159: The process
A look at Carolina football's lack of leads, plus road wins in FBS so far.
The mantra of trust the process is prevalent across sports over the past 15 years. In general, I’m a firm believer in divorcing the process from an outcome.
You can have a terrible process and solid outcome. For example, you can run a red light yet still get to your destination.
And you can have an ironclad process and still get a bad outcome. We all know that life is not fair.
The North Carolina football is the latest program to preach staying true to the process. It’s a clear message from coaches and players.
Progress comes in small increments. You don’t go from base camp to the top of the mountain in 15 minutes. It doesn’t happen that way.
But enough with the actual cliches.
Carolina has played five Power 4 opponents this season. The team has lost all five games by a combined 91 points.
In fact, the last time UNC had a lead in a game against a Power 4 opponent was the opening drive against TCU as you can see in the chart below.
While Carolina hasn’t found itself in the lead over the past two games, it’s only lost these two games by a combined four points.
Perhaps, losing close is all part of the process.
First you lose big, then you lose close, then you win close, then you win big, right1?
UNC has five games remaining this season. I think it’s fair to say the experiment2 of hiring a NFL hall of fame coach hasn’t returned the desired results, and probably premature to label the recent games as any sort of progress.
Through seven games, Carolina remains stuck in that elevator of mediocrity.
Can it find a way out over the next five weeks?
Road wins
The first college football playoff rankings will be revealed next week. The discourse around strength of schedule and strength of record is sure to heat up.
One area that is often overlooked when assessing a team’s resume is road victories. It’s harder to win games on the road than at home or at a neutral site.
Take a look at the table below to see the number of teams with no road wins and at least one or more road wins.
Only two teams have won four road games so far (BYU and Houston). So far, 38 of 136 FBS teams have yet to win a road game3.
Of course, not all road wins are created equal either. The two teams with multiple road wins against opponents rated above the 90th percentile in F+ ratings are Indiana and Alabama. The Hoosiers won at Oregon and at Iowa, and the Tide earned victories on the road at Georgia and Missouri.
When the first playoff rankings are revealed and the discussion around strength of record shows up, check a team’s road wins.
It’s a good proxy to determine if the resume holds up or not.
That’s it for this week, thanks for reading this far. As for a recommendation this week, check out this app to view team, coach, and coordinator historical data from @ArkansasQuant on Twitter.
It’s really well done, and an interesting look at a program’s performance with different people in charge.
Happy Thursday, and enjoy the rest of October.
It’s fascinating the message of trust the process when the actual hire was anything but a process you can or should trust.
There is a lot of money flying around college sports as of late, but how that money is spent is fascinating. Most of the time, it feels like a better use of that money would be to just lock it in a closet.
In no particular order, a list of all 38 teams without a road victory yet: Charlotte, UAB, Boston College, Florida State, Stanford, Michigan State, Minnesota, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma State, UCF, West Virginia, New Mexico State, Sam Houston, UTEP, Ball State, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Massachusetts, Northern Illinois, Toledo, Air Force, Colorado State, Nevada, San José State, Utah State, Oregon State, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana.