Babers is an overachiever | Syracusefan.com

Babers is an overachiever

Low expectations seems to help him. The "expected" wins is so low there is little comfort that he exceeds them. Don't get me wrong, I like Dino but this is no cause for celebration.
 
Im a huge babers fan. Im not sure Dungey gets enough credit though.

This teams (which for two years id say hcss built and dino inherited) a 2 win team for 2-3 years with no upsets if we don’t have the actual definition of hard nosed leader under center.
 
Low expectations seems to help him. The "expected" wins is so low there is little comfort that he exceeds them. Don't get me wrong, I like Dino but this is no cause for celebration.

There is no difference between exceeding expectations at 8 wins or at 4. It's just good news.

Here's the original article that lays out the details

and a quote about expected wins: It is intended to say "Given your success rates, big plays, field position components, turnovers, etc., you could have expected to win this game X% of the time." It has nothing to do with pre-game projections or opponent adjustments.
 
There are a lot of reasons for this, I think.

- The system provides more chances to score
- The system places pressure on teams to keep up (the two big upsets happened at home)
- He takes chances on 4th down
- and tends to take points vs punting
 
There is to me.

I'm not sure you get the metric. You should read that original article. It's not about expectations pre-game. It's after the fact.

It's "normally with these numbers a team would win the game x% of time" ... we exceeded that number two years in a row. In other words we pulled a win out where we shouldn't have. This is good news. A negative number would mean we gave away games we should have won given our stats in that particular game.
 
Im a huge babers fan. Im not sure Dungey gets enough credit though.

This teams (which for two years id say hcss built and dino inherited) a 2 win team for 2-3 years with no upsets if we don’t have the actual definition of hard nosed leader under center.

Dungey clearly makes a difference with this team.

Got to keep him healthy this year!
 
meh, he was supposed to get more than 3 wins each season, and he got to four. I still like him as coach but he's not blowing me away.

Taken alone, it’s not that impressive. But the important note is that he’s in the top 4 nationally when compared to other HC’s
 
Does that website have any original content at all??
 
Funny i don't believe this is a thing if we could run the ball ... He would have already been hired off .
 
There are a lot of reasons for this, I think.

- The system provides more chances to score
- The system places pressure on teams to keep up (the two big upsets happened at home)
- He takes chances on 4th down
- and tends to take points vs punting
The top 2 aren’t relevant:
A) the more chances to score is balanced out by The other team having more chances to score. Unless you mean Dino’s system has more chances to score because it takes more long shots at the end zone. But that’s only relevant if it’s more efficient than other systems at scoring, which it isn’t (as of yet).
B) The other team only feels pressure if we’re winning. Otherwise, our defense is the unit feeling the pressure.

The bottom 2 are true, but they’re misleading. He takes more risks which leads to upsets, both good and bad (MTSU vs Clemson). If you focus on the Clemson’s and VPIs, you only tell half of the story. You miss the costs.

I think that Dino has done a good job handling talent (recruiting it and keeping it when needed), and he has been smart enough to exploit most weaknesses when they appeared.

IMO, Dino is the difference, not his system.
 
The top 2 aren’t relevant:
A) the more chances to score is balanced out by The other team having more chances to score. Unless you mean Dino’s system has more chances to score because it takes more long shots at the end zone. But that’s only relevant if it’s more efficient than other systems at scoring, which it isn’t (as of yet).
B) The other team only feels pressure if we’re winning. Otherwise, our defense is the unit feeling the pressure.

The bottom 2 are true, but they’re misleading. He takes more risks which leads to upsets, both good and bad (MTSU vs Clemson). If you focus on the Clemson’s and VPIs, you only tell half of the story. You miss the costs.

I think that Dino has done a good job handling talent (recruiting it and keeping it when needed), and he has been smart enough to exploit most weaknesses when they appeared.

IMO, Dino is the difference, not his system.


1. More chances for an effecient offense is good, no matter what you give to the opponent. It’s holding serve in tennis. You have advantage and are more likely to win if you’re dictating the pace of scoring while you have the ball. Force the other team to hold serve to keep up. The two big upsets we’ve had we were out in front, forcing them to keep scoring.

2. Tempo provides other advantages in addition to more chances to score. The other teams D gets tired. You’ve got more chances to probe a D for weaknesses. It’s different than what teams are used to. You’re forcing them to practice a tempo in prep during the week. Etc.

