Statistics and home-field advantage….

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For one of my courses at graduate school here at the University of Wyoming, I had to analyze a data set and make some statistical conclusions about it. The point of the paper was to demonstrate competency with the statistical computer programs we have and to execute the correct test given the data… and to demonstrate those ideals, I decided to do some statistical crunching of home-field advantage in Wyoming high school football.

In short, my statistical analyses revealed that home-field advantage exists in Wyoming — and it’s huge in playoff games.

I’m not going to bog you down with the statistical number-crunching that I went through to do this (but if you’re interested, I can share some of my t scores, degrees of freedom, standard deviations, etc.). In a nutshell, here’s some of the fun stuff I discussed in my paper:

Home team record, 1930-2010: 10,965 victories, 8,482 losses, 447 ties, .562 winning percentage
Home team record, regular season, 1930-2010: 10,354-8,243-444, .555 winning percentage
Home team record, playoffs, 1931-2010: 611-239-3, .718 winning percentage (yes, there have been some ties in the playoffs… they were broken in various ways, but the points were not added to the official final score)

So while home teams win about 55 or 56 percent of the time, home teams in the playoffs win almost 72 percent of the time. Makes sense, as the better teams in the regular season get higher seeds and home games in the playoffs. Moving on…

Average score for home teams, all games, 1930-2010: 19.36 points
Average score for road teams, all games, 1930-2010: 16.05 points
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, all games, 1930-2010: 3.31 points per game
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, regular-season games, 1930-2010: 2.91 points per game
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, playoff games, 1931-2010: 12.16 points per game

So there’s about a three-point difference between home teams and road teams for all games (that’s about a three-point bump the home team gets every game, just for playing at home). In the playoffs, that difference is more than 12 points per game. Probably skewed by an inordinate number of first-round playoff blowouts. Still, interesting…

This count doesn’t include games where the final score or location couldn’t be determined. The final total of counted games was little more than 19,000.

My final conclusion was that, without home-field advantage, you would expect the home team to win 50 percent of the time. The odd six percent can be explained in part by the location of the game. This affects about two games a week, or about 18 games a season, meaning that roughly every three years, every school will win at least one game — and lose at least one game — purely because of where the game was played.

This is the stripped-down, simplified version of my analysis. My paper was a lot more nerdy than this. Even so, I think even the casual fan will get a kick out of these numbers. So here they are. 🙂

–patrick

Scoring records updates at a glance

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If you take a look at the scoring records page, you’ll see quite an influence from my last update. Although it makes sense to think that in this era of high-powered offense (and of six-man football), most of the updates to that page would have come from the 2010 season, it’s also interesting to note that the top two scoring games in state history now belong to games played in 1930 and 1932.

The new listing for most points scored by one team in a single game is the 113 points Cheyenne Central (then Cheyenne) put up against University Prep of Laramie on Halloween 1930. University Prep never had a chance, and for two reasons: one, the Buckaroos were not a good team, going winless in 1930 before dropping the sport for almost a decade; two, this game was never supposed to happen this way.

According to newspaper accounts of the game, University Prep made the trek over the summit to play what they thought was going to be Cheyenne’s junior varsity team. But the Indians, who otherwise had an open week, suited and played their varsity.

Even so, the game did not begin as a beat down. Prep actually matched the Indians’ first score and it was 6-6 early. Then the Indians unleashed the floodgates, and there was little the Buckaroos could do to stop it. The rest is 113 points of record-setting mayhem.

Meanwhile, the No. 2 highest scoring game since 1930 also came in the early 1930s — Lander’s 96-0 victory over Basin on Oct. 13, 1932. This was simply a case of a conference mismatch. Lander was in the midst of a great season; the Tigers finished 5-1-1. Lander was also one of the era’s few high-scoring offensive teams, as the Tigers put up 58 points on Riverton the week after the Basin blowout, then scored 77 against Ten Sleep a week after that.

