SB Nation User Blog: Berkelium97

DBD 6.15.2009: To go for it or not to go for it? A Berkeley economist examines 4th down decisions.

Berkelium97 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:54:33 -0000

David Romer, a Berkeley economist, ran a statistical analysis of the worth of trying to convert a fourth down on any given point on a football field. Coupling this data with the worth of punting or kicking a field goal from the same position, he was able to assess whether or not a team should go for the 1st down or not at any given point on the field. His answers were surprising. He found that NFL coaches are much more conservative than they should be.

Take, for example, a fourth and three on the opponents' three yard line. According to Romer's data (harvested from the 1999-2001 football seasons), 38 of 47 times the team opted to kick a field goal instead of going for a touchdown. However, a team going for the touchdown in that same situation has a 43% chance of scoring a touchdown. Even if the team's kicker is 100% accurate in all situations at the three yard line, they only gain three points from the play. However, if the team goes for the touchdown they'll gain an average of 3.01 points. Already it is apparent that they may be better off going for the TD. Even if they miss, they pin their opponent within the three, which is optimal for gaining 2 more points off a safety. Adding the potential of these points to the 3.01 average and it becomes abundantly clear that going for the TD is a better idea.

Here is an excerpt from his paper:

Recommended Choices. Figure 5 [below] combines the analyses of kicking and going for it by showing the number of yards to go where the average payoffs to kicking and going for it are equal as a function of the team’s position. On the team’s own half of the field, going for it is better on average as long as there are less than about 4 yards to go. After midfield, the gain from kicking falls, and so the critical value rises. It is 6.5 yards at the opponent’s 45 and peaks at 9.8 on the opponent’s 33. As the team gets into field-goal range, the critical value falls rapidly; its lowest point is 4.0 yards on the 21. Thereafter, the value of kicking changes little while the value of going for it rises. As a result, the critical value rises again. The analysis implies that once a team reaches its opponent’s 5, it is always better off on average going for it. The two  dotted lines in the figure show the two-standard-error bands for the critical values.16 The critical values are estimated fairly precisely.

Although these findings contradict the conventional wisdom, they are quite intuitive.  As described in the introduction, one case where one can see the intuition clearly is fourth and goal on the 2. The expected payoffs in terms of immediate points to the two choices are very similar, but trying for a touchdown on average leaves the other team in considerably worse field position.

Thus trying for a touchdown is better on average. Another case where one can see the intuition fairly easily is fourth and 3 or 4 on the fifty. If the team goes for a first down, it has about a fifty-fifty chance of success; thus both the team and its opponent have about a 50 percent chance of a first and 10. But the team will gain an average of about 6 yards on the fourth-down play; thus it ison average better off than its opponent if it goes for it. If the team punts, its opponent will on average end up with a first and 10 around its 14. Both standard views about football and the analysis in Section II suggest that the team and its opponent are about equally well off in this situation. Thus, the team is on average better off than its opponent if it goes for a first down, but not if it punts. Going for the first down is therefore preferable on average.

            The very high critical values in the dead zone also have an intuitive explanation. The chances of success if the team goes for it decline only moderately as the number of yards to go increases. For example, away from the opponent’s end zone, teams obtain a first down or touchdown on third down 64 percent of the time when they have 1 yard to go, 44 percent of the time when they have 5 yards to go, and 34 percent of the time when they have 10 yards to go. As a result, the value of going for it falls only moderately as the number of yards to go rises. Thus the large decrease in the gain from kicking in the dead zone causes a large increase in the  critical value.

Actual Choices. Teams’ actual choices are dramatically more conservative than the choices recommended by the dynamic-programming analysis. On the 1604 fourth downs in the sample where the analysis implies that teams are on average better off kicking, they went for it only 9 times. But on the 1068 fourth downs where the analysis implies that teams are on average better off going for it, they kicked 959 times.

            The dashed line in Figure 5 summarizes teams’ actual choices. It shows, for each point on the field, the largest number of yards to go with the property that when teams have that many or fewer yards to go, they go for it at least as often as they kick. Over most of the field, even with 1 yard to go teams usually kick. Teams are slightly more aggressive in the dead zone, but are still far less aggressive than the dynamic-programming analysis suggests.

