North Carolina Football Program Accused of NCAA Violations

The NCAA accused the University of North Carolina football program of violating NCAA rules. This seems to be the common theme this summer, so let's take a look at UNC's football program over the last three years - in terms of their offense, defense and total productivity.

On the defensive side of the ball, North Carolina is a very good team. Their defensive rankings out of the 120 FBS teams are 40th in 2008, 10th in 2009 and 23rd in 2010, even with the number of suspensions that occurred on their team. North Carolina's problem is on offense. None of the three years did North Carolina finish in the top half of the rankings on offense. In 2008 the offense was 65th, 2009 they fell to 84th and bounced back in 2010 to be 64th overall. Hence, while North Carolina is an excellent defensive team - to be expected under Butch Davis, their overall performance suffers from the other side. To be clear, UNC finished - in my production model - as the 54th best team in 2008, 33rd best team in 2009 and 43rd best team in 2010.

NHL 2010-2011 Regular Season Goalie Evaluation

At the NHL All-Star Break I posted on the evaluation of NHL goalies, along with a brief discussion as to how I am evaluating NHL goalies based on a paper David Berri and I published in 2010. So, now I have picked up the evaluation process again and done the regular season final analysis. In order to compare the NHL All-Star numbers with the final regular season numbers, I am using the same coefficient (in absolute value) of a goal against. The number is most likely different and this will tweak the WAA number, but the ranking of goalies will all remain the same, since I am multiplying each goalie's actual save percentage minus the average save percentage times the number of shots the goalie faced by the exact same number. Thus if the coefficient changes, this will not change the relative rank in terms of our measure of productivity, but does change their total number. Hence changing the coefficient just shifts up/down all the WAA's by the same amount.

So, with this caveat out of the way, we see that the best goalie in the NHL's regular season last year was Tim Thomas. In fact, Tim Thomas's performance last year ranks him as 8th best in regular season performance since 1997-1998 (the earliest the data is posted on nhl.com).

Here is the entire list for you to look over.

PLAYER	TEAM	WAA
Tim Thomas	BOS	5.038
Pekka Rinne	NSH	3.611
Roberto Luongo	VAN	2.935
Cam Ward	CAR	2.661
Carey Price	MTL	2.406
Henrik Lundqvist	NYR	2.202
Ilya Bryzgalov	PHX	1.910
Jonas Hiller	ANA	1.838
Tomas Vokoun	FLA	1.770
Antti Niemi	SJS	1.372
Cory Schneider	VAN	1.274
James Reimer	TOR	1.019
Marc-Andre Fleury	PIT	0.987
Semyon Varlamov	WSH	0.934
Jonathan Quick	LAK	0.924
Braden Holtby	WSH	0.776
Corey Crawford	CHI	0.704
Ryan Miller	BUF	0.678
Brent Johnson	PIT	0.610
Niklas Backstrom	MIN	0.540
Al Montoya	NYI	0.526
Tuukka Rask	BOS	0.491
Martin Biron	NYR	0.477
Martin Gerber	EDM	0.475
Ray Emery	ANA	0.395
Cedrick Desjardins	TBL	0.385
Devan Dubnyk	EDM	0.381
Sergei Bobrovsky	PHI	0.358
Jose Theodore	MIN	0.332
Kevin Poulin	NYI	0.323
Brian Boucher	PHI	0.311
Anton Khudobin	MIN	0.277
Kari Lehtonen	DAL	0.252
Ondrej Pavelec	ATL	0.211
Dwayne Roloson	NYI, TBL	0.197
Joey MacDonald	DET	0.170
Michal Neuvirth	WSH	0.159
Anders Lindback	NSH	0.135
Alex Stalock	SJS	0.087
Alex Auld	MTL	0.047
Matt Climie	PHX	0.045
Richard Bachman	DAL	0.039
Craig Anderson	COL, OTT	0.020
Jonathan Bernier	LAK	0.008
Johan Hedberg	NJD	-0.076
Jacob Markstrom	FLA	-0.087
Mark Dekanich	NSH	-0.091
Michael Leighton	PHI	-0.095
David LeNeveu	CBJ	-0.106
Chad Johnson	NYR	-0.116
Mike McKenna	NJD	-0.123
Andrew Raycroft	DAL	-0.142
Scott Clemmensen	FLA	-0.174
Peter Mannino	ATL	-0.207
Henrik Karlsson	CGY	-0.212
Henrik Karlsson	CGY	-0.212
Jason LaBarbera	PHX	-0.228
Jhonas Enroth	BUF	-0.246
Thomas McCollum	DET	-0.255
Ben Bishop	STL	-0.258
Chris Osgood	DET	-0.326
Mike Brodeur	OTT	-0.372
Patrick Lalime	BUF	-0.413
Timo Pielmeier	ANA	-0.438
Jaroslav Halak	STL	-0.485
Robin Lehner	OTT	-0.491
Mikko Koskinen	NYI	-0.521
Nathan Lawson	NYI	-0.535
Mike Smith	TBL	-0.886
Jimmy Howard	DET	-0.990
Jean-Sebastien Giguere	TOR	-1.109
Antero Niittymaki	SJS	-1.150
Mathieu Garon	CBJ	-1.168
Curtis McElhinney	ANA, OTT	-1.268
Marty Turco	CHI	-1.406
Martin Brodeur	NJD	-1.437
Justin Peters	CAR	-1.439
Miikka Kiprusoff	CGY	-1.475
Jonas Gustavsson	TOR	-1.571
Dan Ellis	TBL, ANA	-1.795
Steve Mason	CBJ	-2.028
Chris Mason	ATL	-2.040
Ty Conklin	STL	-2.055
Rick DiPietro	NYI	-2.302
Peter Budaj	COL	-2.444
Brian Elliott	OTT, COL	-3.416
Nikolai Khabibulin	EDM	-3.521