Of course, 2010 had its impact on the lists, too — most notably with Ten Sleep. The Pioneers scored 93 points twice this season. How rare is that? Well, Wyoming teams have broken the 90-point barrier just six times since 1930, and two of those were accomplished by Ten Sleep in 2010. In addition, the Pioneers’ 93-56 victory over Guernsey-Sunrise set a new record for combined points in a game with 149, breaking the old record by an amazing 11 points.

Ten Sleep combined with two other teams this season, Meeteetse and Kaycee, to make three of the seven highest combined scoring games since 1930. That’s amazing.

Anyway, click here to check out the lists.

–patrick

WHSAA sets football conferences for 2011-12

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The Wyoming High School Activities Association on Wednesday approved new conference alignments for the 2011 and 2012 football seasons. All of the changes were motivated by teams switching classifications, which forced some reorganization. The new conferences are:

Class 4A
Cheyenne Central
Cheyenne East
Cheyenne South
Evanston
Gillette
Kelly Walsh
Laramie
Natrona County
Rock Springs
Sheridan
(Cheyenne South in, Green River out. Pretty simple changes for the round-robin 4A.)

Class 3A
East Conference
Buffalo
Douglas
Lander
Rawlins
Riverton
Torrington
West Conference
Cody
Green River
Jackson
Powell
Star Valley
Worland
(Green River moves into the West from 4A, which forces Lander to the East. Wheatland drops to 2A.)

Class 2A
East Conference
Big Horn
Burns
Glenrock
Moorcroft
Newcastle
Tongue River
Wheatland
Wright
West Conference
Big Piney
Greybull
Kemmerer
Lovell
Lyman
Mountain View
Pinedale
Thermopolis
(Wheatland comes into the East from 3A, which bumps Thermopolis over to the West. Wyoming Indian drops to 1A.)

Class 1A 11-man
East Conference
Lingle
Lusk
Normative Services
Pine Bluffs
Southeast
Sundance
Upton
West Conference
Burlington
Cokeville
Riverside
Rocky Mountain
Saratoga
Shoshoni
Wind River
Wyoming Indian
(Hulett and Dubois both drop into 1A six-man. Wyoming Indian comes into the West from 2A.)

Class 1A six-man
North Conference
Dubois
Hulett
Kaycee
Meeteetse
Ten Sleep
South Conference
Farson
Guernsey
Hanna
Midwest
Snake River
(Hulett and Dubois come in and the classification splits into two conferences.)

Most of these moves make sense to me. The 3A East-West is a tough split, but Lander joins Riverton in the East for a logical pairing. The 2A division, with Thermopolis in the West, makes more geographic sense. The 1A 11-man splits work, too, although, there will probably be some out-of-state pairings that come out of the seven-team East Conference. The 1A six-man split is a bit of a surprise to me (I would have anticipated an East-West split), but no matter the split, teams are going to have to do a fair amount of traveling.

What do you think? Post your thoughts below.

–patrick

Official brackets released, and some postseason musings

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The official brackets for the playoffs were released today by the WHSAA. No surprises; every game was matched up as projected. Game times have started to filter in oh-so-slightly; look for all the game times to be posted by Monday or Tuesday.

(Click here for the 4A bracket, here for the 3A bracket, here for the 2A bracket, here for the 1A 11-man bracket and here for the 1A six-man bracket.)

Now that we know the matchups for sure, here’s a brief overview:

In 3A, 2A and 1A 11-man, we get to see something the playoffs can tout as an equalizer: the unfamiliarity factor. In fact, in the first round of this year’s playoffs, we get five matchups of schools who have never played against each other before (Wheatland-Cody; Big Piney-Big Horn; Burns-Lovell; Burlington-Lusk; Rocky Mountain-Southeast). Also, Lingle and Dubois have only met once before, that being the 1990 1A 9-man championship game. That unfamiliarity generally makes for more unpredictable play and tighter games.

Conversely, because of the round-robin schedules used in 4A and 1A six-man, those brackets are all rematches from the regular season. In both brackets, the team that won the regular-season meeting is hosting the other team in the first round.

