What College ADs Can Learn from Data Mining

A recent Wall Street Journal article features a Credit Suisse study that measures the usefulness of three common financial stats– sales growth, net income growth, and gross profitability— and compares these standard business metrics to three baseball metrics for hitting (batting average, the strikeout rate, and the somewhat more esoteric “on-base percentage plus slugging percentage”).

The finding is a bit shocking: the three common financial stats are far less helpful than some of those used in baseball.

What makes a statistic useful? Its persistence and predictive value. As summarized by WSJ, “a statistic is persistent if it is correlated with what happened in the past. It’s predictive if, as the word suggests, the stat is successful at predicting outcomes.”

Turning to college football, here are the biggest buyouts of college football coaches: Charlie Weis, Notre Dame ($18.9 million not to coach); Bo Pelini Nebraska ($7.9 million not to coach); Gene Chizek Auburn ($7.5 million not to coach); Will Muschamp Florida ($6.3 million not to coach); Charlie Weis Kansas ($5.625 million) (double dipper); and Jeff Tedford Cal ($5.5 million). The list of million-dollar buyouts goes on, but the point is that ADs probably make hiring decisions based on short-term, shallow, and non-empirical “hunches” about coaching hires. Common approaches, with mixed results: NFL to college; OC/DC at elite school; MAC champ to Big Ten.

But what if someone studied in-depth the data that has the most persistent and predictive value for successful college coaches, like Credit Suisse? You might measure entirely different things, such Nick Saban’s obsessive detail to focusing short-term on executing minute goals that stack up to big success. Quoting Saban: "Don't think about winning the SEC Championship. Don't think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That's the process: Let's think about what we can do today, the task at hand."

We Will Win: College Football and State Politics

After University of Georgia’s new football coach, Kirby Smart, was seen flying around in a helicopter and private jet to recruit star football players, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution used the FOIA law to investigate. The result? After some unflattering news stories, Georgia passed a FOIA law this month that allows Georgia’s athletic department to wait 90 days before responding to a records request from news agencies.

Before the law was enacted last week, AJC reported that the new coach and his staff produced 25 invoices totaling $558,741 in two months. Several invoices reflected charges of $20,000 or more for private jets, with a high of $45,306 on December 11^th.

Georgia football isn’t alone in trying to hide information from the public. ESPN has used Indiana’s open records law to compel the Notre Dame police department to hand over documents relating to the alleged arrests of football players. The network contends that Notre Dame’s police department is a public entity because it is authorized by the state to enforce all Indiana laws. In mid-March, a state appeals court ruled in favor of ESPN.

But that might be irrelevant because Notre Dame friends in the legislature passed a FOIA exception just for this case. This bill is currently on the governor’s desk. It would classify private university police departments as public agencies, but would also exempt certain records from being released to the public.

To put this in context, consider Prof. Ryan Brewer’s (Indiana University, finance department) rankings of D-I football programs by market valuations used for professional football teams. Notre Dame ranked 2^nd in the nation, valued at $811.5 million (behind Texas at $875 million). Georgia ranked 8^th at $581.8 million. Illinois was a distant 55^th ($94.5 million).

For years, it’s been true that college football is more a business than a game. College football at Georgia and Notre Dame show that these big businesses are also powerful interest groups. Georgia governor’s spokesperson admitted as much when she said, “This is an economic development bill, and the governor supported the inclusion of the language regarding athletics. It simply levels the playing field with other states that also have strong athletic programs like Georgia.”

Homage to Franklin Field (UPenn)

Visited the site of a great controversy in NCAA history, the Penn football stadium. NCAA rules limited TV slots for power football programs, such as Oklahoma and Georgia, to give TV time to schools such as Penn. This quaint idea spurred Oklahoma and Georgia, and others to form their own TV alliance. The NCAA retaliated by threatening sanctions against these schools in basketball and other sports. Oklahoma and sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act ... after which cooler heads prevailed. This paved the way for power schools to get much greater market exposure, and eventually, the Big Ten became the first to do its own TV network. Penn Stadium is beautiful and was the site of a women's lacrosse practice as we visited.  

Illinois vs. Notre Dame in St. Pat’s Midwest Shame Bracket

The Fighting Illini and Fighting Irish are playing into overtime this St. Patrick’s Day to see which team advances  in the Midwest Shame bracket.

The Illini took an early lead today when Kendrick Nunn became the third Illinois player in the past month to be arrested for a violent crime (this, for domestic assault). A fourth player in the past year was dismissed due to his second brush with the law.

The Fighting Irish charged back in a battle to keep ESPN from having access under public records to Notre Dame police arrests of athletes (especially, football players). An Indiana appeals court, over the objections of Notre Dame officials, ruled that the private university’s police force is a public entity when records involve enforcement of state (i.e., public ) laws. But Notre Dame will appeal to the state supreme court; and separately, Notre Dame has successfully lobbied for a bill that will basically repeal this ruling. 