3. MTSU is the only upset Dino has allowed. It wasn’t due to taking unnecessary risk.

4. We have gotten blown out by more points than we’re used to and this does point to your theory about pressure on our D. But near all of those had our best QB on the sideline. Hard to evaluate the theory when your effeciency drops off a cliff with our backups playing.

5. I see zero proof of your last sentence. It’s not the O system, it’s tempo, or the risks he takes on 4th down - it’s “Dino” ... how do you separate the coach from the system? He’s not coached as a HC without running it.
 
meh, he was supposed to get more than 3 wins each season, and he got to four. I still like him as coach but he's not blowing me away.

I don't think it's fair to judge him based on the last 2 seasons. Both sides of the ball needed a complete overhaul in the type of players needed to succeed. He has finally turned the roster over, but this will be the first season with "his guys". There are far more underclassmen so the talent is young, but I think we will get a better glimpse at what he ultimately wants to do. I do think Dino would prefer a different style qb then Dungey, but at least Dungey can get the job done, playing how he does. I think Devito is the prototypical Babers QB. I just want to get to 6 wins this year and then start to roll. Next year he will have his type of QB, and the young talent will be a year older. I really think we had to suck it up the last 2 years and we took our lumps, but we saw glimpses of what could be with big wins vs VT and Clemson. Going forward I only see improvement.
 
1. More chances for an effecient offense is good, no matter what you give to the opponent. It’s holding serve in tennis. You have advantage and are more likely to win if you’re dictating the pace of scoring while you have the ball. Force the other team to hold serve to keep up. The two big upsets we’ve had we were out in front, forcing them to keep scoring.

2. Tempo provides other advantages in addition to more chances to score. The other teams D gets tired. You’ve got more chances to probe a D for weaknesses. It’s different than what teams are used to. You’re forcing them to practice a tempo in prep during the week. Etc.

3. MTSU is the only upset Dino has allowed. It wasn’t due to taking unnecessary risk.

4. We have gotten blown out by more points than we’re used to and this does point to your theory about pressure on our D. But near all of those had our best QB on the sideline. Hard to evaluate the theory when your effeciency drops off a cliff with our backups playing.

5. I see zero proof of your last sentence. It’s not the O system, it’s tempo, or the risks he takes on 4th down - it’s “Dino” ... how do you separate the coach from the system? He’s not coached as a HC without running it.
1. That's entirely not true. A more efficient offense is good. "More chances" is irrelevant, unless you're trying to diminish the role of random chance (which we don't want to do against good teams).

2. Once again, your more chances to score argument ignores the reality of also creating more changes to get scored on / fall behind. And you said "the system places pressure on teams to keep up," which I took as meaning from a point perspective ("track meet games"), which isn't true. However, I'll grant you that the tempo does stress the other team's defense and cause confusion (you didn't mention confusion, but I'll give you that for free). But unless the offense can string together long drives, it stresses your own defense more. Defenses get tired faster than offenses, so quick in and out offenses force *their* defenses to stay on the field for longer times, thereby tiring them out. Additionally, your comment about our two big wins coming from games where we had the lead most of the game is like saying "the team that is winning most of the game is more likely to be the team that ends up winning the game." Isn't that kind of obvious? And that has nothing to do with pace. That's just a statistical truth, which is equally applicable to "3 yards and a cloud of dust" offenses.

3. "MTSU is the only upset Dino has allowed. It wasn’t due to taking unnecessary risk." MTSU wasn't Dino's only upset. It was probably his only big upset - I can't remember. And clearly the loss was driven by risk. He lost and not every play that we ran/gamble that we took worked. Also, though potentially not upsets (I cant remember who was favored), our implosion against Wake last year (and I believe the year before), and our dismantling against BC also spring to mind.

4. "Hard to evaluate the theory when your effeciency drops off a cliff with our backups playing." No it's not. My theory is that efficiency matters, and that tempo is a lever. When we're more efficient, we win by more with a high tempo. When we're less efficient, we get blown out by more.

