Tebow On the Cover of Next Sporting News

The past two Heisman winners are gracing the cover of the next issue of The Sporting News. For you collectors out there, it’s not one to miss. I love how Tebow looks focused and scary while Bradford looks somewhat bewildered.

It hits newsstands on Friday.

Some BCS Final Score Projections

Just for the record, here are my projections for the first four BCS games. They were arrived at via the same method I used for the hypothetical BCS title game scenarios and to project a 35-21 Florida win in the SEC title game (which would have been 34-20 if Phillips didn’t miss his field goal).

I’ve run several bowl games, and it seems to be more accurate for good teams. It projected a 21-17 Boise State win over TCU (actual final: 17-16 TCU win, five total points off), but also a 34-31 Central Michigan win over FAU (actual final: 24-21 FAU, 20 total points off).

Anyway, I’ve used the absolute number projections rather than the percentages because time and again they are the more accurate ones. If you’ve read up on how this works, that has meaning to you. If you haven’t, then don’t worry about it.

Rose Bowl: USC 25 – Penn State 21

Orange Bowl: Cincinnati 19 – Virginia Tech 18

Sugar Bowl: Alabama 25 – Utah 24*

Fiesta Bowl: Texas 37 – Ohio State 18

For what it’s worth, this method has always projected the scores too high except for the obvious outliers (take a bow, Notre Dame) in every bowl I’ve run them for so far.

A bonus pick for tonight: Georgia Tech 31 – LSU 30 in the Chick-fil-A (Peach) Bowl.

*Originally said 25-23, but I noticed an error on the spreadsheet. It now says 25-24 because I don’t want to predict a tie, but since the raw numbers are Alabama 25.29 – Utah 24.93, it technically projects a 25-25 tie.

A Note on the AJC’s SAT Study

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published a study on SAT scores of athletes (and football players specifically) versus the total student body. Its biggest bombshell was that the school with the largest gap between football players and the student body was Florida.

It’s worth noting the actual numbers so here is a link to them. Make no mistake: this is not good and it reflects poorly on the university.

Notice the years studied there before you start writing Urban Meyer a strongly worded letter though. The AJC looked at the incoming freshman classes of 2002-04, which were the three Ron Zook years. It already is no secret that Zook wasn’t exactly the strictest on academics, and this is more evidence.

The average team GPA has increased every season under Meyer’s watch, so it would be interesting to see what they end up being during his time. I have a feeling they would be higher than the 890 average that Zook’s recruits had.

It also would have been nice to see the years collected mentioned before the fourth section. It wouldn’t matter as much for Oklahoma, whose data was from 2001-03, a team mentioned almost as much as UF but that still has the same now as then.

Addazio is Your New OC

Steve Addazio has been named as the new offensive coordinator of the Gators. He previously has been an offensive coordinator at Indiana and was a candidate for the Syracuse head coaching job this offseason. He has been the offensive line coach in his four seasons at Florida under Urban Meyer.

Addazio was not the trendy name all the armchair athletic directors were picking, as that honor goes to receivers coach Billy Gonzalez. The next question then is if Gonzalez leaves to become offensive coordinator for Dan Mullen at Mississippi State, as that rumor has been circulating for a couple of weeks now. For the record though, I can’t find any evidence of such a move being possible in anything more reputable than random message board posters throwing things against the wall to see if they stick, so take it with a grain of salt.

The blurb from Gatorzone.com reminds everyone that offensive game planning and play calling are and have been a group effort, and that the other offensive assistants will continue to be involved. It remains to be seen who will end up the quarterbacks coach.

A Few Pre-Holiday Thoughts

This will be the last long post until after New Year’s, most likely. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

I am glad to see that the Florida coaching staff is preparing for this national title game the same way they did in 2006. It was a successful strategy, and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel on it. It’s not like the core of this team (save Harvin and Tebow) were major components of the ’06 run and might get complacent if they did the same thing as before.

After all, focus shouldn’t be a problem for them. They didn’t lose it from October on despite blowout after blowout. The only close game came as a result of the opposing team – Alabama – being a great football team and not a result of getting complacent against a bad team.