If you're having trouble reading the graph, click it for an enlarged version.

However, in real life, with factors like momentum and individual teams' offense/defense, these findings cannot be totally accurate, right? Well, Romer's data still stands strong in spite of other factors. I won't go into all the details here, but if you want to learn more about this, I encourage you to read Romer's paper. Here is the link for it. In addition to the paper, I have also linked the hard data too.

Now that your brains are warmed up on this Monday morning, let's get to some links!

The California 2008-2009 Athletic Season is officially at an end. Sandy Barbour Tweets:

With all Cal competitiors finished at NCAA Track&Field-Cal Athletics has closed the book on 2008-09! Congrats to all on an historical year.

The last events of the year were in track and field, including the frontpaged discus event.

via grfx.cstv.com

via grfx.cstv.com

via grfx.cstv.com

via grfx.cstv.com

Senior Katie Morgan was unable to successfully defend her 2008 NCAA pole vault title on Friday at the NCAA Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. Junior Tracey Stewartwasn't able to qualify for the final in the triple jump and seniors Brook Turner and Kandi Bonty had their seasons come to an end in the semifinals of the 400 meters.

Morgan posted a mark of 13-5.25 (4.10m) to place 13th overall in the pole vault. Indiana State's Kylie Hutson won the event with a score of 14-5.25 (4.40m).

Bonty finished in 13th overall in the semifinals of the 400, clocking in at 53.88. In the other semifinal heat, Turner crossed the finish line at 54.89 to place 17th overall.

Stewart recorded a mark of 39-10.00 (12.14m) to finish in 27th in the prelims of the triple jump.

LiveChat Questions for Jahvid Best

Berkelium97 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:51:01 -0000

Cal beat writer Jonathan Okanes will be hosting a LiveChat on June 25th from 1:30pm to 2:30 pm with extra special guest Jahvid Best.

Since this is a special event, it seems appropriate to gather up a series of questions that readers would like answered, especially since not everyone will have the time or freedom to spend an hour following the chat. Like a traditional CGBcratic election, you should rec the comments you like so they stand out among the chaff. I don't recall JO ever having a guest player answer questions, and he certainly hasn't had someone as well-known as Best as a special guest. This is a unique opportunity for all of us and we could learn some fun facts from The Jet. What's his favorite restaurant in Berkeley? How did DeSean respond when he ran him over against Colorado State in '07? Post your questions and rec away!

Cal Coaches Tour: Orange County Edition

Berkelium97 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:09:54 -0000

Yesterday was the second stop in the Southern California leg of the Cal Coaches Tour. Unlike the Northern California leg which featured Sandy Barbour, Mike Montgomery, Jeff Tedford, and Teri McKeever, the Southern California stops featured Joanne Boyle in place of McKeever. This one took place at The Ranch Sports Grill in Ladera Ranch. Since I am a newb to the area (I moved nearby just a couple days ago, which explains why I haven't been reading/commenting on CGB as much recently), I thought I'd check it out.

The Ranch Sports Grill was opened in early October of 2008. Its owner was in the audience and he appears to be an Old Blue. He promised that for the upcoming football and basketball seasons, the giant projector screen they have in part of the restaurant will be showing Cal games. Monty also happens to be a part-owner of the grill. It looks like this place could become a safe haven in otherwise hostile territory (apparently many USC fans live nearby).

The lighting was not great for pictures (it was inside with low levels of lighting and outside was dark because of some freak lightning/thunder/hail storms that made their way through the area), so I did not take very many. I took just enough for you readers to get a sense of the event.

Mrs Berkelium and I arrived about fifteen minutes early, so we were able to sit at one of the tables, but by about 5:30 or so, it was standing room only. I estimate that just under 100 people showed up for the event. It was a good turnout that featured mostly middle-aged alums and Old Blues.

Upon picking up the nametags, I noticed that they had a stack of the highlight DVDs. They feature highlights from Football and Men/Women's Basketball.

