122: Belichick, baselines, and baloney
Emptying out the notebook with some alliteration.
If you told me a year ago, Bill Belichick would be the head football coach at North Carolina, I would assume we’re taking some powerful drugs.
The news that Belichick and North Carolina were engaging in interviews last week felt like make believe. The chase and its news cycle felt irresponsible. It was as if North Carolina ignored every red light while speeding to its destination.
At least for now, Carolina did arrive safely at its destination as Belichick was introduced as the head football coach on Thursday, December 12.
There are so many fascinating aspects to this hire. And in today’s world, you’re almost required to have a strong take. Will it work? Will it not work?
I don’t know is if the hire will work1. What does it even mean to work? I have no clue if the hire is good or bad.
My guess is there are many more ways this goes wrong than it goes right, but that’s also my general outlook on the world too2.
What I do know is that this hire represents much more than just bringing in Belichick. It’s not just the hire, it’s the investment.
Historically, North Carolina football has been trapped in an elevator of mediocrity. The program is perfectly average. An over/under of 7.5 wins always feels right.
This feels like the very first time that Carolina’s athletic department and the school are aligned on going all in on football. The program was close under Butch Davis, but not quite all there.
Outside of football, UNC’s athletic teams often outperform competition. Neil Paine explained the untapped potential of football in his newsletter this week. Paine uses data from the Directors’ Cup standings to compare Carolina to other public schools with similar athletic success.
The table below is an extension to that idea showing the public schools with the most top 10 finishes in the Directors’ Cup standings since 1993-94. The table shows the overall win percentages in men’s basketball and football, plus the trend in football win percentage over time.
The data shows why Carolina is often labeled as a basketball school3 as the Heels have the best overall win percentage in men’s basketball among this bunch of public schools. UNC is tied with Texas for the second most top 10 finishes in the Directors’ Cup with 25 in this span, and both schools only trail Florida.
From a football perspective, Carolina has the worst overall win percentage amongst these schools as the Heels have only won ~54 percent of its games since 1993. And the trend shows how Carolina is trapped in that elevator, sometimes teetering below .500 and above .500, but always right around .500.
Paine continued to share in his article how the rest of UNC athletics have been exceptionally efficient even comparing the approach to “Moneyball” given its current budget and expenses.
Carolina’s colossal investment in football comes with consequences. Ticket prices will go up, jobs will be made redundant for new jobs to be created, and attention around the university and football program will be tremendous.
But what will the investment do for its other athletic teams?
If sponsorships, ticket prices, donors, and television are the roads to generate money in college athletics, football is the vehicle best equipped to get there. Perhaps, a high tide lifts all boats, and success in football brings even more success to Carolina's already successful athletic programs.
It’s a big gamble though and deviation from the past. Carolina has stepped out of their comfort zone. And in investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.
Baselines
College basketball is in full swing and everyone is ready to tell you about the dominance of the SEC. The league is a dominant 48-16 overall in non-conference games against the other “power” leagues of the ACC, Big East, Big 12, and Big Ten.
39 of those 48 wins have come against the ACC and Big 12. In fact, the league is under .500 in games against the Big East and Big Ten (9-11 overall).
My advice to you is to be wary of sweeping conclusions in December. About 20 years ago, Sports Illustrated released its preview of the college basketball season on November 22. Today, we have full blown brackets and declare that certain leagues will be without any bids before Christmas.
One thing I think is useful when evaluating teams is using WAB or wins-above-baseline. Last year, my friend Ryan Campbell helped me put together WABStick or a way to compare two teams.
WAB is counting stat and résumé metric that reflects how many more (or fewer) games a team has won against its schedule than a bubble-quality team would be expected to win against that same schedule. Basically, how many more wins above the baseline does this team have?
I’ve been working to extend some of the work last season, and I’m now surfacing a log of WAB for any team. This shows the total value in WAB for a team’s played games and the potential WAB for scheduled games.
I’m starting to think of WAB as a hour glass when comparing future games. How much time does a team have to gain WAB or lose WAB?
For example, here is a comparison showing North Carolina’s remaining schedule by WAB and Georgia’s remaining schedule.
The Bulldogs' SEC schedule offers a time advantage, with approximately 10.9 WAB remaining compared to Carolina's 9.6, providing more opportunities to accumulate quality wins. There are way more opportunities to gain quality wins in the SEC than in the ACC4.
Plan do continue to surface more college basketball data in this tiny app, so stay tuned. And if you have any ideas on what to surface or track, please let me know.
Baloney
While the SEC will get the benefit of the doubt in basketball this season, the league didn’t get the benefit of the doubt in the college football playoff this season. Only Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas made the 12-team event from the league where it just means more.
Despite its best efforts to draw imaginary lines for the top 25 and scream about strength of schedule, it didn’t work. While 9-3 Alabama dominated media attention, South Carolina, with an equally identical record, likely presented a more compelling playoff case.
The Director of Athletics at Alabama, Greg Byrne, shared that the school will need to assess how many power 4 non-conference games make sense in the future and that it’s not good for college football.
That’s a bunch of baloney.
The SEC played more games against the non-FBS Southern conference (5) than it did against the Big 12 and Big Ten (4) this season.
The 16 teams in the SEC played about ~30 percent of its out-of-conference games against power 4 opponents this season. About ~23 percent were against non-FBS teams.
That’s bad for college football.
Maybe the SEC shouldn’t play any league games. All FCS opponents or maybe even no opponents at all. Show old highlights on Saturdays instead.
In all reality, I’m sure the league will concoct a new plan to get more automatic bids and more money for an additional conference game5.
Thanks for reading this far, and please subscribe if you so choose. A programming note, I’m traveling quite a bit this month with family and likely won’t be publishing at all as we approach the holidays.
My focus instead is trying to automate and surface more college basketball data in this tiny app. If you have ideas or questions, please let me know. The source code is public and I’m very much flying by the seat of my pants as I learn more and more.
🤟 Anyhow, enjoy your weekend and the rest of 2024 🤟
I’m just a schlub that writes a newsletter that a few hundred people read. Oh, thank you for reading by the way.
I just traveled across the country with a toddler, and let me tell you, there are so many ways things can go wrong.
Women’s soccer school. Yet another National Championship earlier this week.
Sort of coming around to the best data analysis simply points out the obvious or surfaces the obvious.
The greatest trick Greg Sankey ever pulled was convincing adults to chant the name of a conference at sporting events.