West Virginia's cancellation of its 2012 game at Florida State has left a gaping hole in the Seminoles' upcoming schedule. On short notice, FSU's Athletic Director Randy Spetman has apparently reached out to Oklahoma, USC, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and the cast of The Longest Yard remake to fill this void and has been turned down by just about everybody. Has the difficulty in finding a top tier opponent become a blessing in disguise for Seminoles fans? In a way, probably so. If the Athletic Department is serious about playing an Oklahoma or Boise State, they might have been saved from a huge scheduling mistake. Now I don't really need to explain to Tomahawk Nation readers why scheduling a top level BCS opponent would be a ridiculous idea, but a quick scan of other Nole-related websites in the two weeks since the cancellation shows that a lot of Nole fans have unrealistic expectations when it comes to scheduling. Since everyone loves a good dead horse beating, I figured we'd take a look at how FSU should play this situation going forward.

Let's play a quick game of College Football trivia, shall we? What do the following three things have in common?

"We'll play anyone, anytime, anywhere."

"He's not just a successful coach, he's the King of the Road."

"Clemson just won a major bowl!!"

If you answered "They haven't been said since the 80s" then you are absolutely correct.

There was a time in Florida State's history when it made sense to play marquee opponents on a week to week basis. Florida State was a younger program without a record of success and needed to prove itself on a national stage to gain credibility and respect. Keep in mind that these were also the days before FSU had joined the ACC. The Seminoles simply had to schedule nationally recognized opponents because they didn't have a conference schedule to fall back on. But in 2012, Florida State really doesn't have anything more to prove as a program. High preseason rankings in the past decade despite poor on-field performance is just one indicator of the level of respect the Noles have among the media and coaches (and since they're the ones voting for national championships, they're the ones that matter).

For those of you who read the Tomahawk Nation preseason magazine, you'll remember my discussion of why strength of schedule isn't that important in the current BCS landscape (you can find it somewhere I'm sure, maybe we'll post the full article here sometime in the future). Strength of schedule is only a minor component of the computer rankings in the BCS formula and historically has not had a strong correlation with the teams ranked at the top of the polls. Human voters, and to some extent even the computer rankings, value overall record much more than quality of opponent. In the current climate, it is better to beat bad teams than it is to lose to good ones. Until the system is changed, i.e. the computer polls are adjusted and given more weight compared to the fickle human voters, there is little incentive to over-schedule yourself as a team.

Take the 2011 LSU Tigers for example. It took an incredible amount of talent, skill, and LUCK to get through the regular season unscathed. LSU beat three teams who won BCS bowls in addition to a typically difficult conference schedule. After all was said and done, what did the Tigers have to show for it? Nothing. What LSU did last season was highly inadvisable and, in the end, didn't actually benefit them at all. They don't give out trophies for tough schedules.

Strength of schedule simply has not been the deciding factor in the majority of seasons since the current rules were adopted.

Under the current format, four of the six BCS-conference teams that finished outside the national championship game with the same number, or fewer, losses as the second place team have had better strength of schedule averages than the second place team (using an average of the BCS computers' strength of schedule rankings). Notice that even last season, Oklahoma State had a more difficult schedule (according to the rankings that matter) than Alabama, yet it was still left out of the title game. Something other than schedule strength kept these teams from the title (some might suggest SEC bias, the effectiveness of groveling head coaches, etc). Teams simply do not need to play ridiculously difficult schedules in order to make it to major bowl games.

After the jump, we'll take a look at how this applies to Florida State and the vacancy in the upcoming schedule.

Continue reading this post »

The past week has taught me that some of you out there still aren't seeing the reason why predicting Florida State's record for the upcoming season should be done using percentages and not a simple win/lose proposition.  It's frustrated me so much that, just for today, I have decided to take off the jester hat and go back to my roots, which is actually statistics.

When I'm teaching an Intro to Stats class and a significant proportion of the class fails a test, I often wonder if it's because I haven't done a good enough job explaining the concept.  So, using that same strategy, today I thought we should take a look at why we use the percentage model and why it is statistically the most rational method.  We're going to do that by introducing a few of the basic concepts that you'll find in any introductory level stats course and show how these concepts can be applied to the prediction of football outcomes.

