CLT Observer - Season Prediction

[97APP]

One of the best traits I've heard about our staff is they are good at teaching the game. Drink has installed/helped install this offense 3 times already so he understands how to implement/teach the offense from scratch. Roof's well known for being a teacher of the game. I also like our schedule in that we won't play a FBS team with a returning Head coach until October 9th.

[bigdaddyg]

Of all the debates I’ve ever read here or anywhere else the Satt/Drink comparisons and debate over who is better might be the most idiotic one yet. If a team is loaded with talent and does great typically the coach gets lots of credit and sometimes gets tagged a genius (lol). If the team lacks talent and does poorly the coach sucks. Rarely do you read about a great team with a horrible coach. I am one who really wants to see a game played before judging Drink and Roof.

[Saint3333]

I suppose we could dig in as deep as you wanted to, but Lambert was a 22-48 coach and it does not take too much to beat that record. Satterfield was 51-24, and maintaining your position as top of your conference is always going to be beating the odds. Math and the history of college football tells us that long term almost all teams revert to the mean. Perhaps you just don't buy that concept.

Each team's mean is different.

Since 2005 App has won the conference they've been in all but four years. Perhaps our recent mean is close to a championship, certainly in the top 3.

[SpeedkingATL]

It at least appears this writer knows a little something about Belt football. 10 wins before the Championship Game and Bowl would be excellent. UL and Troy will both be tough games on the road not to mention the Stink again. Split those two, split the two P5 games and you've had one heck of a regular season. Do better than that and it has historic possibilities….which we are all hoping for.

[NattyBumppo'sRevenge]

I suppose we could dig in as deep as you wanted to, but Lambert was a 22-48 coach and it does not take too much to beat that record. Satterfield was 51-24, and maintaining your position as top of your conference is always going to be beating the odds. Math and the history of college football tells us that long term almost all teams revert to the mean. Perhaps you just don't buy that concept.

Each team's mean is different.

Since 2005 App has won the conference they've been in all but four years. Perhaps our recent mean is close to a championship, certainly in the top 3.

Statistically speaking, UNCC hasn't been playing long enough to establish a true sample to determine a mean. But if you had to go off of the existing population of seasons, not looking good. 13 of the 22 wins were against non-FBS opponents and the only win outside of C-USA in the FBS was against Georgia State. They also hold losses against Pembroke, Wesley, Gardner Webb, and NCCU.

[Nugget49]

Not a statistician, but I believe it would be the mean of college football teams that everyone would approach, and sample size is key to increasing confidence in the outcome for any one team. Because football games are a zero-sum event, one win will be offset by one loss. Therefore, the mean will be 50% wins. Not every team will hit that, and certainly not every year, but if you look at all teams they will. Here is the great part, if you exceed the total prediction in wins, then someone else has to exceed it in losses. Changes in coaching, quarterbacks, etc. tend to reduce your ability to stray from the mean. App may just be special and over time win 10 games per season forever, but that isn't generally the way reality works.

I am also counting on math to help Charlotte not have any more 1 win seasons for a while!

[ericsaid]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

In regards to UNC, it would appear the writer isn't optimistic about UNC's ability to make the transition to an Air Raid offense within 8 weeks (4 weeks of camp, 4 of the season).

[ericsaid]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My only competitor is the person I was yesterday <a href="https://t.co/uEHhbKtrhr">pic.twitter.co ... </p>&mdash; David Baldwin-Griffin (@Davidtbe5) <a href=" 18, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[EastHallApp]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

Ah yes, Devan Stringer being personally worth 50 points per game definitely nullifies the broader point I was making with that example.

[Saint3333]

Nugget teams don’t revert to a mean of that sport. Some just win more than others.

Is Alabama and Vandys mean the same?

[ericsaid]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

Ah yes, Devan Stringer being personally worth 50 points per game definitely nullifies the broader point I was making with that example.

