Speak With Data

Earlier in the silly season  coaching search, the top two coaching candidates floated by Purdue's fan base were Western Michigan's P.J. Fleck and former LSU head coach Les Miles. In recent days, it has appeared neither may end up in West Lafayette. Yesterday, news-ish broke-ish that a deal was done-ish with Purdue and current Western Kentucky head coach Jeff Brohm.  Western Kentucky was revealed to be beginning its own coach search, while coach without an agent Jeff Brohm stated no deal existed and he would not think about future plans until after the C-USA championship game today. Another name floated was current Air Force Academy head coach Troy Calhoun. Which are two odd choices when considered together; at Air Force Calhoun ran a run-heavy option offense (although he has experience coaching quarterbacks in the NFL under Gary Kubiak) and Brohm's offense at WKU was a pass-oriented spread offense. Using the same methods I used to look at Purdue's last few coaches , I

With last Saturday's loss in the Bucket Game against IU, the Darrell Hazell era at Purdue is over (well, yes he was fired mid-season, but since interim coach was assistant Gerad Parker I would consider it a continuation). Hazell, much like predecessor Danny Hope, was fired for a lack of on-field success. Hazell was hired to re-energize a program lacking direction during the Hope era, and potentially return to the success of Joe Tiller's early years. While it is obvious that Hazell failed in those goals, what is the magnitude of that failure? I'm going to look at two factors: recruiting (using recruiting ratings from Rivals) and on-field success (using Football Outsider's S&P+, which is an opponent adjusted metric calculated for offense, defense, and special teams reflecting efficiency, explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives ). Figure 1 Figure 2 Typically, a team's talent is the driving factor for their performance. In college football, th

This past weekend, I went to see Disney's new (and very good) animated film Moana . There was a (genre aware) exchange between the title character and the demigod Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson  Maui regarding whether or not the title character was a princess. Maui's evidence is as follows: she  a) is "daughter of a chief," b) "wears a dress," and c) has  "an animal sidekick." Of course, the definition of princess is typically understood as a woman who fit one of the two descriptions: is daughter of a monarch, or the wife or widow of a prince (in turn defined as the son of a monarch, a monarch in his own right, or the wife of a princess). Disney markets 11 individuals as "Disney Princesses": Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel and Merida. They also market the two female protogonists (and daughters of monarchs) of Frozen, Anna and Elsa (who is in fact a monarch), in a similar man

Earlier this week (prior to the start of the World Series) I posted the Grid O' Sadness, showing the relative odds of the Cubs, Bears, Indians, and Browns winning the most of their remaining games. Since then, the Indians have won two games, the Cubs one, and my promise to explain my methodology struggled to happen. Since Purdue is currently struggling against Penn State, I decided to get my mind off those struggles by explaining the methodology. First though, an update to the Grid O' Sadness (again, I apologize): So, that's looking up for the Indians. The model I created to simulate the remainder of the season is based on two statistical tools: the Pythagorean expectation (1), which I used in my discussion of the NFL preseason , and log5 (2). Both were developed by Bill James to analyze teams in baseball. The Pythagorean expectation uses the points (I'm saying points instead of runs to use the same term across multiple sports) scored and points allowed by a

It was jokingly asked on Mike & Mike  this morning who would win the most remaining games: the Cubs, the Indians, the Bears, or the Browns, poking fun at the state of football in Chicago and Cleveland. To answer that, behold the Grid O' Sadness, a.k.a. the Grid of Thank Goodness I'm Not From Cleveland or Chicago. A full explanation of methodology is coming later; I am just finishing this up and wanted to get it out before the first World Series game gets too far underway. Known to the states of Ohio and Illinois to cause sadness.

During the Olympics in Rio, surprising to many, no one contracted diseases last seen in the Oregon Trail. Also surprisingly, the U.S. Woman's Soccer Team was upset in the quarterfinals by Sweden, who after tying, smartly played defense to force the game into penalty kicks. After the game, American goalkeeper Hope Solo criticized this as an act of "a bunch of cowards." Hope Solo, while being an excellent goalkeeper, is terrible at PR. This was not well received by the US Soccer Federation, her teammates, the Swedes, and the sports community. Yesterday, the USSF announced her contract would be terminated and she would be suspended for 6 months, meaning she could be resigned, but not until February 2017 (1). Which at first glance, sounds pretty severe, especially given her crime was trash talking. As of right now, the US Woman's National Team has two games, friendlies on September 15 and September 18, on the schedule for that time. The 6 months after the Olympics are

This is going to be the first in a number of posts that look at a number of structures, vehicles, weapons, and other of technologies from fiction in terms of whether they could exist in our real, not fictional world. First up: the Wall, from the book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, and its TV adaption  Game of Thrones  (cue the epic music). For those who have  been living under a rock for the past few years  not read the books or watched the show, here is an attempt to describe the Wall without too many plot specific details: it is a giant wall of ice and magic that protects the people living in the Seven Kingdoms, which are south of the wall, from the people (refereed to as Wildlings or Freefolk) and/or ice zombies (White Walkers or Others) living north of the Wall. The closest real world examples would be Hadrian's Wall (which protected Roman-occupied England and Wales from the Scottish) and the Great Wall of China (which protected the Chinese from the M

This weekend, the NFL preseason kicks off in Canton with the Colts and Packers. Also, the Olympics, International Champions Cup, and the Indiana State Fair are happening. So, it’s a busy time in sports and artery destruction. So definitely it’s going to be entertaining, and maybe it will impact your health in 20 years (I can dig some football, futbol, sports only on TV every four years, and random fried things). But, as you see your favorite NFL team founder, excel, or be somewhere in the middle over the next month, how much should you draw from that in terms of the next few months of your life? Some may say very little because it’s 4 (or 5, for the Hall of Fame Game teams) games, mostly featuring back ups. And of course, the 2008 Detroit Lions managed to win every preseason game and lose every regular season game. But that is hardly a deep empirical analysis. Of course, with the limited sample size, a strict, actual winning percentage is a bad measure of team performance. Winning

Everyday, all of us think of questions we want the answers to. From serious policy considerations, to trivial pop culture curiosities, from comparing sports teams to dissecting demographics, plenty of thought and energy are expended seeking answers to these questions. In my work as a engineer in the defense and automotive industries, I’ve had a variety of questions that need answers. How the best way to develop a project? What might be the cause of a defect in a product? Is there an inefficiency in a manufacturing process? How can it be fixed? And, in answer these questions, I have been also been required to “Speak With Data.” Tell the answer I have found using data that can be seen plainly, and speak for themselves. I have always asked myself what would happen if I applied that philosophy to more of society’s questions. So that is what this blog is. Or, an attempt at. Using data to create a voice to answer the questions we all have, in topics from major policy to history to sport