The 1A six-man bracket looks unique this year in that it appears as though the WHSAA went back to geographical convenience scheduling for the first round of the playoffs (remember that?). Those first-round matchups are about as geographically convenient as you can get: Meeteetse-Ten Sleep, Midwest-Kaycee, Farson-Snake River and Guernsey-Hanna. The semis won’t be that convenient, though — that’s a guarantee.

Anyway, more thoughts on the playoffs as the week progresses. Feel free to start the chat now, if you choose…

–patrick

Your team-by-team guide to the final week of the season

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I can’t sleep, so I’ve decided to put together a little cheat sheet for next week. I figured out all the possible playoff seeds for every team, except those at the muddled bottom of Class 4A, where there are 15 different seeding possibilities and I didn’t want to work through every possible scenario….

That said, here’s next week’s cheat sheet for playoff seeding, based on my interpretations of the WHSAA tiebreaker guidelines (remember, my interpretations, not necessarily the WHSAA’s, but I tried to be good about it):

Class 4A
Natrona: Top seed, win or lose.
Evanston, Gillette, Sheridan: Right now, all three are tied for second seed. If the three-way tie remains after the end of this week, it depends — if all three win, Sheridan wins the tiebreaker and is the second seed, Evanston is third and Gillette is fourth, but if all three lose, then Evanston wins the tiebreaker, Gillette is third and Sheridan fourth (with Cheyenne Central being the highest-ranked team to compare). In any two-way ties, Evanston has the tiebreaker on Gillette, Sheridan has the tiebreaker on Evanston and Gillette has the tiebreaker on Sheridan. Any way you break it down, none of these teams finishes lower than fourth, win or lose next week.
Cheyenne Central: Is fifth seed with a win over KW and is sixth seed with a loss.
Kelly Walsh: Is fifth seed with a win over Central. With a loss, KW can finish anywhere from sixth to ninth, depending on the outcomes of other games.
Cheyenne East, Green River, Rock Springs: Right now, these three are tied for the seventh, eighth and ninth seeds. Depending on the outcome of their games and the KW-Central game, there are 15 different possible seeding combinations.
Laramie: Right now, in 10th. Can still qualify for the playoffs with a win and a Green River loss. Laramie is guaranteed a spot if they win, Green River loses and Rock Springs wins. If Laramie wins and both Rock Springs and Green River lose, it creates a four-way tie for the final two playoff spots, and I think that Laramie and Rock Springs earn the final two spots, but the WHSAA handbook doesn’t address four-way ties….

Class 3A
East Conference
Douglas: East Conference champ.
Buffalo: Second seed out of the East.
Riverton and Wheatland: Both in; the only question is which one is the three seed and which is the four seed. They conveniently play each other, so that works.
Torrington and Rawlins: Eliminated.
West Conference
Cody: West Conference champ.
Lander: Qualified. No. 2 seed with a win. No. 3 seed with a loss AND a Worland loss; No. 4 seed with a loss AND a Worland win.
Powell: Qualified. No. 2 seed with a win AND a Worland loss. No. 3 seed with a win AND a Worland win. No. 4 seed with a loss.  
Worland: Qualifies for the playoffs with a win OR a Star Valley loss. No. 2 seed with a win AND a Powell win. No. 3 seed with a win AND a Powell loss. No. 4 seed with a loss AND a Powell win. Fails to qualify with a loss AND a Star Valley win AND a Powell win.
Star Valley: Needs a win AND a Worland loss to qualify as the fourth seed.
Jackson: Eliminated.
(Thanks to Kevin for catching my mistake in the 3A West.)

