So, there has been some conjecture on what is happening with Tedford:
Most interesting to me is the question: Is he getting worse, or is competition getting stronger? Both.
Also, no doubt 2004 was a great year, but I have always thought 2006 was equally impressive. I was not quite right... our 2004 team was phenomenal, even taking into account the slightly softer schedule.
So, what I did (slow week at work
) was build myself a little data set and then was forced to do work before I could do any real analysis.
I took who we played, who they played and got the end of year Sagarin Rankings for each team, as well as SOS. (2012 is up to 10/20/12). It was not as hard as thought it would be to get the data but doing something with it, with a 4 hour round trip commute and actual work to do limited my abilities
However, I did make some fun graphs and find out some interesting facts:
For example, the top 3 teams Cal has played under Tedford was USC 2004, 2005 and Stanfurd 2010, in that order.
Our 5 best wins (the best teams we played and beat) are:
2003 USC (by 3)
2007 Oregon (by 7)
2008 Oregon (by 10)
2004 ASU (by 27!)
2007 Tennessee (by 14)
(Miami was 18, VT was 19 and A&M was 20)
Now then:
I have been saying for a long time that our non-competitiveness is a lot of fans issue with Tedford recently. We have gone from losing close to getting blown up. For this I decided that over 16 points constituted a blow out (two scores).
Clearly we get blown out more now... to the tune of once every 3.5 games, from roughly one every 45 games.
Next I wanted to see how our Scoring D is (all that REALLY matters at the end of the day). Basically, I took our opp average points for and against and looked at how we did... Pendy is, as far as I can tell, is improving, and providing better D than we had in 2006... I am surprised. (Higher number is better) - NOTE: this also would include pick6 and ST scores, so it is not entirely our D
Of course, The offense needs to score... I did not think that this year would be an improvement over last year, but we are a full touchdown off of what we had to start Tedford's time at Cal. This is the unit responsible for our blowouts, IMO. (Scores, of course include ST and defensive scores)
Now what I think is important: WINS. A bad team that wins is a good team. A good team that does not win is a bad team. I think CLEARLY, while our SOS fluctuates, Cal has been in steady decline for 7 years. Not 3 or 5. Also interesting to me is how 2005 shaped up for us to be maybe the most successful at Cal if Rodgers had stayed or Longshore had not been hurt. Oh well...
So, Finally, is Tedford staying even, or is he falling apart. Clearly there is some correlation between SOS and wins... how good are his teams. We know that a good team can run into a great team and look bad. Or a bad team can beat up on garbage teams and look good: For that I turned to our end of season Rating and found out this
REALLY interesting to me is how close our rating this year is against our rating in 1998 (Holmoe's Second year, and the farthest back I could find - we are lower now) and 2000 (we are slightly higher now).
Sorry for no real analysis. Maybe with more time I can post something with more value. But for now, I found these simple graphs informative.
It did not make me feel better about our prospects keeping the current staff.
Most interesting to me is the question: Is he getting worse, or is competition getting stronger? Both.
Also, no doubt 2004 was a great year, but I have always thought 2006 was equally impressive. I was not quite right... our 2004 team was phenomenal, even taking into account the slightly softer schedule.
So, what I did (slow week at work
) was build myself a little data set and then was forced to do work before I could do any real analysis.I took who we played, who they played and got the end of year Sagarin Rankings for each team, as well as SOS. (2012 is up to 10/20/12). It was not as hard as thought it would be to get the data but doing something with it, with a 4 hour round trip commute and actual work to do limited my abilities
However, I did make some fun graphs and find out some interesting facts:
For example, the top 3 teams Cal has played under Tedford was USC 2004, 2005 and Stanfurd 2010, in that order.
Our 5 best wins (the best teams we played and beat) are:
2003 USC (by 3)
2007 Oregon (by 7)
2008 Oregon (by 10)
2004 ASU (by 27!)
2007 Tennessee (by 14)
(Miami was 18, VT was 19 and A&M was 20)
Now then:
I have been saying for a long time that our non-competitiveness is a lot of fans issue with Tedford recently. We have gone from losing close to getting blown up. For this I decided that over 16 points constituted a blow out (two scores).
Clearly we get blown out more now... to the tune of once every 3.5 games, from roughly one every 45 games.
Next I wanted to see how our Scoring D is (all that REALLY matters at the end of the day). Basically, I took our opp average points for and against and looked at how we did... Pendy is, as far as I can tell, is improving, and providing better D than we had in 2006... I am surprised. (Higher number is better) - NOTE: this also would include pick6 and ST scores, so it is not entirely our D
Of course, The offense needs to score... I did not think that this year would be an improvement over last year, but we are a full touchdown off of what we had to start Tedford's time at Cal. This is the unit responsible for our blowouts, IMO. (Scores, of course include ST and defensive scores)
Now what I think is important: WINS. A bad team that wins is a good team. A good team that does not win is a bad team. I think CLEARLY, while our SOS fluctuates, Cal has been in steady decline for 7 years. Not 3 or 5. Also interesting to me is how 2005 shaped up for us to be maybe the most successful at Cal if Rodgers had stayed or Longshore had not been hurt. Oh well...
So, Finally, is Tedford staying even, or is he falling apart. Clearly there is some correlation between SOS and wins... how good are his teams. We know that a good team can run into a great team and look bad. Or a bad team can beat up on garbage teams and look good: For that I turned to our end of season Rating and found out this
REALLY interesting to me is how close our rating this year is against our rating in 1998 (Holmoe's Second year, and the farthest back I could find - we are lower now) and 2000 (we are slightly higher now).
Sorry for no real analysis. Maybe with more time I can post something with more value. But for now, I found these simple graphs informative.
It did not make me feel better about our prospects keeping the current staff.