The voting is complete for the CougarStats 2000s all-decade team on the offensive side of the ball. We’ll move on to defense starting next week.
QB: John Beck
RB: Luke Staley, Harvey Unga
TE: Dennis Pitta
WR: Austin Collie, Reno Mahe
OL: Ben Archibald, Travis Bright, Ray Feinga, Scott Jackson, Matt Reynolds
Filed under Football
A week ago, http://blog.cougarstats.com/2012/01/30/the-terrible-tale-of-the-threes/ was posted, using a little mathematical thought exercise about how unlikely BYU’s 4 game shooting slump from three point range was. Times have changed, but BYU’s shooting woes haven’t. Over their last 6 games, BYU has only hit 17 of their last 101 three point attempts. A mere 16.8%.
Let me introduce you to the Grambling State Tigers. Grambling State has a wonderful football legacy; Eddie Robinson had over 400 career wins, placed dozens of players in the NFL and they get a national appearance on NBC every Thanksgiving weekend. However, their basketball program is another story.
Grambling is the worst shooting team in the nation. Period. They are the 2nd worst in the nation in 3 point percentage (26.0%) and are the worst in the nation in two point percentage (37.2%). There are 345 Division 1 basketball teams and they are 344th and 345th in 3 point and 2 point shooting respectively.
HOWEVER, they have not had a 3 point shooting slump anywhere near as bad as BYU’s current slump this season. The worst 6 game total for Grambling was their first 6 games of the season, where they shot 21 of 95 (22.1%) from outside the arc. Their worst is still 5% better than BYU’s worst.
Filed under Uncategorized
The voting for Wide Receivers last week wasn’t very close. Austin Collie ran away with it receiving 145 votes. Reno Mahe also made the team with 65 votes. Todd Watkins was the only other WR in the running with 47.
This week is different. We’re voting for the whole offensive line. We have 13 nominees — three with the same last name. If you want to consider positions, great. Or, just vote for the best 5 and if we end up with five centers, we’ll let them take turns snapping the ball.
Your nominees are: Ben Archibald Sete Aulai Travis Bright Ray Feinga Scott Jackson Jake Kuresa Dallas Reynolds Lance Reynolds Matt Reynolds Dustin Rykert Brian Sanders Jason Scukanec and Scott Young.
Remember, VOTE FOR FIVE LINEMEN.
Filed under Football
Two weeks ago, BYU was better than more than 330 of the 345 Division 1 basketball teams in 3 point shooting. Over their first 20 games, BYU was making a very respectable 39.8% of their 3-point attempts. Then something happened. Something terrible. Something so unprobable that it led to the following use of oversized tables and graphs.
Over its last 4 games, BYU has only made 11 of 73 three point attempts, a mere 15.0%. Jimmer Fredette, over his last 4 games has made 11 of 17 NBA-length 3 point attempts; 56 fewer attempts than BYU, but the same number of makes.
Can this slump be blamed on the level of competition? Yes, and no. Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, Virginia Tech and St. Mary’s rank 15th, 155th, 3rd and 246th respectively in 3 point percentage defense. That’s an average of 105th.
To try to get a rough feel for how unlikely the magnitude of this shooting slump is, let’s look at the math of the coin flip. In calculating the odds of getting a certain number of heads, an assumption is made that it doesn’t matter what has happened in the past as far as what will happen in the future. Now, intuition would have you believe that in the real world, it DOES matter how you have shot in the recent past when determining how likely you will make your next shot. In other words, if a team is hot, they will be more likely to make a shot than average and vice versa. However, statistical research into this very topic (feel free to Google a bit) has failed to substantiate that intuition.
So let’s assume that we have a coin that comes up heads 40% of the time; consistent with BYU’s 3 point accuracy for their first 20 games. If you flipped that lop-sided coin 73 times, how often would you expect to get heads 11 times or less? Well, I simulated this very thing 500,000 times in Excel. In only TWO simulations did Excel produce a result where there were 11 “heads” or less.