Random Variables

A random variable is any variable whose value is obtained through the outcome of a statistical experiment, and are highly important in the study of probability, stochastic processes, and game theory.  The values of the random variable follow a random, but known, statistical distribution.  In other words, you know the exact probability of getting each individual value of the random variable.  It is important to note that the sum of all possible events in a given random variable is equal to 1. 

Random variables fall into two major categories: continuous and discrete.  Continuous random variables are variables that can take an uncountably infinite number of values.  Temperature on a given day can be considered a continuous random variable, because if we had a thermometer that was accurate enough we could show that the temperature was 75.0 degrees, or 75.01 degrees, or 75.0000000000000001 degrees; there are an infinite number of possibilities.  A discrete random variable can only take specific, pre-determined, values on the number scale.  The number of people in a classroom can be considered a discrete random variable as there can only be 1, 2, 3, 4, .... people (fractions are not possible).  We will focus our attention on discrete random variables from here on.

The most basic discrete random variable model is the process of flipping a coin.  Let X represent the process of flipping a coin one time.  X can then be summarized by:

If we then know the probabilities associated with each outcome, we can give the probability mass function (pmf) of the random variable X.

The above pmf shows what we all know.  There is a 1/2 chance of getting a tails when flipping a coin and a 1/2 chance of getting a heads.  For your own reference, a discrete random variable with 2 distinct outcomes and known probabilities is known as a Bernoulli distribution. Generally one outcome is considered a "success" and the other a "failure."  The Bernoulli distribution requires a known probability of a success, usually called p.  Since the sum of the probabilities of all possible events of a random variable is equal to 1, then probability of a failure is given by (1-p)

Expected Value

The expected value of a random variable is formally the integral of the random variable over its probability measure.  What this means for our discrete random variable is that the expected value is a weighted average of the values of the random variable.

Consider a single fair die (dice).  If the die is rolled one time, the random variable can take values 1,2,3,4,5,6 each with probability 1/6 (the 6 being 6 sides).  Therefore, the expected value of this random variable is given by

If you roll a fair die one time, you should expect to get around 3.5.  Sometimes you'll get higher, sometimes lower, but the baseline value you should expect to get is 3.5.

Applying this same process to our Bernoulli example earlier, one flip of a coin results in a zero 50% of the time and a one 50% of the time.  The expected value of this random variable can then be given as 0*.5+1*.5=.5.  Your expectation before flipping the coin should be of getting a value of .5  (heads half the time, tails half the time).

Linear Property of Expected Values

One extremely important truth about expectation is that they can be considered linear meaning, basically, that

the expectation of the sum of two random variables is equal to the sum of the expectations of the random variables. 

Therefore, if we flipped a coin twice and wanted to find out the expectation of their combined values, we could find the expected value of each trial (or flip) and add them together to get the overall expectation (Hmm, this does seem familiar to the best method of predicting football games.  Taking the percentages and adding them up.)  Each individual trial has an expected value of .5, so their combined expectation would be equal to 1.

Continue reading and we will apply all of these techniques to the process of predicting the outcomes of football games.

Continue reading this post »

What's going on with the NCAA these days? 

Should we expand March Madness?  Should the Big Ten grab 15 more teams and still ironically refer to themselves as "Ten"?  Should other conferences grab smaller schools and act like adding ECU to their conference slate suddenly earns them $100 million in new television revenue?

Lately, the NCAA is more worried about expansion than a guy sitting next to Rosie O'Donnell on a 4 hour flight    Russell Crowe's  costume director for the upcoming "Robin Hood" movie    the last notch on Chris Berman's belt in hour 3 of the NFL draft.

The fact of the matter is, the reason behind any of this expansion talk comes down to one thing: money.  The NCAA and its teams are fully convinced that bigger=better when it comes to the size of conferences.  While everyone waits for the Big Ten to fire its opening salvo, we here at Offbeat Friday thought we'd take a look at what the ACC should do when the jheri-curled, red-leather-jacket-wearing tough guy named Expansion comes a'calling.

