Is there any interest in organizing some kind of forum-driven, fan-sourced charting/plus-minuses sort of thing for OSU this year? I've always felt that it's the one thing still missing from OSU fandom compared to others.
It'd be great if we could pick out formations and plays, but it'd be a big improvement to even get basic levels of who made good plays or mistakes and when. We could keep a forum thread and assign quarters (or even 10-minute sections) of gameplay to individuals so it isn't too overwhelming of a chore.
What do you guys think? Do we think this forum can do that sort of thing?
Edit:
I am making some progress on organization. For your review, here are my first drafts of the charting templates. Please tell me if you think there is anything we need to include that is missing, or if you think that we are collecting more than you are willin to assist with. I have included comments on every column describing what it is for.
Offense:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As4vcV7f52kMdEV2Y3NMQm5fNHI...
Defense:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As4vcV7f52kMdEw2SkJ5ODNGM2V...
Proposed Workflow
- Sign up to chart a section of the game on that week's forum thread.
- Record the game.
- When you are sober and ready to review, save a copy of the template for offense and defense. (Go to the links above and select "File->Make a Copy"). Name it based on the section of the game you charted and the opponent. If you want to help, but do not want to sign up for a google account, PM me after you sign up and we can do things over email.
- Watch your section of the game, filling in your copy of the forms as you go.
- When you are finished, share your filled in spreadsheet and link it in the forum thread.
- I will combine the different spreadsheets into a single blog post to be posted to 11W.
Plus/Minus
I have made an explanation of how I think we should count plus/minus for purposes of these reviews.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/blogs/yrro/game-charting-guide-to-plusses-...
UFR Versus Advanced Stats
Some people have brought up the more advanced statistics from places like Football Outsiders, or Kenpom's work for basketball. I would *love* to track that kind of information for OSU football, but I think we should try to walk before we run. If this becomes a well-established group project, possibly even with more direct website support instead of linking spreadsheets around, and with a dozen different volunteers ready to put time in on any given week, I think we should definitely try to go into more detail. As it is, I want anyone who can follow directions and read a roster to be able to contribute, not only people who can tell what defense we were in at a glance, or who are willing to track every single substitution we make.
So my goal with this is more similar to the Under Further Review features at Mgoblog. I want to expose what actually happened to the fans on 11W, not to use statistics to derive unexpected correlations between winning and how often we line up with two tight tends on the same side of the field.
Time vs Offense/Defense
What do we think about instead of doing it by time, doing offense/defense? So pick "First Quarter Offense" or "Fourth Quarter Defense."?
Edit 2:
I feel like we should more 11 Warriors-y names for pluses and minuses. Maybe Buckeye Leaves and ??? Open to suggestions.
Edit 3:
First game thread is live at:
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/forum/football/2013/08/buckeye-charting-pr...
Please sign up!
I will probably be impaired every game..
So I'm not sure it would be a good idea for me to participate.
This is a great idea. I wonder if something like a Google spreadsheet would work?
I think that would be the easiest way to do it.
We could set up a forum thread for each game for people to volunteer for a part of the game.
Have a spreadsheet set up on google docs with the information we want for each play. I'd be willing to write a style guide/link to some of the other sites that do this sort of thing for guidelines on how to tell what personnel is in the game.
I'm thinking just something simple so we don't have to all be Russ to contribute. Something like:
Personnel and formation (nearest guess), run or pass, type of play (if user can identify), result. Any obvious successes/failures on the part of the major players.
Post the review with a final summary maybe the Thursday or Friday before the next game to give people time to get their pieces of it in.
I'm willing to help with the organizing. I should be able to do a review section on the games that are on broadcast... unfortunately, unless we have a reliable torrent source I can't record the ESPN or BTN games myself.
That sounds great. We'll get the word out via Skull Sessions, too. Thank you.
Sounds cool at first glance, but we're going to scout our own team, list our team's tendencies, and post the results on the internet for everyone to see?
You realize that every team we play has graduate assistants with *actual* football knowledge for whom this is their entire job?
Yeah but we are soooooo much better than them.
