 0.323 | |
| 48 | Rice | 0.318 | |
| 49 | Boise State | 0.305 | |
| 50 | Kansas State | 0.291 | |
| 51 | Penn State | 0.288 | |
| 52 | Toledo | 0.280 | |
| 53 | Cincinnati | 0.264 | |
| 54 | Vanderbilt | 0.238 | |
| 55 | Ohio | 0.235 | |
| 56 | Syracuse | 0.220 | |
| 57 | Boston College | 0.214 | |
| 58 | Maryland | 0.212 | |
| 59 | Utah State | 0.184 | |
| 60 | Marshall | 0.180 | |
| 61 | Rutgers | 0.174 | |
| 62 | Utah | 0.153 | |
| 63 | Florida | 0.146 | |
| 64 | North Carolina | 0.136 | |
| 65 | Middle Tennessee State | 0.135 | |
| 66 | Bowling Green State | 0.112 | |
| 67 | Tulane | 0.107 | |
| 68 | Texas State | 0.091 | |
| 69 | Arkansas State | 0.089 | |
| 70 | Indiana | 0.084 | |
| 71 | Mississippi State | 0.076 | |
| 72 | San Jose State | 0.072 | |
| 73 | Tennessee | 0.071 | |
| 74 | Navy | 0.068 | |
| 75 | Western Kentucky | 0.021 | |
| 76 | Washington State | 0.015 | |
| 77 | Texas-San Antonio | (0.033) | |
| 78 | Northwestern | (0.034) | |
| 79 | San Diego State | (0.035) | |
| 80 | Old Dominion | (0.044) | |
| 81 | Louisiana-Monroe | (0.075) | |
| 82 | Wake Forest | (0.094) | |
| 83 | Nevada-Las Vegas | (0.107) | |
| 84 | West Virginia | (0.114) | |
| 85 | Colorado State | (0.162) | |
| 86 | Texas Christian | (0.165) | |
| 87 | Troy | (0.183) | |
| 88 | Florida Atlantic | (0.268) | |
| 89 | Arkansas | (0.281) | |
| 90 | North Carolina State | (0.285) | |
| 91 | Illinois | (0.319) | |
| 92 | Colorado | (0.326) | |
| 93 | Wyoming | (0.327) | |
| 94 | Southern Methodist | (0.361) | |
| 95 | South Alabama | (0.411) | |
| 96 | Virginia | (0.464) | |
| 97 | Nevada | (0.485) | |
| 98 | Central Michigan | (0.503) | |
| 99 | Louisiana Tech | (0.506) | |
| 100 | Akron | (0.509) | |
| 101 | Kansas | (0.511) | |
| 102 | Kentucky | (0.525) | |
| 103 | Memphis | (0.542) | |
| 104 | New Mexico | (0.591) | |
| 105 | Army | (0.653) | |
| 106 | South Florida | (0.657) | |
| 107 | Purdue | (0.708) | |
| 108 | Tulsa | (0.716) | |
| 109 | California | (0.719) | |
| 110 | Iowa State | (0.754) | |
| 111 | Kent | (0.770) | |
| 112 | Alabama-Birmingham | (0.813) | |
| 113 | Eastern Michigan | (0.853) | |
| 114 | Air Force | (0.880) | |
| 115 | Idaho | (0.951) | |
| 116 | Temple | (0.979) | |
| 117 | Massachusetts | (1.049) | |
| 118 | Texas-El Paso | (1.066) | |
| 119 | New Mexico State | (1.073) | |
| 120 | Western Michigan | (1.083) | |
| 121 | Hawaii | (1.132) | |
| 122 | Florida International | (1.176) | |
| 123 | Connecticut | (1.184) | |
| 124 | Southern Mississippi | (1.273) | |
| 125 | Miami OH | (1.415) | |
| 126 | Georgia State | (1.518) |
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Glog: BYU vs Wisconsin
Welcome to the biggest game of the year for BYU! We're pretty confident, but this one will show us and everybody if we're really any good. Before the season, I picked the scores for all the games, and I picked us to lose 41-7. So my expectations are low.
Rod Gilmore is our analyst - I like him. I don't know this play by play dude.
Gary Andersen is the UW coach. Anybody who could turn USU around has got to be a solid coach.
Windy there today, which probably means no FG attempts outside the 10.
1st drive - UW ball
KVN with another TFL! Brings up a 3rd and long, which is not a sure thing with our D this year.
Ugh. We have to get more pressure on these 3rd and longs, he had all day to make that pass.
UW dominating us at the front line. Not a good sign.
Hadley goes out. We'll miss his 'stache.
So far our secondary has looked solid, tight coverage.
This game is reminding me of the Stanford-Oregon game. Stanford just dominated the line and got 4-5 yards on every play for these 7 minute drives.
Easy TD for UW. Not a good sign for us, but a very good sign for my 41-7 loss prediction.
2nd drive - BYU ball
Nothing to say here. Good protection on the 3rd and long is the only silver lining.
3rd drive - UW ball
'Unga makes the impact player list - surprise of the day!
Stuffed on 3rd down! Key stop there, we don't want to dig out of a 14-0 hole.
Just found out the Falselev is out. Rats. He's a key, more on the offensive side than the PR side. Good hands, shifty moves.
4th drive - BYU ball
3rd and long again. Let's see if we can pick something up.
"Pick" was a bad choice of words there. Hill overthrows Hoffman and UW picks it off.
5th drive -UW ball
I wonder if Andersen is over there on the sidelines thinking, "This is so much easier with Big 10 talent, it's almost unfair".
Sorenseon almost with the INT! Would've been nice to come down with it.