Both schools have “Fighting” in their names, meaning that these great universities will not be charged with deceptive marketing.

News-Gazette Liable for False Light? The Case of Jaylon Tate

When Illinois basketball player, Jaylon Tate, was arrested over the weekend for domestic assault, our local newspaper, the News-Gazette, made it a headline story in its online edition, complete with mugshots of Tate. By Monday, Tate's attorney, complained about the rush-to-publicity (and judgment), though he didn't specifically reference the paper. 

If Tate has been wrongly accused, does he have a tort claim for damages against the newspaper? Without question, the paper was doing its duty in reporting a matter of keen public interest. But did it need to run mugshots of Tate, in images that cannot be reversed or deleted?

Illinois recognizes the tort of "false light." In general, false light occurs when one person publishes information which places another person in a false light with reckless disregard or malice. There was no malice here; but what about reckless disregard? Here, it is important to note that most employers do background checks for criminal convictions-- and some do this for arrests, even though that violates discrimination laws. Google Jaylon Tate in a year or two, and odds are you will find his mug shot in the News-Gazette. From a lawyer's perspective, the question is whether Tate's claim would survive a motion to dismiss, thus making it possible to go to a jury trial. Here's hoping that the News-Gazette apologizes publicly to Tate and learns that a headline without a mugshot would suffice for informing the public. And note, when a newspaper runs a story that incorrectly portrays an African-American male as a criminal, the damage is especially significant.

Potholes and Millionaire Coaches: Drive Carefully

These are gaping potholes outside the athletic department office today at Illinois. For good reasons, committing the budget to $4 million this coming year in pay for newly hired football assistants is far more important. But the potholes clearly suggest that Illinois does not have enough money to do everything first-class. What are the implications for non-revenue sports? Will Illinois pay top-10 salaries for their head coaches and assistants? Upgrade their facilities? Will women share in the same wealth as men? What happens if Illinois' “bold” hiring move has the results of Texas, a program that has gone 6-7 (2014) and 5-7 (2015) after committing $25 million in a five year deal to a new head coach? The new coaching staff landed two top-20 classes, but produced sub-par results on the field. Here’s hoping that the new hires lift all Illinois boats, and fill in the potholes. In the meantime, drive carefully.

Illini Football, Meet Devin Pugh

Devin Pugh, a former scholarship player at Weber State, had a common experience. He was promised a four year scholarship, but when his coach retired, the new coach said he did not intend to renew Pugh’s grant-in-aid. Pugh looked into transferring. Several D-I schools expressed interest and offered him a conditional scholarship—contingent upon his ability to play two years. But NCAA rules that require a transfer to sit out a year deprived Pugh of one year of eligibility. Another rule limits player eligibility to five years. The rules left Pugh with only one more year. The interested schools, therefore, withdrew their offers when Pugh was not granted a waiver.

Forced to sit for a year, Pugh transferred to a D-II school, where he could play immediately—but he had to borrow money for tuition. He also worked at a $9 an hour job. Recently, Pugh filed a class action lawsuit alleging that NCAA caps on scholarships and one-year transfer rules are antitrust violations.  Big Ten football programs treat football players better than Weber State treated Pugh. Schools grant athletic scholarships for the entire term of an athlete’s enrollment. Still, Big Ten schools have only 85 scholarships to give.

Turning to Illinois’s hiring of Lovie Smith, it is reasonable to expect more-than-usual turnover among players. The expectation, suddenly, is to challenge for the Big Ten West title, and move up from there. The current squad is mostly populated with two- and three-star star players, and walk-ons. The idea behind changing coaches so suddenly is to attract better players as soon as possible, while maximizing the potential of the current players (as the other coaching staff did).

The pertinent question is, what will happen to the current squad? Will they feel pressure to transfer? The recent turnover at Michigan, replacing Brady Hoke with Jim Harbaugh, suggests that college football—including the Big Ten— has a way of prodding players from the old regime to move on while the team quickly opens up more scholarships for new (and better) players.

If Illinois football players are treated the same way, they will leave with broken dreams and face monopolistic NCAA rules that have a tendency to break the bargain that was made when they were recruited. Pugh’s lawsuit seeks to uncap the number of Division I football scholarships that a member institution can grant in any given year. Pugh also seeks a court order to abolish the NCAA’s one-year eligibility penalty for players who transfer. And key to note, Pugh’s lawsuit seeks treble damages from the NCAA and member schools.

Pugh’s lengthy legal complaint makes the point, repeatedly, that coaching salaries are soaring due to monopoly rules that financially harm the very players who make the game worth watching. They point out that the problem for student athletes is especially acute at schools where a “win now” approach is imperative. The sudden change in Illinois football coaches has potential to add more plaintiffs to Pugh’s lawsuit.