Besides, they’re playing for a national title. If you can’t get focused around that goal, there’s something wrong.

As for Dan Mullen helping with the game, it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it does some other people. As I’ve said before, Urban Meyer and his staff have been through a similar situation when moving from Utah to Florida and they did just fine in the Fiesta Bowl.

Mullen is a pro and I believe him when he says that he feels he owes it to these players to give it his all. The article I linked to in the previous section says that practice so far has just been workouts and that game planning won’t come until after the players’ Christmas break. Given that’s when Mullen is returning, it all seems overblown to me.

Some people have brought up how it hurt FSU against Oklahoma in 2000 with Mark Richt leaving to take a head coaching job, but I don’t think the analogy is that apropos. The 2000 Oklahoma defense is far beyond the 2008 Oklahoma defense, which is no better than the 2007 unit that got gashed by West Virginia’s spread option last bowl season.

This article here should end all the ridiculous talk about Meyer leaving Florida to go to Notre Dame. It won’t, but it should.

I still don’t think Kerwin Bell will be joining the Florida staff for 2009, even though reputable news sources are asking the question now instead of just message board creatures.

He makes no sense whatsoever as the offensive coordinator since he doesn’t know Meyer’s system while guys on the current staff do. I don’t think quarterbacks coach alone is enough to make him give up his head coaching gig. That means some secondary title like “associate head coach” would need to be added, but it’s a stretch to me to think Meyer would bestow that title on someone he doesn’t really know.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on the accuracy of offensive versus defensive statistics. If you’ve spent any time looking around the place here, you know that I like to analyze numbers. That is part of the reason why I picked a major in the Warrington College of Business, and it’s something I enjoy doing.

However, I get the feeling that good defenses are always a little better than their numbers indicate and offenses are not quite as good as their numbers indicate. It’s not just that Florida is on the defense side of the OMG OFFENSE VS. DEFENSE!! caricature of the national title game, though that was the topic that brought this on.

If a defense does its best, it cannot hold opponents to less than zero points. They have a firm cap there. If they fail, only the clock is a constraint to how much they can give up.

On the flip side, offenses that succeed have no limit on what they can rack up. This much is obvious, and it’s the reason why there are debates about running up scores. If an offense fails, it can only go down to zero point scored, which, given the rarity of shutouts, is unlikely to happen. They usually pick up some points somewhere late in the game after it has been decided.

That last bit leads to a different issue: garbage time. Garbage time only enhances offensive statistics and hampers defensive statistics. Think about it this way: the Citadel scored the fourth most points of Florida of any opponent this season. That is the most overt example of garbage time hurting the Gators’ defensive stats.

I guess the best way I can illustrate this point is with an example. Think of a game where Team A and Team B each get ten possessions. If Team A’s offense and defense both succeed seven times, Team A will win 49-21.

If a team averaged 49 points a game this season, it would be behind only Oklahoma’s 54 a game in the country. A team giving up an average of 21 points a game would only be 34th-best in the country.

The maxim about it being easier to destroy than create, meaning that it’s easier to play defense than offense, is true to a degree, but not that big of one. I don’t know how to adjust for this discrepancy, and I am probably not smart enough to figure it out.

I am going to run the same stat analysis I did for the SEC title game for as many bowls with teams from the same tier as I can to see how it goes. I understand that bowl games don’t always go as expected for a variety of reasons – coaching changes, the long layoff, etc – but for that kind of analysis you need a season’s worth of data and bowls are all we’ve got.

Bradford Wins the Heisman

As was almost universally expected, Sam Bradford has won the Heisman Trophy. Even though Tim Tebow didn’t win it, he definitely should get an assist. How many times did you hear the phrase, “but Bradford has a long uphill climb to win because he’s a sophomore”?

Yeah, I didn’t hear it either. Tim says you’re welcome, Sam.

Tebow got the most first place votes, but finished third overall thanks to the Bradford/McCoy combo pushing him to third on many ballots. Only 151 points separated first and third.