No, it answers the unanswered rhetorical statement of "these things don't always make sense". Go back and look at defensive production with and without Stringer for those 2 1/2 weeks. It's similar to what happened when Fehr was ejected against Georgia Southern because their QB is short and decided to jump. He went out, in came a Freshmen, and off went the Georgia Southern offense.

Same principle with Stringer. Quite possibly the most underrated App football player I've ever seen.

[VNova]

Not a statistician, but I believe it would be the mean of college football teams that everyone would approach, and sample size is key to increasing confidence in the outcome for any one team. Because football games are a zero-sum event, one win will be offset by one loss. Therefore, the mean will be 50% wins. Not every team will hit that, and certainly not every year, but if you look at all teams they will. Here is the great part, if you exceed the total prediction in wins, then someone else has to exceed it in losses. Changes in coaching, quarterbacks, etc. tend to reduce your ability to stray from the mean. App may just be special and over time win 10 games per season forever, but that isn't generally the way reality works.

I am also counting on math to help Charlotte not have any more 1 win seasons for a while!

Lets check this out: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_ ... 19/FBS.pdf

Appalachian State is #15 in the FBS at 64.4% after 91 years of play, including bowl and playoff games. In the regular season of 12 games, that's 7.7 wins. Our mean is a 7 regular season based on that alone. Add in the bowl game and we jump to an average of 8 wins a season. Include the championship and our average is 9.

Statistically speaking (utilizing only the mean of course), 91 years and 981 games has already established that as our average. If we go 6-6, we are statistically below average (4-8 season in 2014 comes to mind). As another example, if Michigan goes below 8-4 in the regular season, they are statistically below average (.73 win percentage over 1331 games in 138 years).

You are correct though, for the entirety of the FBS world, 6-6 is average. For 41 teams, their average is less than 6-6. For 38 teams, it is above 6-6. For 51 teams, it is 6-6. With the exception of Coastal Carolina and ODU, every team with a 7-5+ record average has had a tradition of winning for 50+ years.


With that, my prediction matches this article, except a loss to Troy seems more likely than to La-la.

[EastHallApp]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

Ah yes, Devan Stringer being personally worth 50 points per game definitely nullifies the broader point I was making with that example.

No, it answers the unanswered rhetorical statement of "these things don't always make sense". Go back and look at defensive production with and without Stringer for those 2 1/2 weeks. It's similar to what happened when Fehr was ejected against Georgia Southern because their QB is short and decided to jump. He went out, in came a Freshmen, and off went the Georgia Southern offense.

Same principle with Stringer. Quite possibly the most underrated App football player I've ever seen.

It was an example to illustrate a point about the transitive property. Stringer played when we allowed 31 to New Mexico State that year if you like that comparison better. Or you can go back to the previous year, when we allowed 13 to Tennessee in regulation but gave up 38 to Akron.

[MDaniels84]

10-2 with losses at USC and either ULL or Troy (but not both) is what I'm expecting. But I also think anything between 12-0 and 7-5 is possible.

Agree, and extending into post season it's anything between 14-0 and 7-6...

Talk about hedging your bet. If this team goes 7-5 then loses a really crappy bowl there will be swarms of locusts and other end of days events. Even 6-6 with a bowl win is extremely unlikely. I’m sure this thread will go off the rails but dang. Going 14-0 would be unreal but another plus 10 win season will be great.

If this year's team goes 7-6, I won't be reading this message board anymore because the language on here will scorch my aging retinas and leave me blind. Seriously, I don't even want to think about the fan reaction if that happened.

I agree and this time we can't even use "give a Mountaineer a chance" war cry!

[Yosef84]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

In regards to UNC, it would appear the writer isn't optimistic about UNC's ability to make the transition to an Air Raid offense within 8 weeks (4 weeks of camp, 4 of the season).

Injuries have been our Achilles heel the past two season. Both the ULM and the UMass losses were direct results of Stringer being out. Our GS loss last year was due to Zac's injury (followed by ejection of Fehr). Hopefully our depth continues to improve so that injuries don't play that role this season but that's always a potential source of unforeseen results....especially later in the season.

