So when I got to work this morning, I looked up this poll.  The article I believe the caller was referring to is this one by Paul Bedard complete with the headline “Poll: Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama’s Reelection”.  The poll results cited in the article are as follows:

As we enter the presidential election year of 2012, what potential news event do you fear the most?

President Obama wins reelection 33%

Taxes will increase 31%

Iran will get a nuclear weapon 16%

Obama will lose reelection 16%

North Korea will attack South Korea 4%

I don’t know who looks at the results of this poll and takes away the headline “Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama’s Reelection”.  That headline implies (intentionally?) that the question that was asked in the poll was “Do you fear Obama’s re-election” when, in fact, the question asked was “As we enter the presidential election year of 2012, what potential news event do you fear the most?”

These are entirely different questions and to draw the conclusion that “Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama’s Reelection” is, at best, unintentionally misleading.  You could say “Americans, 2-1, cite Obama’s re-election as their number one fear,” but that is an entirely different statement.  If you really want to know how many American’s fear Obama’s re-election, you need to ask that question in a well sampled poll, which this may or may not have been.

Regardless, there is no way to look at the results of this pool and honestly draw the conclusion that “Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama’s Reelection”.   This is either a misunderstanding leading to a misleading headline or intentionally dishonest.

PS Regardless of your politics, how can anymore be more fearful of the 2012 presidential outcome or your taxes going up than of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.  Maybe you’re annoyed or bothered that your taxes will go up, but do you fear an increase in taxes?  Iran getting a nuclear weapon is more than just an annoyance or a bother.

Cheers.

Previous rankings are here.

(Note: The Missouri Valley Conference will now be represented by red.  In order for the Pac-12 to earn back their color, they will need to get a team in the top 25 and have all the MVC teams fall out of the top 25.  Until that happens, Pac-12 teams will be listed in the “other” category.)

Breakdown by conference: 2, 5, 7, 4, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2

ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC MWC MVC Other

26-35: Mississippi St., Louisville, Purdue, West Virginia, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Florida, Alabama, Murray St., Cincinnati

BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.

Cheers.

Cheers.

-I’m going to quote myself and re-post this point (from here) because it seems very relevant:

“Last year there were 2 teams that averaged over 23 points on offense and under 18 points on defense.  They were the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers who ultimately met in the Super Bowl.  This year there are three teams that meet this criteria: San Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans.  So, I guess I’m taking the 49ers over the Ravens in the Super Bowl.”

Of course, based on my rankings, right now, I’m picking San Francisco over New England in the Super Bowl.

-My super bowl picks based on my rankings at the beginning of the season was New England over Atlanta.  And my pick based on my “gut” was Tampa Bay over Baltimore.

Record: 4-4

✓=Correct Pick; ✗=Incorrect Pick

Cheers.

Previous rankings are here.

Three new teams this week: Marquette, New Mexico, and Wichita State.  Marquette and New Mexico return to the top 25 after a week off, whereas Wichita State makes its top 25 debut in the StatsInTheWild Top 25 NCAA Basketball rankings.  The three teams that dropped out of the top 25 this week are Kansas State, Louisville, and Minnesota.  Wisconsin’s victory over Purdue caused them both to move ten spots in opposite directions with Wisconsin climbing and Purdue falling.

(Note: The Missouri Valley Conference will now be represented by red.  In order for the Pac-12 to earn back their color, they will need to get a team in the top 25 and have all the MVC teams fall out of the top 25.  Until that happens, Pac-12 teams will be listed in the “other” category.)

Breakdown by conference: 2, 5, 8, 3, 0, 2, 3, 2

ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC MWC MVC Other

26-35: Louisville, Miss State, Minnesota, Virginia, St. Mary’s-CA, Vanderbilt, Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Colorado State, West Virginia

BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.

Cheers.

I hadn’t really thought much about Tebow one way or the other until one of his stats caught my eye.  In Denver’s week 10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, Tebow’s passer rating was 102.6 based on 2 completions in 8 attempts, good for 69 yards, 1 touchdown, and no interceptions.  For some context, 102.6 was good enough for 7th best rating among starting quarterbacks that week.  This seemed odd to me since 2 for 8, 69 yards, and 1 touchdown seems like a terrible game.