Yeah, no bigger soul crusher in sports than knowing exactly what the other team is going to do, preparing for it all week/year, then not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. Everyone in the stadium and watching at home during The Game last year knew that Hyde was going to get the ball in the 4th quarter and nobody had anything for him.
I would personally love this, because I could run some interesting stats stuff with full charting data. If there are enough people who wouldn't mind getting on board with this then I will make sure to highlight their work in my weekly stats game overviews. Thanks for suggesting this, YRRO.
Are there any stats you would like to see? I'm going to make up a list of what I can think of, but I'll probably miss something.
My goal is to start simple enough that it's not a huge chore for people, but detailed enough to be useful... so definitely less detail than what football outsiders do.
Im sure I could help in some way...but there is no way in hell I am doing it live lol. On gameday my attention is soley on the game, I hardly even talk during unless its "Yes!" or "F**K!", but I do DVR the game and usually watch it the next day so I could provide something.
OMG yes! I am assuming this is a DVR replay sort of thing. Personally, at least, I'd need to be able to pause it to be able to write down anything intelligent anyway.
Yeah. Depending in what you want me track I can get down on this. I think it would contribute a lot to this site and the community here. Also it would make me a better and more knowledgable viewer so it's win-win. And if I only have a ten minute section or something, it wouldn't be much of a time commitment to complain about. I don't know if we could do something like the UFRs at MGoBlog cuz it seems so subjective if it was done crowd sourced it might have varied results across reviewers. But if you just want straight stats sure.
“Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.” - Woody
I would be down knowing what I need to chart in advance. I do have 2 questions.
1. You said other fan bases do this, do we have an example we can see? Is there a site we can look at to see what depth it has been done, and in that regard decide if we want to go that far or go further per se?
2. I have recently been interested in WAR with baseball (Wins Above Replacement) which I think would be a very nice stat for defensive players. Obviously someone like Braxton would be in pretty much on every play, same with Devin Smith and linemen. But how many positive plays are made while Dontre is on the field would be very interesting to me. I'm really saying wins but positive plays made while a player is on the field. I would love to know the percentage of how many good plays are made while RDS is playing as opposed to plays that are bad while he is playing.
I assume YRRO you have some sort of stats background or if anyone on here does, they could maybe help in the set up. I mean I know stats enough to be able to put together the data for simple percentages but some stats can be complicated when you try to make it matter. I like things like WAR for positive plays but stats like how good does Braxton do with these 3 players on the field as opposed to those 3 players. That I can't do.
I saw a UFO once.......it told me to have a goodyear!
Look at the example linked below of MGoBlog's UFR's. The tables from that are similar to what I am thinking.
Ross Fulton already does most of the general commentary and high-level analysis. My goal for this is simple "this is what happened* level of information to assist in that sort of analysis.
I would *love* to try to come up with some sort of WAR metric for OSU football. I think that it may be reaching too high to start out, though. My goal is to start out simple so that we don't overburden our volunteers. If it turns out that this is a successful project, we can look at adding more information to what we track.
Keep track of exactly which players are in every snap is a *lot* more work than just tracking that we lined up 5-wide, and who got the ball. In many cases you wouldn't even be sure from the normal camera angles.
I actually personally do not have much of a stats background. I just took the required courses for my computer science major. My hope is that we can gather the data in a format that is useful to someone with a stats background, though.
If this helps me get some assistance on the very first offensive and defensive plays to determine a winner in the competition linked below, that would be awesome.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/forum/football/2013/02/unofficial-11w-cont...
Brilliant...
Edit: Would love to lend a hand!
~Naples Buckeye - "May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." - General George S. Patton, Jr.
I'm definitely up for it. Keep us updated on what you want tracked. Formations, down-and-distance tendencies, etc.
I'd be more than willing to help with anything
Still not giving a damn for the whole state of Michigan.
This is a great suggestion... but I do wonder if maybe an early 'retrospective' eval may be a little easier. Like DVR'ing the game, not having to worry about formations, etc during it (so we can actually cheer on our Buckeyes and not be distracted), then going back maybe that evening and checking the tendencies, kinda like film study.
