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

DL: Brett Keisel, Jan Jorgensen, Chris Hoke, Ryan Denney

LB: Bryan Kehl, Cameron Jensen, Brady Poppinga

DB: Aaron Francisco, Andrew Rich, Brian Logan, Jernaro Gilford

K: Matt Payne

P: Matt Payne

RS: Austin Collie

This week, the final week of the survey, we have three polls, please vote in all of them. Kickers, punters and return specialists. Vote for whomever you like, but keep a few things in mind.

Kickers – Owen Pochman’s 2000 season should be the only one considered. 97-99 were in the previous decade.

Punters – Riley Stephenson’s 2009 season should be the only one considered for the same reason.

Return Specialists – Only vote based on Austin Collie’s kickoff and punt return abilities. Not his overall pass catching awesomeness.

The nominees are for 2000s all-decade team return specialists are O’Neil Chambers, Austin Collie, Bryce Mahuika and Nathan Meikle.

So, the nominees are for 2000s all-decade team kickers are Jared McLaughlin, Matt Payne, Mitch Payne and Owen Pochman.

The nominees are for 2000s all-decade team punters are Aaron Edmonds, Derek McLaughlin, Matt Payne, CJ Santiago and Riley Stephenson.

Vote for three. The poll will remain open for the rest of the week.

Vote for four. The poll will stay up for the rest of the 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

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.

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.

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.

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.