Cache Cows! Who needs a (General) Conference?

[MarkGrace]

Ha. That's very funny that you would respond to a pelagius post by referencing some magic power of luck.

Yeah, I know he's the master of controlling these things. Maybe there's something in there I'm missing, but I think we've all acknowleged the extreme amount of luck the kid seemed to have last year. I mean, he wrestled away the job on a hail mary and tipped pass on the endzone. And then it continued from there.

I'm simply saying that when you throw three balls right at the defense and they don't catch any of them, you can't always count on that happening. So you take the TCU game and say "oh his numbers were within the average," but then when the same thing goes down against BSU some say he was injured where others just see it as consistent with a trend seen in the TCU game that wasn't necessarily reflected in just the resulting number.

[ERCougar]

I attended that game and I would argue that the primary reason for the loss was the worst punting performance by a BYU team that I can recall.

I was there too. In a box seat with a bunch of TCU fans. Who all thought that Riley and Hoffman were our two best players.

(I'm not arguing for Riley at this point, just sayin...)

[MarkGrace]

Agreed. That game was a special teams loss.

And a special teams play away from spiraling into a blowout.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Yeah, I know he's the master of controlling these things. Maybe there's something in there I'm missing, but I think we've all acknowleged the extreme amount of luck the kid seemed to have last year. I mean, he wrestled away the job on a hail mary and tipped pass on the endzone. And then it continued from there.

I'm simply saying that when you throw three balls right at the defense and they don't catch any of them, you can't always count on that happening. So you take the TCU game and say "oh his numbers were within the average," but then when the same thing goes down against BSU some say he was injured where others just see it as consistent with a trend seen in the TCU game that wasn't necessarily reflected in just the resulting number.

I don't believe in some magical power in the universe called luck. I think there can be a sequence of unusual events over a short period, but to imply that Riley has some extra power of luck is crazy. Defenders drop potential interceptions all the time. It happens to any QB.

Are you arguing that his injury played no role in the BSU loss?

[Indy Coug]

[Indy Coug]

I don't believe in some magical power in the universe called luck. I think there can be a sequence of unusual events over a short period, but to imply that Riley has some extra power of luck is crazy. Defenders drop potential interceptions all the time. It happens to any QB.

Are you arguing that his injury played no role in the BSU loss?

The difference between Utah and BYU is that Utah didn't play their injured QB.

[Shaka]

This. Nobody is ignoring that Riley was hurt against Utah and BSU. Riley is not good, but he's not as bad as he showed in those game.

Everybody is ignoring this. Have you not read CB lately? The media guys are doing it as well.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Grace, when arguing against Riley, there is plenty of objective, verifiable data upon which one can make a good argument that he sucks. You don't need to resort to "He sometimes looks better than he really is because he is lucky." Leave that kind of nonsense to Hsaru.

[Indy Coug]

Grace, when arguing against Riley, there is plenty of objective, verifiable data upon which one can make a good argument that he sucks. You don't need to resort to "He sometimes looks better than he really is because he is lucky." Leave that kind of nonsense to Hsaru.

Given how good our defense is, when Nelson is 100%, he is "good enough" of a QB for us to be successful. When he isn't 100%... we all know the end to that sentence.

[Pheidippides]

Given how good our defense is, when Nelson is 100%, he is "good enough" of a QB for us to be successful. When he isn't 100%... we all know the end to that sentence.

So are you saying that he doesn't win games for us but he can lose them? I can get behind that. Especially after BSU.

[Indy Coug]

So are you saying that he doesn't win games for us but he can lose them? I can get behind that. Especially after BSU.

I think he CAN win games for us, but he doesn't HAVE to win games for us.

[TripletDaddy]

So are you saying that he doesn't win games for us but he can lose them? I can get behind that. Especially after BSU.

Indy Coug said that the story against BSU would be the defense, not Riley. He said if the defense did its job, BYU would win. He said it isn't Riley's job to win the game.

The defense gave up zero points against BSU. Riley gave 6 points to BSU. BYU lost the game.

Indy Coug never really went back to that afterwards.