They served a variety of delicious food: sliders (burger-style and blt with avocado), beef skewers, vegetable rolls, caesar salad, spicy chicken pasta, assorted veggies, and wings. By the time the food was served, all three coaches and Barbour had arrived and were wandering around talking to people. Tedford, the classy man that he is, walked around with a glass of red wine. Around 5:30 or so the event began with Sandy Barbour. She began by emphasizing the importance of academics and athletics. She talked about her drive to make Cal as successful athletically as it is academically. She cited numerous statistics including the fact that Cal was only one of two schools that had each basketball team in the NCAA tournament, a bowl-bound football team, and a top-ten ranking in the Director's Cup (the other school was Texas). The combination of that sort of athletic success and world-renowned academic reputation make Cal a truly special place. Like the Marshawnthusiasts and NorCalNick reported, she spent some time talking about the rugby team and how they admirably responded to their loss to BYU in the national championship.

The first coach to speak was Tedford. He said he hoped the team could give the Southern California Bears some bragging rights over their friends and colleagues who root for USC or UCLA. He talked about how important it was that USC will be playing Cal while they're still breaking in a new QB. He also explained how important it was that the SAHPC was finally underway and how this has been affecting recruiting. He continued by talking about some of the expectations people have been placing on this year's team. Tedford said that in previous years the team had to learn how to deal with such expectations. He said that now the team not only is comfortable with high expectations, but that they thrive on high expectations. He seemed to suggest that the Cal team that was best when it flew under the radar has now learned how to be successful when they have enormous expectations. Not surprisingly, he talked about how competitive the QB position is and how he is especially impressed with Brock Mansion's progress. Apparently Mansion has grown to 6'6". I was a little surprised that he didn't mention anything about their recent commitment from Hinder. Like in the Marshawnthusiast/NorCalNick coverage of previous tour stops, Tedford spent a considerable amount of time praising Alex Mack's accomplishments both on the field and in the classroom.

Next up was Joanne Boyle who immediately apologized for wearing a color derived from red. She then praised the accomplishments of the team's departing seniors. She spoke of the challenges ahead with a team composed of Lexi and mostly freshmen. She is very pleased with the incoming class and seems confident that she can continually maintain a very competitive team. She also talked about a nonconference game the team will play that apparently is going to be held on an aircraft carrier (Monty later said that she should be cautious when telling the team to go after loose balls during that game).

Next up was Mike Montgomery. He talked about how much progress the team made in just one year. Whereas Boyle had a team of McDonalds All-Americans, Monty inherited a team with some McDonalds guys too, except that they simply "liked to eat at McDonalds." He talked about telling Randle about Brevin Knight, which the Marshawnthusiasts noted he said at the Pleasant Hill event. This helped Randle become the vastly improved player he was last season. He said the team now has to deal with lofty expectations, not unlike what Tedford's teams struggled with in previous seasons. He said that the top-10 talk and the predictions that Cal would win the conference next year were "a lot of nonsense." With this kind of attitude, Monty is not going to let the team get inflated egos. He also talked about how playing a team composed of a bunch of talented seniors sometimes faces obstacles such as players wanting to boost their stats to improve their draft stock. Monty's experience really shined when he was talking about these challenges the team will face next year.

He explained the situations with Kamp, Jorge, and Robertson's surgeries and how those impacted offseason practices. He then talked about recruiting and praised Jorge as a real treasure. He is very appreciative of Jorge's hustle and the energy he brings to the team when he's out on the floor. He only mentioned two recruits for next year: one JC guy who is "okay, not great" whose size will be necessary if Kamp struggles when he returns. He, of course, mentioned Bak Bak (note for Leon Powe and other curious readers: Bak Bak is officially pronounced Bock Bock). He said he only recruited Bak Bak because he has trouble remembering names and that having a guy with the same first and last names would be easy. He praised Bak's skills and size, but suggested that he needs more experience before he develops into a great player. Bak Bak seems to have a bright future, however. Monty said that Max Zhang has put on some weight and is up to 245 lbs. He used to be 212. Monty jokingly said that three meals per day really helped Max put on weight.

After all three coaches finished talking, there was a Q+A session. One person asked Monty how he would handicap Orlando and LA to make the finals fair and he responded by saying that his years with the Warriors indicate that he didn't know much about how the NBA works. He also fielded a question about who he would choose to be the starting QB for Tedford's team; Monty said he couldn't give an answer. Asked about recruiting nationally, Tedford said that the facilities really help the team with long-distance recruits. Those interested in the school used to ignore Cal once they saw the facilities, but the construction has really helped. Tedford says they don't actively recruit throughout the entire nation, but if a recruit from far away expresses interest in the program, they will actively pursue that individual.