Brian, from Mgoblog, does a play-by-play analysis a few days after each game. Here is an example of the Michigan-South Carolina game. It is good stuff and really hones our analytical skills.
http://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-2012-offense-vs-south-car...
The UFR's are exactly what I am trying to duplicate, without having to either dedicate an entire day to them myself or ask someone else to.
Let me know what you want me to do. I watch most of the games a second time alone because that way I can really watch closely. I love stats and especially CFB stats.
vacuuming sucks
Sounds like a fun project. Would be great if you get 8 individuals to compile. That way its just a half of quarter each. I would be happy to contribute. Heck, we dvr all games and i watch each one at least two more times on Sunday. Sometimes I have to wait til we get back from a trip, but usually I can watch the game a couple times by Tuesday at the latest. We need to start a discussion on what you want collected and when it needs to be submitted. If the deadlines are reasonable I would be interested. Please let me know if you would like my help.
Im like you, I DVR the game and watch it a couple more time during the week.
Id be in for contributing.
I was just thinking that we really need a "UFR" style feature for Ohio State. I definitely volunteer to take a chunk of each game to break down, assuming I can find the game online after the fact to break it down frame by frame.
Mgoblog does a great job with their UFR, so I think emulating that style would be a good starting point.
Let me know if you need more help. I am willing to help since I am getting a dvr at the new house on Friday before the start of the season. So I should be able to go back and watch everything again when it is over. Just let me know what you need to be done and hopefully I can help.
If you get enough volunteers, I'd recommend having multiple people collecting each data point, to catch errors. Ideally you'd have at least three. If one differs and two agree, you go with the two that agree. If they all differ they go back and do the data again.
I like the idea of just taking offense or defense. If we get enough ppl we can do that and just for a small block of time even and we should be able to do a lot with this eventually.
“Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.” - Woody
One thing I would suggest is that there be some kind of unifying oversight. I think that for this data to be as useful as possible there needs to be uniformity of interpretation so that the same things are evaluated the same way. Maybe with the compartmentalizing of charting responsibilities, it would also be helpful to have a single editor, someone with knowledge of the nuances of play type (ISO v. power, for example) as well as the individual responsibilities of players within plays?
I think this would be awesome. I am going to try to do what I can to edit the data to start, but I will admit 100% that my football knowledge is limited to reading Smart Football and Ross Fulton's articles and then forgetting half of what I read. If anyone is willing to volunteer to step in as an editor who has played or coached, that would be *amazing*.
Ideally, I would like to work with someone who *is* more knowledgeable (I have reached out to Ross for this, but I have no idea if he has space on his schedule - he's already super busy doing his film breakdowns every week) to help develop an easy style guide for volunteers to follow.
In the end, I think there are some things that we can get from the community very easily (run/pass, player, who screwed up/did something awesome). I think there is another set of things that requires much more knowledge of the game (actual play call, defensive coverage, assignments) that we can get if we get more dedicated, knowledgeable volunteers. There is a third set of information that I don't think we can get from broadcast film - who *actually* blew their assignment, for example.
As a first step, I want to get the first group. If this gets popular and we have more people interested in volunteering who are knowledgeable or who are willing to learn, we'll work toward the second group.
For now, I'm going to live with encouraging people to err on the side of incomplete data rather than wrong data. If the only play you know how to recognize is Inside Zone, then that's the only one you fill in :) Some data is better than none, IMO.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao9HO1lpexVEdHNzRjFOQmtPVVV...
That's my 2nd qtr Offense, hopefully that works
“Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.” - Woody
Will somebody let me know if you can see that. Yrro I can email it to you I think too if that would work better
“Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.” - Woody
Being at the games precludes me from getting involved except for some select road games. But I will read devour them.
IDEA: Plus = BUCKEYE Leaves
Minus = broken watches
You'd have to know Woody to understand.
On the wall guarding the North Coast from all Weasel invasions.
minus= buck ups
Delete. Wrong Charting Thread.
We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan, we're from O-HI-O!