Stat nerds and football — Love at first sight

There is an ongoing debate in baseball that will likely never be settled. Pitted on one side are the sabermetricians — a bunch of guys who think the foundation of the game is based on stats and that “clutch players” are myths.

Staring at them from across the alley are baseball traditionalists, who believe that a good player is a good  player. There is no science behind it. What you see is what you get.

For the last few decades, the two groups have argued until they are blue in the face.

Football, meanwhile, doesn’t engender the same philosophical debates as baseball. We know LaDainian Tomlinson is great and we don’t need any arcane evidence to back up that assessment.  The same goes for Peyton Manning.

But the folks over at cfbstats.com have tried to break down a player’s worth based on statistics. And the Web site provides some interesting info.

Here are their breakdowns of Arkansas running backs Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, as well as Razorbacks quarterback Casey Dick. Dick’s rating plummets when it is third down and more than six yards to go. He’s also much better in the first half than the second.

It’s pretty fascinating stuff and it’s not bad material to drop when your uninformed friend is making an illogical argument near the water cooler. You can now respond, “Well, actually….

Filed under: Arkansas Football by Rainer Sabin. Posted on: October 19, 2007 at 3:01 pm