Why the poor history in bowl games?

[Venkman]

Lavell has said he thought bowls were a reward for a good season and thus preparation wasn't the paramount concern. That's probably part of it.

But I'd say the main reason is that the other teams were just better. If you look at what I consider the ten best BYU teams (79-81, 83-85, 90, 94, 96, 01) their record was a decent 6-4, with wins in '80, '81, '83, '84, '94, and '96. '79 and '85 were very close losses, don't know what the hell happened in '90, and in '01 we were missing Staley.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Venkman

Lavell has said he thought bowls were a reward for a good season and thus preparation wasn't the paramount concern. That's probably part of it.

that's just plain stupid.
why on earth would he think that?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

My theory is that you have these older more mature, married guys. Hey, their minds are on passing their classes, the holidays, etc. They don't maintain the fire and therefore, historically, have come out flat.

An alternative explanation is that we generally face quality teams in bowls, and get shown up (versus playing the dregs in WAC or MWC).

Some good coaches struggle in bowl games. Schembeckler was terrible; he lost almost every bowl he ever played. You also see this in the Super Bowl--teams that play flat in what ought to be their most important game of the year. My theory is that it takes a special kind of coach to maintain the intensity during the long break after the end of the season and the bowl game. It's hard to maintain the level of intensity achieved week in and week out during the regular season, especially with festivities going on. Also, sometimes teams relax because they see the bowl as much as a reward as a contest. This often occurs with the underdog, or a team not expected to have wound up in the bowl, who may be pleasantly pleasantly surprised to just be playing in it. The great or very good teams tend to play through these distractions. Often a disparity in the match up is magnified in the bowl games. Sometimes the better teams sees the bowl as a disappointment and the lesser team a chance for redemption. See Utah v. GA Tech in 2005. It all has to do with motivation.

The bottom line is that under the circumstances (some of them possibly Mike identified) Lavelle Edwards wasn't very good at keeping the intensity level of his team high. Add to that that many years BYU, while playing the third best or worse team in a BSC conference, was still playing probably the best team it had faced all year.

So both factors figure. The second should be less important today becuase I think overall the MWC is more competitive with BCS conferences than ever before. Parity in college football is at an all-time high.

As you saw in BYU's last game, motivation is a huge factor in college football. Let's see how good a motivator BM is under the adverse conditions presented by a bowl.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Some good coaches struggle in bowl games. Schembeckler was terrible; he lost almost every bowl he ever played. You also see this in the Super Bowl--teams that play flat in what ought to be their most important game of the year. My theory is that it takes a special kind of coach to maintain the intensity during the long break after the end of the season and the bowl game. It's hard to maintain the level of intensity achieved week in and week out during the regular season, especially with festivities going on. Also, sometimes teams relax because they see the bowl as much as a reward as a contest. This often occurs with the underdog, or a team not expected to have wound up in the bowl, who may be pleasantly pleasantly surprised to just be playing in it. The great or very good teams tend to play through these distractions. Often a disparity in the match up is magnified in the bowl games. Sometimes the better teams sees the bowl as a disappointment and the lesser team a chance for redemption. See Utah v. GA Tech in 2005. It all has to do with motivation.

The bottom line is that under the circumstances (some of them possibly Mike identified) Lavelle Edwards wasn't very good at keeping the intensity level of his team high. Add to that that many years BYU, while playing the third best or worse team in a BSC conference, was still playing probably the best team it had faced all year.

So both factors figure. The second should be less important today becuase I think overall the MWC is more competitive with BCS conferences than ever before. Parity in college football is at an all-time high.

As you saw in BYU's last game, motivation is a huge factor in college football. Let's see how good a motivator BM is under the adverse conditions presented by a bowl.

That makes sense to me. But the MWC is step down from the PAC 10. Someone asked me last night how I thought BYU would do against Oregon. In my younger days I would have probably answered that we would kill them. But now, I just don't know. I'll be very happy if we win. I expect the game to reveal a lot about where BYU really ranks.

[pelagius]

I am a little late to the party, but I finally got a chance to look at the data. This is a pretty simple analysis and I will probaly do something more sophisticated in the future. What I did was look at BYU's winning percentage in bowl games from 1976-2005 and then looked at opponent quality based on the Massey year end computer ranking:

  
    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
         win |        21    .3571429    .4780914          0          1
        rank |        21    21.85714    10.05627          8         45

The winning percentage is pretty poor but the average opponent quality is quite good. The average year end rank for bowl opponents has been 22.

I contructed a simple comparison sample by looking at non-bowl game opponents with a year end rank less than 40.

 
    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
 ------------+--------------------------------------------------------
         win |        74    .3851351    .4864415          0          1
        rank |        74    22.24324      11.305          1         39

Thus, at least at first blush it looks like BYU's "poor" bowl game record seems to be caused by playing tough opponents and when BYU plays opponents of similar quality in the reguarly season BYU wins with about the same frequency.

Notes

1. I did this pretty fast and haven't checked the perl code that extracted the data from various internet sites very closely. So this is preliminary.