So this got me wondering: What exactly is passer rating?  This website describes the formula in detail along with some of its history, but the basics are as follows.

1. Compute completions divided by passing attempts, subtract 0.3, and multiply by 5.
2. Compute yards divided by passing attempts, subtract 3, and multiple by 0.25
3. Compute touchdowns divided by passing attempts and multiply by 20.
4. Compute interceptions divided by passing attempts, multiply this by 25, and subtract this from 2.375

If any of the results of the four parts is less than 0 or greater than 2.375, that component is rounded up or down to the respective bound.  Now, add the four, possibly rounded, components together, multiply by 100, and divide by 6.  This yields a maximum score of 158.3.  (I swear I didn’t just make all of that up; the NFL actually uses this.)

Now since I like football and I love R, I decided to do some graphical exploring with passer rating.  Since the only topic anyone wants to talk about in the NFL right now is Tim Tebow, I figured I had to look at him.  And who better to compare him to than his opponent next week, three time Super Bowl champion Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.  Using the data from their regular season games (Tebow started 11 games and came in at half time in week 5; Brady started all 16), I created these graphs for Tom Brady and Tim Tebow.  Each individual graph shows how quarterback rating would vary based on number of completions and total passing yards for a fixed number of passing attempts, touchdowns, and interceptions. The green dot in each plot represents where each quarterback actually fell that week in their game.

What stands out to me in looking at these graphs is Brady’s consistency.  The green Brady dot seems to be always in the right, upper half of the graph.  Week in and week out he puts up around 300 yards (with the occasional 517 yard game thrown in) and a completion percentage in the mid to high 60s.  In fact, Brady had a completion percentage of over 50% in every single game this season.

Tebow, on the other hand, is, to put it politely, all over the place.  In week 13, Tebow put up a nearly perfect passer rating of 149.3, which is almost 14 points higher than Brady’s best passer rating of the season.  On the other hand, Tebow had a lower passer rating than Brady’s worst passer rating, 75.4, in 5 out of the 12 games Tebow started.  So you could say that almost half of the time this season, Tebow was worse than Brady’s worst.

This all adds up to the fact that the Broncos should lose to the Patriots.  Based on the stats, Brady is too good and Tebow is too inconsistent to amount to a Denver victory.  Of course, while you may find all of this interesting, in the end none of these numbers or pretty pictures mean anything at all to Tim Tebow, who, as they say, only cares about one stat and that’s winning.

Previous rankings are here.

Three new teams enter the rankings: Virginia, Alabama, and Creighton.  They replace New Mexico, Minnesota, and Marquette.  The biggest movers up were Kansas and Kentucky who moved up 12 spots to 12 and up 9 spots to 10, respectively.  UConn and Wisconsin both fall 12 spots to 19 and 25, respectively.  UConn is coming off back-to-back losses for the first time this year, and Wisconsin is in the midst of a three game losing streak.

Breakdown by conference: 3, 5, 8, 4, 0, 2, 2, 1

ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC MWC Other

BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.

Cheers.

Some Notes:

-My preseason pick for the Super Bowl base on numbers was New England over Atlanta.  That’s not crazy at all right now.  My Super Bowl pick based on my gut was Tampa Bay over Baltimore.  Well, half of that makes sense.

-Last year there were 2 teams that averaged over 23 points on offense and under 18 points on defense.  They were the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers who ultimately met in the Super Bowl.  This year there are three teams that meet this criteria: San Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans.  So, I guess I’m taking the 49ers over the Ravens in the Super Bowl.

Record: 2-2

✓=Correct Pick; ✗=Incorrect Pick

Cheers.

Cheers.

Previous rankings are here.

Pittsburgh, Oklahoma, and Miss St. fall out of the top 25 and New Mexico, North Carolina, and Purdue are in the top 25 this week.  The Mountain West conference has 3 teams in my top 25.  That is the same number as the ACC, Pac-12 and SEC COMBINED.  I’ve even given the MWC there own color (purple).  I considered giving them red since the Pac-12 wasn’t using it at all, but I think purple is a more fitting color for the MWC (think purple mountains majesty).

Breakdown by conference: 2, 6, 9, 4, 0, 1, 3

ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC MWC Other

BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.

Cheers.