Built this off what ESPN showed. Below are opponent penalty yards in their WSU game vs. all their other conference games.
The trend line is interesting. The delta is growing as the season progresses.
Tinfoil Hat Thoughts:
- Teams - especially conference royalty (Furd, SC, Oregon) - get dinged less when they play WSU
- By contrast, we possibly enjoy some "protection" from non-royalty: OSU, Utah
- The gap to Oregon would have been more severe than 8% except for their 1-penalty game this weekend vs UCLA
- WSU has gotten a lot of penalties this year (conference game average is 8 for 82 - that has to lead the PAC). I assume most are legit?
- IF there is really something going on, my hypothesis would be three-fold:
- Early season playoff hopeful teams (SC, Oregon, Furd) are protected against an insurgent threat (WSU)
- Leach texts ratchet up punishment in subsequent games
- Some percentage of the variation is truly random
Legitimately concerned
- Thread starter chipdouglas
- Start date
You can go through the play by play on ESPN and get the penalties, but what a drag...
For Kal:
1 roughing the passer
2 Personal Fouls
2 def holding
3 of the 5 were on 3rd and long.
For Furd:
4x Pass Interference
1x Personal foul
For Ducks:
3x Pass Interference
$C:
4x PI
2x Hold
1x Personal Foul
Most of those were on 1st or 2nd down, fwiw.
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So what I said in my blank post was; the trend line in kind of interesting. Non royalty is now getting 50% less yards vs more yards earlier.
It’s been over 40 years since my last statistics class, but with the right null hypothesis and confidence interval maybe someone can say if this is proof of something.
It’s been over 40 years since my last statistics class, but with the right null hypothesis and confidence interval maybe someone can say if this is proof of something.
Well then you may or may not remember that 6-7 observations (games) per team would have a huge confidence interval, even at 90%. Having said that, it more or less fits preconceived notions. It's not THE smoking gun but it adds fuel to the conspiracy.
Interestingly, the exact same phenomenon was true on the Seahawks the year after they won the Super Bowl, but it was more dramatic. I don't think the NFL hate/d Seattle, but I do think there is interest in keeping things exciting ie "anybody can win." Patriots notwithstanding, NFL doesn't feel it's good business if odds continually favor one team.
Of course, league parity is a different reason than putting your boot on the neck of an inconveniently mouthy coach or protecting league royalty.
See this is 11 pass interferences
And 2 defensive holding (variant PI)
That’s 13 over 4 games or 3+ per game DB penalties
4 personal fouls or 1 per game
Those pass interferences just seem way out of wack.
I wouldn’t have agreed with this after the SC game. But Stanford and Cal were both ridiculously one sided.
Problem now is it’s becoming a trend that other coaches can coach too and screws us even more. Opposing Coach to receiver...create lots of contact, wazzu will get flagged, they aren’t gonna call offensive PI on you.
This is more concerning to me than the officials. It won't be long til we hear/read about an upcoming coach mention it in a pregame interview. When that happens, you know it's in everyone's game plan.