Blame the Phones with Josh Rosenblat

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šŸ“µThe Big Ten semifinal
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šŸ“µThe Big Ten semifinal

Can Northwestern really knock off Wisconsin?

Josh Rosenblat
Nov 20, 2020
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šŸ“µThe Big Ten semifinal
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Twitter avatar for @BobbyPilloteBobby Pillote @BobbyPillote
Wisconsin fans throw snowballs at #Northwestern as they sing the fight song with fans.
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November 21st 2015

48 Retweets39 Likes

What’s up, everyone?

We’ve got a big football weekend ahead of us. So, I’m ready to jump right in.

But, before we do that, the Northwestern football community lost two members in recent weeks.

First, reader Robin Pendergrast from Salt Lake City wrote in asking about the late Bill Jarvis. Jarvis, Northwestern’s equipment manager for more than 35 years, died a few weeks ago. The equipment room at Ryan Field was named for him before he retired in 2011. When Northwestern took on Purdue, you might have noticed a sticker on players’ helmets with the word ā€œJARVā€ on it. Here’s a full obit from the Daily Northwestern.

Also, former Northwestern assistant performance coach Joe Orozco died last weekend. He was 30. Orozco and I overlapped at Northwestern and I’ll always remember his energy at practices and pregame. We also had a nice chat while waiting for a flight to go to a Northwestern bowl game (either the Outback Bowl in Tampa or the Pinstripe Bowl in New York — I can’t remember). When Eastern Illinois hired former Northwestern coach Adam Cushing to lead its football program, Orozco joined Cushing and was EIU’s director of football performance. Here’s a full obit from the Chicago Tribune.

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šŸ“µBlameĀ Wisconsin

Since Paul Chryst took over at Wisconsin ahead of the 2015 season, Northwestern and Wisconsin have played five times. The Badgers have won three times (2016, 2017, 2019) and the Wildcats have won twice. Northwestern has covered the point spread in all but one game (2016) and has been the underdog each time.

The most lopsided game, at least by advanced metrics, was a 33-24 Wisconsin win in 2017, a game in which CollegeFootballData.com measured Wisconsin’s post game win probability at 99%, meaning that the probability of Wisconsin winning the game if played again with equivalent stats is 99%.

(In case you were wondering, Northwestern’s post game win probability in games this season is 100% vs. Maryland, 100% vs. Iowa, 96% vs. Nebraska, and 100% vs. Purdue. As an aside, I’m really curious about the concept of analyzing individual events without the context of time or sequence — and that goes for football games and other things. I’m not sure how valuable it is, but this win expectancy metric gives me a sense of how close the game actually was, regardless of score. To borrow the words of the legendary Sixers GM Sam Hinkie: "Why do we watch basketball games front to back?ā€ Hinkie asks. ā€œWhy not watch games back to front, or out of order?ā€)

Back to Wisconsin-Northwestern games … I’m highlighting this post game win probability metric to show the close nature of these games compared to other ā€œcloseā€ Northwestern games played this season. (Aside from the win over Maryland, each of Northwestern’s other three games finished as one-possession contests.)

  • 2015: Northwestern 13, Wisconsin 7. Post game win probability: Northwestern 70%.

  • 2016: Wisconsin 21, Northwestern 7. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 74%.

  • 2017: Wisconsin 33, Northwestern 24. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 99%.

  • 2018: Northwestern 31, Wisconsin 17. Post game win probability: Northwestern 91%.

  • 2019: Wisconsin 24, Northwestern 15. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 60%.

The scores are close, sure. But these win probabilities are interesting to me because they can give a sense of the factors that could tilt the game in Northwestern’s favor.

Some college football statisticians, notably Bill Connelly of ESPN, believe in five factors that most determine the outcome of a game. They are:

  • Explosiveness

  • Efficiency

  • Field position

  • Finishing drives

  • Turnovers

When looking at advanced metrics measuring the past five Northwestern-Wisconsin games, some interesting patterns emerge.

  1. The team who has had the higher field position average expected points metric has won each game. (It’s a measure of how a team’s average starting field position translates into the number of points expected to be scored based on that field position.)

  2. The team that lost the turnover battle has not won a game in the past five seasons.

  3. Explosiveness, while the factor Connelly rates as the most impactful, actually was relatively uncorrelated with the winner of these games.

So, I know it’s boring but Northwestern-Wisconsin games are about turnovers and field position. So far this season, Wisconsin is ranked 9th in the country in field position average expected points, with Northwestern comes in at No. 33. In terms of turnover margin per game, both teams are top-10 in the nation.

I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m going to guess that the team who is able to get more opportunities with shorter fields will win. (Hot take, I know.)

The smart money is on Wisconsin to win, but Northwestern to cover. Wisconsin 27, Northwestern 23.


šŸ“µBlameĀ men’s basketball

Basketball season is happening, I guess. And the men’s team released its schedule. I know it’s a pandemic so scheduling is weird, but this non-conference slate is even weaker than usual for a program notorious for loading its preseason with cupcakes.

Twitter avatar for @NUMensBballNorthwestern Basketball @NUMensBball
š—Ÿš—²š˜'š˜€ š—æš—¶š—±š—². šŸ˜ˆšŸ€ šŸ“°:
bit.ly/NU2021B1G #B1GCats | #PoundTheRock
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November 18th 2020

22 Retweets86 Likes

Check out…

  • From Seth Walder of ESPN: The path to the College Football Playoff for Indiana and Northwestern

  • From Eli Karp of Inside NU: Northwestern has its shot at a moment Saturday

  • From Colten Bartholomew of the Wisconsin State Journal: Creativity in run game key for No. 10 Badgers against Northwestern (watch out for jet sweeps!!!)

  • From Ella Brockway of the Daily Northwestern: From Florida Atlantic to the Big Ten, how John Raine became Northwestern’s top tight end

  • From Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated: Midwestern Revival Tour: Northwestern

  • From Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pat Fitzgerald predicted in the midst of a dreadful 2019 Northwestern would be formidable in 2020. He was correct.


That’s where we’ll end things this week. Thanks for sticking with another edition ofĀ šŸ“µBlame the Phones.

Hopefully, I’ll be back in your inbox next week.

Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas. I’d love to hear them.

Take care,
Josh Rosenblat

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