Class 2A
East Conference
Big Horn: East Conference champion.
Thermopolis: No. 2 seed from the East.
Newcastle and Wright: Currently tied for third and fourth seeds. By my calculations, Newcastle has qualified, while Wright has not. Wright is No. 3 seed with win and is eliminated with a loss. Win or lose, Newcastle is No. 4 seed with a Wright win. Newcastle is No. 3 seed with win AND Wright loss. If both Wright and Newcastle lose, Newcastle is the No. 3 seed and Burns is the No. 4 seed.
Burns: The No. 4 seed with a win. Eliminated with a loss.
Tongue River, Glenrock, Moorcroft: Eliminated.
West Conference
Lyman: Conference champion with a win. No. 2 seed with a loss and a Lovell loss. No. 3 seed with a loss and a Lovell win.
Greybull: Conference champion with a win AND a Lovell loss. No. 2 seed with a win and a Lovell win. No. 3 seed with a loss, no matter what Lovell does. Lovell: Conference champion with a win AND a Lyman loss. No. 2 seed with a Lyman win, win or lose. No. 3 seed with a Loss AND a Lyman loss.
Big Piney: Are the No. 4 seed with a win. Are the No. 4 seed with a loss AND a Mountain View loss. Are the No. 4 seed with a loss AND a Mountain View win AND a Pinedale win. Are eliminated with a loss AND a Mountain View win AND a Pinedale loss.
Mountain View: Qualify if and only if they win AND Big Piney loses AND Pinedale loses.
Pinedale, Kemmerer, Wyoming Indian: Eliminated.

Class 1A 11-man
East Conference
Lusk: East Conference champion.
Lingle: No. 2 seed with a win. No. 3 seed with a loss.
Southeast: No. 2 seed with a win. No. 3 seed with a loss, no matter what Sundance does.
Pine Bluffs: No. 4 seed, no matter what anyone else does.
Sundance, Upton, Normative Services, Hulett: Eliminated.
West Conference
Cokeville: West Conference champion.
Dubois: No. 2 seed, win or lose.
Burlington and Rocky Mountain: Both qualified. Rocky Mountain is the No. 3 seed with a win OR a Burlington loss. Burlington is the No. 3 seed with a win AND a Rocky Mountain loss.
Riverside, Saratoga, Shoshoni, Wind River: Eliminated.

Class 1A six-man (REGULAR SEASON COMPLETE THIS WEEK)
Snake River: No. 1 seed.
Kaycee, Hanna, Ten Sleep: Came into Week 7 tied for the No. 2, 3 and 4 seeds. Hanna is No. 2, Ten Sleep 3 and Kaycee 4, regardless of how Kaycee does on Saturday.
Midwest: No. 5 seed.
Meeteetse: No. 6 seed.
Guernsey: No. 7 seed.
Farson: No. 8 seed.
(This will be updated to reflect Saturday’s games after those games are complete.)

If the playoffs started today, this is how the brackets would look:
4A: (8) Rock Springs at (1) Natrona; (5) Central at (4) Sheridan; (7) Green River at (2) Evanston; (6) Kelly Walsh at (3) Gillette.
3A: (4W) Powell at (1E) Douglas; (3E) Riverton/Wheatland (coin flip) at (2W) Lander; (4E) Riverton/Wheatland (coin flip) at (1W) Cody; (3W) Worland at (2E) Buffalo.
2A: (4W) Big Piney at (1E) Big Horn; (3E) Wright at (2W) Lovell; (4E) Newcastle at (1W) Lyman; (3W) Greybull at (2E) Thermopolis.
1A 11: (4W) Burlington at (1E) Lusk; (3E) Southeast at (2W) Dubois; (4E) Pine Bluffs at (1W) Cokeville; (3W) Rocky Mountain at (2E) Lingle.
1A 6: (8) Farson at (1) Snake River; (5) Midwest at (4) Kaycee; (7) Guernsey at (2) Hanna; (6) Meeteetse at (3) Ten Sleep.

OK, now I’m going to bed. I’m spent.

–patrick

Scoring records blown up (Ten Sleep 93, Guernsey-Sunrise 56) plus some bonus trivia

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The score posted today for the six-man showdown between Ten Sleep and Guernsey-Sunrise — 93-56 Pioneers — sets a new state record for combined points for two teams. The 149 points scored between the two teams breaks the old record of 138, set in a six-man game last year between Ten Sleep and Kaycee; the 93 points Ten Sleep scored is second all-time (behind a 96-point performance by Deaver-Frannie in 1975) for points by one team in a game.

Click here to see the state’s all-time single game scoring records. (Remember, these records only cover the years 1933-2009. The records also come with the knowledge that at least two teams broke the 100-point mark in a game prior to 1933 and at least one more game included a 96-point performance by one team.)