That about sums up the event. If I remember any other details that I forgot to write just now, I'll add them in the future. For those who couldn't make it to any of the events this year, you really missed out. $20 is well worth the price for some tasty food and good times with Barbour, Monty, Tedford, and Boyle.

DBD 4.30.2009: ¡unƃǝq sɐɥ uoıʇnloʌǝɹ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ

Berkelium97 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:56:26 -0000

˙˙˙ʇı ʎɹʇ uǝʌǝ ʇ,uop ˙ʇıɟʇno ǝlqɐʇdǝɔɔɐ uɐ ʇou sı ɐsɹǝʌ-ǝɔıʌ puɐ sʇɹıɥs sɐ sʇuɐd 'ʇsıʍʇ 'ou puɐ ¡sllɐqǝʎǝ ǝʇɐɔılǝp ɹnoʎ puɐ sʎnƃ noʎ ʍǝɹɔs ˙uʍop ǝpısdn pɐǝɹ oʇ ƃuıuɹɐǝl ʇɹɐʇs uɐɔ noʎ ɟo ʇsǝɹ ǝɥʇ puɐ uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıʇsod ʇɹɐʇs oʇ ƃuıoƃ ɯɐ ı ¡ǝsuǝsuou uʍop-ǝpısdn sıɥʇ ɥʇıʍ ʇı pɐɥ ǝʌɐɥ ı 'ʇɐɥʍ ʍouʞ noʎ ʇnq ˙ʇuɐsɐǝldun sɐʍ ʇı ˙sʇuɐd sɐ sʇɹıɥs puɐ sʇɹıɥs sɐ sʇuɐd ƃuıɹɐǝʍ ʇɹɐʇs p,ı˙˙˙spɹnoʍ oʇuı s,n, ɯnopuɐɹ ʇɹǝsuı plnoʍ ı˙˙˙pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ uo ʎɐʍ ƃuoɹʍ ǝɥʇ ǝʌıɹp plnoʍ ı˙˙˙uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıʇıɹʍ ʇɹɐʇs plnoʍ ı ˙ƃuıuǝddɐɥ pǝʇɹɐʇs sʇɔǝɟɟǝ ǝpıs ǝɥʇ uǝɥʇ ʇnq 'llǝʍ ƃuıoƃ llɐ sɐʍ ʇı ˙uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ƃuıpɐǝɹ ɟo ʇɹɐ ǝɥʇ pǝɹǝʇsɐɯ ʎllɐuıɟ pɐɥ ı ƃuıuıɐɹʇ ɟo sɥʇuoɯ lɐɹǝʌǝs ɹǝʇɟɐ 'ʎɐʍʎuɐ ˙(¡ɔd xnuıl ʎɯ sɐʍ sıɥʇ puɐ) ɥʇɐǝp ɟo uǝǝɹɔs ǝnlq ǝɥʇ ǝɯ ǝʌɐƃ puɐ sıɥʇ ɥʇıʍ pǝsɐǝldsıp sɐʍ ɹǝʇndɯoɔ ʎɯ ʇnq 'dn-ǝpıs-ʇɥƃıɹ pǝʎɐldsıp ɹoʇıuoɯ ɹǝɥʇouɐ ǝlıɥʍ uʍop ǝpısdn ʎɐldsıp oʇ ɹoʇıuoɯ ǝuo ploʇ ı ˙uoıssnɔsıp ʇuɐsɐǝld ɐ ʇou s,ʇı ˙uʍop ǝpısdn sı ƃuıɥʇʎɹǝʌǝ ʎɥʍ ʞɹoʍ ʇɐ ǝuoǝɯos oʇ ƃuıuıɐldxǝ ʎɹʇ noʎ ʇnq 'uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıɥʇʎɹǝʌǝ ʎɐldsıp oʇ ɹoʇıuoɯ ʎɯ ƃuıllǝʇ pǝıɹʇ ı ˙uʍop ǝpısdn llɐ sɐʍ ʇı ǝsnɐɔǝq llǝʍ ʎɹǝʌ ʇı pɐǝɹ ʇ,uplnoɔ ı˙˙˙ǝɔıɹd ɐ ʇɐ ǝɯɐɔ uoıʇısuɐɹʇ uoıʇɐuqs ǝɥʇ ʇnq ˙suoıssnɔsıp pǝsɐq-ʇuǝɯɯoɔ oʇ ǝʌıɔnpuoɔ os sɐʍ ɯɹoɟʇɐld ǝɥʇ ǝsnɐɔǝq ɹǝʇuǝɯɯoɔ ɹɐlnƃǝɹ ɐ ǝɯɐɔǝq puɐ uoıʇɐuqs oʇ ɥɔʇıʍs ǝɥʇ pǝʎoɾuǝ ı ˙ʍou ǝlıɥʍ ɐ ɹoɟ qƃɔ ɟo ɹǝpɐǝɹ lɐʎol ɐ uǝǝq ǝʌ,ı