2. Clearly there is a bias related to using year end rankings, but I think it is the best I can do and it affects both samples. However, I do think you can argue it might be worse for the bowl games.

[Jeff Lebowski]

pelagius,

You are awesome.

[Goatnapper'96]

1.) Lavell did not care about bowls that much. Hans Olsen on the radio basically said that collectively BYU had no interest in playing in the Music City and Liberty Bowls in 98 and 99. BYU's bowl performance was better in years where the bowl meant something.

On this note I think Bowl performance is the most overrated stat in college football. I get a kick out of Utefans pointing out that Utah has the best bowl record of any team that has gone to 10 bowl games, or something like that. That is the only place I have ever read that stat, yet I often read about BYU's conference championships in the various publications that follow college football. The fact that Utah has the best bowl winning percentage in the history of the milky way galaxy, but us unable to win a conference championship without Urban Meyer indicates to me that bowl performance is not the end all some would have you believe. But hey the boyfriends of fat girls like to constantly rant about bra size.

2.) BYU is not a national caliber program except for the period where they were quite good in bowls, 79-85. However, due to a sucky conference they still went every year. If the bowl setup of today existed in '79, BYU would probably be about .500, IMO.

3.) I also think that BYU suffered as one of the few passing teams back when most teams ran the ball. I think keeping the timing of a passing offense effective over the layoff was more difficult than it was for running teams. But this is very minor compared to the reasons I offered in 2 & 1.

I expect the game against Oregon to be close, and I want BYU to win, but I doubt it will bother me for very long if they don't. IMO the season was spectacular and basically over. This bowl game does not mean too much save perhaps ensuring the Y finishes the season ranked. Perhaps that is something to play for, but not really. I guess I basically am expecting the Y to lose.

[bluegoose]

Originally Posted by pelagius

I am a little late to the party, but I finally got a chance to look at the data. This is a pretty simple analysis and I will probaly do something more sophisticated in the future. What I did was look at BYU's winning percentage in bowl games from 1976-2005 and then looked at opponent quality based on the Massey year end computer ranking:

  
    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
         win |        21    .3571429    .4780914          0          1
        rank |        21    21.85714    10.05627          8         45

The winning percentage is pretty poor but the average opponent quality is quite good. The average year end rank for bowl opponents has been 22.

I contructed a simple comparison sample by looking at non-bowl game opponents with a year end rank less than 40.

 
    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
 ------------+--------------------------------------------------------
         win |        74    .3851351    .4864415          0          1
        rank |        74    22.24324      11.305          1         39

Thus, at least at first blush it looks like BYU's "poor" bowl game record seems to be caused by playing tough opponents and when BYU plays opponents of similar quality in the reguarly season BYU wins with about the same frequency.

Notes

1. I did this pretty fast and haven't checked the perl code that extracted the data from various internet sites very closely. So this is preliminary.

2. Clearly there is a bias related to using year end rankings, but I think it is the best I can do and it affects both samples. However, I do think you can argue it might be worse for the bowl games.

Shoot!!! Pelagius, you barely beat me to it. I had this very same statistical package prepared and ready to submit when I got called away from my desk.

Next time I'll hit "submit" and then walk away from the desk. That way I'll be the hero and you'll be the nobody.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Goatnapper'96

1.) Lavell did not care about bowls that much. Hans Olsen on the radio basically said that collectively BYU had no interest in playing in the Music City and Liberty Bowls in 98 and 99. BYU's bowl performance was better in years where the bowl meant something.

On this note I think Bowl performance is the most overrated stat in college football. I get a kick out of Utefans pointing out that Utah has the best bowl record of any team that has gone to 10 bowl games, or something like that. That is the only place I have ever read that stat, yet I often read about BYU's conference championships in the various publications that follow college football. The fact that Utah has the best bowl winning percentage in the history of the milky way galaxy, but us unable to win a conference championship without Urban Meyer indicates to me that bowl performance is not the end all some would have you believe. But hey the boyfriends of fat girls like to constantly rant about bra size.

2.) BYU is not a national caliber program except for the period where they were quite good in bowls, 79-85. However, due to a sucky conference they still went every year. If the bowl setup of today existed in '79, BYU would probably be about .500, IMO.

3.) I also think that BYU suffered as one of the few passing teams back when most teams ran the ball. I think keeping the timing of a passing offense effective over the layoff was more difficult than it was for running teams. But this is very minor compared to the reasons I offered in 2 & 1.

I expect the game against Oregon to be close, and I want BYU to win, but I doubt it will bother me for very long if they don't. IMO the season was spectacular and basically over. This bowl game does not mean too much save perhaps ensuring the Y finishes the season ranked. Perhaps that is something to play for, but not really. I guess I basically am expecting the Y to lose.

I attribute BYU's lousy bowl performance to the fact they have no intenstinal fortitude. If you're going to do anything--even wash your toilet--do it well (to paraphrase Aristotle).

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I attribute BYU's lousy bowl performance to the fact they have no intenstinal fortitude. If you're going to do anything--even wash your toilet--do it well (to paraphrase Aristotle).

I'm certain you're well aware how one should clean toilets so we'll defer to your expertise.