First of all...it goes without saying that I love Jahvid Best. Maybe not in a creepy Jim Schwartz I-stay-up-at-night-watching-YouTube-videos-of-him way, but I appreciate everything he did for Cal and I'll be rocking his jersey while watching the game tomorrow.

However, I think it's fair to say that Shane Vereen is starting the year out with a lower profile than Best had last year. And while this is understandable - Vereen isn't dashing around breaking track and field records in his free time - I think that some may be underestimating the range of skills that Vereen brings to our offense. To that end, I decided to compare Best and Vereen's performance in last year's games to try and demonstrate what kind of running back Vereen really is. In particular, it is my contention that he will emulate to a significant extent Best's ability to break off long runs - while also proving most consistent and useful in shorter-yardage situations.

Warning: lots of numbers ahead.

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So tomorrow is the unofficial CGB happy hour that some of us have been discussing. This is a rough prediction of what's going to happen...

Columbus, Ohio.
	CALumbus Bear: Eleven years. Eleven years in a row Ohio Bear has beaten me in the Cal Alumni Club of Lesser Ohio Badminton Championship. But this year...this year is going to be different!
	Mrs. CALumbus Bear: That's nice, dear.
	CALumbus Bear: This year, I have a plan.
	Mrs. CALumbus Bear: That's nice, dear.
	CALumbus Bear: I'm going to build an indestructible robot to assassinate Ohio Bear.
	Mrs. CALumbus Bear: That's nice, dear.
	CALumbus Bear: I'm going to call it the...Bearminator 1000!
	Mrs. CALumbus Bear: That's fucking retarded, dear.
(Enter Sarah Palin)
	Sarah Palin: I'm appalled that a figure of your stature would use a word like that to describe ANY of God's children!
	CALumbus Bear: ...why is Sarah Palin in my living room? What is going on?
	Mrs. CALumbus Bear: It IS a swing state, dear.
	Palin: Pooper sex or C ya.
	CALumbus Bear: WTF?!
(San Francisco)
	Ohio Bear: Thanks again for the badminton lessons, Twist.
	TwistNHook: Oh ya! I toads kick ass at badminton! I'm an expert on outdated, effeminate, ridiculous clothing sporting activities!
	Ohio Bear: Hey, you want to get a drink or something? Happy hour just started.
	TwistNHook: im toads gonna get a root bere!!!!
	Ohio Bear: Right...I think I saw a bar at the end of the block.
(Ohio Bear and Twist enter John Colins. Rishi and HolmoePhobe are standing at the bar.)
	HolmoePhobe: WHY DO YOU HATE UNIONS?
	Rishi: WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
	TwistNHook: INDIAN FIIIIIIIIGHT!
(Enter Spazzy)
	Spazzy: Dude when was the last time either of you touched a woman?
	Rishi: What do you mean? I touch women all the time. I'm touching a woman right now. I'm touching TWO women right now! I could totally pick up any girl in this bar, I choose not to. It's totally voluntary. Really.
	HolmoePhobe: What's a woman?
	Spazzy: Yeah I'm gonna go now.
(Exit Spazzy)
	since1997: like omg guyz i'm totally a girl ^_^
	HolmoePhobe: You know, if there's one thing we CAN agree on...
	Rishi: ...it's our mutual loathing of TwistNHook.
	TwistNHook: i feel so pretty!!! eeee!!!!
(Enter Ragnarok, who walks over to HolmoePhobe)
	Ragnarok: Hey HolmoePhobe.
	HolmoePhobe: Hey! What's up?
	Ragnarok: You know, I've complained to you before about making me really boring in these DBDs of yours.
	HolmoePhobe: Yeah, sorry, my bad. I forgot.