EDIT: For those who want a Berkelium-English translation of this DBD, click here.

And for those of you who can't read this (and Twist), here's an award-winning clip of a man getting hit in the groin by a football.

¡sʞuıl ǝɯos ʇsod sn ʇǝl 'ʎɐʍʎuɐ

Poll

llod ʎɹoʇɐƃılqo

ʇnʍlol

5 votes

dnʇǝǝɯ qƃɔ ʇxǝu ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ɐsɹǝʌ ǝɔıʌ puɐ sʇuɐd sɐ ʇɹıɥs ɐ ɹɐǝʍ llıʍ ʇsıʍʇ

3 votes

uɐɯǝǝɹɟ uopɹoƃ ʎllɐǝɹ sı ʎɐpɐɹɐɟ lǝıuɐp

2 votes

I want carp's armored dog to do the DBDs from now on.

19 votes

29 votes | Poll has closed

ESPN Gameday at Cal: At Least Neuheisel's Delicate Feelings Weren't Hurt

Berkelium97 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:32:37 -0000

Berkelium97: As you all know, ESPN's College Gameday came to Cal Saturday morning on their season-long tour. Armed with a camera and four signs, I arrived at campus around 5:30am to see what goes on during Gameday. This is my story.

ragnarok: Mine too! I arrived at the Sproul Pool around quarter to six; Berkelium97 and tmoran3020 were already waiting. With no sign of either Rishi (who arrived late) or royrules22 (who slept through the whole thing), we decided to head down to Haas, where BearStage and AndBears were already waiting in line.

I had heard that Looney's would be providing breakfast for the first 500 fans, and while I didn't quite know what to expect (smokehouse BBQ? naw, not for breakfast...), muffins and Coke Zero didn't quite hit the spot. Chocolate milk was nice, though.

Berkelium97: Anyway, the main reason we were here was for our hilarious signs. This was my 28"x44" Neuheisel sign that never made it to broadcast because I had to take it down. While we were waiting in line, some ESPN girl was going up and down the line approving signs. The sign police were very strict and made Ragnarok take down his "Josh Shipp drinks Zima" sign.

ragnarok: Yeah, that one didn't even make it past the preliminary approval process. I really thought the sign was rather tame, and I was caught off-guard by the whole process. When I went to College Football Gameday in Eugene, Oregon in 2007, there wasn't anyone checking my signs. People brought whatever they wanted!

Berkelium97: After this, we had to have our signs checked at the door to Haas to again make sure they were ESPN-safe. Once in the arena, ESPN employees still wandered around making sure signs weren't offensive. It was worse than passing through airline security. I swear I saw Nestor out there checking signs and banning signs that did not reflect well on UCLA. Although I successfully passed through the first two sign-approvers, an ESPN employee came up to me after we got to our seats and made me take down the Neuheisel sign. I offered to cross out the "bet" part of the sign, but he still said it wouldn't be allowed. Apparently it might be "offensive" to certain people. By certain people, he clearly meant Neuheisel and BruinsNation who obviously can't take a joke. It didn't make sense, as others were allowed to keep their Neuheisal signs. It was very disappointing.

ragnarok: It really, really was disappointing. Here's a photo of Berkelium destroying his own sign, with the help of the ESPN employee.

JShufelt's brilliant work is destroyed by ESPN's thought police.