Nevada Football Head Coach Contract Extension

The University of Nevada'a head football coach Chris Auld received a two year contract extension. So exactly how has the Wolfpack performed on the field over the last three years? On the offensive side of the ball - outstanding! In 2008 Nevada finished as the 14th best offense among the 120 NCAA FBS teams. Not to be outdone, Nevada in 2009 was the 4th best offense and then slipped just a tiny bit to finish as the 6th best offense in 2010. In other words, there are very few teams that had as good an offense as Nevada's in any of those three years, let alone have performed that well all three years. Not enough is said about the performance of Nevada on the offensive side of the ball.

Defense, well they are getting better. Then again Nevada finished as the 101st best defense (or 20th worst defense) in 2008. Nevada slightly improved to 94th best in 2009 and then really made a jump to 38th in 2010. The 2010 performance on the defense side of the ball put them in the top third of all FBS teams.

In terms of overall performance, Nevada was the 35th best team in 2008, 28th best in 2009 and jumped to 10th best team overall in 2010. This is truly a team on the rise (not that they have much farther to go with there 2010 performance).

2011-2012 NCAA FBS Bowl Schedule

ESPN has posted the 2011-12 bowl schedule. Last year the NCAA FBS production model went 24-11 for the bowl season. I plan to continue working on the production model and see if I can make it more accurate. Over the next few months I hope to have some time to look this over some more. I have been working on this model lately for a paper I am presenting at the end of the month. I am using three years of data, as opposed to only the current season, as I did for the model results presented in this blog.

Oh, here is the schedule in case the link goes dead.