Fumble! BYU picks it up! Let's see if our O can move the ball more than 3 yards.
6th drive - BYU ball
First 1st down! A couple quick hits there, good playcalling.
7 yards to Mahina. We need to continue to get our TE's involved.
Down to UW's 40 yard line. Prime punting range.
Into the red zone, getting everybody involved! Really enjoying this. Let's see if we can get a TD.
3rd and 7 from the 13. 4 down territory, I'd think.
Wow - I can't believe they gave Hill the incomplete pass there. I further can't believe that Bronco trusted Sorenson to make that FG. Good call, though, he made it. Another red zone trip without a TD. Until we improve this, we're not going to beat tough teams.
7th drive - UW
Did our band travel all the way to UW? Or is their band playing our fight song? If so, kudos to them.
They almost broke that kickoff for a lot of yards. Good arm tackle.
Manu with the great break through the line! D starting to step up.
"Jonathan Pigskin" is what Rece Davis called Johnny Football just now. Great name - Susan Hansen approved.
Read the screen all the way, D with a 3 and out. Solid!
8th drive - BYU
Interesting that Rod thinks that BYU still has BCS chances. I'm skeptical, considering we're not ranked. I mean, that would be great, but even if we do win out, I can't see it happening.
End of 1st**** We're only down 7-3 to a good team on the road, I can't be too disappointed about that. D has been solid after that first drive, and O showed some signs of life in the last drive. If we can score more TDs, we can win. But FGs aren't going to do it.
Wow - I had no idea Camp Randall was so ugly from the outside. Solid concrete, who designed this, Joseph Stalin?
Gutsy call on 3rd and 8 with the run! Worked to perfection with a long run. If that wouldn't have worked, I'd be complaining pretty hard in this very space.
Another throwaway and Hill had all kinds of time. We must not getting anybody open.
Great pass on 3rd and 10 to Friel! Huge play there. Great catch, too.
Deep pass to the end zone and the defender practically tackles Hoffman before the ball gets there. No flag - bad sign of things to come.
New Taco Bell ad with the white guy and the steak sandwich was awesome. "That was a travel." Sandwich looks pretty diarrhea-tastic, though. I rewound it and watched it 3 times. Possible new favorite commercial.
10 bucks says Bronco punts it from the 32 if we throw an incomplete pass here.
Obviously, not many options here, but why not go to Hoffman in the end zone again? What's to lose?
Punt goes into the end zone of course. What's the inside-the-40 punt total for the year? 8? Good time to paste in something I found interesting from TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) on when to punt:
• Inside your own 20, punt.
• From your 21 to 35, go for it on fourth-and-2 or less.
• From your 36 to midfield, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 49 to opposition 30, go for it on fourth-and-4 or less.
• From the opposition 29 to opposition 3, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 2 or 1, go for it.
• Exception: inside the opponent's 25, attempt a field goal if it's the fourth quarter and a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead.
According to this, Bronco made the right call. Not much to do on 3rd and long.
9th drive - UW
KVN with another amazing play! This guy is hands-down the best defensive player ever. No argument there. I mean, the INT was pretty lucky to fall on his body, but I feel like other defensive players would've still screwed that up, and I can't really remember KVN screwing up sure INTs ever.
10th drive - BYU
Just off the fingertips of Mathews! So close...would've been huge!
Hoffman is getting murdered on every play by the corner. Lots of grabbing and early touching before the ball gets there. Probably not going to get many catches without help from the refs.
Wait - Brian Urlacher? Who's that? He's not even playing anymore, how good could he have been?
Hoffman had steps there, but Hill overthrows by 5 yards.
11th drive - UW
Nothing makes me ffwd faster than when NASCAR people appear on the screen. And worse - Rod makes commentary about it! NOBODY CARES ABOUT NASCAR, Rod! And if they do, they're wrong.
5 missed tackles on that long run. Also, a blatant hold at the line. How many flags on UW so far? 1? Oh, I see.
4th and 1... you have to go for it here. Too long for a sure FG. Bronco would punt.
Big hit by 22! Who's 22? Nice play, 22!
Of course, the kicker who has never made a FG makes it from 38. He'd have missed that against Ohio St.
12th drive - BYU
Not a surprise that we have nobody open downfield, their corners are probably jumping on our WR's shoulders and riding them like horses.
13th drive - UW
Big hit by Fua! 3rd and 4 coming, need to get a stop here. 10-3 at the half and the ball is not a bad position to be in.
Need to get more pressure on the QB, he's got all day. We could use Ziggy here!
Ball tipped at the line. Good play, but the play was well-covered, possible INT we could've had there.
TD. Too much time for the QB! You have to rush more than 3 there.
HALFTIME
It's interesting that UW has 2 losses and they're ranked #24. Their 2 losses are to OSU and ASU, both ranked. The highest 2 loss team is S Carolina at #12. 12 spots higher! Well, SCar lost to Tennessee, who has gotten creamed by everyone, and Georgia, who isn't ranked either. "But Kent, SCar beat #5 Missouri!" Oh, then nevermind. Totally justified. Let's forget that Missouri is awesome, and not the fact that other top 25 wins have been over Georgia and Florida, both unranked. Apparently all you have to do to be in the top 10 is to be in the SEC and win 3 conference games.
14th drive - BYU
I'm not counting that last drive of the half.
Is it possible for us to have a kickoff withOUT a block in the back?
Ugh. 3 and out. Now I'm rooting for UW to score 41 points and BYU to get 2 safeties.
Terrible punt! Didn't we have the wind for this punt? Not looking good.
15th drive - UW
Sorensen is an excellent defensive player - a lot like Francisco from a few years ago. We'll be in a tough position next year without him and Van Nuy.