Take a look at the raw data and then the bar chart below. I had to stretch the graph in Excel to be 350 rows high before I could even see the pixel representing BYU’s 11 for 73 likelihood. Using this approximation, the odds against this severe of a slump is 250,000 to 1. In reality the odds are most likely not anywhere that extreme, but even if you generously account for an increase in the level of competition and the psychological effects of being in a slump, it’s still safe to say that the magnitude of this slump is still quite remarkable.
| Makes | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 0 |
| 3 | 0 |
| 4 | 0 |
| 5 | 0 |
| 6 | 0 |
| 7 | 0 |
| 8 | 0 |
| 9 | 1 |
| 10 | 0 |
| 11 | 1 |
| 12 | 7 |
| 13 | 15 |
| 14 | 52 |
| 15 | 122 |
| 16 | 329 |
| 17 | 660 |
| 18 | 1288 |
| 19 | 2533 |
| 20 | 4587 |
| 21 | 7715 |
| 22 | 11815 |
| 23 | 17362 |
| 24 | 23454 |
| 25 | 30451 |
| 26 | 37444 |
| 27 | 42789 |
| 28 | 46518 |
| 29 | 47320 |
| 30 | 45937 |
| 31 | 42273 |
| 32 | 36334 |
| 33 | 30068 |
| 34 | 23233 |
| 35 | 16976 |
| 36 | 11843 |
| 37 | 7892 |
| 38 | 4854 |
| 39 | 2910 |
| 40 | 1576 |
| 41 | 824 |
| 42 | 413 |
| 43 | 233 |
| 44 | 98 |
| 45 | 43 |
| 46 | 16 |
| 47 | 8 |
| 48 | 3 |
| 49 | 3 |
| 50 | 0 |
| 51 | 0 |
| 52 | 0 |
| 53 | 0 |
| 54 | 0 |
| 55 | 0 |
| 56 | 0 |
| 57 | 0 |
| 58 | 0 |
| 59 | 0 |
| 60 | 0 |
| 61 | 0 |
| 62 | 0 |
| 63 | 0 |
| 64 | 0 |
| 65 | 0 |
| 66 | 0 |
| 67 | 0 |
| 68 | 0 |
| 69 | 0 |
| 70 | 0 |
| 71 | 0 |
| 72 | 0 |
| 73 | 0 |
Filed under Basketball
Last week’s Tight Ends poll was much less dramatic than the previous week’s QB voting. Dennis Pitta ran away with it while Jonny Harline was a distant second.
This week we move on to wide receivers. If we were only allowed one vote, we might have a similar result. But we’re choosing two: Matt Allen, Toby Christensen, Austin Collie, Reno Mahe, Michael Reed, and Todd Watkins are the nominees.
Filed under Football
Last week’s poll was exciting. With 324 votes cast, John Beck won the CougarStats QB of the decade over Max Hall by a mere 7 votes.
Now for the tight ends. We’re going to give 6 options. You can decided what your voting criteria is. Is it Harline for beating the Utes on his knees, George for splitting the gap in OT, Pitta, BYU’s all-time receiving leader, Doug Jolley for his role in BYU’s great 2001 season?
Choose on, the poll will be open for one week.
Filed under Uncategorized
The results are in for the first round of the CougarStats all-decade team for the 2000s. Luke Staley and Harvey Unga mad the team with 198 and 164 votes. Curtis Brown came in a distant third with 43 votes. Fui Vakapuna also ran.
This week it’s quarterbacks. Three nominees. Vote for one. John Beck, Brandon Doman and Max Hall. The poll will remain open for one week.
Filed under Football
Beginning with Beck-to-Harline, BYU has been the most clutch team in America. BYU has been an amazing 18-2 in games decided by 7 points or less since that moment.
| Rank | Team | Wins | Losses | Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BYU | 18 | 2 | 0.900 |
| 2 | Wyoming | 17 | 4 | 0.810 |
| 3 | Utah | 15 | 5 | 0.750 |
| 4 | Cincinnati | 15 | 5 | 0.750 |
| 5 | East Carolina | 22 | 9 | 0.710 |
| 6 | LSU | 17 | 7 | 0.708 |
| 7 | Northwestern | 21 | 9 | 0.700 |
| 8 | Oregon St. | 16 | 7 | 0.696 |
| 9 | Hawaii | 14 | 7 | 0.667 |
| 10 | Syracuse | 12 | 6 | 0.667 |
| 11 | Oklahoma St. | 12 | 6 | 0.667 |
| 12 | Texas Tech | 13 | 7 | 0.650 |
| 13 | Rice | 13 | 7 | 0.650 |
| 14 | Kansas St. | 13 | 7 | 0.650 |
| 15 | Texas | 11 | 6 | 0.647 |
| 16 | Auburn | 18 | 10 | 0.643 |
| 17 | Boise St. | 7 | 4 | 0.636 |
| 18 | La.-Lafayette | 12 | 7 | 0.632 |
| 19 | Miami (OH) | 15 | 9 | 0.625 |
| 20 | Penn St. | 10 | 6 | 0.625 |
Here are how some of these games have ended:
11/25/2006 – Beck-to-Harline TD pass for 33-31 win as game ended.