And for all the complaining about Graham Harrell not getting invited to the ceremony, he finished a distant fourth at over 1,300 points behind Tebow. If people had a problem with his not getting invited, they’ll have to take it up with the voters because the Heisman Trust made the right decision in not inviting him.

One other note – Michael Crabtree was fifth, Shonn Greene was sixth, and Pat White finished seventh, the last with just 19 points. That means Percy Harvin was no higher than eighth and was a complete non-factor again. He got some sporadic hype for the award at times this year, but it’s clear that he has no shot as long as Tebow at Florida with him.

Tebow Wins the Maxwell Again

Tim Tebow won his second straight Maxwell Award, one of the several out there purported to be awarded to college football’s best player. It’s prestigious, but not quite on the level of that bronze, stiff-arming guy.

And because I have nothing else to add, painting with paintballs:

How Exactly is Mullen a Head Coach and Strong Not?

Dan Mullen has been offered and has taken the head coaching job at Mississippi State. I am not one of the message board malcontents who were calling for his head the first six weeks of the season. He has done an excellent job over his career at developing quarterbacks and, at Florida, coordinating the offense.

He would appear to be a good fit in Starkville, where decent defense is a regular occurrence but good offense is about as common as a Mario Kart race without a blue shell. After all, if you want a good offense, hiring the coordinator from the team with the highest scoring offense in your conference two years running is a good idea.

Mullen is 36 years old. His first experience above being a grad assistant was being the quarterbacks coach under Urban Meyer at Bowling Green and later Utah. He stepped up to being an offensive coordinator at Florida because Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Utah, Mike Sanford, took the head coaching job at UNLV.

That is the resume of an up-and-comer. He is on the young side for a BCS conference head coach, though he is older than both Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin and Washington’s Steve Sarkisian. His potential ceiling is higher than Ole Miss’ Houston Nutt, who will get you a spot in the SEC title game every now and then and that’s about it, so it’s a minor coup for Mississippi State in that regard.

Charlie Strong is Florida’s defensive coordinator. Not only has he been defensive coordinator under Meyer, but he was assistant head coach under Steve Spurrier at Florida and defensive coordinator under Lou Holtz at South Carolina. That makes three different national title winners he has worked for.

Most notable is probably his experience under Meyer, since he was the engineer of the 2006 national title team’s defense. It was a fearsome thing to see, and it was about 5000% more responsible for winning that championship than the offense ever was. After a down year last year where everyone but Derek Harvey was either too young to be elite or a veteran leftover, the defense is back up in the top of all statistical categories.

It really makes me wonder what it is that keeps Strong from finding a head coaching job, especially since his name has been tossed around as a head coaching candidate since at least when he worked under Ron Zook at Florida.

Guys like Mullen and Mike Locksley, the new hire at New Mexico, are praised for their work ethic and recruiting prowess when getting top jobs. Not only is Strong a tireless worker, but he is a fantastic recruiter as well. It would make sense for an SEC or ACC team to go after him because, with the exception of a three-year stint at Notre Dame, he’s worked in the southeast since 1988. He has connections and relationships throughout the region.

Maybe it is age at this point. He is 48, and that is pushing the limit of the “young and energetic” traits that schools so often look for.

Maybe he just doesn’t interview well. I know he’s talked to schools about jobs in the past, so it’s not like no one has gotten on the phone with him.

Maybe it was the Gators’ flat performance under him as interim head coach in the 2004 Peach Bowl, but I would hope anyone with half a brain would figure out the team had already won its big game (20-13 in Tallahassee over FSU) and no amount of motivating could make them care about that one.

Some of it is likely due to racism. It’s impossible to look at the numbers of non-white head coaches at the top of college football and deny it exists. Strike No. 2 against Strong in the old boys’ clubs is that he is in an interracial marriage. I would hope no one today would hold that against someone, but I sadly have little doubt that it is a factor with some stakeholders at some universities.

Putting that aside though, it still doesn’t make sense to me how guys like Locksley and recently fired Kansas State head coach Ron Prince (both of whom are African-American) can get head coaching jobs but not Strong. It doesn’t make sense to me either that Kiffin and Sarkisian can get head coaching jobs but not Strong. None of those guys has demonstrated the same high level of recruiting, coaching, and player development over as long a period as Strong has.