We bring the pressure on 3rd but they have a quick hit. I still like the fact that we brought it. We need to get more pressure.
Break there with a bad pass to a wide open WR!
16th drive - BYU
We're averaging 32 points a game and over 500 yards. That's a pathetically low point average for how many yards that is. Speaks to our red zone inability. We need a "points per yard" stat.
Williams with a drop there. He has terrible hands, we know this from the Virginia game. For Williams to be considered a top 10 all time RB, he needs to be a better pass-catcher.
Williams bailed out with the offsides call. We need a score here.
Huge surprise - Apo doesn't come up with a catch that he should've. Apo is my least favorite BYU player - people have been talking about him like he was supposed to be better than Hoffman. He's been dropping catchable passes his whole career.
And just to illustrate my point, Hoffman makes a great catch for a TD! How many catches has Hoffman caught where there's been a pass interference call? But, yeah, Apo still might be better than him.
17th drive - UW
That Hyundai ad where they show BYU for the first seconds really threw me off when I first saw it. I thought, "Wait, is this BYUTV? Is this a BYU commercial?" I'm surprised we made the cut, and got so many clips.
Daniels' tackling has been terrible this game. Through the first 8 games, he was surprisingly solid.
The problem with playing ND every year is that I have to root for them every game.
Brought pressure and we finally get a sack!
18th drive - BYU
Good overturn by the refs. If anything, that was the cleanest guarding of Hoffman all game.
3rd and 13 is a little long for a trap play, no? We need to get a good punt here.
What a punt! 61 yards? Check your math, buddy. That's 75 yards right there. Maybe the first bounce was 61.
19th drive - UW
The announcer asks "What are the odds that the championship game will NOT be Bama - FSU?" This is exactly what's wrong with the BCS, the fact that it's so likely with 4 games to play. I know that it's going away, but the fact that it existed for so long was just baffling. I will complain about the BCS until I'm dead. In 2050, I'll be telling my grandkids, "In my day, there wasn't this 68 team tournament gobble-de-gook. It was 2 teams! Voted in by the media! In those days, we knew how to pick a winner!
Our D looks tired. Every play is a good handful of yards.
End of 3rd**** It's looking unlikely we'll pull this out. I'm rooting for us to at least make it close, but UW looks pretty dominant.
touchdown
20th drive - BYU
Where's my pizza?! I ordered it an hour ago!
3rd and 2 here. We have to go for it if we don't get it. Let's run it here.
We ran it. Didn't work. At least UW planned for a punt and burned another TO.
Rod makes the point "Bronco does not believe his defense can hold them." I no longer like Rod. You HAVE to go for it here.
Penalty - we still should go for it. What good does punting do? Give it to UW to run 5 minutes off the clock and get more points? Look, we're not going to win this game playing conservatively, so why not sell out early? We punt.
21st drive - UW
They pick up 30 yards just like that. I'm glad we punted it. As a coach, you have to be realistic with your D. If they're not stopping the other team, own up to it and keep the ball as much as possible.
They're getting 5-7 yards on every play and all they do is run it up the gut. Glad we punted.
4th down! We stopped them! Bronco made the right call to punt - we're getting the ball at the 10 yard line with 4 fewer minutes. Plenty of time to score 3 times.
How can Planet Fitness guarantee a "Judgement-Free Zone"? Are they kicking people out who sneer at others?
22nd drive - BYU
Hoffman once again proves that he's the best. Ever. In the history of everything.
Even if we miraculously come back and win this game, UW is clearly the better team. They've dominated the trenches on both sides. I think last year's D would've kept us closer with Ziggy on the D-line, but last year's O wouldn't have gotten us more than the 10 points we have.
NOW Rod says we shouldn't punt. I don't know why Bronco is waiting until 4th down to punt, we could throw an INT or fumble it on 3rd.
23rd drive - UW
ESPN shows a BYU asst coach as "Bronco Mendenhall". The camera crew must be confused as to who's the head coach, they've been showing that dude all game. I don't know who that dude is, but I know who Bronco is at least.
24th drive - BYU
Still no pizza. I just called, "It's on the way" they say. The place is 10 minute walk, a 3 minute bike ride, and a 2 minute car ride (lots of stop signs) from my house. I could have walked there, made the pizza myself, and walked back. At least I get to save money on the tip.
We burn a TO on 3rd. If we had any glimmer of a shot, it now is gone.
Go for the TD here. You need 2 TDs still, and we need the stats.
25th drive - UW
Pizza finally arrived. I stiffed the delivery guy, and he was clearly disappointed. Listen buddy, the pizza took 90 minutes to get here and I live right next door. When I delivered, I was hoping to not have to give the pizza away for free, let alone get a tip.
26th drive - BYU
ANOTHER picked up flag. The other refs must feel eviscerated with the main ref overruling all his calls.
Apo with another drop. There's this dude in my ward who thinks that Apo is a "great receiver". He also thinks (no joke) that the BCS is better than the playoffs. I was absolutely, completely baffled when he told me that. I had no idea these people still existed.
End of game - UW 27, BYU 17
The head coaches shake hands at midfield. The production lead at ESPN says, "Wait, THAT'S the head coach of BYU?!?!?"
As mentioned earlier, BYU was beaten by a better team. We stayed relatively close, but we just aren't good enough yet. Maybe next year. I'll be happy if we can beat ND, but we'll need to stuff the run more consistently.
Rod Gilmore is our analyst - I like him. I don't know this play by play dude.
Gary Andersen is the UW coach. Anybody who could turn USU around has got to be a solid coach.
Windy there today, which probably means no FG attempts outside the 10.