11/8/2007 – Dalton sacked twice to prevent game-winning drive in a 27-22 win
11/24/2007 – Hall-to-Collie on 4th and 18th capped off by Unga steamrolling into the end zone with 56 seconds remaining for 17-10 win
12/22/2007 – Eathyn Manumaleuna blocks UCLA’s 28 yard FG attempt on the last play of the game to preserve a 17-16 bowl victory.
9/6/2008 – Jan Jorgensen blocks Washington’s PAT attempt that would have sent the game into overtime, but instead gives BYU a 28-27 victory
10/25/2008 – Dennis Pitta hauls in a Max Hall pass with 1:46 left to put BYU ahead 42-35 against UNLV. Andrew Rich intercepts Omar Clayton’s pass in the end zone on the last play of the game to thwart a comeback.
11/1/2008 – Dennis Pitta scores with 22 seconds left as BYU rallies for a 45-42 win at Colorado State.
9/5/2009 – McKay Jacobsen catches a pass in the back of the end zone to put BYU up 14-13 against #3 Oklahoma. Oklahoma is misses a 55 yard FG as time expires.
11/28/2009 – Andrew George splits two defenders in OT and rumbles for a 25 yard TD in a 26-23 win over Utah.
9/3/2011 – Kyle Van Noy sacks the Ole Miss QB on 3rd and 27, forcing a fumble and then recovering it for a game winning TD in a 14-13 victory.
9/30/2011 – Riley Nelson, in relief of starter Jake Heaps, drives BYU an amazing 98 yards in two minutes and pinballs the game-winning pass to Marcus Matthews with 11 seconds left to beat Utah State 27-24
12/30/2011 – Riley Nelson decides winning another game with 11 seconds left is a good idea as he fake spikes the ball and catches Tulsa asleep as he throws the game winning pass to Cody Hoffman in a 24-21 bowl victory.
Now that the football season is over, we’re going to try something new . This is your chance to help choose the CougarStats all-decade BYU football team.
Vote for the CougarStats.com all-decade team for 2000-2009. We’ll start out with running backs and in one week we’ll move on to another position until we have a full line-up. Nominees are selected based on stats, all-conference selections or because I just felt like it. Write-in votes accepted as comments to this blog post.
Later, we’ll select all-decade teams for the 90s, 80s and so on. Players who crossed over two decades can only be selected once. So, if Owen Pochman, for example, is not selected as the kicker of the decade for the 200s, he will be on the ballot for the 90s. If he wins for the 200s, then he will be kept off of the ballot for the 90s.
Here are the running back nominees. Pick 2. Curtis Brown, JJ DiLuigi, Luke Staley, Harvey Unga and Fui Vakapuna.
The career stat lists on CougarStats do not include bowl game stats for players prior to 2002, the year that the NCAA started including bowl games in their official stats. For a long time, I’ve wondered how much of a disadvantage this gives the older players. Would it make much of a difference in the top 10 rankings if pre-2002 bowl statistics were included?
For passing and rushing leaders, the bowls make no difference. The top ten is unchanged. For scoring and receiving, the leaders would change.
RECEIVING
Dennis Pitta is BYU’s all-time leader in receptions with 221. 15 of those catches were in bowl games. Matt Bellini is third with 204. If Bellini’s 24 bowl game receptions were included in his career totals, he would take over the top spot with 228.
Official receiving leaders:
| 1 | Pitta, Dennis | 221 |
| 2 | Collie, Austin | 215 |
| 3 | Bellini, Matt | 204 |
| 4 | Hooks, Margin | 189 |
| 5 | Odle, Phil | 183 |
| 6 | Hudson, Gordon | 178 |
| 7 | Mahe, Reno | 166 |
| 8 | Drage, Eric | 162 |
| 9 | Brown, Curtis | 157 |
| 10 | Christensen, Todd | 152 |
—
Receiving leaders with pre-2002 bowl games included:
| 1 | Bellini, Matt | 228 |
| 2 | Pitta, Dennis | 221 |
| 3 | Collie, Austin | 215 |
| 4 | Drage, Eric | 195 |
| 5 | Hooks, Margin | 194 |
| 6 | Hudson, Gordon | 192 |
| 7 | Odle, Phil | 183 |
| 8 | Mahe, Reno | 173 |
| 9 | Heimuli, Lakei | 161 |
| 10 | Christensen, Todd | 160 |
—
If the NCAA did not change the rule in 2002 and no bowl game stats were included, Pitta would still be #1, but Bellini would hold the second place spot ahead of Austin Collie.