[NattyBumppo'sRevenge]

Not a statistician, but I believe it would be the mean of college football teams that everyone would approach, and sample size is key to increasing confidence in the outcome for any one team. Because football games are a zero-sum event, one win will be offset by one loss. Therefore, the mean will be 50% wins. Not every team will hit that, and certainly not every year, but if you look at all teams they will. Here is the great part, if you exceed the total prediction in wins, then someone else has to exceed it in losses. Changes in coaching, quarterbacks, etc. tend to reduce your ability to stray from the mean. App may just be special and over time win 10 games per season forever, but that isn't generally the way reality works.

I am also counting on math to help Charlotte not have any more 1 win seasons for a while!

Lets check this out: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_ ... 19/FBS.pdf

Appalachian State is #15 in the FBS at 64.4% after 91 years of play, including bowl and playoff games. In the regular season of 12 games, that's 7.7 wins. Our mean is a 7 regular season based on that alone. Add in the bowl game and we jump to an average of 8 wins a season. Include the championship and our average is 9.

Statistically speaking (utilizing only the mean of course), 91 years and 981 games has already established that as our average. If we go 6-6, we are statistically below average (4-8 season in 2014 comes to mind). As another example, if Michigan goes below 8-4 in the regular season, they are statistically below average (.73 win percentage over 1331 games in 138 years).

You are correct though, for the entirety of the FBS world, 6-6 is average. For 41 teams, their average is less than 6-6. For 38 teams, it is above 6-6. For 51 teams, it is 6-6. With the exception of Coastal Carolina and ODU, every team with a 7-5+ record average has had a tradition of winning for 50+ years.


With that, my prediction matches this article, except a loss to Troy seems more likely than to La-la.

App would have to go 0-12 for 12 straight seasons to fall below 50%. My numbers could be wrong, but it sounds good.

[Black Saturday]

Drink has yet to coach his first game as the head man so, any proclamation that he is an upgrade over Satt is pure speculation. I think we're all interested to see what he does on the offensive side of the ball. The caveat is how quickly the new schemes are picked up by the players. I'm optimistic about the season but four of our 5 toughest games are on the road.

The 2019 defense will play a huge role in this season's success, hope they are good as the 2018 version.

[Black Saturday]

Splitting hairs but seriously- Charlotte scores 17 in Boone and we hold UNC to 14 at their place?

I’d agree that’s a dubious prediction. Then again we allowed 52 to ULM the same season we shut out Toledo, so these things don’t always make sense.

Stringer was out against ULM. That was the difference for those 2 1/2 weeks of that season.

In regards to UNC, it would appear the writer isn't optimistic about UNC's ability to make the transition to an Air Raid offense within 8 weeks (4 weeks of camp, 4 of the season).

Injuries have been our Achilles heel the past two season. Both the ULM and the UMass losses were direct results of Stringer being out. Our GS loss last year was due to Zac's injury (followed by ejection of Fehr). Hopefully our depth continues to improve so that injuries don't play that role this season but that's always a potential source of unforeseen results....especially later in the season.

Exactly, hope we can stay healthy. The QB is the most important position, it is important to have an effective backup, not just numbers.

[AppSt94]

Healy could be worse than Lambert. Lambert was looked upon very favorably by your fanbase.

Drink has been a successful OC for many years. If you’re going to question App’s coaching change I’d look on the defensive side.

App will be a three TD favorite vs UNCC.

Roof is definitely not a downgrade from Brown.

I hope you're right. I don't think you can make such a definitive statement at this point.

How do you figure? Roof has over two decades of experience as a DC. Brown has one where he inherited a boatload of talent.

[AppSt94]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My only competitor is the person I was yesterday <a href="https://t.co/uEHhbKtrhr">pic.twitter.co ... </p>&mdash; David Baldwin-Griffin (@Davidtbe5) <a href=" 18, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Do you guys have standing dinner plans when you’re in Boone?