The opposite end of the spectrum — the lowest scoring games — is something I don’t post anymore due to an excessive number of scoreless ties in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. But, as I was sitting at Deti Stadium last night and Kelly Walsh entered the fourth quarter with only a 3-0 lead on Laramie (KW eventually won 10-7), I got to thinking about some low scoring games, too.

I tried to remember the last 3-0 game in the state and I couldn’t remember it. That’s when I decided it would be a good trivia question. After I found the answer, I decided another trivia question was also apropos. So here it is, in two parts:

Name for me the last game involving a varsity Wyoming high school team to end 3-0… and then name for me the last big-school game (Class 4A currently, Class 5A 2001-08, Class 4A prior to 2001) to end 3-0. (Hint: It should be pretty obvious, but they’re not the same game.)

Then, as I thought about that, I thought, “Wait, 2-0 is lower combined than 3-0.” So, the third part of the low-scoring trivia triumvirate:

Name for me the last game involving a varsity Wyoming high school team to end 2-0. (Hint: It’s only been done twice since 1989. Bonus points if you can get them both.)

For every wrong answer, I’ll post a hint. Post your guesses as a comment on this blog post. Let’s see how many guesses it takes to get to the answer… if we ever get there!

Oh, and I’m still amazed at that 93-56 final. At 149 points for 40 minutes, that’s almost four points per minute combined. That is some crazy offense.

(By the way, anyone heard anything about Kaycee-Farson?)

–patrick

Casper’s high school decision and its repercussions

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highschools

I wanted to point out a column written by CST editor Chad Baldwin today about new high schools. Baldwin, my former boss and the guy who, in the end, allows me to continue working for the Star-Tribune on a freelance basis, scratches the surface of the issue well… but I disagree with him on one point:

There is no reason for Gillette to open a new school until Cheyenne and Casper do so first. Cheyenne did what I think was the right thing and got us halfway there; Casper, in short, messed up, not only for Casper but in part for Gillette, too.

As Baldwin’s editorial pointed out, the problems that popped up when Casper started talking about a new high school (or what ended up happening, a new building that holds all the programs the other schools can’t or won’t take…) basically crushed any hope of a third comprehensive high school in the city for decades to come. Chief among those problems was the school of choice option that exists in Casper; several others, including groupthink, inter-community speculation and paranoia, administrator bonus pay, conflicting goals within the district hierarchy and a desire to maintain ultra-competitive sports programs, gave Casper a new high school building without giving it a new high school.

One of the problems with the new school setup in Casper is the way the Natrona County School District reached this point. The new campus is classic design by committee; it satisfies everyone, therefore, it satisfies no one. When (not if) this new setup creates more new problems than it answers old, no one can take the blame. I guess that’s good if you’re playing CYA, but that shouldn’t be what education is about.

Obviously, more than athletics considerations went into this decision, and I don’t pretend to be an expert on school construction, funding and budgeting. But Cheyenne made it work. Casper didn’t make anything — it ended up with something.

There are many repercussions from what has happened in Casper, and athletics — not only in Casper, but statewide — will feel those repercussions for at least the next three decades. Because of this decision, I think it will be at least that long before a third comprehensive high school opens in Casper. And even though Gillette and Casper are two distinct communities with different funding, different priorities and different goals, I now think it will be at least that long before a second full-on high school in Gillette opens.

The benefits both communities would have by opening new high schools would mostly be felt in the activities arena: more teams, more spots. Maybe, probably, this means fewer championships. That has been the sticking point in many discussions, whether it’s better to have championship-caliber teams from a deeper talent pool or competitive teams from a shallower talent pool. However, new high schools in Gillette and Casper would give most of the large high schools in the state a “pool” that’s about the same depth — something that benefits every school, not just the schools in Gillette and Casper.

I think it is tougher for a community to go from one high school to two than it is to go from two to three. In that regard, Gillette arguably has a tougher decision to add a new high school than Casper does. It makes sense for Gillette to wait for other Wyoming communities to take the lead.