Continue reading this post »

The Noles may have got a head start on the 2011 recruiting class, but apparently they weren't quite done with the 2010 class just yet.   Today they picked up a commitment from Amos Lapp, a 6'3'' 305 pound jumbo athlete from Berlin, Ohio.  You're gonna have to bare with us on this one, because this commitment comes from completely out of the blue.  We're told he plays guard and defensive tackle for his local team.  Lapp will enroll this summer and join the team in the fall.

Very little, if any, film exists on this kid.  Apparently he visited Tallahassee during his traditional rumspringa and enjoyed the campus.  During a chance meeting with Florida State offensive line coach Rick Trickett, the coach was apparently impressed with his work ethic and offered him a scholarship to play football.  We have to confess, an unrated white guy that no one's ever heard of is exactly the type of player Trickett always seems to find.

We're having a difficult time finding any information on this kid, so we don't know what kind of 40 he runs.  We've heard stories that while on his visit in late December he beat Budd Thacker in a bench press competition, so he clearly has some upper body strength and could potentially contribute on the defensive or offensive line right away.  His combination of strength and size, combined with some of the rumors we've heard about his mean streak on the field could potentially turn this kid into a monster on the gridiron.

Communication with Lapp has proven to be difficult as you might expect, but it is compounded by the fact that he only speaks an old German dialect.  The Noles might have signed Bjoern Werner last cycle merely to be Lapp's interpreter.

There are some qualification concerns, as Lapp has never taken a standardized test nor attended a regular school.  However he has allegedly memorized the entire Old Testament, so we're quite confident he can reach the necessary test score.

This addition makes it more likely that a player like Cameron Irving will redshirt this season.  It additionally adjusts the number of players Florida State can take in the 2011 class without major attrition.

The Tomahawk Nation Depth Chart has been updated to reflect this commitment.

The large influx of new readers recently means there's a good chance that this is your first season following FSU baseball with Tomahawk Nation. With just one week left until the beginning of the Seminoles' 2010 baseball season, we here at Offbeat Friday thought it appropriate to post some of the important information you'll need to know to carry you through the upcoming campaign.

First, the minor details...

First Game: Friday February 19 @ 4pm in Dick Howser Stadium (PS- While many people refer to FSU's football stadium as "That Doak", Offbeat Friday does not encourage the usage of the term "The Dick" as it causes funny looks and sexual harassment charges around the office.)

TNation coverage: TNation's director of baseball coverage from last year, pbysh, has a really sweet new job and no free time.  This year's coverage will be brought to you by everybody's favorite comment moderator, RaysnNoles!  Welcome aboard RnN!

Fan Day:  February 13th at Dick Howser Stadium from 10:30-4.  Tallahassee readers can meet the team, get pictures, autographs, and watch a team scrimmage at 2:30.

Are the Noles any good this year? ACC coaches picked FSU to win the Atlantic Division as an overwhelming favorite (10 out of 12 coaches put the Noles in first place in the division.)  Most of the collegiate baseball polls place the Noles within the top 10 to begin the season.

Now that all of that is out of the way, let's get down to the more important stuff.  After the jump, we'll introduce you to the Mike Martin Drinking Game, fun facts about the FSU players, and a few of the traditions that make the FSU program one of the top collegiate baseball programs in the country.

Continue reading this post »

It's been awhile since Offbeat Friday has come to you.  To be perfectly honest, we've been quite busy in the past 2 months (Our day job as James Coley's personal Cuban coffee supplier has kept us swamped.  We just woke up from a 76 hour nap.)  So we'll try to bring the fun today.  Or at least some distraction as you count down the hours till the end of the work week and a glorious SuperBowl weekend.

A certain poster on this site believes that we here at Offbeat Friday simply search for tired internet memes, and run them into the ground.

Well... of course we do!!  That's the fun part!!

After the jump, we try our hand at one of the internet's most time-honored traditions: putting funny, frequently grammatically incorrect, captions on pictures.

Continue reading this post »

Sorry guys.  Things are going pretty slow around the Official TNation condo.  We're still trying to recover from yesterday.  There are empty cans and paper plates everywhere.  Quick morning assessment of yesterday's events: I still don't know how FSUn ended up with that baby; FSUSOM and SWFLNole woke up this morning with matching tattoos; I did some things I'm not proud of after my celebratory root beer binge got out of hand, and FrankDNole still hasn't woken up yet (I can't wait until he sees what we wrote on his face).