Bowl	Location	Date/Time	Network
New Mexico MWC vs. Pac-12	Albuquerque, N.M. University Stadium	Dec. 17 2 p.m.	ESPN
uDrove Humanitarian MAC vs. WAC	Boise, Idaho Bronco Stadium	Dec. 17 5:30 p.m.	ESPN
R+L Carriers New Orleans C-USA vs. Sun Belt	New Orleans Louisiana Superdome	Dec. 17 9 p.m.	ESPN
Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg Big East vs. C-USA	St. Petersburg, Fla. Tropicana Field	Dec. 20 8 p.m.	ESPN
S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia MWC vs. WAC	San Diego Qualcomm Stadium	Dec. 21 8 p.m.	ESPN
MAACO Las Vegas MWC vs. Pac-12	Las Vegas Sam Boyd Stadium	Dec. 22 8 p.m.	ESPN
Sheraton Hawaii C-USA vs. WAC	Honolulu Aloha Stadium	Dec. 24 8 p.m.	ESPN
AdvoCare V100 Independence ACC vs. MWC	Shreveport, La. Independence Stadium	Dec. 26 5 p.m.	ESPN2
Little Caesars Big Ten vs. MAC	Detroit Ford Field	Dec. 27 4:30 p.m.	ESPN
Belk ACC vs. Big East	Charlotte, N.C. Bank of America Stadium	Dec. 27 8 p.m.	ESPN
Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman ACC vs. Navy	Washington, D.C. RFK Stadium	Dec. 28 4:30 p.m.	ESPN
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Big 12 vs. Pac-12	San Diego Qualcomm Stadium	Dec. 28 8 p.m.	ESPN
Champs Sports ACC vs. Big East	Orlando, Fla. Florida Citrus Bowl	Dec. 29 5:30 p.m.	ESPN
Valero Alamo Big 12 vs. Pac-12	San Antonio Alamodome	Dec. 29 9 p.m.	ESPN
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces BYU vs. C-USA	Dallas Gerald J. Ford Stadium	Dec. 30 Noon	ESPN
New Era Pinstripe Big 12 vs. Big East	Bronx, N.Y. Yankee Stadium	Dec. 30 3:20 p.m.	ESPN
Franklin American Mortgage Music City ACC vs. SEC	Nashville, Tenn. LP Field	Dec. 30 6:40 p.m.	ESPN
Insight Big Ten vs. Big 12	Tempe, Ariz. Sun Devil Stadium	Dec. 30 10 p.m.	ESPN
Meineke Car Care of Texas Big Ten vs. Big 12	Houston Reliant Stadium	Dec. 31 Noon	ESPN
Hyundai Sun ACC vs. Pac-12	El Paso, Texas Sun Bowl	Dec. 31 2 p.m.	CBS
AutoZone Liberty C-USA vs. SEC	Memphis, Tenn. Liberty Bowl	Dec. 31 3:30 p.m.	ABC
Kraft Fight Hunger Army vs. Pac-12	San Francisco AT&T Park	Dec. 31 3:30 p.m.	ESPN
Chick-fil-A ACC vs. SEC	Atlanta Georgia Dome	Dec. 31 7:30 p.m.	ESPN
TicketCity Big Ten vs. C-USA	Dallas Cotton Bowl	Jan. 2 Noon	ESPNU
Outback Big Ten vs. SEC	Tampa, Fla. Raymond James Stadium	Jan. 2 1 p.m.	ABC
Capital One Big Ten vs. SEC	Orlando, Fla. Florida Citrus Bowl	Jan. 2 1 p.m.	ESPN
Gator Bowl Big Ten vs. SEC	Jacksonville, Fla. EverBank Field	Jan. 2 1 p.m.	ESPN2
Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio BCS vs. BCS	Pasadena, Calif. Rose Bowl	Jan. 2 5 p.m.	ESPN
Allstate Sugar BCS vs. BCS	New Orleans Louisiana Superdome	Jan. 3 8:30 p.m.	ESPN <="" td="">
Discover Orange BCS vs. BCS	Miami Sun Life Stadium	Jan. 4 8:30 p.m.	ESPN
Tostitos Fiesta BCS vs. BCS	Glendale, Ariz. U. of Phoenix Stadium	Jan. 5 8:30 p.m.	ESPN
AT&T Cotton Big 12 vs. SEC	Arlington, Texas Cowboys Stadium	Jan. 6 8 p.m.	FOX
BBVA Compass Bowl Big East vs. SEC	Birmingham, Ala. Legion Field	Jan. 7 1 p.m.	ESPN
Allstate BCS National Championship Game BCS vs. BCS	New Orleans Louisiana Superdome	Jan. 9 8:30 p.m.	ESPN
GoDaddy.com MAC vs. Sun Belt	Mobile, Ala. Ladd-Peebles Stadium	TBD TBD	TBD

2011 NFL Compensatory Draft Picks

Here is the list of additional NFL Draft picks for this year.