Cheyenne took that lead. Casper didn’t follow. Now Gillette won’t — and probably shouldn’t — sacrifice its one-school setup.

Now, barring a sudden population surge, we’ll have to wait until 2040 to revisit this again.

And, because of how the Natrona County School District made this decision, there’s no one to thank. Or blame.

–patrick (mad props to my wife Char for the graphic)

Consecutive scoring streaks

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This article in the Green River Star sort of irked me when I saw it this morning. Putting my journalism rant aside, I noticed that the reporter referenced Green River’s consecutive games scoring streak, which is now at 78 games and claimed by the Star to be the longest such streak in the state.

There is just one problem with that: It’s not the longest streak in the state.

I wasn’t mad at the reporter, mind you. I was mad at myself because I hadn’t posted the longest streaks on this blog in awhile. Maybe if I had, this mistake wouldn’t have been made….

GR’s streak is definitely impressive. It’s the third-longest active streak in the state. But it’s not the longest. Anyway, here are Wyoming’s 10 longest current consecutive games scoring streaks, through the end of last year (this year’s games aren’t included in this list):

1. Cokeville, 120 games (overall all-time state record for longest streak, at least in the post-WWII era)

2. Buffalo, 84 games

3. Green River, 76 games

4. Gillette, 56 games

5. Southeast, 53 games

6. Natrona, 50 games

7. Big Horn, 48 games

8. Kelly Walsh, 35 games

9. Guernsey-Sunrise, 34 games

10. Evanston, 31 games

Remember, these are the longest active streaks. The longest streaks, period, I referenced in this article I wrote in 2008 for the Casper Star-Tribune. Here is an excerpt of that story:

“Now-closed Byron has the second-longest streak in the past 50 years. The Eagles scored in 96 consecutive games from 1963-74. Gillette scored in 93 straight games from 1989-99 and Lusk scored in 92 consecutive contests from 1993-2003.”

Anyway, now I feel better.

–patrick

Still waiting…

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I’m waiting to recap my weekly picks, but, in true Zero Week style, I’m still waiting to hear some scores from some games. Has anyone heard finals from these games? If so, post it below and share, pretty please!

Greybull at Riverside

Southeast at Cheyenne East JV

Wind River at Big Piney

Nevertheless, it was a fun opening weekend. Any favorite moments stick out for you? Post them below.

Thanks and we’ll see you for Humble Pie on Sunday.

–patrick

The wyoming-football.com experience

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Are you getting everything you can out of your Wyoming high school football season? Well, you could be getting more if you take advantage of everything we offer here…

That includes liking wyoming-football.com on Facebook. There are more posts, more thoughts and more mad props on the wyoming-football.com Facebook feed. So check it out.

It also includes both joining and adding to the Flickr photo gallery for Wyoming high school football. To steal a line from Kelly Kapoor, you go online, you go “click, click, click.” Then you can browse photos (with or without a Flickr account) and add your own to the collection, too (with a Flickr account; a Yahoo! account does the job, as well).

Obviously, you know about the blog, so be sure to keep checking here througout the season for news, opinion, links, conversation, interpretation, motivation, conflagration, obfustication and pictures of dogs spinning plates on their paws.

Of course, the best way to improve the experience is to spread the link to this site around to your friends. Remember, this site has remained (and hopefully will remain) advertisement-free. I do this because I love Wyoming high school football and I get a kick out of watching every game, every week and every season unfold. Over the course of three years, I’ve made a grand total of about $40 from my pleas for donations to keep the site going (shameless plug: e-mail me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com to set up a donation and keep the site ad-free; any donations that go above the maintenance of the site, about $100 a year, go to charity). I ain’t gettin’ rich anytime soon with this Web site — and that’s the point. The minute this becomes a business is the minute it stops being fun…. but help paying for server space is definitely appreciated. And even though I can count all of you on one hand, thanks to those who have already donated! It is sincerely appreciated.

As always, I’m open to any ideas you might have. Feel free to post them here or shoot me an e-mail. Knowing people care about what I write and what I research helps keep me motivated.

–patrick