Consequently, things are running a little slow this morning.  Here's something quick to hold you over until we can figure out where we left The K-Man.

FSU finished with the number 6 rated class according to ESPN and the number 10 class according to Rivals. 

When size of the class is taken into account, here are the average star rankings for the rest of the ACC.

Note that Florida State finished about 1.603 standard deviations above the average ACC class.  Miami only finished .085 standard deviations above the average ACC class.

Now I have some bad news for you.  FSU's class wasn't as good as Florida's class.  A team that finished 7-6 and has only had an entirely competent coaching staff for 5 weeks did not have as good a class as the team that won a BCS bowl, has won 2 National Championships in 4 years, and has one of the top programs in the country.  I know.  It sucks.  But look at the rest of the SEC classes.

Florida finished with a class that was 1.595 standard deviations above the average SEC class.

Relative to each school's in-conference competition, Florida State had just as good a class as Florida.

Florida State is not in the SEC and has only been playing new-millennium football for 5 weeks. Right now, there are too many obstacles for FSU to use the SEC as its benchmark.  But when compared to its own conference, Florida State was the cream of the crop this recruiting season. If the Noles can continue to show this type of dominance over the rest of its conference in recruiting and translate that into on-field success, Jimbo Fisher can build the type of program that can hopefully compete nationally with UF, Alabama, Texas, and USC.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to throw away some empty pizza boxes and take like 20 showers.

Yeah I messed up and hijacked a regular thread.  We need to keep our off topic discussions in a separate place.  Like here.

Someone please rec this so it stays pinned for those of us who chat frequently.

Edit: Just because it's Off Topic doesn't mean the regular TNation commenting rules don't apply.  Keep it civil and keep it clean.  Well, at least as clean as we normally are.

The First Annual Tomahawk Nation College Football Christmas Spectacular is here!!  So hang those stockings, trim the tree, and get ready for some good old-fashioned yuletide fun in the spirit of those great Christmas variety shows of yesteryear!!

Inside, you'll find out what songs the biggest names in college football are listening to, you'll get exclusive access to Santa's naughty list, and we'll take another look at some of your favorite Christmas movies.  With special guest appearances by...

• Lou Holtz
• The Rockettes
• The Andy Williams Orchestra
• To all our men and women stationed at home and abroad, Erin Andrews will stop by with a sultry rendition of "Please Come Home for Christmas"

and who could forget.....

• Santa Mark May and his elf, Rece Davis!!!

There's a fa-la-la-la-lot going on in here, Lee Corso might even drop by to put on a reindeer head.

This Christmas Spectacular is so epic that we had to do it one week early just to give ourselves a chance to recover in time for the real holiday!  You bring the egg nog, and we'll bring the fun. 

We've got more ho-ho-ho's than Tiger Woods' cell phone a Tennessee recruiting visit.

It's Christmas!  It's College Football! It's Offbeat!!  It's Exclamatory!!!

Continue reading this post »

A few months ago, Tomahawk Nation was able to get exclusive access to the daily schedule of FSU's linebacker coach, Chuck Amato.  Since then, we have been working with our connections to try to find out just what it is some of the other coaches do with their time.

Today, our hard work has finally paid off.  Your humble proprietor of MattDNole's Premium Content was allowed to follow Coach Coley around for a day earlier this week.  Inside this story, you will find my journal entries of what that morning was like.

*Disclaimer- Due to the risk of over-HYPEment and excessive SWAGgeration, we ask that women who are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant, those with heart conditions, and the elderly refrain from trying to read this story.  This Coach Coley story is not for readers whose SWAG levels are currently maintained through the recreational use of Red Bull or other artificial stimulants.  Ask your doctor if reading this Coach Coley story might be right for you.