1st drive - UW ball
KVN with another TFL! Brings up a 3rd and long, which is not a sure thing with our D this year.
Ugh. We have to get more pressure on these 3rd and longs, he had all day to make that pass.
UW dominating us at the front line. Not a good sign.
Hadley goes out. We'll miss his 'stache.
So far our secondary has looked solid, tight coverage.
This game is reminding me of the Stanford-Oregon game. Stanford just dominated the line and got 4-5 yards on every play for these 7 minute drives.
Easy TD for UW. Not a good sign for us, but a very good sign for my 41-7 loss prediction.
2nd drive - BYU ball
Nothing to say here. Good protection on the 3rd and long is the only silver lining.
3rd drive - UW ball
'Unga makes the impact player list - surprise of the day!
Stuffed on 3rd down! Key stop there, we don't want to dig out of a 14-0 hole.
Just found out the Falselev is out. Rats. He's a key, more on the offensive side than the PR side. Good hands, shifty moves.
4th drive - BYU ball
3rd and long again. Let's see if we can pick something up.
"Pick" was a bad choice of words there. Hill overthrows Hoffman and UW picks it off.
5th drive -UW ball
I wonder if Andersen is over there on the sidelines thinking, "This is so much easier with Big 10 talent, it's almost unfair".
Sorenseon almost with the INT! Would've been nice to come down with it.
Fumble! BYU picks it up! Let's see if our O can move the ball more than 3 yards.
6th drive - BYU ball
First 1st down! A couple quick hits there, good playcalling.
7 yards to Mahina. We need to continue to get our TE's involved.
Down to UW's 40 yard line. Prime punting range.
Into the red zone, getting everybody involved! Really enjoying this. Let's see if we can get a TD.
3rd and 7 from the 13. 4 down territory, I'd think.
Wow - I can't believe they gave Hill the incomplete pass there. I further can't believe that Bronco trusted Sorenson to make that FG. Good call, though, he made it. Another red zone trip without a TD. Until we improve this, we're not going to beat tough teams.
7th drive - UW
Did our band travel all the way to UW? Or is their band playing our fight song? If so, kudos to them.
They almost broke that kickoff for a lot of yards. Good arm tackle.
Manu with the great break through the line! D starting to step up.
"Jonathan Pigskin" is what Rece Davis called Johnny Football just now. Great name - Susan Hansen approved.
Read the screen all the way, D with a 3 and out. Solid!
8th drive - BYU
Interesting that Rod thinks that BYU still has BCS chances. I'm skeptical, considering we're not ranked. I mean, that would be great, but even if we do win out, I can't see it happening.
End of 1st**** We're only down 7-3 to a good team on the road, I can't be too disappointed about that. D has been solid after that first drive, and O showed some signs of life in the last drive. If we can score more TDs, we can win. But FGs aren't going to do it.
Wow - I had no idea Camp Randall was so ugly from the outside. Solid concrete, who designed this, Joseph Stalin?
Gutsy call on 3rd and 8 with the run! Worked to perfection with a long run. If that wouldn't have worked, I'd be complaining pretty hard in this very space.
Another throwaway and Hill had all kinds of time. We must not getting anybody open.
Great pass on 3rd and 10 to Friel! Huge play there. Great catch, too.
Deep pass to the end zone and the defender practically tackles Hoffman before the ball gets there. No flag - bad sign of things to come.
New Taco Bell ad with the white guy and the steak sandwich was awesome. "That was a travel." Sandwich looks pretty diarrhea-tastic, though. I rewound it and watched it 3 times. Possible new favorite commercial.
10 bucks says Bronco punts it from the 32 if we throw an incomplete pass here.
Obviously, not many options here, but why not go to Hoffman in the end zone again? What's to lose?
Punt goes into the end zone of course. What's the inside-the-40 punt total for the year? 8? Good time to paste in something I found interesting from TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) on when to punt:
• Inside your own 20, punt.
• From your 21 to 35, go for it on fourth-and-2 or less.
• From your 36 to midfield, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 49 to opposition 30, go for it on fourth-and-4 or less.
• From the opposition 29 to opposition 3, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 2 or 1, go for it.
• Exception: inside the opponent's 25, attempt a field goal if it's the fourth quarter and a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead.
According to this, Bronco made the right call. Not much to do on 3rd and long.
9th drive - UW
KVN with another amazing play! This guy is hands-down the best defensive player ever. No argument there. I mean, the INT was pretty lucky to fall on his body, but I feel like other defensive players would've still screwed that up, and I can't really remember KVN screwing up sure INTs ever.
10th drive - BYU
Just off the fingertips of Mathews! So close...would've been huge!
Hoffman is getting murdered on every play by the corner. Lots of grabbing and early touching before the ball gets there. Probably not going to get many catches without help from the refs.
Wait - Brian Urlacher? Who's that? He's not even playing anymore, how good could he have been?
Hoffman had steps there, but Hill overthrows by 5 yards.
11th drive - UW
Nothing makes me ffwd faster than when NASCAR people appear on the screen. And worse - Rod makes commentary about it! NOBODY CARES ABOUT NASCAR, Rod! And if they do, they're wrong.
5 missed tackles on that long run. Also, a blatant hold at the line. How many flags on UW so far? 1? Oh, I see.
4th and 1... you have to go for it here. Too long for a sure FG. Bronco would punt.
Big hit by 22! Who's 22? Nice play, 22!
Of course, the kicker who has never made a FG makes it from 38. He'd have missed that against Ohio St.
12th drive - BYU
Not a surprise that we have nobody open downfield, their corners are probably jumping on our WR's shoulders and riding them like horses.
