Is football just luck?

[Gary_Yngve]

 

The above bargraph is the result of a million trials of twelve simulated drives.

 

A drive of 80 yds or more earned 7 points, a drive of 60-79 yards earned 3 points, and anything less earned 0 points. A drive was assumed finished on a turnover, a score, or a 4th down (mandatory FG or Punt).

 

Each play was (incorrectly) assumed to be independent of any other play, the down, or yards needed for a first.

 

The distribution of yardage was assigned relatively arbitrarily as follows:

 

2%: turnover

3%: loss of 2 to loss of 15

15%: loss of 2 to gain of 1

20%: gain of 1 to gain of 4

20%: gain of 4 to gain of 8

15%: gain of 8 to gain of 16

5%: gain of 16 to gain of 32

2%: touchdown

 

Note the wide spread in total scores.

[olyclimber]

nice troll gary

[chucK]

Ooooh aggregated scores from virtual football!

 

That's even more boring than aggregated scores from real football!

[Dru]

Gary's PhD is just luck so far.

[Gary_Yngve]

There's actually a lot of interest in psychology and probability:

 

http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/courses/stat_121/lectures/psychofprob/

 

One thing I find interesting is if you take what's his name who had 3000+ hits in baseball, a .300+ average, and a hit-in-a-game streak of 40+ days, and work out the math assuming each swing has identical independent probability, the expected streak over his career agrees what actually happened.

[Dru]

If you're so accurate why don't you take up playin the ponies?

[DirtyHarry]

and work out the math assuming each swing has identical independent probability, the expected streak over his career agrees what actually happened.

 

They speak english in your neighborhood Gary?

[underworld]

phd in enumclawlogy

Edited February 6, 2006 by underworld

[olyclimber]

Here is how you teach math:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7172438422483406719&q=bikini+calculus

[EWolfe]

I got yer aggregate