**Disclaimer 2: Electric Boogaloo- For those of you who are unaware, yesterday Coley secured the two commitments from Palm Beach, flew to Los Angeles and got a commitment from Mike Harris, then flew back to Miami in order to visit a prospect today.  You can follow Coach Coley on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CoachColey

Continue reading this post »

I think at this point it is clear that Florida State may be searching for 1-5 new coaches starting in December.  It has always been the policy of TomahawkNation to address such rumors thoughtfully and carefully, with an eye towards the future development of the program.

In the past few months on TomahawkNation, people have repeatedly wondered who Jimbo Fisher would target when given the opportunity to hire his own defensive staff. For quite some time, the only names we have been able to suggest are Greg Hudson, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at ECU, and Manny Diaz, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Middle Tennessee State.   These two names are frequently mentioned due to their connections to Florida State and to Jimbo Fisher, their youth, and their relative success at their current schools.  However, they have also been discussed ad nauseum for the past 15 months within the Seminole community.  After the jump, I will offer a few other possibilities that Jimbo Fisher may look at when considering his new defensive staff.

Keep in mind, the hiring of friends and previous coworkers is not in and of itself a problem.  The hiring of unqualified friends and coworkers is the problem.  Bobby Bowden's mistakes were hiring son Jeff Bowden as OC when he had demonstrated little if any gameplanning ability and certainly nothing resembling the qualifications of an elite offensive coordinator.  He made the mistake of handing the LB job to Chuck Amato without a proper search and allowing Chuck to coast.  The following candidates represent talented and effective coaches who are more than just friends of Jimbo Fisher.  Keep in mind that the three most effective assistants on Florida State's staff (Coley, Trickett, and Dawsey) were hired due to their: A) abilities as coaches (including age.  The potential coach must be born after 1958.  FSU has the oldest coaching staff in the nation and that stigma has hurt recruiting some as the old coaches simply don't relate to the recruits.  Any coach older than 52 on Jan 1 2010 is excluded) and B) previous connections to Jimbo Fisher.

Disclaimer:  This purpose of this post is not to suggest I have any "inside" information about who Jimbo will hire.   The Diaz and Hudson rumors were born out of internet speculation, not through any public statements from Jimbo Fisher himself.  I merely wish to highlight a few successful defensive coaches who have worked with Jimbo and/or Florida State in the past and might be open to doing so again.  Universities frequently hire search committees when looking for new coaching, consider this post your official TomahawkNation search committee.

Disclaimer 2, Electric Boogaloo:  As I said before, this article doesn't suggest that this process is guaranteed to happen this off-season.  I personally believe it will in some fashion, but I cannot say for certain.

Continue reading this post »

In an attempt to bury the hatchet with much-maligned Linebacker coach, Chuck Amato, I decided to help him pen a song that would hopefully help win him Jimbo Fisher's affections as well as the Defensive Coordinator position.  Follow the jump for Chuck's earnest plea, as written by me.

(There are rumblings that some of our readers are still having a tough time with "the jump."  Let me make it really clear- just below here there is a link that says "Continue reading this post."  Spoiler alert: if you click there.... you can continue reading!!  Hope that clears everything up now.)

Continue reading this post »

What happens when a Statistician tries to be a comedian on a Florida State blog?

What happens when he lets other guys do the stats and just tries to make funny posts? 

What happens when he doesn't hold other FSU writers to a higher level of statistical analysis and lets dumb posts go?

This happens.  (I should clarify that Andrew Carter has been a good beat writer, has a good sense of humor, and generally does good work)

Inside this story, you find the reaction of TomahawkNation's premier Statistician-turned-comedian to this obvious well-researched and well thought-out article from our friend Andrew Carter.

Continue reading this post »

Last night I decided to try my hand at song-writing.  Be gentle.

(PS- You might want to listen to the real song one time to get the rhthym in your head.)

Music:  Roughly taken from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" (1989)

Lyrics: MattDNole

CHORUS:
Why don't you just retire?
We're just always losing
Your ego you're choosing.
Why don't you just retire?
Yes we'd really like it
Pack your stuff and hike it.

Sugar Bowl, Virginia Tech, Wire to Wire what the heck

Greatest season, undefeated, now we're on top.

Amato leaves for NC State, Weinke's back so ain't it great

Starting strong, streak goes on, never be stopped.