	Ragnarok: Well, I'm going to make sure you don't forget again. *pulls aardvark out of his pants*
	HolmoePhobe: ...
	Ragnarok: Not so normal NOW, am I HolmoePhobe???
	HolmoePhobe: Uh...
	Rishi: I'm gonna need another drink.
	since1997: lol >_> xoxo
(Enter carp)
	Carp: PSoCY??
	Rishi: (whispers in Carp's ear)
	Carp: (looking dejected) Oh...rong part of San Francisco.
(Meanwhile, outside, CBKWit and HydroTech are walking)
	HydroTech: Yea, so I think everyone's at this bar right around the corner.
(Enter Bearminator 1000)
	Bearminator 1000: RAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! *shoots at CBKWit and Yellow Fever with laser eyes*
	HydroTech: Shit! (Sprints into John Colins, followed by CBKWit)
	HydroTech: Guys, we just got attacked by this giant...metal-covered bear!
	Rishi: That's called the Folsom Street Fair, actually.
	HydroTech: They killed CBKWit!
	Ragnarok: Those bastards!
	CBKWit: Huh? No, I'm fine, I escaped with you.
	TwistNHook: i miss CBKWit :(
	CBKWit: Dude, I'm ok. It's cool.
	Rishi: Yeah, I guess he wasn't so bad after all. Poor guy.
	CBKWit: HELLO? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME? Fuck it, I'm just going to start yelling random shit.
	TwistNHook: we should have avinash post a thread about CBKWit!!!
	CBKWit: I LIKE GUAVAS. I LIKE HAVING SEX WITH MEN.
	(Entire bar falls silent, stares at CBKWit)
	Carp: (hopefully) PSoCY?
(Enter Ron English)
	Carp: Ron English!
	Ron English: I'm a rapacious bird.
	Rishi: Can I buy you a drink?
	Ron English: Ah yes, they warned me about San Francisco. Thank you, young man, but I'm afraid I don't play for that team.
	Royrules: I don't understand. Do you mean that you're a defensive coordinator, and you don't coach the offensive team?
	Ron English: Yeah, I'm going to go back to Eastern Michigan now. (leaves)
	Rishi: Oh, good job, royrules. Shouldn't you be at home playing video games right now?
	Ohio Bear: Rishi, I can't help but notice that you've spent the entire time at the bar talking to a bunch of dudes from the internet.
	Rishi: And since1997!
	since1997: giggle lol ^_^^^
	HolmoePhobe: Does anyone want to argue with me about the electoral college? Anyone?
(Enter Bearminator 1000)
	Bearminator: WRAAAAAAAAAAUGH! *laser eyes*
	Ohio Bear: Hey! Stop! Costs assessed!
	Bearminator: *assesses costs against Ohio Bear's face*
	HolmoePhobe: Hey! Are you part of a robot bear union? What about universal health-bear?
	Bearminator: *junk-punches HolmoePhobe. Deficit disappears*
	Spazzy: Sonofabitch, it works!
	Bearminator: *throws TwistNHook across bar*
	TwistNHook: AI! My hair!
	Rishi: Hey! You just smashed that top-shelf vodka! How am I supposed to make motinos now?
	Bearminator: WRAAAAAAUGH! (Translation: blow me)
	Rishi: I'm getting...sober. You wouldn't like me when I'm...sober.
	Bearminator: WRAAAUGH! (Translation: Dude, nobody like you now.)
	Rishi: *turns into incredible hulk* RISHI ANGRY! RISHI SMASH!
	Bearminator: WTF?
(Rishi throws Bearminator into the bay)
(Everyone cheers)
	(Enter Tedford)
(Bar falls silent)
	Tedford: (Shakes head) Thank god I live in Danville. (Leaves)

Feeling a little grumpy today? A little grinchy, perhaps?

(via justgrits.files.wordpress.com)

Don't worry, HolmoePhobe understands. HolmoePhobe is somewhat of a grinch himself.

I declare you Sanchez!

(via www.christmaslibrary.ca)

Hmm...how does this relate to the A-11?

(via blog.syracuse.com)

But I know one thing that will cheer everyone up - Christmas presents! Fuck it, let's open them a day early.

Follow me after the jump...

