Roundup 10/1/11

This edition of the Roundup is long overdue, and may contain some older, yet still relevant links. Some of these may have appeared in the site twitter feed.

The science and psychology behind college football helmet stickers.

The marathon record was broken a couple weeks ago. Here is the math behind the fastest possible marathon.

Do NFL teams discriminate against black coaching candidates? Part II.

Rex Ryan believes rushing attempts are more important than rushing yards. At first this seems ridiculous, but it makes sense if you subscribe to my theory of running like a boxing jab. Keep in mind rushing 'attempts' will only have the desired affect on the defense if they're usually successful.


What do QBs control? In other words, what aspects of performance are random and which aren't?

Poker is a game of skill.

Red zone analysis: run vs. pass. Keith applies his Markov model.

Stats guys are idiots.

Advanced Lacrosse Stats.

Why is there no home court advantage in foul shooting?

"Five Remain on Pace to Break Marino's Record" Not really. Regression to the mean says there is no such thing as 'on pace'. But if ever there was a year to break a passing record, this is it.

Courtesy xkcd.com:


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3 Responses to “Roundup 10/1/11”

  1. Anonymous says:

    That fastest possible marathon post seems to be very weak, since it's based on trends of marathon times and not on any actual model of human physiology or race conditions. At human running speeds, wind resistance is a noticeable drain on power. Imagine if the top marathoner had a tailwind through an entire course.

  2. Brian Burke says:

    ???

    It's weak because it's based on actual marathon times and not a hypothetical all-tailwind race?

  3. Anonymous says:

    They take tailwinds as well as changes in altitude into account when deciding who holds the world record. The Geoffrey Mutai, the latest Boston marathon winner ran a 2:03:02 but didn't break Haile Gebreselassie's world record because he had too strong of a tailwind on a downhill point to point race.

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