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Message: [QUOTE="nzm136, post: 3512066, member: 2531"] Don’t pin your dumb posts on me. Talk to your mother if you want someone to tell you you’re a snowflake. I promise I’m not her, nor do I want to be. 1. You’d have a point if there were massive fluctuations in SOS every 4 years, but we’ve been somewhat stable in the scheduling. We’ve been in 2 conferences since 1991(?). I’ll call it 3, given the ‘03 raid materially changed the BIG EAST, but from 2003-2020, there’s been one shift in 7-8 of the games. Ups and downs, sure, but it’s rare for a single team to under-perform/over-perform enough to move a needle of an entire season. (The same concept is why portfolios are more steady than individual stocks in investing.) OOC philosophies have changed over time, too. We’ve softened with time (albeit way too late). But again, I think it would be hard to argue that our OOC is harder now than then, and I think it would be hard to argue that the YoY variance is enough to move a needle for an entire season - let alone a 4 year span. I guess to sum up, you’re not wrong that controlling for SoS would be great. It’s just very hard to do, and the benefit would likely be marginal. Controlling for pace is easy and has a dramatic upside. (Notice how different the 2 sets of numbers look.) As for your point about offensive/defensive coaches, keep in mind that we’ve had 4 coaches. The sample size is tiny, and those offensive coaches have had a combined 2 good seasons in the last 13 years. (I’ll comment more on this point below.) The OP’s first sentence was “of all the things to worry about, our offensive approach is the last.” That statement isn’t backed up by relevant numbers. Our offense has been bad for 11/13 years, and 3/4 of Baber’s years (+ last week). Sorry. It’s a large gap, and we need to improve. To show that I’m not cherry picking, he also rhetorically asked “how is the offensive approach the problem” because he looked at meaningless numbers and drew a premature conclusion. To answer his question, our offense is a problem because they can’t consistently end drives with points. We’re ranked 97, 96, and 93 in the country in that measure over 3 of the last 4 years. And to make matters worse, that subpar performance places as added stress on the defense, meaning the offense is failing on both sides of the ball. He also said that “this offense has been the best of any in the last 20 years“ and that “the consistent issue has been the defense.” I’ll give you I was over-optimistic about our defense (although, I think that they’re better than the numbers suggest because the O gives them little to work with), but implying that the last 4 years of offense have been tangibly better than all of the other year periods doesn’t seem to be correct. Furthermore, pinning the team’s misfortunes on the defense is flat wrong. They may be a contributor, sure, but the offense is just as guilty (if not more guilty). 2. I’ll give you talent/recruiting and probably a harder BIG EAST OOC than necessary. I’ll also give you GRob being terrible. The jury is out on SS. There’s too much noise to definitively say. And seeing the world through an offense/defense lens is challenging. I think you can make a clear judgement on 2 coaches (GRob was obviously terrible, and DM was obviously good), but that sample size is tiny. Even throwing in SS and DB only brings the sample size to 4, and both adds are dubious. SS has obvious huge disadvantages and DB has been good 25% of the time. ———— Well, at least I can go to bed tonight without feeling bad about spoiling the story of statistics for you. Open your book, and you’ll be in for a wild ride. [/QUOTE]

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