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Given all of the discussion regarding offensive matchups in this week's game, as well as Danzig's suggestion that the two offenses are basically mirror images of each other, I thought it would be interesting to see how Best and Quizz stack up statistically.

Now, as we all know, Rishi is a strong proponent of Quizz over Best. However, Rishi is also a big fan of lemon drops, the show Friends, and bathing in Axe, all of which contribute to somewhat undermining his credibility.

Clearly the best way to resolve this debate is to look at lots of statistics. Because statistics never lie!

Note: Although I clearly have way too much free time on my hands, I didn't feel upto including all of their receiving data as well. So this is a comparison of Best and Quizz as rushers only.

The uber-basics:

(What's with the Js? Is this part of a diabolical ATQ plot to win the Pac-10...?)

Ok, Quizz gets more carries, Best gets more yards per carry, nothing we didn't know. Let's look at their game-by-game records, after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

There's been a fair amount of discussion recently regarding Cal's defense, including much citing of statistics, and while the discussions have been very interesting, I feel like we might be approaching some of these statistics in the wrong way. The usage of statistics seems to fall mostly into the following two categories, both of which are problematic:

1. Looking at statistics in a vacuum - e.g. "Wazzou passed for 350 yards against us, so our secondary is doing badly".
--> Hypothetically, Wazzou could be passing for 400+ yards against everyone else. We know that this isn't the case, but the point is that the frame of reference is somewhat arbitrary/subjective.

2. Looking at statistics in terms of Pac-10 ranking - e.g. "Cal is second in the Pac-10 in points per game".
--> Hypothetically, the next eight Pac-10 teams could just have really terrible offenses. Also, this fails to account at all for strength of schedule, which is definitely relevant to a team's statistics.

For the purposes of this fanpost, I decided to use a slightly different method of evaluating Cal's defense: comparing opponents' performance against us to their average performance this season. In other words, instead of looking at whether our defense performed better or worse than average against each opponent, I'm looking at whether our defense made opposing offenses perform better or worse than they usually do. This isn't a particularly original idea, and it has its own flaws (again, it doesn't take schedule into account at all), but it has the virtue of demonstrating in what manner opposing offenses are able to perform well against us, compared to their other performances.

Continue reading this post »

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After the Massacre at Autzen (h/t Avi), General Ragnarok led his troops back across the River of JDraft to DBD Forge, where they could hide from the Ducks and prepare for their next battle with the Trojans.

via upload.wikimedia.org

The first order of business after regrouping was the funeral of CBKWit, who had died valiantly in battle at Autzen.