13th drive - UW
Big hit by Fua! 3rd and 4 coming, need to get a stop here. 10-3 at the half and the ball is not a bad position to be in.
Need to get more pressure on the QB, he's got all day. We could use Ziggy here!
Ball tipped at the line. Good play, but the play was well-covered, possible INT we could've had there.
TD. Too much time for the QB! You have to rush more than 3 there.
HALFTIME
It's interesting that UW has 2 losses and they're ranked #24. Their 2 losses are to OSU and ASU, both ranked. The highest 2 loss team is S Carolina at #12. 12 spots higher! Well, SCar lost to Tennessee, who has gotten creamed by everyone, and Georgia, who isn't ranked either. "But Kent, SCar beat #5 Missouri!" Oh, then nevermind. Totally justified. Let's forget that Missouri is awesome, and not the fact that other top 25 wins have been over Georgia and Florida, both unranked. Apparently all you have to do to be in the top 10 is to be in the SEC and win 3 conference games.
14th drive - BYU
I'm not counting that last drive of the half.
Is it possible for us to have a kickoff withOUT a block in the back?
Ugh. 3 and out. Now I'm rooting for UW to score 41 points and BYU to get 2 safeties.
Terrible punt! Didn't we have the wind for this punt? Not looking good.
15th drive - UW
Sorensen is an excellent defensive player - a lot like Francisco from a few years ago. We'll be in a tough position next year without him and Van Nuy.
We bring the pressure on 3rd but they have a quick hit. I still like the fact that we brought it. We need to get more pressure.
Break there with a bad pass to a wide open WR!
16th drive - BYU
We're averaging 32 points a game and over 500 yards. That's a pathetically low point average for how many yards that is. Speaks to our red zone inability. We need a "points per yard" stat.
Williams with a drop there. He has terrible hands, we know this from the Virginia game. For Williams to be considered a top 10 all time RB, he needs to be a better pass-catcher.
Williams bailed out with the offsides call. We need a score here.
Huge surprise - Apo doesn't come up with a catch that he should've. Apo is my least favorite BYU player - people have been talking about him like he was supposed to be better than Hoffman. He's been dropping catchable passes his whole career.
And just to illustrate my point, Hoffman makes a great catch for a TD! How many catches has Hoffman caught where there's been a pass interference call? But, yeah, Apo still might be better than him.
17th drive - UW
That Hyundai ad where they show BYU for the first seconds really threw me off when I first saw it. I thought, "Wait, is this BYUTV? Is this a BYU commercial?" I'm surprised we made the cut, and got so many clips.
Daniels' tackling has been terrible this game. Through the first 8 games, he was surprisingly solid.
The problem with playing ND every year is that I have to root for them every game.
Brought pressure and we finally get a sack!
18th drive - BYU
Good overturn by the refs. If anything, that was the cleanest guarding of Hoffman all game.
3rd and 13 is a little long for a trap play, no? We need to get a good punt here.
What a punt! 61 yards? Check your math, buddy. That's 75 yards right there. Maybe the first bounce was 61.
19th drive - UW
The announcer asks "What are the odds that the championship game will NOT be Bama - FSU?" This is exactly what's wrong with the BCS, the fact that it's so likely with 4 games to play. I know that it's going away, but the fact that it existed for so long was just baffling. I will complain about the BCS until I'm dead. In 2050, I'll be telling my grandkids, "In my day, there wasn't this 68 team tournament gobble-de-gook. It was 2 teams! Voted in by the media! In those days, we knew how to pick a winner!
Our D looks tired. Every play is a good handful of yards.
End of 3rd**** It's looking unlikely we'll pull this out. I'm rooting for us to at least make it close, but UW looks pretty dominant.
touchdown
20th drive - BYU
Where's my pizza?! I ordered it an hour ago!
3rd and 2 here. We have to go for it if we don't get it. Let's run it here.
We ran it. Didn't work. At least UW planned for a punt and burned another TO.
Rod makes the point "Bronco does not believe his defense can hold them." I no longer like Rod. You HAVE to go for it here.
Penalty - we still should go for it. What good does punting do? Give it to UW to run 5 minutes off the clock and get more points? Look, we're not going to win this game playing conservatively, so why not sell out early? We punt.
21st drive - UW
They pick up 30 yards just like that. I'm glad we punted it. As a coach, you have to be realistic with your D. If they're not stopping the other team, own up to it and keep the ball as much as possible.
They're getting 5-7 yards on every play and all they do is run it up the gut. Glad we punted.
4th down! We stopped them! Bronco made the right call to punt - we're getting the ball at the 10 yard line with 4 fewer minutes. Plenty of time to score 3 times.
How can Planet Fitness guarantee a "Judgement-Free Zone"? Are they kicking people out who sneer at others?
22nd drive - BYU
Hoffman once again proves that he's the best. Ever. In the history of everything.
Even if we miraculously come back and win this game, UW is clearly the better team. They've dominated the trenches on both sides. I think last year's D would've kept us closer with Ziggy on the D-line, but last year's O wouldn't have gotten us more than the 10 points we have.
NOW Rod says we shouldn't punt. I don't know why Bronco is waiting until 4th down to punt, we could throw an INT or fumble it on 3rd.
23rd drive - UW
ESPN shows a BYU asst coach as "Bronco Mendenhall". The camera crew must be confused as to who's the head coach, they've been showing that dude all game. I don't know who that dude is, but I know who Bronco is at least.
24th drive - BYU
Still no pizza. I just called, "It's on the way" they say. The place is 10 minute walk, a 3 minute bike ride, and a 2 minute car ride (lots of stop signs) from my house. I could have walked there, made the pizza myself, and walked back. At least I get to save money on the tip.