Berkelium97: This was on the other side of the Neuheisel sign. Thankfully, no one in ESPN knows who pedobear is, so they had no problem with this sign. Huge thanks to CaliforniaBone for taking this sign down to the front and getting it lots of airtime.

CaliforniaBone also helped get this one some attention by bringing it down to the front. This sign references the rule that Josh Shipp clearly broke in hitting the game-winning shot for UCLA against Cal last year.

This was on the other side of the "Rule 3..." sign.

TMoran3020 made this one.

And the backside of tmoran's sign.

ragnarok: Once we were inside, it was time to find some seats. As you can see, most of the arena was empty.

That's right, 6:16am.

To concentrate the students and get everyone in the TV shots, everyone was shunted into the stands on the West side of Haas Pavilion, behind where ESPN had set up their GameDay booth. Unfortunately, we weren't among the first people in line, so we had to settle for what seats we could get. In the end, I decided to head for behind the band, hoping we could horn in on some gratuitous band shots. We relied on band member CaliforniaBone to get our signs some serious TV time.

You can see our chosen spot under the pedobear sign.

Berkelium97: Best sign of the day. Apparently this guy planned on bringing it to the game, but heard about Gameday at the last minute and decided to bring it.

Rece, Hubert, Digger, and Bobby at the stage. Notice Bobby Knight's red shirt. He was getting yelled at by the students for this.

Digger puts a Cal jersey on Bob, much to the crowd's delight.

Bob turns around to tell us all how his wife dresses him and that he wasn't going to overrule her decision. He then tells us about his son who graduated from Stanford. He was great at playfully antagonizing the crowd.

"No way I'm changing my shirt to please a bunch of students."

He brought this guy over to let us know what a nice shirt he was wearing. Boos rained upon the unfortunate ESPN employee.

You can see the back of the Max sign here. Note the cardboard frame they hand-made for it.

During live filming.

The whole production is actually pretty minimal, with just enough set built to show up on television.

This is what it all looked like on ESPN.

This was weird: he got to keep his sign and it even more overtly referenced Neuheisal and his betting! He even has dollar signs! Dollar signs! Why this guy got to keep his sign and I didn't, I'll never know. Regardless, I like this sign. He even got the ESPN sticker of approval.

ragnarok: You can also notice this guy wearing one of the fan giveaways for the day, a "State Farm"-branded hat that was basically a plush, cartoon-y basketball net. Kinda stupid, if you ask me, but they don't look too bad if everyone is wearing one.

Berkelium97: More good signs: "Bruin girls are easy, but UCLA still can't score," another "What's a Bruin anyway?" "Hip Hip Jorge!"

They would often cut to this board where they were eliminating bubble teams. You could barely see Max and my stimulus $$ sign during these segments.

Lots of good signs here: "Bruins can't handle Randle," "Sarah Palin likes the Bruins," and something saying "Bears Bruins Battlestar Galactica." I have no idea what that Battlestar Galactica poster is supposed to mean.

ragnarok: It's a reference to an episode of "The Office", where Jim does a mocking impression of Dwight.

Berkelium97: At one point, Max's head was brought down to the floor and was run across the back of the stage.

Someone in the band brought in a giant, stuffed bear and passed it around the lower rows.

ragnarok: My favorite part was when one of the band members took their sombrero and then mimed putting the hat on Jay Bilas' head while he was talking about something or other, completely unaware.

For those who've never been to a GameDay taping, they set up screens with the feed from the actual show, so you can see what's going on while it's going on, and cen tell when you and your sign are actually on TV.

"If this was class, I'd be in bed."

"Free Marshawn".

Berkelium97: This was a great shot, it has my stimulus and Pedobruin signs, ragnarok's "Thanks for Tedford," and tmoran's ESPN elements sign.

ragnarok: I feel like I should explain about the "Thanks for Tedford" sign. Originally, I brought that sign to GameDay in Oregon, and I simply reused the cardboard, adding my own signs on top. Of course, after my "Josh Shipp drinks Zima" sign was confiscated, I was left with the "Thanks for Tedford" sign underneath. OK, it didn't make too much sense in context, but I'm still thankful for Tedford.

