Prep Time 2012

Let me ask a simpler, naive question: is it even a forgone conclusion that an extra week of prep time for any team is, statistically, an advantage? And by 'conclusion' I mean rigorous analysis using the appropriate controls (not just Ws & Ls)?

While I would expect a slight advantage, I wouldn't suspect it to be very much (if at all).
 
If you don't think additional prep time helps our opponents prepare for us, then you are either stupid or delusional.
 
cantSpellConvictWithoutVT said:
Let me ask a simpler, naive question: is it even a forgone conclusion that an extra week of prep time for any team is, statistically, an advantage? And by 'conclusion' I mean rigorous analysis using the appropriate controls (not just Ws & Ls)?

While I would expect a slight advantage, I wouldn't suspect it to be very much (if at all).
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I would characterize it as a simpler, wiser question. Probably cuts both ways since (i) the same advantage should be bestowed on both teams (our D is also getting an extra week to prepare) and (ii) the offense also gets an extra week to prepare for the defense.

In any event, I would expect that, with more time to prepare, a better team simply gets better and is more likely to beat a lesser team.
 
cantSpellConvictWithoutVT said:
Let me ask a simpler, naive question: is it even a forgone conclusion that an extra week of prep time for any team is, statistically, an advantage? And by 'conclusion' I mean rigorous analysis using the appropriate controls (not just Ws & Ls)?

While I would expect a slight advantage, I wouldn't suspect it to be very much (if at all).
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A W/L analysis here might be appropriate, since we are neutral to offenses. If we just look at all games with disproportional prep time, call the team with less time A and the team with more time B, then most of the variables should come out in the wash as we add a few years of data. There are more than 1400 games played each year, so i'd expect to see 140 of them fit this criteria at least.

Although, it is probably a lot of work to confirm the obvious.
 
coit said:
Did I misunderstand what you were saying here? :biggrin:
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Yes, actually. I was debating a myth that is a pet peeve of mine in a thread that is probably not related. I was saying there that it hasn't been proven that extra prep time hurts our offense more than it hurts a standard offense. That extra prep time will prepare other teams to stop us better than not having any extra prep time is pretty obvious.
 
Most of the teams we play have prepared for the TO on multiple occasions. I would expect the extra prep time to produce diminishing returns, especially if CPJ adds some wrinkles, like the pistol or shotgun. The more our opponents adjust their strategy to defend the option, the more room CPJ has to throw them a curve. He has become more conservative the last couple years, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some creativity against VT this year.
 
That really sucks, I think the Coastal race is between GT, UNC and VT this year and both of them get extra time before us.

UNC has a favorable schedule, they don't play Clemson or FSU and get both GT and VT at home. Also, I think their new coach is a pretty good one.
 
Much like the GT profs do for hoops, I think we need to look at margin of victory/defeat as that's a bit more revealing if one is to use historical data (although I fear the Cumberland game alone might throw things off a bit). Probably just need to calibrate the fitted distributions and compare them to see of they're indeed different. Too bad that would require work.
 
This whole thing reminds me of Skinner's "superstitious pigeon" experiment.

Until we win every game where the opponent only has a week to prepare and lose every game where the opponent has more than a week to prepare with the exact same players on both teams and under exact same conditions, we are chasing a ghost variable.

I forget who put the statistics together but didn't someone show that we had a better chance of winning when we lose a fumble exactly once a game or something? We should show CPJ that so we can implement the "fumble once" strategy.
 
alpha said:
This whole thing reminds me of Skinner's "superstitious pigeon" experiment.

Until we win every game where the opponent only has a week to prepare and lose every game where the opponent has more than a week to prepare with the exact same players on both teams and under exact same conditions, we are chasing a ghost variable.

I forget who put the statistics together but didn't someone show that we had a better chance of winning when we lose a fumble exactly once a game or something? We should show CPJ that so we can implement the "fumble once" strategy.
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That was me. :lol: Thread name is "Odd Fumble Stat".
 
ThisIsAtlanta said:
Yes, actually. I was debating a myth that is a pet peeve of mine in a thread that is probably not related. I was saying there that it hasn't been proven that extra prep time hurts our offense more than it hurts a standard offense. That extra prep time will prepare other teams to stop us better than not having any extra prep time is pretty obvious.
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Probably true. But I think the difference is that most other teams run offenses that are essentially the same in a basic sense. Therefore, from week to week you only have to practice for the specific tendencies of one team or the other. Our offense is so radically different, more time can have a bigger impact than for other teams.


On a separate note, I'd be interested to know how teams improve against us as the season goes on. Maybe not in previous seasons, but last year it seemed very clear to me that week by week, our offense was less effective as teams gained the benefit of more and more film on us.
 
Wow, seriously? You're going to make me do this again?
 
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cyptomcat said:
I am updating my look into GT offense against teams with extra time with 2011 data. Will post in a new thread.

edit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ar8cqnkh36RRdENBQk1fRTYyRDFIVTdOa1Q0cXNrbGc&output=html

Against BCS opponents:
21-8 (.72) when they have 7 days or less to prepare
4-11 (.27) when they have 8 or more
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Thanks.

If anyone here thinks those numbers aren't statistically significant, you're a loon. Sorry. I wish it was a myth too. But it's not.
 
beej67 said:
Thanks.

If anyone here thinks those numbers aren't statistically significant, you're a loon. Sorry. I wish it was a myth too. But it's not.
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Again, not what anyone is saying. We're talking about different things, I just misunderstood the first post. Nobody here is a loon. :biggthumpup:
 
ThisIsAtlanta said:
Again, not what anyone is saying. We're talking about different things, I just misunderstood the first post. Nobody here is a loon. :biggthumpup:
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If you'd like to run the same analysis for the rest of the ACC, you'll see that no team in the conference comes remotely close to the same differential we have over the same time span.

In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any team in the country for whom prep time has mattered more for, than GT.
 
beej67 said:
If you'd like to run the same analysis for the rest of the ACC, you'll see that no team in the conference comes remotely close to the same differential we have over the same time span.

In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any team in the country for whom prep time has mattered more for, than GT.
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Still not the myth I was talking about. Offensive production versus expected differential on a yards per play basis relative to opponents of opponents under similar conditions is the variable i'm ranting about. Our focuses are truly disjoint. I heard "prep time" and got carried away without really reading the post, because I'd fixated on this variable for so long before to try to quantify the disadvantage. I had to use 10 years of CPJ data to factor out artifacts of the team and examine only the offense, but I just didn't have enough data, it doesn't exist to do what I was trying to do, which is not at all what we're doing ITT. My apologies for the derailment.
 
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