A couple issues with this:
1) That 72.3% is skewed by 08-09 when we actually super talented teams (more talented than most of our opponents).
2) That 72.3% is also skewed by new coaches replacing fired ones. There was a reason that the coach was fired or retired.
3) The 38.5% is skewed by CPJ's later years when his crappy recruiting led to our least talented rosters since probably Curry.
In my estimation:
- CPJ was an offensive genius
- CPJ was not a genius head coach
- CPJ was a poor recruiter for reasons he controlled (his system, his personality, his antiquated recruiting policies, his effort, his loyalty to lazy recruiters) and reasons he didn't (limited budget)
- beej's post is tinfoil nuttery
Some of you post is testable, which I like.
1.
That 72.3% is skewed by 08-09 when we actually super talented teams (more talented than most of our opponents).
Take out 08/09, the winning pct against 1st/2nd time coaches is 72.4% and 33.6 ppg, so that is very little data skewing.
2.
That 72.3% is also skewed by new coaches replacing fired ones. There was a reason that the coach was fired or retired.
I looked at conference record for the coaches in each category as the baseline for play of the team against comparable opponents to us. Remember that the first/second time a coach faced CPJ, they may just be rotating in from the other division. I left out 08&09 for you.
1st time coaches lost to CPJ 82.4%, and lost in all other conference games 59.2%. So CPJ had a delta advantage against new opponents of 23.2%
2nd time coaches lost to CPJ 58.3% and lost in all other conference games 44.7%. So CPJ had a delta advantage against 2nd time opponents of 13.6%.
Combine the two categories, they lost to CPJ 72.4% and to all other conference opponents 53.2% for a delta of 19.2%.
I conclude that quality of new (1st and 2nd meeting) opponent coaches was close enough to 50% win rate (delta of only 3.2%) to not significantly skew the results of my original post. What we found is a clearer measure of how much CPJ's advantage started dropping between the 1st and 2nd time playing, where it essentially was cut in half between 1st and 2nd meetings.
3.
The 38.5% is skewed by CPJ's later years when his crappy recruiting led to our least talented rosters since probably Curry.
I did not do a rigorous test, but a quick review of the data does not support this statement. 3rd time meeting in 2010 was 2-4 which is worse than later years. 4th time meeting in 2011 was 2-2, which matches later years. 5th time meeting in 2012 was 1-3, which matches later years fairly well. If you take the above out, CPJ's winning percentage was 39.5% for 3rd time meetings plus. So again, no obvious skewing.
Also, you look to the bowl results, and while every bowl is different the committees try to invite matched teams, so it should be independent of whether the recruited players were this coach's or the previous coach's. The 33.3% reinforces the original post and does not support your adjustment.
As far as your "estimations" they are not quantitative and I do not share all of them, and the point of this thread was not to beat up on CPJ's recruiting, as there are plenty of other opportunities to do so. My goal was to pierce the conventional wisdom that he was an "offensive genius", which still infects this board on a daily basis. I don't bring it up daily. His admirers do. And they are wrong. He ran an unsound offense that tripped up the under-prepared. The bowl results of 20 ppg proves this all by itself. That's about 25% less than expected in a bowl game.
As far as Beej's posts, they do vary from rationality significantly I admit. But the league did GT no favors with scheduling under CPJ. That is true. They did GT no favors with scheduling under the coach before him, so it is hard to claim any special aspect of that to support a claim it proves CPJ was a genius.