Berkelium97: Except for the ridiculously strict sign police, this was a great event to attend. Afterwards, Ragnarok, AndBears, and I even walked past Bobby Knight and company on Durant. We exchanged pleasant jabs about Bob's shirt and continued on our merry ways.

DBD 2.24.2009: Qwantity and Qwality!

Berkelium97 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:50:06 -0000

After Rishi's return to CGB led to a Honktastic Nailed it!-fest™, it has been decided that something is to be done to distinguish high-qwality material (delicious links) from mindless inanity. Some suggested we petition the SBNation overlords to add another color to the post options so important posts stand out. But we know they're to busy trying to figure what a Sanchez button is to bother with such business. Others suggested we split the DBD into a serious business section and an anything-goes section. Some suggested we keep the rec'ing system. Each suggestion had its strengths and weaknesses. It looks like we have come up with a solution, though...

Danzig, Spazzy, and Twist eagerly await a solution to the link issues.

Instead of rec'ing links to distinguish those delicious nuggets from the slop, it looks like (for now) we should blockquote whole posts that contain links. This way, the entire post will be blue and stand out from the rest of the posts. If you have to blockquote from the story, just add another blockquote within the blockquote. Thanks to the newly updated FAQ, the blockquote issues should be a thing of the past (right, BearsNecessity?). Now delicious links, high quality comments, and the rest of the comments will all stand on their own.

Now instead of Z-ing your way through comments looking for nuggets of information if you're in a hurry, you can Shift-A away all the new comments and quickly scroll (spacebar, scroll wheel, page down-so many options!) through to find the informative posts.

Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z

This should allow us to sit somewhere in between

Sheer madness...

and

BruinsNation

Because you can't put blockquotes in blockquotes in fanposts, it looks like I'll have to put the an example link in the comments to demonstrate what they should look like. Future DBDs can have the links/blockquotes within the fanpost, but this one won't so I can post links in the comments for illustrative purposes.

Poll

Do you like the blockquote method of distinguishing Cal links?

Yes

9 votes

No

5 votes

For the love of Bak Bak, will HydroTech please do the DBDs from now on?!

9 votes

23 votes | Poll has closed

CGB rugby meet-up?

Berkelium97 — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:19:45 -0000

This is rather late to organize, given that the event is in little more than 18 hours; but with the surprisingly widespread interest in the Cal-BC rugby match, would it be good to organize a get-together at the Rugby game? Twist, Rags, AndBears, Carp, Yes We Cannon, and JerrottWillard45 have all committed to going to the Rugby game. With so many CGB-ers there, I'll probably end up going although I know nothing about rugby. Better yet, it looks like it shouldn't rain during the match, as rain won't arrive until the evening.

If one of the Marshawnthusiasts wants to push this post to the front page to try to get more people interested in going, that would probably be helpful.

To sum up administrative details, gates open at 11am and you can purchase tickets at the door. $8 for adults and $4 for seniors/military. Anyone under 18 and Cal students can get in for free. This takes place at Witter Rugby Field just east of Memorial Stadium.

DBD 2.19.2009: You and me and Hydro makes three

Berkelium97 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:43:51 -0000

As Hydro has said a couple times now, there will be a CGB get-together Sunday at Golden Gate Fields where we will feast on $1 hot dogs, $1 beers, $1 parking, and jokes about how TwistNHook's wife wouldn't let him attend. As of now, it looks like I am the only one (besides Hydro) who has committed to going, unless it rains. The Maharg won't be there, so there is no excuse for being afraid of attending. We promise it will be a good time and that if Twist attends (rather, if his wife lets him attend) he won't honk people excessively.

Anyway, let us post some delicious links.

Alex Mack sprained his ankle and will miss the combine. It shouldn't matter much since his draft stock is so high.

Marshawn Lynch 2008 highlights. The link to this video was posted last week but now we have an...

Berkelium97 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:21:38 -0000

Give it to the Beast! from vince strang on Vimeo

Marshawn Lynch 2008 highlights. The link to this video was posted last week but now we have an embedded version available. Enjoy!

It's been a while since we've had one of these, but it's time for a... Cal Caption Contest! As...

Berkelium97 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:06:43 -0000

It's been a while since we've had one of these, but it's time for a...
Cal Caption Contest!
As usual, make sure to make your entries bold.