It’s possible that he doesn’t feel the correct situation has come along and he’s just waiting for that, and I would hope that’s the case. It is also possible he’s headed the way of guys like Monte Kiffin and Mickey Andrews who spend their whole careers as defensive coordinators without ever running the show themselves.

I do know that Strong doesn’t want to go that way. He would like to take a turn as a head coach somewhere. It’s about time someone gave him the chance.

More on Mullen

Mullen on taking the Mississippi State job:

“I was thrilled. I’m so excited to be here, it’s an unbelievable opportunity,” Mullen said to a dozen or so reporters. “I think we have an opportunity to have an unbelievable program. We’re going to get on the road recruiting right away, get those players in here from the state. We’re going to try to control this state in recruiting as best we can right now and get it cranked up and put a great team on the field next year.”

Mullen said he wasn’t sure about whether he would stay with Florida in its preparation for the BCS National Championship Game. “We’re going to have to work that out,” he said. “That’s something we’re going to decide somewhere later down the road.”

There is a press conference scheduled for this morning to introduce him officially as the head coach, and from the sounds of it he won’t know by then if he’s going to coach in the bowl game or not.

With the way Urban Meyer handled the transition from Utah to Florida while still coaching the Utes in their Fiesta Bowl trip, I’d say this will not affect the team as dramatically as some are predicting. The offense is already very much a collaborative effort among the offensive staff, and it’s worth remembering that Meyer is the guy with the vision behind the scheme in the first place.

Meanwhile, the many Gator message boards are abuzz with suggestions for moving forward. Some want Mike Sanford, Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Utah, to return to his former boss and run the offense.

Two problems with that. One: Sanford is the head coach at UNLV, and it’s unlikely he’d take a step down in title right as it’s looking like he has the Rebels moving forward. Two: he signed an extension two days ago. Florida undoubtedly could afford to buy him out and pay more than his current salary, but would he do it and is it worth it? Probably no on both counts.

The general consensus among those who think they know is that wide receivers coach Billy Gonzalez will likely become the new offensive coordinator. He is another guy who followed Meyer from Bowling Green to Utah to Florida, and wide receiver play has been generally excellent under his watch.

He already is in charge of red zone offense, so it seems like the natural fit. If you believe in patterns, it would also mean in four years he’ll be getting a head coaching job. In Meyer’s fourth year as a head coach, Sanford took the UNLV job; at the end of Meyer’s eighth, Mullen is off to Starkvegas.

There still is a matter of a quarterbacks coach. Mullen had that job on top of being the coordinator, and no one seems to think Gonzalez will slip into that dual role. The armchair ADs of the Internet seem to favor hiring Kerwin Bell to fill that job.

That Kerwin Bell. Also: this highlight’s for you, Dad.

Bell is currently the head coach at Jacksonville University, where he has turned them around from a three game winner last season to a nine game winner and Pioneer League champs this season. He was conference coach of the year and is a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Award, the coach of the year award for I-AA (the winner of which announced on December 18).

That seems like a bit of a stretch. I can’t think of too many head coaches at the I-AA level who have gone on to become solely position coaches in I-A. I know of head coaches who become coordinators, like former Richmond head coach Dave Clawson who became Tennessee’s offensive coordinator. Not so many have become position coaches.

If Bell waits another couple of years and continues to succeed at Jacksonville, someone will make him a coordinator. I don’t know if the allure of going to his alma mater is enough to make him give up the keys to his own program to wait for Gonzalez to get a head coaching job somewhere, but there are worse guys to learn under than Meyer while you wait.

However, it seems impossible to me that a Robinson Award winner would leave to become just a position coach. If Bell takes home that hardware, forget about it.

Mullen to Mississippi State

Florida Offensive Coordinator Dan Mullen is heading off to take the Mississippi State job. IT is not known yet if he’s coaching the bowl or not. In fact, not a whole lot else of anything is known for sure.

This much I do know: it floors me that Mullen is getting a head coaching job before Charlie Strong. Not one single bit of it makes sense.