Receiving leaders with no bowl game stats:
| 1 | Pitta, Dennis | 206 |
| 2 | Bellini, Matt | 204 |
| 3 | Collie, Austin | 198 |
| 4 | Hooks, Margin | 189 |
| 5 | Odle, Phil | 183 |
| 6 | Hudson, Gordon | 178 |
| 7 | Mahe, Reno | 166 |
| 8 | Drage, Eric | 162 |
| 9 | Christensen, Todd | 152 |
| 10 | Bellini, Mark | 146 |
——
RECEIVING YARDS
Austin Collie officially has the most receiving yards in BYU history and if pre-2002 bowl stats were included he would still hold the title. However, Eric Drage has more yards in regular season games.
Official receiving yards leaders:
| 1 | Collie, Austin | 3,255 |
| 2 | Drage, Eric | 3,065 |
| 3 | Pitta, Dennis | 2,883 |
| 4 | Hooks, Margin | 2,841 |
| 5 | Bellini, Matt | 2,635 |
| 6 | Odle, Phil | 2,548 |
| 7 | Hudson, Gordon | 2,484 |
| 8 | Bellini, Mark | 2,429 |
| 9 | Smith, Chris | 2,367 |
| 10 | Kozlowski, Glen | 2,223 |
—
Receiving yards leaders with pre-2002 bowl games included:
| 1 | Collie, Austin | 3,255 |
| 2 | Drage, Eric | 3,227 |
| 3 | Hooks, Margin | 2,953 |
| 4 | Pitta, Dennis | 2,883 |
| 5 | Bellini, Matt | 2,868 |
| 6 | Hudson, Gordon | 2,600 |
| 7 | Bellini, Mark | 2,600 |
| 8 | Odle, Phil | 2,548 |
| 9 | Smith, Chris | 2,463 |
| 10 | Kozlowski, Glen | 2,330 |
—
Receiving yards leaders with no bowl game stats:
| 1 | Drage, Eric | 3,065 |
| 2 | Collie, Austin | 3,029 |
| 3 | Hooks, Margin | 2,841 |
| 4 | Pitta, Dennis | 2,742 |
| 5 | Bellini, Matt | 2,635 |
| 6 | Odle, Phil | 2,548 |
| 7 | Hudson, Gordon | 2,484 |
| 8 | Bellini, Mark | 2,429 |
| 9 | Smith, Chris | 2,367 |
| 10 | Kozlowski, Glen | 2,223 |
—
POINTS SCORED
The biggest loser in this little experiment is Mitch Payne, bless his heart. In the official stats Payne leads Owen Pochman by a single point. If you add Pochman’s bowl stats, he takes over #1 with 341 points. If you take away Mitch’s bowl stats, he gets passed by Pochman and Mitch’s big brother Matt.
Official scoring leaders:
| 1 | Payne, Mitch | 334 |
| 2 | Pochman, Owen | 333 |
| 3 | Payne, Matt | 312 |
| 4 | Staley, Luke | 290 |
| 5 | Unga, Harvey | 266 |
| 6 | Gunther, Kurt | 243 |
| 7 | Willis, Jamal | 240 |
| 8 | Brown, Curtis | 218 |
| 9 | Hamilton, Waymon | 192 |
| 10 | Heimuli, Lakei | 192 |
—
Scoring leaders with pre-2002 bowl games included:
| 1 | Pochman, Owen | 341 |
| 2 | Payne, Mitch | 334 |
| 3 | Payne, Matt | 316 |
| 4 | Staley, Luke | 290 |
| 5 | Unga, Harvey | 266 |
| 6 | Gunther, Kurt | 258 |
| 7 | Willis, Jamal | 252 |
| 8 | Brown, Curtis | 236 |
| 9 | Hamilton, Waymon | 198 |
| 10 | Heimuli, Lakei | 192 |
—
Scoring leaders with no bowl game stats:
| 1 | Pochman, Owen | 333 |
| 2 | Payne, Matt | 312 |
| 3 | Payne, Mitch | 308 |
| 4 | Staley, Luke | 290 |
| 5 | Unga, Harvey | 254 |
| 6 | Gunther, Kurt | 243 |
| 7 | Willis, Jamal | 240 |
| 8 | Brown, Curtis | 200 |
| 9 | Hamilton, Waymon | 192 |
| 10 | Heimuli, Lakei | 192 |
Filed under Football