[pelagius]

Why would you based it on end of the year rank instead of some type of defensive rank? TCU had a good team last year, but that defense didn't look like some of the year's prior (though I get that your comparison is not against TCU, but couldn't you do something that take their defensive rank last year and then do a comparison of BYU QB's against teams in a similar grouping?)

Sure, TCU defense wasn't as good as previous years. And the model is picking that up just fine. In 2009 and 2010 MOV computer models rank TCU around 5th. In 2011, it ranks them around 20th. I think it is fair to say that TCU had a defense typical of a 20th ranked team. Also, I compare it to an average of teams ranked in the 10-30 range. Some of teams were no doubt strong in offense and some in defense. Since we are comparing to an average or median that "noise" is going to wash out. Thus it is a pretty reasonable benchmarking.

Sure, defense statistics are more specific and potentially better. However, raw statistics aren't better. Unless you control for strength of schedule they will be potentially quite flawed. In fact without controlling for SOS I will take year end rank any day. But the primary reason I didn't use a better defense specific statistics is I didn't have easy access to one and I was trying to a back of the envelope calculation as I note.

Of course I still have my problem with simply relying on PER. Riley had what, 3 picks in that one? He had another 3 balls thrown right at defenders that could have easily been picked. What are the odds that a defense is always going to drop all 3? Can't be high.

He threw two picks. Sure, you could think about refining the measure and subtract out extra interceptions that should have happened. Maybe we really expect that 1.5 out of those 3 balls will typically be intercepted. On the other hand, then you have to go back through and look for plays that almost worked for Riley and decide how much credit they should get. Also, you need to systematically give him credit for the rushing performance.

But this underscores an important point. We are trying to make inferences off of two games. Two games. You can't do it well. And the argument is not whether Riley is good; I concede is is below average by BYU standards.

And those when he doesn't turn out as lucky this year (Utah, BSU) we say it's injury instead of simply being consistent with the kind of decisions/performance we saw out of him last year despite the fact that in some instances the resulting numbers were better.

See this strikes me as a reasonable argument. IF you think the Utah and BSU are reasonable draws from Riley's QB distribution then I think the evidence suggests that he should not start again. If you think that those games are largely a product of an injury that left him incapable of playing up to his normal standards than you think he should start if healthy. I don't have a problem with that. I think that is where we are really at for most people. I think a lot of people think Utah and BSU were basically the real Riley or not too far from the real Riley. I think he was quite hurt. I might be wrong, but because of that I tend to think he is still the best option if actually healthy because his performance last year (including the TCU game and the Tulsa game) was good enough that I think it will be better on average than Tysom this year (although, I clearly think that Taysom has a ton of potential a could be become great ... Riley can't).

[Indy Coug]

Indy Coug said that the story against BSU would be the defense, not Riley. He said if the defense did its job, BYU would win. He said it isn't Riley's job to win the game.

The defense gave up zero points against BSU. Riley gave 6 points to BSU. BYU lost the game.

Indy Coug never really went back to that afterwards.

Full of crap, as usual:

http://cougaruteforum.com/showthread...458#post873458

2012 is the Year of the Defense. What good we accomplish this year will be based on how good or bad our defense is. If the defense plays to their potential, Riley's job is to not make mistakes and give up cheap points.If our defense falters and puts the pressure on the offense to pick up the slack, we will not fare well with our road game schedule.

I have faith in our defense.

[MarkGrace]

Grace, when arguing against Riley, there is plenty of objective, verifiable data upon which one can make a good argument that he sucks. You don't need to resort to "He sometimes looks better than he really is because he is lucky." Leave that kind of nonsense to Hsaru.

Start poring through comments on the board the last couple years and you will see a ton of references to Riley's luck from a variety of posters.

But I get what you're saying. And all I'm saying is you can't always rely on the defense to drop balls rights at them. Sure they'll drop some, but what is the probability that a defense drops all three of the balls thrown straight at them? Can't be high. So then when he has a game like BSU where all the balls he throws right at the defense end up interceptions, it's hard to dismiss it entirely as he was hurt simply because there's precedent for those kinds of decisions in his previous play, even though PER didn't neccessarily capture them.