We burn a TO on 3rd. If we had any glimmer of a shot, it now is gone.
Go for the TD here. You need 2 TDs still, and we need the stats.
25th drive - UW
Pizza finally arrived. I stiffed the delivery guy, and he was clearly disappointed. Listen buddy, the pizza took 90 minutes to get here and I live right next door. When I delivered, I was hoping to not have to give the pizza away for free, let alone get a tip.
26th drive - BYU
ANOTHER picked up flag. The other refs must feel eviscerated with the main ref overruling all his calls.
Apo with another drop. There's this dude in my ward who thinks that Apo is a "great receiver". He also thinks (no joke) that the BCS is better than the playoffs. I was absolutely, completely baffled when he told me that. I had no idea these people still existed.
End of game - UW 27, BYU 17
The head coaches shake hands at midfield. The production lead at ESPN says, "Wait, THAT'S the head coach of BYU?!?!?"
As mentioned earlier, BYU was beaten by a better team. We stayed relatively close, but we just aren't good enough yet. Maybe next year. I'll be happy if we can beat ND, but we'll need to stuff the run more consistently.
Glog: BYU vs Weber St
It's basketball time! Cougar fans don't watch the hoop games as religiously as the football games, but I do. Basketball is a great game to watch because there's so many stats and so many jokes to make during the game. So I'm going to try and glog (game-log for you new listeners) every game.
Alright! Okay! Here we go!
I have to turn the TV volume up to 15 because I'm doing some Dad-level chomping on kettle corn right now. Our announcers are Spencer Linton and David Nixon, who have KOHS-level experience. I'm not going to complain about not having Fowler, but I will complain about missing McCann, who has a silky smoove voice and a decent sense of humor. We also have the token female sideline reporter, Lauren something, so we'll count how much we'll actually hear from her this game. Counting the pre-game report that zero people listened to, we're at 1. She'll get the last laugh when she's taking Holly Rowe's place on ESPN in a few years. I will say that Spencer's not half bad, but I'm not a big fan of Nixon, who should stick to football.
I'm going to keep track of a new stat this game: Ballhog ratio (or as I used to call it, "Hogball"). The last exhibition game, I noticed Carlino was shooting the ball most every time he touched it, so now I'm going to keep track of it, as well as the PG for Weber for comparison's sake. Anyway, every time you get the ball, it ends in either a pass, a shot, a TO, or a foul. I want to calculate Carlino's ratio because I'm pretty sure he leads the league for PG's.
BYUTV screws up the first score - it's Weber 999 - BYU 2! What a game!
Carlino scores the first 4. His ratio: 2/3. 2 shots out of 3 touches. 67% seems unsustainable, but he'll do his best to maintain it.
Carlino's ratio is now 4/5. He's regretting that first pass.
Worthington and his hair check in. You have to say "Worthington" with a British accent.
Carlino with 2 passes on one possession!
I love everything about Collinsworth's game except that he can't shoot. At all.
BYU's up 11-3 early, but we've missed 3 gimme's, so it should be 17-3. Of course, Weber's 1-11 so there's that.
Carlino with a nice alley-oop to Worthington. Worthington, like the proper gentleman that he is, lays it up. Only Philistines dunk, taught his mother in Sunday School.
Carlino sits out with a 4/8 hogball ratio. He shoots it only 50% of the time he touches it. On the other side, Weber's PG has an 11% ratio, so I'm going to stop keeping track of it. I need Brian to keep these stats for me. Don't worry, I'll keep tabs on Carlino.
Winder with the steal, gets swatted, C-worth swats it on the other end and Winder lays it up! Fun sequence.
Haws hasn't been on fire yet this year. He's saving it for Utah.
Frank Bartley with the and-1! I had no idea parents were still naming kids "Frank". I thought we agreed to retire that name. Misses the FT.
That Emergency Preparedness ad throws me for a loop every time. You think it's going to be funny, but it's not. At all.
I've seen hundreds of Brady Industries ads and I still have no idea what they do.
Another count I need to keep track of: time BYUTV misses a play because they're focused on some player. Today's total: 1. (inbound score to Mika, I think)
Football score alert: 21-7. Spence notices and makes a nice TD reference. See? I told you Spence wasn't half bad.
Nixon's super excited about Bartley, but the kid can't shoot. We already have C-woth, so why do we need another swingman who can't shoot? Who are we, the 2004 USA basketball team? Zing!
Halford checks in! Halford is an SLCC transfer who shoots "lights-out". So far this season: 0-20. Okay, not that bad, but he was throwing up bricks in both exhibition games.
Winder's looking a lot better this year. His decisions are solid, shooting is better, defense is quicker. His ankle definitely feeling better.
I'm not going to count inbound passes as touches.
Halford misses his first 3. On the year, he's shooting 0% (0-1). This guy is TERRIBLE. Rose yanks him.
My beef with Nixon is 1. It's nice to have an announcer as a whipping boy. 2. I just don't like his voice. Too "lurpy" sounding. I can't judge the actual content because I never listenwhen he's talking.
4 passes for Carlino on 1 possession!
Winder for 3!
41-22 with 4:15 left. On pace for 100, which is the most important thing in the world to me. More than my marriage and kids COMBINED.
Rose caught picking his nose on camera. "Scratch! Scratch! No pick!" he claims.
My biggest concern with this year's team is that I don't think we're jacking enough 3's, and we're certainly not hitting that many.
Carlino jacks and hits a 3! On cue! Haws needs to jack more 3s.
At the half: Phone interview with Blaine Fowler! Not to be missed! "So, uh..., how's it going?" "Good." "So...how's work?" "Good." "Great, great. [long pause] How's the home-teaching coming?"
Carlino misses at the buzzer! Does the shot count? Can I get a review on that, I need it for my hogball ratio! The refs ignore my request. BYU leads, 44-33.
Carlino's hogball ratio at halftime: 41%. 27 touches, 16 passes, 11 shots. No turnovers or fouls.
Halftime stats: 3/5 for 3's. I like the %, but the attempts? Only 10! We're not going to get 100 points with that kind of attitude. Also, only 2 TO's, that's very solid. Carlino used to average 2 TO's a half by himself.
I'd like to see Haws' shooting stats. It can't be that good, he had a lot of misses.
Weber within 9. Tresnik dominating down low. This is my token "opponent comment".
I should calculate Austin's foul ratio: how often he fouls versus total defensive chances. I love ratios.
Mika with a game-changing swat! 5 point swing right there.
Stat question: Carlino goes up for a shot but the ball's swatted out of his hands and out of bounds, going back to BYU. Should I count that as a shot even though the scorer's table won't? I vote yes, because the hogball ratio is to find out how often people shoot it every time they touch it. But it will make it harder to audit because I can't match up his shots to the scorer's at the end of the game. You see the conundrum here.
Carlino commits a TO off of the inbounds pass, which I'm not counting. So now the turnover column won't match either. An auditor's nightmare.
C-worth with a great drive and left-handed finish. He's so athletic, it looks like he's barely even trying out there. I just wish he could shoot outside of 5 feet.
Cutting to Sideline Lauren for the 4th time today! I didn't listen to what she said, though. She also caught up with Coach Rose before the half and the other coach after the half. Couldn't fast-forward through it fast enough.
Nixon keeping us updated on the defensive schemes for every possession. I'm surprised he hasn't said "3-4" or "Nickel package".
Carlino hits a deep 2 and we're back up 20, 61-41. Carlino's 2nd half ratio is amazingly 41% (7/17), which is the same as his 1st half. He's consistent in his hogballing.
Bartley is back in and picks up his 3rd foul. 3 minutes, 3 fouls.
Weber with 8 quick points and now it's a 12-point game. This is Worthington's fault.
BYU's been dominant rebounding the ball this game. This bodes well for the season, you always have a better chance when you out-rebound the other team.
Carlino is 9-20 at this point, and I have 20 shots for him, so apparently the stats people called that one that went out-of-bounds a shot.
Weber has a player named "Bolumboy". Sounds like "Gollum boy" every time the announcer says it.
C-worth is the Kirilenko of the team. His nickname is even "Big Russia".
Sideline Lauren makes another appearance: 5 is now the count.
Haws starting to feel it! 73-58 with 5:37 left.
Haws with the White Boy dunk! You know, where you lay it in and touch the rim afterward.
Carlino with a long string of passes, his ratio is down to 26% for the 2nd half. I'm going to say that 20-25% is probably where you would expect a scoring PG to end up. Russell Westbrook probably averages 40-50%, CP3 20%, Nash 10-15%, Nashif 1%.
We go over 80 and the fans cheer for free yogurt. I don't know how any fan can feel good about getting yogurt for 80 measly points. It's a downright embarrassment if you get less than 90.
Up 9 with 30 seconds left. Spence says the game is "still in question". I think that's a bit of a reach.
Your final score: 81-72, Cougs.
Sideline Laura made 2 in-game comments, BYUTV only missed 1 play all game, a huge improvement from last year, and the most important stat is Carlino's hogball ratio of 32%. I need to do some more analysis of other players to make that stat more meaningful.
Alright! Okay! Here we go!
I have to turn the TV volume up to 15 because I'm doing some Dad-level chomping on kettle corn right now. Our announcers are Spencer Linton and David Nixon, who have KOHS-level experience. I'm not going to complain about not having Fowler, but I will complain about missing McCann, who has a silky smoove voice and a decent sense of humor. We also have the token female sideline reporter, Lauren something, so we'll count how much we'll actually hear from her this game. Counting the pre-game report that zero people listened to, we're at 1. She'll get the last laugh when she's taking Holly Rowe's place on ESPN in a few years. I will say that Spencer's not half bad, but I'm not a big fan of Nixon, who should stick to football.
I'm going to keep track of a new stat this game: Ballhog ratio (or as I used to call it, "Hogball"). The last exhibition game, I noticed Carlino was shooting the ball most every time he touched it, so now I'm going to keep track of it, as well as the PG for Weber for comparison's sake. Anyway, every time you get the ball, it ends in either a pass, a shot, a TO, or a foul. I want to calculate Carlino's ratio because I'm pretty sure he leads the league for PG's.
BYUTV screws up the first score - it's Weber 999 - BYU 2! What a game!
Carlino scores the first 4. His ratio: 2/3. 2 shots out of 3 touches. 67% seems unsustainable, but he'll do his best to maintain it.
Carlino's ratio is now 4/5. He's regretting that first pass.
Worthington and his hair check in. You have to say "Worthington" with a British accent.
Carlino with 2 passes on one possession!
I love everything about Collinsworth's game except that he can't shoot. At all.
BYU's up 11-3 early, but we've missed 3 gimme's, so it should be 17-3. Of course, Weber's 1-11 so there's that.
Carlino with a nice alley-oop to Worthington. Worthington, like the proper gentleman that he is, lays it up. Only Philistines dunk, taught his mother in Sunday School.
Carlino sits out with a 4/8 hogball ratio. He shoots it only 50% of the time he touches it. On the other side, Weber's PG has an 11% ratio, so I'm going to stop keeping track of it. I need Brian to keep these stats for me. Don't worry, I'll keep tabs on Carlino.