5. The system isn't designed to consistently win with less talent. Risk taking creates high betas, and high tempos advantage the more talented team. That isn't opinion. It's a mathematical fact that can be seen in many other areas outside of football if you don't believe me (see below). What the system is designed to do is win with more talent and create highlights for players (see all of the offensive skill position players who have video game stats in Dino's first 2 years), and those highlights attract talented players. The following is opinion, but I don't think that many people (anyone here) will argue with me when I say that Dino is very charismatic, and players are FAR more likely to play for a charismatic coach. So, if Dino does well here (which I think he will), it's because he was able to pull in the talent needed to win with the system, and it's because he didn't make any bone-headed decisions to blow games. That's on him, not his system.

Plays #'s favoring the more talented team - Flip a coin 2x. And do it a bunch of times. The odds of you getting all heads is 25%, on head is 50%, and no heads is 25%. Then flip a coin 50x a bunch of times. The odds of you getting all heads is very close to 0%. Using that exact same concept, the odds of us getting lucky on a few plays vs. a good team are MUCH higher than the odds of us getting lucky on a bunch of plays against the same team. Ironically, this concept is one of the reasons why nobody teams try to slow down the pace against us in basketball.

Risk creating more extreme outcomes - Look at small cap tech stocks compared to blue chips. Small caps have a MUCH higher return, but they're also MUCH more likely to go under. You are far more likely to either win big or lose your shirt by gambling than you are to by keeping money under a mattress. The same is true for football. You're more likely to get big breaks when you gamble, but you're also more likely to give up big breaks.
 
1. That's entirely not true. A more efficient offense is good. "More chances" is irrelevant, unless you're trying to diminish the role of random chance (which we don't want to do against good teams).

That's not what I said. I said more chances for an efficient offense is good. That's unequivocally true. Dino is running practice at tempo and ganging 3x the reps Shafer did to supercharge efficiency. (The lack of talent and a running game has slowed that progress. Not to mention injuries to ED for those two seasons).

The bet we are making is "we can run our offense more efficiently that you can, longer" and "we can tire you out"

2. Once again, your more chances to score argument ignores the reality of also creating more changes to get scored on / fall behind. And you said "the system places pressure on teams to keep up," which I took as meaning from a point perspective ("track meet games"), which isn't true. However, I'll grant you that the tempo does stress the other team's defense and cause confusion (you didn't mention confusion, but I'll give you that for free). But unless the offense can string together long drives, it stresses your own defense more. Defenses get tired faster than offenses, so quick in and out offenses force *their* defenses to stay on the field for longer times, thereby tiring them out. Additionally, your comment about our two big wins coming from games where we had the lead most of the game is like saying "the team that is winning most of the game is more likely to be the team that ends up winning the game." Isn't that kind of obvious? And that has nothing to do with pace. That's just a statistical truth, which is equally applicable to "3 yards and a cloud of dust" offenses.

Hey thanks for the freebie lol. I've been making that point since his name popped up in job searches.

But point by point for you:

- Sure more chances means more chances for both you and your opponent. But our D is zone based, so we want to keep everything in front of us - making it take longer (in theory) for the opposing team to drive down and score. This forces them to dink and dunk - testing their efficiency, patience and QB play. (Again - we are making a bet that we can be more effecient, longer. Efficiency is less dependent on talent too. We're saying... "Consistently good as opposed to occasionally great" (heard that somewhere lol).

- I keep hearing you say we want long drives to keep our D off the field. That's not our goal. We want points, quickly. That's partly why we go fast. Stress the opponents D by quick strike drive, stress the opposing O by making them dink and dunk down a score. If you want your D rested you play slow on O and don't take chances (neanderball).

- I'm aware that most teams want to play with a lead. I'm saying we are at our best when we are say it again: scoring quickly and making them score slow or not at all. It's designed to play that way. "3 yards and a cloud of dust" offenses are designed to beat you into submission, physically. And yeah, they like to have a lead too ;)

Side note: this is not at all unlike the Warriors. They get into the break, hoist 3's (score quickly) and play maddeningly good half court D.

3. "MTSU is the only upset Dino has allowed. It wasn’t due to taking unnecessary risk." MTSU wasn't Dino's only upset. It was probably his only big upset - I can't remember. And clearly the loss was driven by risk. He lost and not every play that we ran/gamble that we took worked. Also, though potentially not upsets (I cant remember who was favored), our implosion against Wake last year (and I believe the year before), and our dismantling against BC also spring to mind.

I should have said "not more risk than he usually takes" ... of course risk is um, risky. It can backfire. But if you look at the win expectancy we had a 6% chance to win based on our performance. BUT we only lost by 7. In the Miami game Eric threw 4 INT. That's bad. We had a win expectancy of 1% and lost by 8. The system takes advantage of risk and of tempo to keep us in games we have no business winning based on how we play.

