an update

Okay one of my long term goal is in progress...

Am learning a musical instrument ~ by my own...i know....i hope this motivation will stay burning in me...

bought a small guitar, now people wont call it small guitar....well whatever...i am a noob neway...to be exact i bought an ukulele....looks very much like toy to me....but toy are fun to play...yeayy

n yea...my wanting to play guitar will be delayed...since right now i am concentrating on my uke...until next time guitar, until next time e/guitar, until next time piano...huhu...i dont know when...lets just put it in my KIV list...

Mike Tyson's four-year-old daughter is on a life suppo

Mike Tyson's four-year-old daughter is on a life support machine after being found with a cable from an exercise treadmill wrapped around her neck.

Exodus was found by her seven-year-old brother at their home in Phoenix, Arizona.

The boy told the girl's mother, who was in another room. She helped Exodus out of the cable, called 911 and tried to revive her.

She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was in "extremely critical condition" and on life support, a police spokesman said.

"Somehow she was playing on this treadmill, and there's a cord that hangs under the console - it's kind of a loop," he explained.

"Either she slipped or put her head in the loop, but it acted like a noose, and she was obviously unable to get herself off of it."

Former heavyweight boxing champion Tyson who was in Las Vegas promoting a new movie flew to Phoenix as soon as he heard about the accident.

According to local media he arrived at St Jospeh's Hospital in a taxi and raced inside without comment.

From Yahoo News

Assorted links and notes - May 26, 2009

1. I guess the lesson is "Never turn down the President": Steelers linebacker James Harrison, in capping one of the unlikelier weeks in recent memory, had to put down his pet pitbull after it attacked his son.

2. NFL outlaws the "wedge formation" for kickoffs. It will be interesting how teams respond:

On a whiteboard in Westhoff’s Jets office, the sketched-out kick return looks markedly different now. In one version, the wedge has essentially been cleaved in half, two men separated from another pair by a couple of yards, heading upfield in lockstep. He also has a version in which two players are together with a lone blocker running alongside, until all three converge on the player who once would have been the wedge buster.

and

"You're going to see more man schemes," Toub said. "Everybody will have a man. There won't be any more zone blocking with the wedge."

Yet, the story is still sort of complicated:

Don't be surprised if some clubs try taking advantage of a loophole in how the banning of the wedge will be enforced. April recently spoke with NFL director of officiating Mike Pereira, who explained that officials will watch how the blocking forms at the time the return man fields the ball and determine whether there is a violation at that point. A flag won't be thrown if only two blockers are within two yards of each other, on the same plane, in front of the returner. And it wouldn't be a violation if two additional blockers were positioned in front of the other set of two, turning the wedge into sort of a box, when the ball is caught. That is a conclusion that special teams coaches have drawn from watching a DVD that league officiating crews have been showing to coaches as examples of what will and won't be penalized.

4. Facebook for football?

5. The New York Giants' David Diehl does a spot on impression of Brett Favre:




6. Phil Birnbaum points out that sometimes coefficients need not be "statistically significant" to be, well, significant.

Bear Bryant: spread offense innovator?

A reader passes along a video of Alabama's 36-6 victory over UCLA in the 1976 Liberty Bowl (known to Alabama fans as "Southern Discomfort"). In the clip, Bear Bryant dials up what looks like -- to modern viewers at least -- the "shovel option" made famous by Urban Meyer. I have discussed this play previously.

In Meyer's version, the quarterback begins to sprint out and reads the defensive end. If the end attacks him, he pitches or "shovels" it up to either a runningback, slot receiver, or H-back. If the end stays home the quarterback can simply continue around him, and often has a pitch read as a third option. The backside guard also pulls and leads. It's a great play; see the diagram and video below.





But the shovel play itself has been around for a long time. Compare the video of Florida this year with the video of Bryant's Crimson Tide below. All things are cyclical.



Note that in both the teams leave the playside defensive end unblocked. I can't tell if Bryant's quarterback is reading him or just baiting him, but in any event it works.

Michael Jackson Drops Mask For Leathers In Los Angeles

Michael Jackson was pictured without his usual surgical mask as he left a medical facility in Los Angeles yesterday.

The singer smiled briefly for photographers outside the Bedford Medical building wearing a bright red jacket.

The purpose of Jackson’s visit was not clear, although reports over the weekend claimed he was suffering from skin cancer The singer was diagnosed with the disease last month following a medical check up, according to The Sun newspaper.

But the claims were denied by Jackson's spokesman, Dr Tohme Tohme, as “not true”.

He told the New York Daily News that Jackson was "great", adding: "He's in perfect health ... he doesn't have any diseases whatsoever."

Jackson is due to make his comeback this summer with a 50-night residency at London’s O2 Arena.

Jackson, now 50, is due to begin the gigs in July and perform until next February. He is currently in rehearsals.

The singer has not performed a full concert since he was cleared of child molestation charges in 2005.

His last full tour, entitled HIStory, took place in 1996 and '97.

Black Eyed Peas' Fergie: 'I've Experimented With Women'

Black Eyed Peas star Fergie has admitted to experimenting with women in the past.

But the singer, who is celebrating topping the UK charts, said she had so far been unable to maintain a steady relationship with a woman.

Fergie is the latest in a growing list of female celebrities who have admitted to being a bisexual.

She told The Sun: “Put it this way, I’ve experimented definitely, but I have never had a steady girlfriend.”

The My Humps star added that fans should watch out for the video to the group's next single I Got A Feeling, which features a girl-on-girl teaser.

“I met the girls right before we did the scene,” she said. “They were beautiful. They were hot.

“One of them was the director’s girlfriend — so he was happy!”

Last week, actress Megan Fox revealed she had no doubt in her mind that she was a bisexual.

Angeina Jolie and Lindsay Lohan are also among the Hollywood stars who have admitted to enjoying relationships with both sexes.

"Confabulatory" rankings of college football players

So I stumbled on "The College Football Performance Awards" site. Its mission statement is "to provide the most scientifically rigorous conferments in college football. Recipients are selected exclusively based upon objective scientific rankings." The basic driver seems to be that the ballot system, whereby some names are picked, some folks vote, and somebody wins, is an inherently flawed way to select football players; indeed, it is, they argue, more like a "popularity contest."

I suppose there's some merit to that proposition. The idea is that there must be some better way to evaluate a player, particularly if a player wins an award because of his strong supporting cast as opposed to what he individually brings to the field. Brad Smith, former Davidson and USC kicker who runs the site, also seems to have the laudable goal of including more mid-major program players into the final award mix. For example, in his rankings Rice quarterback Chase Clement finished higher in the overall rankings than Tim Tebow (Colt McCoy finished #1). So these are generally laudable goals but I still don't quite know what to make of all this.

First, the value of any so-called "objective metric" is in how good the algorithm is. On that score, despite journalists telling us that Mr. Smith's "methodology is all there on the website," I come to find out that it is not.

Smith tells us simply:

The goal of this research is to advance a sophisticated representation of college football; a just, refined, and elegant measurement of performance; a precise, objective, and scientifically reliable selection of deserving recipients; an inherently dispassionate, methodologically sound, and experimentally valid celebration of individual achievement.

But that's really it for explanation, just cool assurances that it is an elegant, sound, and valid "celebration." My favorite of course is his discussion of why rushing yards is inadequate, which I must paste in full:

Q: Is football performance analysis a form of scientific enquiry?

A: The question, "Who are the top performers in college football?" is an inherently empirical question. In other words, any attempt to answer this question trespasses overtly on the domain of science.

PERFORMANCE 101: ANALYZING RUSHING DATA

The college football player with the most rushing yards per game is sometimes referred to as the "rushing leader". This usage is misleading and, in some sense, even confabulatory. In reality, the rushing yards per game statistic is not very helpful in evaluating rushing performance and is a poor predictor of team success. For an example of this, consider running back A with 900 yards on 300 carries, B with 870 yards on 145 carries, C with 840 yards on 120 carries, and D with 800 yards on 80 carries. Further, assume that A, B, C, and D have all played the same number of games, and all other rushing variables are held constant. According to the rushing yards per game statistic, A is the rushing leader, B is second, C is third, and D is fourth. Yet, almost certainly, these rankings are inverted. After all, in this case, the discrepancies in rushing yards per game are fairly small, while there are significant differences in rushing yards per carry. To declare A the rushing leader merely based upon A's standing in rushing yards per game without careful review of other factors and considerations is at best -- a cursory and superficial analysis, and at worst -- a specious and obfuscatory one.

I know what is "obfuscatory," and it is not just the ballot system. (I also enjoy spelling "enquiry" with an "E"; he was a philosophy major so I guess he has to spell it the way David Hume did.)

But all this begs this question. He tell us that subjective views of a runningback, or even a "scientific" review based on total yards doesn't tell us much. This is of course all rather pedestrian, but he he doesn't tell us what the next step is. Is it average yards per carry? Some mixture? He doesn't say. There is no explanation of his methodology.

He does have an "academic review" section, but these fine folk don't really discuss his actual methods, and instead seem to comment only on the general idea that objective, statistics-based criteria for ballots is inherently better than the ad hoc poll/ballot system currently in use. All quite possibly true, but merely stating that is not enough. (He also has a section titled "models," which I clicked on thinking it would tell me about his algorithms or the models he used to rank players. I was wrong, but it is likely worth clicking on anyway.)

The reason this is significant is because, contrary to what he seems to think, he's not the first guy to try to evaluate players based on the statistics. Football Outsiders has been trying to do this for over a decade, and the Pro-Football Reference site is another notable site which has gone into great detail and has laid it out for the world to understand. These enquiries, along with many others, have been going on for some time, and are free from the ballot box problems he identifies.

But the other reason it is significant, in light of his apparent thought that he is the first to finally Rank All That Is Good in Football, is that we've learned a lot about how difficult it is to model and evaluate players because of the hard work and transparency of these other sites and books. It isn't easy. He claims to be able to extract the fact that Colt McCoy is better individually than Sam Bradford, or that Dez Bryant was better than Michael Crabtree; any differences in results were just based on teammates. Maybe so, but how can you be sure? And how do you apply that kind of analysis to teammates, or offensive line play, or even quarterbacks, whose job is to distribute the ball around while relying on other guys to protect, get open, make the right play, etc? It's not that it can't be done, it is silly to act like you're first, or to but acting like you're the first to have thought about these questions, or to convince journalists to write things like:

Smith says on his website: "Who are the top performers in college football?" is an inherently empirical question. In other words, any attempt to answer this question trespasses overtly on the domain of science.

Science.

There's college football's seven-letter word. It suggests computers, which suggests BCS, which will make some of you stop reading right here.

And Let The Light of Discovery Shine Down Upon Thee. The answer is that it's all a bit silly, and this majestic quest to give awards based on elegant and objective science is a commendable goal, but Mount Everest hasn't been climbed yet, and the way has been paved for some time.

But the other reason why this is so bizarre to me, is why is this so focused on post-season awards? The article linked to implies a suggestion: that Mr. Smith's (perfectly acceptable) goal is to sell his ideas to various decisionmakers who hand out the Doak Walker Award, or the Unitas Quarterback Award, Lou Groza, and the like. That's fine, but for all the arguments about how subjective the post-season awards are, it ignores the question of why they shouldn't be somewhat subjective?

What should be wholly objective is a coaching decision to start one player or another, or to recruit a guy or for an NFL team to hire one as a free agent (marketing aside). That is 100% about getting the best players on the field to perform. (Though that analysis ignores the correlations that might exist among different groups of players, an idea studied much more in depth in basketball than football.)

But with awards, why is it so bad if the Big Schools win? What are these awards? No one has ever sufficiently answered for me whether the Heisman trophy is a "most valuable player" award designed to go to the critical member of a great team without whom the team would fail, or whether it is simply the best individual player in the country, or alternatively (and this is not the same thing), the player who has put in the best performance.

The implicit premise of Smith's site is that it should go to the latter, but I'm not certain that others would agree. Why shouldn't Danny Wuerrfel win the Heisman when the Gators were rolling over people rather than Troy Davis, who was individually quite impressive with over 2,000 yards rushing? Would a supposedly "objective" result be any fairer, one that not only would be subject to the vagaries of the model (which we can't review), but also would discount Wuerrfel's leadership, or ability to get up to throw pass after pass after defender and defender slammed into him head first?

I'm not so convinced that all that is flatly irrelevant in the limited context of postseason awards. Is it a crime that we take all those "subjective" impressions into account? I think not, especially with little to no explanation of the supposedly grand "science" behind the endeavor.

Beyonce Knowles' Slim Shopping Motivation

CELEBRITY SPOTLIGHT - Beyonce Knowles buys clothes which are too small for her as a motivation to lose weight.

The singer-and-actress, who is famed for her curvy figure, admits it takes a lot of hard work for her to stay in shape so she needs to have a goal.

She said: "I buy something too small and then say, 'I have a reason.' I need to wear these jeans or this hot dress."

The 27-year-old beauty also says her dream of winning an Oscar drives her on when she is working out.
Talking about a painting in her gym which features the famous gold statue, she revealed: "I look at it, and I'm like, 'OK, I have to stay in shape.' "

Although she would like to lose a few pounds, Beyonce - who is married to hip-hop star Jay-Z - admits she wasn't happy when she shed 15lbs to play Deena Jones in 'Dreamgirls'.
She added to Self magazine: "I felt very chic, like a model. But it didn't look natural for me. I didn't feel very sexy or feminine, and I didn't have much confidence because I didn't feel like myself."

That's a good trade

The NY Times's Fifth Down Blog has swapped out KC Joyner for Advanced NFL Stats' Brian Burke, who will be guest-posting there this week. I'll take that bargain any day.

Is the NCAA infringing the rights of its current and former players?

The plot thickens: Former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon has now sued the NCAA over what he asserts is the NCAA's infringing use of his likeness in its various materials, including NCAA basketball video games. This case, unlike maybe Sam Keller's, is the real deal: Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Hausfield LLC are serious law firms, and the suit is a class-action suit, meaning that they are looking to join as many other former athletes as possible. And one twist does make this case more sympathetic, in that O'Bannon is a former player, no longer on scholarship, who continues to have his likeness used in subsequent editions of the video game through the "All-time" team features. He's not just suing about the use of his likeness when he was in college under scholarship.

Not that I'm convinced that makes any difference. The bottom line is that everyone owns their own name and likeness, and any use of that name or likeness without permission that is infringing -- particularly for commercial use -- is impermissible. Now the question is what is infringing, and the NCAA simply maintains it hasn't infringed on anyone's rights. It hasn't yet had to explain why, though frequent arguments are that the kids are already compensated with scholarships or that the likenesses in the games aren't infringing enough -- you know, that Florida QB #15 that runs like a rhino and throws 50-yard bombs could be anybody. Neither is persuasive.

The first looks just about foreclosed. Recently a federal appeals court decided that NFL Films infringed on John Facenda's distinctive voice when it used clips in advertisements for EA's Madden football. Facenda of course had that booming voice, and he had signed a contract with NFL Films. But in signing a contract didn't mean he waived all his rights for all time. Instead, as the Court said, "Facenda consented to participation in films documenting NFL games, not an advertisement for a football video game." The same might be said of the NCAA's scholarship athletes.

And the second is not how it works. You can infringe on someone's publicity rights without saying them by name; the question is basically whether the whole thing passes the smell test. For example, successful plaintiffs in publicity rights cases have included Muhammad Ali (who sued Playgirl magazine after it published a drawing of a naked guy resembling him with "The Greatest" written under it), Vanna White (an advertisement by Samsung showing a robotic blonde woman turning over a Wheel of Fortune display), George Wendt and John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff and Norm on Cheers (animatronic likenesses of Cliff and Norm were placed in airport bars). On the other hand, the unsuccessful have been Joe Montana, who sued regarding the use of his image after having won the Superbowl, as that was merely the recording of an historic fact, and baseball (again!), which sued a company that made cartoonish, spoof baseball cards. The court there ruled that the baseball cards were sufficiently a parody of the players such that a suit wasn't permissible. (No word on whether that defense would remain for players who receive absurdly low ability ratings in EA's NCAA Football.)

One irony here is that the sports leagues -- usually always on the same side -- are now put on opposing sides with the simultaneous rise of these fantasy baseball challenges. In these cases, Major League Baseball and its players union have sued proprietors of fantasy baseball leagues, arguing that a player's name followed by his historical stats constitutes an infringing of publicity rights. These suits have not fared well, but they provide a nice contrast with the NCAA's position, which is that recreating the image and likeness of current and former athletes is not infringing.

So what would happen if the courts ruled against the NCAA? I'm not sure how damages might work, but I would guess the NCAA would try to get its future players -- i.e. 17 year old kids -- to sign waivers of their publicity rights, forever. (Kind of like Facebook does for any photos you upload there.) But you also might get antitrust issues with, say, forcing all the various Universities to take on this policy, or then enforcement issues when, say, some WAC school offers its recruits the opportunity to play for them without having to sign away their publicity rights. It's an interesting mess.

Deconstructing the Virginia Tech defense

Find it all over at Dr Saturday, where I wrote another guest post. And thanks again to the Doc for the invite. I plan on putting up an expanded, more wonky version in a few days, but for now check it out.

What I'm reading

1. 2009 Coach of the Year Clinic Manual. Nothing revolutionary, but some good stuff. Chip Kelly of Oregon has a good article (which is actually available here), as does Monte Kiffin, now of Tennessee (about his famous "Tampa Two," of course). Paul Johnson of Georgia Tech has a good one too, which includes this gem:

We give teams that play that kind of front [i.e. try to read the A-back's block to give them cues on what kind of blocking scheme Georgia Tech is using to block the various defenders "assigned" to the different possible ballcarriers in the option] something a little funky. When they play the eight-man front on defense, they tie the safety and outside linebacker to the release of the playside slot. They tell the linebacker if the slot runs straight up the field, the strong safety takes the quarterback and the free safety runs for the pitch. If the slot arcs, the linebacker stays outside on the slot and the safety runs the alley for the quarterback. That is not a bad way to play and is probably smart. If we find them doing that, we automatic with a safety call. We run the slot on the inside release, but he passes the linebacker and blocks the safety. [In other words he basically fakes blocking one guy and blocks a different guy, though it is subtle and designed to defeat what the defenders were taught all week to look for as a blocking tendency.] The defense has two defenders on the quarterback and no one on the pitch. We did that a bunch against Georgia in our last regular season game.

Yup. The insight here is that it's not necessarily that Georgia didn't know the option, it's that they maybe overthought the whole thing, trying to guess and calculate what was coming when. Sometimes the answer is just to keep it simple, read and react, and play football.

2. Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays, by David Foster Wallace. The guy could write.

3. Harper's Magazine. Just got a subscription.

4. The Most Of P.G. Wodehouse (Collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories). Another guy who could flat write. Many of these stories are ridiculous but that's often where their fun lies.

5. In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic, by David Wessel (the Wall Street Journal's economics editor). It's not out yet, but looks good, and I will be reading it. I've avoided most of the new books on the economic collapse, but it appears this is the one to read (at least so far). I've also always enjoyed Wessel's work.

What makes a good running back? How do you evaluate how good a team's run game is?

The pro-football reference blog recently mentioned something I found fascinating:

What about rushing? . . . .In modern times, most RBs have a median carry length of three yards. I suspect that’s been the case for the majority of RBs for a long time. LenDale White and his 3.9 YPC last season? Median rush of 3 yards. Adrian Peterson and his 4.8 YPC? Median rush of 3 yards.

I think this has powerful implications. If most runningbacks tend to have the same median rush, then those who are more effective -- and hence have higher averages -- would be almost exclusively based on their big-play ability. (That big-play ability could still come in different forms, i.e. the guy who consistently can turn five yarders into 15 yarders, or the guy who can break every 10th or 15th rush into a 50 yarder.)

But this would imply that the powerback, or at least the powerback who is not considered so explosive, is overrated. (Earl Campbell could run you over and break off big gains.) The point is just that the premium would not be on the player's results on the average plays, but instead on the longer ones. Some of this too can be the surrounding cast. Indeed, as Homer Smith has said, a runningback who gets 130 yards on 20 carries plays in a better offense (either because of him or for whatever other reason) than a guy who gets 145 on 35 carries.

But this does all assume that average yards per carry is the most important stat. I'm not sure all would agree that it is. (In fact, I think the PFR Blog folks might not agree, as they ranked runningbacks and included their total carries and pure total yards as a key factor.) I'm not convinced that more carries means a better back or better running game, as that depends on the game situation (does the team get a lot of leads?) and also that the play-calling is optimal. I can also buy that on 3rd and 3, or third and goal, the point is to convert, not to help the average.

Yet then how else can we evaluate running backs, or even a running game more generally? A perusal of the best offenses and running games in college tends to show that the best all have high yards per carry; not too many BCS teams have averaged fewer than 4.5 yards per carry, and several have averaged well over five yards per rush attempt (including sacks, which count against the run game total in college).

So I'm opening the floor to better ideas. IF yards per attempt is the best metric (for either an individual back or a team's run game), and IF the median truly is right around 3 yards for great and average backs alike, then the difference between good and mediocre runningbacks and rushing teams would seem to be wholly in the explosiveness of the upper 50% of plays: a good team or player can rip off big gains, and turn big gains into touchdowns, while the average plays for both is about the same. (And maybe negative plays are overrated.)

But I'm interesting in everyone's thoughts on this question. How do you evaluate the running game?

Smart Links and Notes 7/27/09

1. ESPN's Bruce Feldman asks a panel "What makes a great college coach?" (Insider required.)

"He must be able to develop players. Good X's and O's can only put players in a position to succeed; they must also be taught the tools to actually do so. This requires that the coach be a great teacher of technique, drive, and desire (and if he is head coach he must be able to teach his players and his coaches those things as well), and to be a great teacher the players must also know that he cares before they will listen. Styles may differ -- compare Pete Carroll to Bear Bryant -- but the players must be willing to run through a wall for their coach."

That's my answer. Other contributors Feldman asked included former GA coach Jim Donnan, Rod Gilmore of ESPN, Jim Hofher Delaware's OC, and Phil Steele ("My No. 1 judge of a coach is how often they outperform my magazine's expectations."), among others.

2. Brophy chimes in with more on the "robber" coverage, as a jump-off from my recent bit on Va Tech's D for Dr Saturday. He includes some classic coaching tape of Virginia Tech vs. Syracuse in 1998 (McNabb was QB for the Orangemen).



3. The Blue-Gray Sky breaks down -- and is down on -- Notre Dame's use of the draw play. They do a nice job, but I'm confused why they are so down on the draw play. Michael points out that the play's average in 2008 was 4.9, which was down from a high of 5.3 yards per carry in 2005. That's true that it was down, but that's still a pretty good average for a team that averaged a paltry 3.27 yards per carry. (And if you take Jimmy Clausen's 54 "carries" for -74 yards out of the equation, ND still only averaged 3.92 YPC.)

Notre Dame's problems with the rush appear to be two-fold: one, they just need to get better at blocking up front, and maybe BGS is right that just committing to the inside zone or some other play will make them better; and second, the pass game is not as dangerous as it was, as in 2005 Brady Quinn averaged an impressive 8.7 yards per pass attempt (unadjusted). If I were them I would focus on a simpler base of run plays: four or five at the max. Anyway, check out the original post.

4. I agree with the Senator: The Tebow-gate vote scandal was anti-climactic (Spurrier: Uh, I didn't care enough to do it myself and someone else either got cute or lazy and I never looked. In fact, I never look.) As I take the Senator's point to be, do we care if coaches don't really bother with these things? I sure don't. I always figured the "Coaches poll" -- in its various forms -- basically just stood for "someone over there at the coaches office and/or athletic department of that school," and that was good enough for me. It's more of an issue of who else you'd want to ask.

5. File this in the category of strange ideas: Zach Zaremba wants Southern Cal to switch to the spread offense.

The Trojans have the athletes to run this prolific offense, so will they get behind the eight ball, or follow suit as so many teams have already done and install the offense of the 21st century?

Powerhouses such as Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Florida and West Virginia have made the switch. When will the mighty Trojans?

Uh. There's more there, but the argument seems to be that USC isn't scoring as many points as, say, Oklahoma or Florida, and they haven't won a National Title in four years. But that doesn't make much sense: USC lost to Oregon State last year, in a single defensive breakdown, and Stanford the year before, in just a fluke game (many spread offenses have had similar breakdown games). Relatedly, this really can't be an issue of being wide open enough, as USC throws the ball plenty and does -- contrary to what the article says -- use four and five receiver sets (though not with the frequency of a team like Florida).

The other reason of course that USC hasn't won a title game over the last four seasons (aside from facing Vince Young), is that the Pac-10 has let USC down: Florida, which won two of the last three titles, had a loss each season, and LSU lost two games. It's a strength of schedule thing.

Anyway I'm getting off topic. The article is weird, and based on an equally weird premise: "The spread offense is the most popular offense in football today." That, to me, is a good reason not to run the spread. Look, the issue with pro-style offenses versus spread offenses is that spread offenses, where the quarterback is a dynamic runner, can get an arithmetic advantage. But that doesn't make dropback passing obsolete; if your guy is Peyton Manning or Tom Brady -- or the college equivalent, like Leinert or Carson Palmer were -- then you are more than dynamic enough. It's not easy to find guys with that kind of passing ability, but USC definitely can.

Responses to responses about David and Goliath Strategies

Tomahawk Nation responds to my earlier post on David & Goliath Strategies. See parts one and two of TN's responses. (See also my post on conservative and risky strategies and kurtosis.) Both pieces are well worth the read (I am a supporter of anything that combines football and six sigma). But a couple basic thoughts:

First, I completely agree with the idea of reducing variation, particularly negative variation. That really is the genius of Bill Walsh's passing game: what he brought to the game was a reduction of risk related to passing. Passing had been the quintessential "underdog" or David strategy; he reduced risk so much it arguably stopped being a David strategy and became a dominant one.

But I'm not sure if I agree with this:

Think of UF. To me, the Urban Meyer offense at Utah is a prime example of a David strategy. As he moved to Florida, he helped a Goliath school with Goliath resources begin to think like a David. People said that his offense would never work in the SEC, the QB would get killed, defenses were too fast, etc. But Meyer knew that his approach took advantage of a weakness in defenses, and if executed properly wouldn't be nearly as risky as people thought. Think back to the Ole Miss game from 2 years ago (the game that might have won Tim Tebow the Heisman). When the basic structures of the Meyer offense failed to work against the Ole Miss defense (Goliath being unable to hit David with his sling), and Ole Miss still allowed UF to stay in the game (Goliath managing to fight to a draw with David in a slingshot battle), UF was able to run Tim Tebow left/Tim Tebow right to win the game (Goliath is able to fall back on his superior size and strength combination to win the battle). . . .

...Gladwell highlighted the press in basketball as an example of a David strategy. Why is this a David strategy? Because Goliath doesn't focus on beating the press as much as David focuses on executing it. Because it takes Goliath out of his comfort zone. And honestly, because frequently the top point guards in the country have a certain level of confidence/cockiness in themselves that makes them want to beat the press by themselves and not rely on their teammates. The goal of the press is also to force the ball into someone's hands who is not used to handling the ball-- an inefficiency in Goliath's approach. This is how a team can use the David strategy to capitalize on an advantage. It's a risk, but if executed correctly it's not just a risk for the sake of being risky.

But is that really a David, or underdog strategy? Or is it a dominant strategy? I.e. better no matter who you are? One of the reasons I wrote my post was that I thought Gladwell confuses this point too, and I also concede at the end of the post that one conceptual difficulty is that some strategies are better for favorites (Goliaths conservative, low variance strategies), some solely for underdogs (risky David strategies), but some strategies are simply better no matter who you are (dominant), or inferior (punting on first down).

The things Tomahawk Nation is focusing on are, to me at least, dominant: better matchups, an unusual strategy the favorite is not ready for, etc. Admittedly, Gladwell confuses these two concepts -- or at least doesn't tease them out -- but I do think it's important.

To better illustrate what I mean, Advanced NFL stats showed that David strategies are often beneficial for underdogs even when they are basically inferior overall. In other words, even if a strategy would result in fewer expected points, it still would benefit the underdog because it still could get lucky. As ANFL explains:

Here’s why underdogs should play aggressive and risky gameplans. Take an example where one team is a 7-point favorite over its underdog opponent. Say the favorite would average 24 points and the underdog would average 17 points. With a SD of 10 points for each team, the underdog upsets the favorite 31.5% of the time. The favorite’s scoring distribution is blue and the underdog’s is red.



But if the underdog plays a more aggressive high-variance strategy, increasing its SD to 15 points, it would upset the favorite 35.3% of the time.



Note that I haven’t increased the underdog’s average score in any way, just its variance. The increase in its chance of winning results due to more of its probability mass moving to the right of the favorite’s mean score of 24. In fact, the higher the variance, the wider the probability mass will be spread. Consequently, more mass will be to right side of the favorite’s average score. But more mass will also be to the left, meaning there is a higher risk of an embarrassing blowout.

Even if employing a high-variance strategy is non-optimum, it can still help an underdog. In other words, even if an aggressive gameplan results in an overall reduction in average points scored, it often still results in a better chance of winning.

Yet would there be any reason for a Goliath to use this strategy? No, not at all. All it would be doing is inviting variance that would result in a few more upsets, and in fact might make the team worse (though could give the illusion of success because, again, of its high variance, resulting in a few high-scoring output games).

This is the biggest problem with the example TN uses:

Goliath University believes in the old Big Ten philosophy, 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Let's say they've even perfected their approach to the point that they can get exactly 3.3333 yards every time without ever turning the ball over. There is no risk involved and they know exactly what they are going to get with every play. Per play, they expect to get around .23 points. In true Goliath fashion, however, they run a quick, no-huddle offense in order to maximize the number of trials on the field. Over the course of the game this translates (assuming about 100 plays per game) to about 23 points and let's say a little over 30 minutes T.O.P. They'd win most of their games, but they'd lose any game where their defense gave up 24 or more due to random variation in the amount of time their opponent held the ball.

Goliath State University instead takes a more wide open approach, similar to Tulsa's offense. They throw the ball a lot more often, and go downfield more frequently as well. There is a lot more uncertainty associated with this approach, as there are many possible outcomes to their plays. However, through the strength of their preparation, they have a 50% chance of completing any given pass. Each of their 5 options (4 receivers and a QB run) has a 10% chance of success.

* If the QB runs, there is a 70% chance he will gain 4 yards, a 25% chance he will gain 14, and a 5% chance he scores
* Receiver A is running our deep fly, and there is a 50% chance he gets a 40 yard completion and a 50% chance he scores
* Receiver B is running the post, and there is a 80% chance he will get a 14 yard completion and a 20% chance he scores
* Receiver C is running the out, there is a 95% chance he gets 7 yards and a 5% chance he scores
* Receiver D is running the drag, there is a 95% chance he gets 4 yards and a 5% chance he scores

The expected point value of this play is:

.5*.1*((.7*.23+.25*1+.05*7)+(.5*3+.5*7)+(.8*1+.2*7)+(.95*.5+.05*7)+(.95*.23+.05*7)) = .468 expected points per play

Again, this is simply a better strategy, which is different than being a David strategy. Risk does not automatically equal David, and very conservative does not equal Goliath. Sometimes there is still better or worse.

To be fair, there is some indication in the TN pieces that this comes through. It repeatedly discusses the need to reduce the riskiness of these strategies "through film study, personnel decisions, and practice." Again though, I would argue that (a) these extra resources are themselves often a Goliath strategy (this becomes evident at high school for sure, but also in college with big differentials in resources, film equipment, practice materials, etc), and (b) practice and preparation is the quintessential dominant strategy -- it neither favors the underdog nor favorite, it's just a good idea!

The upshot is that these are two very good pieces, and well worth the read. I just want to emphasize my earlier point that I am using David and Goliath strategies in a very specific way, and one that differs slightly from Gladwell (it may not even be correct, it's just how I am using it). A true "David strategy" is one that, by definition, would not be good for a Goliath, because it is riskier. I used the example of extra fake punts, onside kicks, going for it on fourth, trick plays, etc. Relatedly, some Goliath strategies are low variance but that doesn't mean they have to be literally three-yards and a cloud of dust.

But the important point that TN clearly does get is that, Goliaths may nevertheless act suboptimally, and it is the underdogs and Davids that might discover the better, dominant strategies. The dominant ones will be adopted by those Goliaths (think of the spread of the spread, with its ability to push boundaries while keeping risk low), and others, though derided mightily as "gimmicks," simply might be appropriate for an underdog. It's not always easy to tell the difference, but this is an idea definitely worth continued exploration.

The business and life of football

College football is big business. The highest earning school, the University of Texas, pulled in over $120,000,000 dollars last year (in all sports). Ohio State and Florida finished close behind, with over $117,000,000 and $106,000,000, respectively. This money, of course, drives the product on the field: more money means more resources to recruit good players, and more money to pay (presumably) good coaches. For example, the list of the top earning schools contains few surprises: the SEC has eight teams in the top 25, while the Big 10 and Big 12 both have six. The Pac-10 has but three, and the ACC has only one (Duke, obviously for basketball), and the Big East has none. Notre Dame is the lone outlier (and it is hardly an outlier considering it has its own TV contract).

This influx of money is directly related to how much the coaches get paid. Look at this list of the highest paid college football coaches (slightly out of date, for example still lists Tommy Tuberville, Mike Belotti, and Phil Fulmer):



So which conference has the most economic weight? It appears that the victory for now goes to the SEC:

According to figures presented by [Clay] Travis, SEC total football revenue for the 2005 season hit just in excess of $350 million. Those funds are largely a result of ticket sales and officially licensed merchandise. To put the SEC’s earnings into context, its total revenue was $73 million more than brought in by the Big 10 Conference, which includes schools in the midwest and stretching into the northeast.

And the rich is only going to get richer: the SEC has of course signed a mega-TV deal will only expand its monetary base and brand exposure.

Chicken or the egg, money or culture

The SEC has, I am fairly convinced, the "best" football in the country. Now, "best" is a loaded term. I use it here to refer to the most heated competition among the best assortment of players and the best coaches, in the aggregate. Pete Carroll at USC probably runs the best program in the country, and his program also year-in and year-out has the best players of any one program. The Big 10 and Big 12 both have outstanding coaches and schools, and quite often matches the SEC in terms of draft picks (I also do not buy the "speed in the south" myth). Indeed, the best championship game of this decade took place between a Big 12 school (Texas) and a Pac-10 one (USC). But, week in and week out, the SEC puts out the best consistent product.

One of the theories for why this might be -- and it is very difficult to argue that the SEC does not have excellent coaches and players -- is that "the south is just different," and that there's a "culture of football." I do buy this -- I'm from the southern states -- but that alone cannot explain things. As the Gainesville
Times reported:

It’s a scene that plays out regularly in the fall. Masses clad in team colors descend on college campuses to join in the ritual of cheering on their favorite school in a mass of excess that includes tailgate parties, lavish recreational vehicles and oversized flags with the school crest flying as far as the eye can see.

"There’s just something majestic about it, said Gainesville native and Ole Miss graduate Tharpe Ward. "I grew up on college football and I just love the sport, tailgating, and everything that goes with it."

The reasons most fans give for throwing themselves into college football revolve around the fact that its an escape from day-to-day pressures of the real world, while getting to act like a 21-year-old again at the place where they once studied.

Fans spend big money to get all the necessities for the optimum game day experience: grills, satellite dishes, generators, big screen televisions and all the home decor to bring the best memories of the school’s football past within arms reach in the form or pictures and paintings. Time is prioritized with football at the top of the list. Weddings, birthday parties and vacations come secondary to making it on campus for the big games.

That is all true, and I will have more to say on that in a moment, but the spirit and culture cannot explain it all. Indeed, Michigan, Ohio State, and Texas arguably have better football "cultures" than any individual sports program in the south.

In this limited context, therefore, I am a materialist: the SEC has better football simply because it has more money, and it has shared that money among its different members (all SEC teams get a slice of everyone's bowl game money). Indeed for years Kentucky took slices of Florida's, Georgia's, and Alabama's bowl money, while it fed some of that back into the pot come basketball season. It still strikes me as wild that South Carolina can finish in the top 10 of all sports revenue earners, ahead of every single Big East School and every ACC school except Duke.

The one troubling wrinkle to me is that, yes, you get money by being able to have legions of fans who will pay for tickets 80,000+ stadiums, along with everything else. And yet, the south -- and the midwest for the Big 10, and southwest for the Big 12 -- which are unequivocally the most football mad areas of the country, also happen to be among its least educated and poorest. I don't know why this is. I mean, I suppose a proper metric would just be to evaluate percentage of recreational or entertainment expenses as a proportion of total income or total expenses, and then just see if the southern, midwestern, and southwestern states spend their money on football while people on the coasts or elsewhere spend it on other entertainments that could, roughly at least, be substituted for one another.

It just is strange the consider the hoopla surrounding the recent SEC media day in light of the fact that the south is being hit worse than any other area (sans some of the most overpriced real estate markets, i.e. New York, San Francisco, etc). And the fact that the SEC brings in more money than any other conference despite servicing the poorest (relatively) area of the country. (I am well aware that many who spend this money are displaced southerners who live elsewhere; I am one of them.)

I don't have a firm answer. Maybe it is just cultural. I do stand by the statement that the SEC is simply the best in the aggregate and over time because it has the most money to spend on its resources and coaches. But football, like most sports, does occupy a strange spot in our culture.

But, if football merely occupies a vacuum that could have been occupied by something else, then lucky for these regions that it is football and not something else. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in euologizing his friend, Ring Lardner, a baseball writer, lamented that baseball was but “a boy’s game, with no more possibilities in it than a boy could master.” In Fitzgerald's view, that limited Lardner's potential as a writer. Fortunately, in football, by contrast, the possibilities, narratives, complexities, and legends are boundless -- and it enriches us as we, maybe so, enrich the business of it.

Blitz-master Jim Johnson dies

Jim Johnson, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator extraordinaire, has passed away due to cancer. Johnson coached some great defenses, and of course his legacy will be carried on by guys like Steve Spagnuolo who learned under him.

Johnson was a 4-3 guy, and while his protégés took many lessons from him, he will be remember for his aggressive, blitzing defenses. Spagnuolo is more of a zone-blitz guy, but Johnson was always willing to play man defense and blitz safeties and linebackers from anywhere. Indeed, as I've mentioned before, Johnson essentially put the first nail in Steve Spurrier's coffin when his Eagles defense blitzed Spurrier's Redskins -- fresh off a thirty-point game in their opener -- into utter oblivion. From then on, every coach in the league had that tape to put in. Johnson figured out exactly what protections Spurrier was using, and dialed up the right blitzes. But Spurrier was hardly alone in being schooled by Johnson.

He will be missed.



UPDATE: Brophy passes along some great game film (below), and Rock M Nation tips me off to this.

Smart Notes and Links 7/28/09

1. Brett Favre is not happy about this and will unretire to prove it. A commemorative decoration (ht Maize 'n Brew, via sconnie.com):



2. How science can save you from choking. This new bit from Jonah Lehrer is a nice complement to my earlier post on football decision making and the brain.

Kenny Perry could taste history. He had a two-shot lead with two holes to go at the 2009 Masters - all he had to do was not make any big mistakes and he would become, at 48, the oldest Masters champion in history. For three days at Augusta, he had played the best golf of his life: on the first 70 holes, he made only four bogeys. But then, at the 71st hole, everything started to fall apart. . . .

We call such failures "choking", if only because a person frayed by pressure might as well not have oxygen. What makes choking so morbidly fascinating is that the performers are incapacitated by their own thoughts. Perry, for example, was so worried about not making a mistake on the 17th that he played a disastrous chip. His mind sabotaged itself.

Scientists have begun to uncover the causes of choking, diagnosing the particular mental differences that allow some people to succeed while others wither in the spotlight. Although it might seem like an amorphous category of failure, their work has revealed that choking is triggered by a specific mental mistake: thinking too much.

The sequence of events typically goes like this: when people get nervous about performing, they become self-conscious. They start to fixate on themselves, trying to make sure that they don't make any mistakes. This can be lethal for a performer. The bowler concentrates too much on his action and loses control of the ball. The footballer misses the penalty by a mile. In each instance, the natural fluidity of performance is lost; the grace of talent disappears.

Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has helped illuminate the anatomy of choking. She uses golf as her experimental paradigm. When people are learning how to putt, it can seem daunting. There are just so many things to think about. Golfers need to assess the lay of the green, calculate the line of the ball, and get a feel for the grain of the turf. Then they have to monitor their putting motion and make sure that they hit the ball with a smooth, straight stroke. For an inexperienced player, a golf putt can seem unbearably hard, like a life-sized trigonometry problem.

But the mental exertion pays off, at least at first. Beilock has shown that novices hit better putts when they consciously reflect on their actions. The more time they spend thinking about the putt, the more likely they are to hole the ball. By concentrating on their game, by paying attention to the mechanics of their stroke, they can avoid beginner's mistakes.

A little experience, however, changes everything.

3. "SEC offers great drama, even football." The Big 10 media day, however, does not live up to its frat-guy, party school reputation. (And this gets a link solely because of the Dr. Octagon reference.)

4. Can NCAA athletes be denied access to agents? I don't have a ready answer to this question, though read up about it here. (Ht Dr Saturday.)

5. Monte Kiffin would like to remind you again that he will outwork you. You know, just in case you forgot.

6. An inviting summary:

With the ESPN cameras gone and prize money drying up, the glory years of the Lumberjack world championships appear to be long over.

7. Back when I wrote this, I got a fair bit of heat and disagreement:

Hello! Plaxico Burress is going to jail. . . . [T]he NFL community -- and not just fans -- seem rather blind to the reality that Plaxico faces gun charges with a mandatory minimum sentence and the prosecutors do not appear interested in granting him grace, and so he is going to serve some real jail time. Who he signs with is rather beside the point.

Well, it appears to finally be sinking in. The NY Times reports:

Manhattan's district attorney says he wants former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress to serve time in prison, the New York Post reported. Robert Morgenthau told the newspaper that Burress, who shot himself with an unlicensed gun in November, was willing to agree to spend a year in jail, but prosecutors insisted on two.

''We've always taken the position that he's going to have to go to jail, whether by trial or by plea,'' Morgenthau told the Post for a story in Monday's edition.

Again, remember that this gun possession charge Burress was hit with has a two-years mandatory minimum. Sure, he can plead for less, but this doesn't seem a particularly difficult charge to prove: he brought the gun into the club and shot himself. That makes this next bit a bit strange to me.

Brafman [Plaxico's lawyer] had previously said he no longer thought the matter would be resolved through a plea agreement and that prosecutors would take the case to a grand jury. He also said Burress would plead not guilty if the case went to trial.

Again, not sure what a not guilty plea would get Plax.

Weekend reading

1. Gus Malzahn's book on The Hurry-Up, No-Huddle: An Offensive Philosophy. I've described Malzahn's theory before, and the basic principles are laid out in this book. Basically, for Malzahn, "no-huddle" means "ludicrous speed" and he proceeds accordingly. The book is light on Xs and Os but that's really a virtue; he wants to sell you on the no-huddle as it can be applied to other offenses, and in any event his Xs and Os are pretty straightforward. He wrote this when he was still a high school coach.

2. How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. I didn't really think I'd enjoy this as much as I have. Tons of great anecdotes, though the science is better than Malcolm Gladwell (though both share The New Yorker style, which makes sense since both write frequently for the magazine). Neuroscience and behavioral economics have been much on my mind recently (no pun intended), and I intend to elaborate further on how I think their insights relate to football and my general disposition towards more rationality is better. I remain unconvinced that the non-quantitative, non-analytical approach to scouting, evaluating players, and decisionmaking in football in general is appropriate.

But football is the best of all sports for a reason: each play gives every coach and player the opportunity for a few brief moments to gather their thoughts and plan, but the ultimate results are all decided in the heat of the moment -- the quarterback cannot explain exactly why a player was open, but he doesn't have to. He turns, sees the receiver, and if it feels right, he throws it. He might not have time to break all that down analytically -- any more than the middle linebacker has time to explain why he thought the draw was a draw and not a pass play -- but the brain is sophisticated enough to give him the cues. Dopamine and all that good stuff. That said, our brain makes a lot of systematic errors, typically in the form of relying on certain heuristics, but they can often be overcome. Anyway, more on this later.

3. John Rawls's religion?

4. What makes us happy?

5. I got my copy of the The New Yorker summer fiction issue. Also check out this article whether creative writing should [can?] be taught.

6. Not reading, but a good place to waste several hours: lectures from the world's top scholars.

7. I haven't actually read it yet, but I keep seeing reviews for this book everywhere. (I have probably reached the tipping point of reviews; once you've read three or four of them in full it's hard to justify reading the stupid book, no matter how good it might be.) Anyway, quote:

This book grows out of an attempt to understand the greater sense of agency and competence I have always felt doing manual work, compared to other jobs that were officially recognized as "knowledge work." Perhaps most surprisingly, I often find manual work more engaging intellectually. This book is an attempt to understand why this should be so.

The book is Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford, a guy with a Ph.d. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago who runs a motorcycle repair shop (and writes books, obviously). (Ht Marginal Revolution.)

Smart Links - July 23, 2009

1. What am I missing? Everyone is obsessed with finding out who didn't vote for Tebow as first-team all-SEC. It's also a rule that you can't vote for your own guy. Then why isn't the answer that Urban Meyer voted for Jevan Snead? I mean he lost to him and is apparently barred from voting for his own guy. (I also don't know how the not-voting-for-your-own guy rule is compatible with having unanimous selections. If you think your guy is the best, do you just leave the spot blank rather than fill in someone else there?) Again, I must be missing something pretty fundamental here. [UPDATE: As several readers pointed out, "unanimous" equals everyone but your own coach, and Spurrier has admitted that he was the one who didn't. (Though he blames an assistant.)]

2. College Football Playoff Act of 2009, H.R. 390. University of Illinois law professor Christine Hurt (an alumna of Texas Tech and U. of Texas), writing on the legal blog the Conglomerate. Her post, reprinted in full:

In reading all the legislation during the 110th and 111th Congress that contain the word "windfall," (everybody needs a hobby) this definitely wins in the surprise category.

The College Football Playoff Act of 2009 was introduced by Joe Barton (TX), and it has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Now, before you start to wonder where Congress gets the power to redesign NCAA football, note how the legislation works. "A bill to prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I Football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system."

Hmmm. Next we have the MLB change the name of the World Series unless they actually invite other countries to participate.

So, where does windfall fit in here? In the findings, of course:

Congress finds that. . . the colleges and universities whose teams participate in the post-season football bowls experience significant financial windfall including increased applications for enrollment, recruiting advantages, increased alumni donations, and increased corporate sponsorship that provides s competitive advantage over universities whose teams are ineligible or statistically at a disadvantage from the BCS bowl competitions because of their conference affiliation.

Well, I'll let you quibble with this silliness, but this legislation, even if it passed (which it won't), wouldn't make the NCAA create a playoff. The BCS championship bowl would just have a different name. And it doesn't matter because Texas Tech isn't ever going to make it to the bowl no matter what the name is. You could call it "Bob" or even the "Texas Tech Red Raider Champions of the World Bowl," and Texas Tech would still never make it all the way. OK, that was an aside.

3. SEC media day. Just follow @edsbs on twitter. Thank me later.

4. ESPN will now let its reporters talk about the Ben Roethlisberger case.

5. Michael Vick, underrated? Brian Burke on the NY Times Fifth Down Blog.

6. The Senator asks: How far can the spread, spread? Good stuff, well worth it.

7. More from the NY Times on the O'Bannon vs. NCAA infringment case:

O’Bannon left U.C.L.A. in 1995. Does the N.C.A.A. have the right to continue to make money off O’Bannon and his teammates without compensation?

“Is that part of what an athlete’s grant-in-aid is about?” asked Richard M. Southall, the director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina. “You’ve left the plantation and now 15 years later you have a wife and children and the plantation still owns you, no matter what.”

College merchandise licensing is a $4-billion-a-year industry, and the N.C.A.A. has cornered the market. An N.C.A.A. business partner, Thought Equity Motion, has called the N.C.A.A.’s video content archive “one of the most unique and valuable content collections in the world.” . . .

The N.C.A.A. has had a sweetheart deal for years — using players’ likenesses, selling jerseys with popular players’ numbers and using athletes as uncompensated on-campus entertainment. Of course, athletes and their parents have had their own sweetheart deal, choosing colleges for sports and not for an academic fit.

There is not a lot of sympathy these days for athletes’ woes — at any level. The perception is that scholarship athletes and their families receive a pretty good deal. Yes, the hours are long and daily practices make this a rigorous part-time job.

“The general thinking among the public is that, ‘It could be a heck of a lot worse — you should be just be thankful for what the school has given you,’ ” Southall said. If that means eternal rights to your image, then so be it.

And the public does not care.

Just wait. Come September, college football stadiums from Harvard to Southern California will be filled with fans. Fans do not worry about steroids or licensing issues; they just want to be entertained.

O’Bannon’s case and the others raise an old but still unanswered question: Who protects the college athlete? In the N.F.L., a players association protects players against owners. In major league baseball and the N.B.A., unions look after the players’ interests.

Not so in college.

The N.C.A.A. describes itself as “the organization through which colleges and universities of the nation speak on athletics at the national level.” The N.C.A.A. tries to act as mother, father and paternalistic overseer who supposedly knows what’s best for the young athlete.

But don’t count on it.

Every year, beginning in their freshman season, scholarship athletes are compelled to sign mountains of forms.

How many athletes or parents or guardians read the forms? How many challenge the athletic department? College administrators and coaches pay lip service to “educating the kids,” but how many insist that their new recruits know exactly what they are signing?

More to the point, how many recruits — and parents of recruits — have the nerve to tell Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski or Tennessee’s Pat Summit that, based on a lawyer’s advice, they are not signing anything granting a release of their image.

All involved usually are too filled with gratitude and ego to consider reading between the lines.

“Until someone says something, stuff can go on,” Southall said. “Nobody wants to be the athlete who’s blackballed. Nobody wants to be the test case that’s thrown out.”

Ed O’Bannon wishes he had raised the question and resisted 15 years ago. Perhaps as a result of his suit, future athletes won’t have to.

Again, I think even if the NCAA loses they will just get the players to sign a waiver of their rights as a condition of getting the scholarship.