Oversigning of College Athletes

The NCAA currently has a rule that states that an FBS program can have 85 scholarship athletes and can add 25 new scholarship athletes each Fall semester. Yet, some institutions have consistently oversigned the number of student athletes. Now I just found a website that is designed to document this issue of oversigning of student athletes called oversigning.com. Check it out, it well worth the look.

NHL Goalie Pay & Performance at the All-Star Break

In the Hockey News, there is a chart of each team's top two goalies pay and below the caption asks the following question: "If goaltending is the most important position in hockey, why do so many of the NHL's bottom-feeders slot up top with their blue ice budgets?".

That is a great question, so I thought that I would use the data on the total salaries each team's top two goalies and compare that with each team's performance, first to see if the idea is on target and to then try to explain these counter-intuitive results.

In order to figure this out, I collected each NHL team's standings data (Games Played (GP), Wins (W), Losses (L), OT, Goals For (GF), Goals Against (GA), Standings Points (PTS)) from nhl.com as of today (January 28th, 2011). Then I included the salary data from the Hockey News (January 31, 2011 edition p. 10) and ran a correlation between standings points and goalie salary. The correlation is -0.2777. Hence the writer is on target saying the teams with higher salaried top two goalies are negatively correlated with standings points at the 2010-2011 NHL All-Star break. As I tell my undergraduate students repeated, correlation does not imply causation. We have to work harder to draw conclusions (i.e. statistical inference) than just calculating the correlation between each NHL team's standings points and the combined salary of the top two NHL goalies on each team. To that I now turn.

In order to make a conclusion using statistical techniques, I decided to employ a linear regression on the data that I collected. The regression that I ran was standings points are a function or are determined by Goals For, Goals Against and Games Played. The result was that each variable is statistically significant (i.e. statistically is different from zero at least at a 95% confidence level) and each variable was of the expected sign. The estimated coefficient on Goals For and Games Played were positive (i.e. more goals for and more games played result in more standings points) and the estimated coefficient on Goals Against was negative (i. e. more goals against results in fewer standings points). Yet, when I then included goalie salary, the estimated coefficient was statistically insignificant (i. e. statistically likely to be zero or not relevant). So we can conclude that salary is not a factor in determining standings points up to the All-Star Break this year. Even if we adjust standings points for the number of games played, there still is no statistically significant relationship between team top two goalie salary and team performance.

OK, so there does not seem to be a statistical link between team top two goalie pay and team performance. What about goals against and salary? Shouldn't teams with higher goalie salaries have lower Goals Against? I would think so, but that is not what I find. I find that the estimated coefficient is negative and statistically insignificant - again meaning that there is no statistical relationship between Goals Against and NHL goalie payroll. Nor do I find a statistical relationship between Wins, Losses and NHL goalie payroll.

All of these findings are consistent with the paper Dave Berri and I published in the Journal of Sports Economics last year. We find that goalie salary and goalie performance are not statistically related. Why? Mainly because goalie performance is highly variable from period to period, game to game and season to season.

This is not a dig at NHL goalies. I think that it is really difficult to find an individual who can game after game consistently stop the puck from entering the net at the NHL level, because doing so against the level of NHL talent is so good, not because NHL goalies are not good. What makes people conclude the opposite is that they focus on those goalies (such as Martin Brodeur or Dominic Hasek) who for many years perform at an above average level, they they believe that all goalies can do so. If we look at Brodeur's stats this year, we see that he is (using our NHL goalie measure of Wins Above Average) is only better than Brian Elliott, Dan Ellis and Nikolai Khabibulin.

That leaves us with the conclusion, that if goalies performance is highly variable, NHL GM's should spend more of their capped payroll on other positions and hope for the best at the goalie position.