MTSU was by far the biggest upset. Losing to a P5 team as a lower P5 team isn't an upset. Sorry.

4. "Hard to evaluate the theory when your effeciency drops off a cliff with our backups playing." No it's not. My theory is that efficiency matters, and that tempo is a lever. When we're more efficient, we win by more with a high tempo. When we're less efficient, we get blown out by more.

Hard to argue with this. I mean it's what I said. Clearly, when our backups are playing at QB, our efficiency sucks butt and we lose by more. This is obvious. The system works better and is thus better evaluated when it's running as intended with the best QB in place. I think - TD - will be an even better fit and the results will prove out.

5. The system isn't designed to consistently win with less talent. Risk taking creates high betas, and high tempos advantage the more talented team. That isn't opinion. It's a mathematical fact that can be seen in many other areas outside of football if you don't believe me (see below). What the system is designed to do is win with more talent and create highlights for players (see all of the offensive skill position players who have video game stats in Dino's first 2 years), and those highlights attract talented players. The following is opinion, but I don't think that many people (anyone here) will argue with me when I say that Dino is very charismatic, and players are FAR more likely to play for a charismatic coach. So, if Dino does well here (which I think he will), it's because he was able to pull in the talent needed to win with the system, and it's because he didn't make any bone-headed decisions to blow games. That's on him, not his system.

Wow. Loads to unpack here.

- This system needs talent. All systems do better with better talent. 100%.

- This thread has devolved into a take on "tempo" as if that's the only element that matters to his system. It's a internal part, but it's only a part. Recruiting to the system, how you attack the D (x and o), reps to increase efficiency, training for endurance, playing a way that requires your opponent to plan differently and play differently, confusion (thanks again!) caused by tempo AND how you attack it, going for it on 4th down a lot, etc.

- The point is it's not just: Our talent vs your talent x tempo. That would benefit the more talented team. But that's not what's happening here. At all.

Plays #'s favoring the more talented team - Flip a coin 2x. And do it a bunch of times. The odds of you getting all heads is 25%, on head is 50%, and no heads is 25%. Then flip a coin 50x a bunch of times. The odds of you getting all heads is very close to 0%. Using that exact same concept, the odds of us getting lucky on a few plays vs. a good team are MUCH higher than the odds of us getting lucky on a bunch of plays against the same team. Ironically, this concept is one of the reasons why nobody teams try to slow down the pace against us in basketball.

I've already said above that it's not "Let's go against this more talented team for more plays in the hopes we get lucky!" It's a whole system that says "we will be the more efficient offense longer, try to keep up" ... sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Don't get lost in the probability argument like the whole system is dependent on luck + tempo!

Weirdly with Shafer we spent a lot more time on long drives with no points, got down 10 and had to hope our D could produce a timely TO. Luck!

Risk creating more extreme outcomes - Look at small cap tech stocks compared to blue chips. Small caps have a MUCH higher return, but they're also MUCH more likely to go under. You are far more likely to either win big or lose your shirt by gambling than you are to by keeping money under a mattress. The same is true for football. You're more likely to get big breaks when you gamble, but you're also more likely to give up big breaks.

What if you played a system of D that is designed to mitigate the big play, force long drives, and frustrate college QBs into mistakes?

What if you were forced to play a game in a different way than you were used to? Wouldn't that favor the team that is used to it?
 
This is too long to reply to on a phone, but your understanding of math is deeply flawed. We aren’t testing their efficiency anymore than they’re testing our efficiency.failing fast isn’t better than failing slowly.

And I promise that Dino (and every other coach) would rather win the time of possession battle. There’s a reason why it correlates to winning, and that reason is because defenses get tired faster than offenses because they have to react. As such, we absolutely do NOT want to score fast and then have their offense grind us down all game. That’s how you get gassed at the end of the game.

Also, your “more risk than he usually takes” argument is irrelevant. He usually takes a lot of risks. That’s why we have gotten great upsets and catastrophic failures (getting absolutely dismantled by Wake Forest and BC in back to back weeks is an upset - sorry).

There’s also no evidence that Dino’s system trains “better” than more traditional systems. In fact, if you believe the mantra of “only perfect practice makes perfect,” then it doesn’t.