	CBKWit: Um, actually, I'm not dead.
	Ragnarok: Alas, poor CBKWit. I knew him, TwistNHook.
	TwistNHook: Oh ya! Mein khafi sundar hu! Go Bears!
	Ragnarok: Geez Twist, CBKWit just died, this isn't an appropriate time to be joking around.
	TwistNHook: Toads for cereal! HONK!
	Ragnarok: Alright, let's just get on with the council of war. Marshawnthusiast Hydrotechbar, your report on preparations for the upcoming battle with USC?
	Hydrotechbar: IT'S A TARP!
	Ragnarok: What? A Troubled Assets Relief Program?
	Hydrotechbar: Yes! Our offensive line can't repel a pass rush of that magnitude!
	Danzig: Yes...you see...after the feds reduce the interest rate...the value of marginal derivatives will go sideways...because Google is secretly watching them...by the way, I'm posting this from Mars.
	TwistNHook: We're doomed! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
	(Enter DC Trojan)
	DC Trojan: No, we're doomed.
	Ragnarok: What? How are you doomed?
	DC Trojan: WE UPSET THE CRYSTAL FOOTBALL OF POWER! Also, I'm Scottish. Scottish people are funny sounding. Involuntarily.
	Avinash: All such omens aside, as I pointed out in my post yesterday, Cal's defense has always been strong against USC. As a matter of fact, Cal is always one of USC's lowest scoring games of the year, as follows: 2002 USC's 4th lowest scoring game of the season 2003 USC's 2nd lowest score of the season 2004 USC's lowest score of the season 2005 USC's 2nd lowest score of the season 2006 USC's 3rd lowest score of the season 2007 USC's 3rd lowest score of the season 2008 USC's lowest score of the season
	TwistNHook: DOUBLE BREASTED! HONK!
	(Rishi stumbles in)
	Rishi: WOO! Motinos for everyone! Where's Frieda Pinto?
	Ragnarok: Um...any thoughts on Saturday's game, Rishi?
	Rishi: After we win, we will plunder the enemy camp! Song girls and lemon drops for everyone!
	(Crowd cheers)
	rollonubears: What are Song Girls? I don't understand.
	(enter Carp)
	Carp: This. (posts nsfw links)
	rollonubears: I'm feeling strange and unfamiliar feelings.
	TwistNHook: HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SCARF?
	Ragnarok: Can we get back to football? Hydrotechkbar, what do you think our game plan should be?
	Hydrotechkbar: The wide receivers will create a perimeter, while Jahvid Best runs into the end zone and attempts to score a touchdown.
	Spazzy: I have a better idea. Let's ask USC to go hiking with us, and then have them mauled by bears. Like this:
	Rishi: You know, we could also go drinking with them, get them drunk, and then have them mauled by bears.
	TwistNHook: Im pretty sure that's how CBKWit died. He was HONKED by a bear!
	CBKWit: I'M NOT DEAD. HELLO. CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?
	TwistNHook: Hey, has anyone seen my short shorts?
	Bartholomew the Bear: WAAAAAAAAAARGH! (Translation:)
	(Meanwhile...)
	RoyRules: What is thy bidding, my master?
	Pete Carroll: Good work last week. This week, I want you to sabotage Cal Football by posting a FanPost about how Cal can still go to the MNC...
	CALumbus Bear: (jumping out from behind a curtain)AHA! Costs assessed against both of you! And Twist!
	Pete Carroll: Who is this man, and why does he smell like scotch...and Ohio?
	CALumbus Bear: YOU smell like scotch and Ohio!
	Pete Carroll: I am so fucking confused right now. Fuck this, I'm starting Mitch Mustain.
	Bartholomew: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Doc Saturday's recent post about Cal's road woes elicited strong disagreement from a number of CGBers, including HydroTech, who pointed out that all teams tend to play worse on the road. Now, far be it from me to disagree with Hydro, but that got me thinking: is Cal worse on the road, just like any other team -- or is Cal's drop-off steeper?

Going back to my earlier fanposts regarding Cal's record in the Tedford era and Cal's record vs. ranked opponents in the Tedford era, I put together the following table (R means against ranked opponents):

(PS: Thanks to Royrules once again for that big passel 'o data).

So the general dropoff from home to away seems to average a score and half a turnover (or less in the case of ranked opponents). Doesn't seem exceptional.

Let's look at Pac-10 records in the Tedford Era again:

Overall Records

Home Records

Away Records

So Cal is 1 game behind Oregon overall, slightly better at home and slightly worse on the road. This gives us some context, but it doesn't answer my earlier question. There's obviously dropoff: but how much dropoff?

Dropoff From Overall to Away

Dropoff From Home to Away

Cal's dropoff from its overall record to its away record is the worst in the Pac-10, and dropoff from home record to away record is the second worst by a shade. In both cases, it is susbtantially more than all but two other schools (Oregon and ASU).

Thus, it would seem that Doc Saturday is at least somewhat correct - Cal doesn't play worse on the road just like every other team, we actually experience a sharper fall in performance than most other teams.

UPDATE

As per Spazzy's suggestion, here are dropoff numbers for 2006-2008:

Dropoff from Overall to Away 06-09

Dropoff from Home to Away 06-09

Wow.

My fanpost on Cal vs. the Pac-10 in the Tedford Era led me to one major conclusion: It's hard to figure out anything from those numbers because the sample sizes are way too small, and too easily skewed by individual games like (for example) last year's Washington and Washington State games, or by factors that don't show up in the numbers like special teams in the UCLA games (thanks norcalnick).