Jared Jones and some Funyuns, Kicker's name is Matt Munyan

Blows a kick, makes me sick, replays won't stop.

Weinke wins the Heisman, BCS Bowl once again

Richt says bye, offense dies, bubble goes pop.



CHORUS:
Why don't you just retire?
We're just always losing
Your ego you're choosing.
Why don't you just retire?
Yes we'd really like it
Pack your stuff and hike it.

Jeffy's turn, what a burn, Rix's playbook stays unlearned

Morg-an, Bold-in, receivers all down.

Carolina blows us out, Canes continue with a rout

NC State, then the Gates, Boosters all frown.

'02 expectations high, Looking back I don't know why

Feeling luck, To Kentuck', well that trip just really sucked.

At least we have our guy Greg Jones, Beat the Canes up on his own

One small slip, miss the kick, Betia goes home.

Fumbles against Notre Dame, AD cheated what a shame

Overslept, what the heck, how'd our team become a wreck?!


CHORUS:
Why don't you just retire?
We're just always losing
Your ego you're choosing.
Why don't you just retire?
Yes we'd really like it
Pack your stuff and hike it.

2003 here we go, Taylor makes Chris Rix his ho

Stupid rain, fans complain, Jeffy's not fired.

Saving brother Tommy's job, Referees paid by the mob

Dockett tossed, season lost, students get tired.

Bobby's name on the facade, Wyatt Sexton thinks he's God

Ron Zook WON, FANS ARE DONE, HOW MUCH MORE CAN THIS GO ON? 

CHORUS:
Why don't you just retire?
We're just always losing
Your ego you're choosing.
Why don't you just retire?
Yes we'd really like it
Pack your stuff and hike it.

Finally beat the Canes again, Can't get one November win

Willie Reid, does the deed, ACC Kings.

PSU is number 3, we can't make a PAT

Another loss, Jeff's not tossed, Dave Hart's phone rings.

30-0 loss to Wake, force some changes for Pete's sake

Jimbo's in, with some friends, future looks bright.

Several years pass us by, Bobby still won't say goodbye

Team's confused, we still lose, end is in sight.

What the heck will happen next, all we do is post and guess

We do know, Bobby's old, Chuck has big breasts.

Since this joke is almost dead, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead

Dear Head Coach,  It's time to go, you're being a pest.

CHORUS:
Why don't you just retire?
We're just always losing
Your ego you're choosing.
Why don't you just retire?
Yes we'd really like it
Pack your stuff and hike it.

Why don't you just retire?
But when we're all gone
Will you still coach on, and on, and on, and on...

A little over a year ago I was introduced to two blogs that would eventually change my life.  One was Tomahawk Nation.  The other was firejoemorgan.com.  FJM was a collection of professional tv writers who happened to be huge baseball fans, familiar with sabermetrics, and tired of the idiocy that defined much of professional sports journalism. 

Sadly for us, they all became very successful in their, you know, "jobs".  KenTremendous is the creator of NBC's Parks and Recreation, and each of the other writers have moved on in the entertainment business.

Frequent readers of Deadspin will remember the FJM reunion a few weeks ago when the guys returned for a day to be guest editors.  You can go to the FJM blog or check out the Deadspin archives to get a feel for what's about to happen.

In honor of the FJM team, and since it is Boston College week, I thought we would have some fun by giving Coach Bowden the FJM treatment....

(PS- Thanks to SWFLNole for the idea!!!)

Continue reading this post »

First of all, be sure to get your questions in for the BC writer.

Secondly, if you aren't already sick of USF, you will be by the time Uncensored is done this week.

It has become apparent to me that the large majority of our game-attending fanbase is comprised of idiots.  Consequently, I feel it is my duty (hehe... I said duty) to set the record straight, and inform the masses of the real way you should behave yourself at an FSU football game.  Follow the jump for a few easy steps that will ensure that you're never again the subject of my personal ridicule at an FSU game. 

Inside you will find ways to make sure you are a True Seminole student, a True Seminole fan, a True Seminole Scoreboard Operator, and a True Seminole PA Announcer.

Continue reading this post »

We'll start the FSU talk around 6:30.

Here is the place we can discuss the 3:30 games.