Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

I have never been as much as an Xs and Os kind of guy, but last year, I decided to take a closer look at the Rose Bowl match-up from a statistics point of view using the data from the NCAA website.  I general broke down four main statistical areas: rush offense, pass offense, rush defense, and pass defense (all on a yards per attempt basis to normalize for style of play as much as possible). It was a fun exercise last year, so I figured that I would try it again for the upcoming battle with Baylor. Here is the synopsis:  In general, Baylor is known as an offensive juggernaut that plays no defense, but the facts are actually a little different. On a yards per attempt basis, MSU's offense (6.58 yd/att, good for 18th nationally) is actually a hair better than Baylor's (6.56 yd/att, 19th), and Baylor's defense is overall better than I expected (34th nationally compared to 20th for MSU).  However, MSU is clearly the most balanced team that Baylor had faced all year. MSU r...

Is it really almost August? Wow, time surely does fly. It seems like just yesterday I was hanging out with a few thousand green-and-white clad folks in beautiful southern California watching my alma matar complete it best football campaign of my lifetime. That was pretty cool, wasn't it? A week later in the same stadium, a certain state school down south dethroned the SEC and claimed the national title. It wasn't much as an improvement over the SEC's reign of terror, but I will take it. Now, the fall it just around the corner and all 128 FBS football teams are undefeated and full of hope. Who will rise? Who will fall? Who knows? But once again it is time to unleash the football spreadsheet on college football nation to see how things might pan out. I believe this is now the 4th summer that I have presented the results of my spreadsheet simulation. For the uninitiated, here is the background.  I starting putting the spreadsheet together in grad school and I have been ma...

Stat Geek Analysis of MSU vs. Stanford I will be the first to admit that I am not world’s best X’s and O’s guy.  But, I am good at math, so I thought that I would take a look at the stat match-up between MSU and Stanford, including looking at each team’s opponents and see what it looks like.  I was able to pull rushing and passing data for all Div. 1 teams from the NCAA website and analyze it.  I general broke down four main statistical areas: rush offense, pass offense, rush defense, and pass defense (all on a yards per attempt basis to normalize for style of play as much as possible). Here is the synopsis:  In general, Stanford is the most balanced team MSU have faced all year, finishing no worse than 31 st in any category, but it is not clear that they are better than OSU.  Statically, Stanford is roughly equivalent to Indiana on offense and Iowa on defense.  As for MSU, statistically, we are actually one of the worst offenses they have faced...

It is hard to believe that 12 months have already past.  My baby daughter has grown into a 1-year old toddler, which means it is July again.  The MLB All Star game has faded in the rearview mirror. The long, dark summer of baseball is beginning to wane, which signals that college football is only about a month away.  In the Fanson household, that can only mean one thing: it is time for spreadsheet.  I introduced the spreadsheet 2 years ago, but just to refresh everyone’s memory, I will now insert the same explanatory paragraph that I used last year.  I starting putting the spreadsheet together in grad school and I have been making steady improvements to it over the years.  I used to just track scores and standings, but over time I have refined the algorithms to predict game outcome / point spreads and generate power rankings.  As the 2013 season approaches, I have once again inputted the schedule information into the latest version of the spreadsh...