I thought that there was room for further exploration of what variables correlated the most closely to victory, and there were four potential areas that came to mind:

1. Use a sample consisting of all of our games in the Tedford Era. The advantage here would be that the sample would be bigger. The disadvantage is that the sample would include a lot of games against extremely strong teams (like USC) and extremely weak teams (again, like Washington State), and so would have a higher deviation (I don't know how to express this in statistical terms - whatever we come up with would be an average that may not provide much predictive value for the more important games that we want to look at).

2. Use a sample consisting of all games against ranked opponents in the Tedford Era. This would be a smaller sample, but theoretically at least one with relatively little deviation, and one that would have some predictive value as far as our tougher games go.

3. Look at specific intervals within the range of data for each variable. While not statistically significant, this could provide examples of how Cal's performance may not match its statistics.

4. Look at specific scenarios. Even smaller samples, but interesting.

I decided to look at correlation coefficients using the first sample to get a "big picture" kind of view, and then use the second sample to explore in more detail the implications of our past record against USC and other ranked teams.

[Before I go any further: big shoutout to Royrules once again for sharing his data with me, without which this post would not be possible.

Also, note that I have no real knowledge of statistics, this is just me messing around with numbers and trying to figure out what they mean. If anyone has suggestions on how to better examine this data, that would be awesome.]

Continue reading this post »

I love football statistics (yes, I am a huge nerd). Having spent a fair amount of time looking at Cal's Tedford-era numbers, and having seen much wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding certain game situations (playing UCLA in LA, playing OSU at home, etc.), I thought it would be interesting to break down our performance at home and away against each of the other Pac-10 schools.

For obvious reasons, I'm using 2002-2008 data. Big shoutout to Royrules for sharing his data with me.

Continue reading this post »

As you all know, tomorrow begins a long weekend. Three days to sleep in, catch up on work, or if you're Rishi, to go to yuppie bars in the City and futilely buy lemon drops for girls who look like Frieda Pinto.

But before we start celebrating our nation's history, I thought we should take a moment to thank the man who made it all possible: John Sherman.

On this day, in 1890, the United States Senate passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Let's be honest, there wasn't a whole lot else going on in 1890.

John Sherman: Rocking the double breasted jacket while breaking up monopolies!

(via upload.wikimedia.org)

With the passage of this act, Sherman single-handedly saved American democracy.

Also, John Sherman had an awesome beard. Here are some pictures of other people with beards:

Moses!

(via upload.wikimedia.org)

Aaron Rodgers

(via 1.bp.blogspot.com)

Bartholomew the Bear

(via multimedia.heraldinteractive.com)

Grigori Rasputin

(via upload.wikimedia.org)

These four have kindly agreed to take part in today's DBD roundtable on an important topic: Cal's 2009 trap game. This may or may not be a patently transparent attempt on my part to pretend this DBD has actual content.

However, before we get to today's topic of discussion, an important interlude: it is customary on the 4th of July to express one's appreciation of freedom by drinking copious amounts of beer. We asked each of our round-tablers what their brew of choice will be this weekend:

Moses?

(via www.ratebeer.com)

What about you, Aaron Rodgers?

(via image.examiner.com)

Bartholomew?

Uh, ok....Rasputin?

(via www.northcoastbrewing.com)

...OK, maybe we should move on to our roundtable question.

It seems like every year, Cal has a trap game - one which ends up proving much more difficult than originally thought. Last year, it was Arizona. The year before, Oregon State. In 2006 also, Arizona was the culprit.

What will Cal's trap game be this year?

Football rivalries are awesome. While they may not necessarily provide for more exciting games, there's an excitement inherent to any rivalry game that is a lot of fun regardless of the actual outcome (unless your team loses). Many of my favorite gameday memories are from the Big Game, even though relatively few of those Big Games were really competitive.

Given the recent suckitude emerging from the Farm, I've been thinking about what makes for a strong rivalry and came up with the following list:

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