As for the rest, you’re generally back tracking, throwing our random statements, and saying things that are wrong. For example, I challenge you to find a single coach who actively tries to get murdered in the time of possession battle.
 
This is too long to reply to on a phone, but your understanding of math is deeply flawed. We aren’t testing their efficiency anymore than they’re testing our efficiency.failing fast isn’t better than failing slowly.

And I promise that Dino (and every other coach) would rather win the time of possession battle. There’s a reason why it correlates to winning, and that reason is because defenses get tired faster than offenses because they have to react. As such, we absolutely do NOT want to score fast and then have their offense grind us down all game. That’s how you get gassed at the end of the game.

Also, your “more risk than he usually takes” argument is irrelevant. He usually takes a lot of risks. That’s why we have gotten great upsets and catastrophic failures (getting absolutely dismantled by Wake Forest and BC in back to back weeks is an upset - sorry).

There’s also no evidence that Dino’s system trains “better” than more traditional systems. In fact, if you believe the mantra of “only perfect practice makes perfect,” then it doesn’t.

As for the rest, you’re generally back tracking, throwing our random statements, and saying things that are wrong. For example, I challenge you to find a single coach who actively tries to get murdered in the time of possession battle.

Take your time. Games don’t start until August/Sept. Really read what I wrote.

Some more for you to ponder:

Tempo teams don’t care about time of possession. What gives you the idea that they do? I’m pretty sure Dino has said he doesn’t care.

Dino structures practice in such a way that they get between 2x and x the reps than other traditional coaches. If you do the same thing over and over again, you get better at it. Let’s call this idea “practice”

I didn’t say “more risk than he usually takes” it had a “not” in front of it.

If you don’t want to be challenged, skip out on responding. I won’t be offended. But if I backtrack, I admit it. I took a long time to gather my thoughts on this stuff. I didn’t throw out random statements. And if you think I’m wrong - make your argument.
 
Tempo teams don’t care about time of possession. What gives you the idea that they do? I’m pretty sure Dino has said he doesn’t care.
.

Initially, I found this to be one of the most bone headed statements I've ever read.

At Bowling Green? Babers lost the TOP battle every year, and won. That's not even close to normal. 27 min, and 26 min... Somehow, standard football logic did not apply, so I stand corrected.

Last year we led the NCAA in plays per game.. The boom/bust factor remains the same. Only 15 teams gave up more yards. However. We were ranked #61 in plays allowed to the other offense. Giving more plays to the other team was less a factor than giving up more big plays to the other team. Mostly in the last 3 games.

I do think that standard logic is a little skewed by the system.
 
Initially, I found this to be one of the most bone headed statements I've ever read.

At Bowling Green? Babers lost the TOP battle every year, and won. That's not even close to normal. 27 min, and 26 min... Somehow, standard football logic did not apply, so I stand corrected.

Last year we led the NCAA in plays per game.. The boom/bust factor remains the same. Only 15 teams gave up more yards. However. We were ranked #61 in plays allowed to the other offense. Giving more plays to the other team was less a factor than giving up more big plays to the other team. Mostly in the last 3 games.

I do think that standard logic is a little skewed by the system.

Yeah, it’s not intuitive.

He’s clearly making a bet that:

- he can score on more drives by going faster than the opponent (confusion, tired legs, etc)
- extra possessions benefit the team that is more efficient
- this will all offset the time of possession and the extra possessions given to the opponent more than not

- you’re 100% right that he cares more about not giving up big plays, over giving up smaller dinks and dunks
- like all coaches, he’d prefer a TO or a 3 and out... but a long drive that eats clock and results in less than 7 points isn’t so bad if you’re the more efficient offense
 
Yeah, it’s not intuitive.

He’s clearly making a bet that:

- he can score on more drives by going faster than the opponent (confusion, tired legs, etc)
- extra possessions benefit the team that is more efficient
- this will all offset the time of possession and the extra possessions given to the opponent more than not

- you’re 100% right that he cares more about not giving up big plays, over giving up smaller dinks and dunks
- like all coaches, he’d prefer a TO or a 3 and out... but a long drive that eats clock and results in less than 7 points isn’t so bad if you’re the more efficient offense
Good post. It really is no different from JAB’s stall ball at the end of games, at least conceptually. Maximize time with the ball in your hands, or in Dino’s case maximize possessions.
 

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