Winder with the steal, gets swatted, C-worth swats it on the other end and Winder lays it up! Fun sequence.
Haws hasn't been on fire yet this year. He's saving it for Utah.
Frank Bartley with the and-1! I had no idea parents were still naming kids "Frank". I thought we agreed to retire that name. Misses the FT.
That Emergency Preparedness ad throws me for a loop every time. You think it's going to be funny, but it's not. At all.
I've seen hundreds of Brady Industries ads and I still have no idea what they do.
Another count I need to keep track of: time BYUTV misses a play because they're focused on some player. Today's total: 1. (inbound score to Mika, I think)
Football score alert: 21-7. Spence notices and makes a nice TD reference. See? I told you Spence wasn't half bad.
Nixon's super excited about Bartley, but the kid can't shoot. We already have C-woth, so why do we need another swingman who can't shoot? Who are we, the 2004 USA basketball team? Zing!
Halford checks in! Halford is an SLCC transfer who shoots "lights-out". So far this season: 0-20. Okay, not that bad, but he was throwing up bricks in both exhibition games.
Winder's looking a lot better this year. His decisions are solid, shooting is better, defense is quicker. His ankle definitely feeling better.
I'm not going to count inbound passes as touches.
Halford misses his first 3. On the year, he's shooting 0% (0-1). This guy is TERRIBLE. Rose yanks him.
My beef with Nixon is 1. It's nice to have an announcer as a whipping boy. 2. I just don't like his voice. Too "lurpy" sounding. I can't judge the actual content because I never listenwhen he's talking.
4 passes for Carlino on 1 possession!
Winder for 3!
41-22 with 4:15 left. On pace for 100, which is the most important thing in the world to me. More than my marriage and kids COMBINED.
Rose caught picking his nose on camera. "Scratch! Scratch! No pick!" he claims.
My biggest concern with this year's team is that I don't think we're jacking enough 3's, and we're certainly not hitting that many.
Carlino jacks and hits a 3! On cue! Haws needs to jack more 3s.
At the half: Phone interview with Blaine Fowler! Not to be missed! "So, uh..., how's it going?" "Good." "So...how's work?" "Good." "Great, great. [long pause] How's the home-teaching coming?"
Carlino misses at the buzzer! Does the shot count? Can I get a review on that, I need it for my hogball ratio! The refs ignore my request. BYU leads, 44-33.
Carlino's hogball ratio at halftime: 41%. 27 touches, 16 passes, 11 shots. No turnovers or fouls.
Halftime stats: 3/5 for 3's. I like the %, but the attempts? Only 10! We're not going to get 100 points with that kind of attitude. Also, only 2 TO's, that's very solid. Carlino used to average 2 TO's a half by himself.
I'd like to see Haws' shooting stats. It can't be that good, he had a lot of misses.
Weber within 9. Tresnik dominating down low. This is my token "opponent comment".
I should calculate Austin's foul ratio: how often he fouls versus total defensive chances. I love ratios.
Mika with a game-changing swat! 5 point swing right there.
Stat question: Carlino goes up for a shot but the ball's swatted out of his hands and out of bounds, going back to BYU. Should I count that as a shot even though the scorer's table won't? I vote yes, because the hogball ratio is to find out how often people shoot it every time they touch it. But it will make it harder to audit because I can't match up his shots to the scorer's at the end of the game. You see the conundrum here.
Carlino commits a TO off of the inbounds pass, which I'm not counting. So now the turnover column won't match either. An auditor's nightmare.
C-worth with a great drive and left-handed finish. He's so athletic, it looks like he's barely even trying out there. I just wish he could shoot outside of 5 feet.
Cutting to Sideline Lauren for the 4th time today! I didn't listen to what she said, though. She also caught up with Coach Rose before the half and the other coach after the half. Couldn't fast-forward through it fast enough.
Nixon keeping us updated on the defensive schemes for every possession. I'm surprised he hasn't said "3-4" or "Nickel package".
Carlino hits a deep 2 and we're back up 20, 61-41. Carlino's 2nd half ratio is amazingly 41% (7/17), which is the same as his 1st half. He's consistent in his hogballing.
Bartley is back in and picks up his 3rd foul. 3 minutes, 3 fouls.
Weber with 8 quick points and now it's a 12-point game. This is Worthington's fault.
BYU's been dominant rebounding the ball this game. This bodes well for the season, you always have a better chance when you out-rebound the other team.
Carlino is 9-20 at this point, and I have 20 shots for him, so apparently the stats people called that one that went out-of-bounds a shot.
Weber has a player named "Bolumboy". Sounds like "Gollum boy" every time the announcer says it.
C-worth is the Kirilenko of the team. His nickname is even "Big Russia".
Sideline Lauren makes another appearance: 5 is now the count.
Haws starting to feel it! 73-58 with 5:37 left.
Haws with the White Boy dunk! You know, where you lay it in and touch the rim afterward.
Carlino with a long string of passes, his ratio is down to 26% for the 2nd half. I'm going to say that 20-25% is probably where you would expect a scoring PG to end up. Russell Westbrook probably averages 40-50%, CP3 20%, Nash 10-15%, Nashif 1%.
We go over 80 and the fans cheer for free yogurt. I don't know how any fan can feel good about getting yogurt for 80 measly points. It's a downright embarrassment if you get less than 90.
Up 9 with 30 seconds left. Spence says the game is "still in question". I think that's a bit of a reach.
Your final score: 81-72, Cougs.
Sideline Laura made 2 in-game comments, BYUTV only missed 1 play all game, a huge improvement from last year, and the most important stat is Carlino's hogball ratio of 32%. I need to do some more analysis of other players to make that stat more meaningful.
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