Dave and Professor McLay finish out the episode with a look at other Football questions that Operations Research can help answer, such as fourth down decision-making, two-point conversions and even scheduling.

Read more of Professor McLay’s work at her website, Punk Rock Operations Research, and make sure to check out her new podcast on the subject as well.

Dave and Sharon then go in-depth into each of the new year's day bowls and provide analysis of the Outback, Citrus, Fiesta, Rose and Sugar bowls. They then preview the New Year’s Eve College Football Playoffs at the Cotton and Orange Bowls and make some predictions for this year’s eventual champion. They wrap up the episode with a look at a list Sharon compiled of the top ten biggest plays from the last decade in terms of win probability swings.

Dave talks with Jeff Sagarin and Wayne Winston about their four decades of work in the field of sports statistics. Wayne and Jeff met while studying together at MIT and have been friends ever since. In the early 80’s, they had their first collaboration on a football play-calling project for Indiana University’s head football coach, Sam Wyche. Since then, Jeff has been publishing his team ratings in USA Today while Wayne published his book, “Mathletics“, and currently teaches at Indiana’s Kelly School of Business.

During the show Jeff and Wayne discuss the history of their friendship, from playing dice based football board games in their dorm rooms to their current work as professional statisticians. Jeff gives his thoughts on how the BCS computer rankings have changed in recent years while Wayne shares his ideas on how to best evaluate football teams and individual players. Questions fromTwitter are also answered during the episode, so make sure to keep the ideas coming!

Dave decides to poke the bear and dive into Brian’s twitter posts and they get into a discussion of what “the eye test” really means and why it’s essential to define assumptions in any debate. They close out the episode with a look at the playoff probability leverage of key week 13 games.

Dave and Mike then go on to discuss Mike’s revised “Insider QB rankings” and look at some of the rising and falling stars at the position this season. Mike discusses the risk/reward trade-offs of Aaron Rodgers’ “second reaction plays” and explains how the player personnel framework of “can we win with this guy?” has led to the benching of Colin Kaepernick and Peyton Manning. Finally, Mike makes his case for why Cam Newton’s performance this year should be judged less on metrics like QBR and more on his ability to fulfill the role his team needs him to play in the offense. The show rounds out with a look at the key Jets at Texans match-up and what it means for the AFC playoff picture.

Links from this episode:

• 2015 mid-season surprise teams
• The Cowboy’s disaster of a 2015 season - Who’s to blame?
• 2015 Midseason “Insider QB Rankings”
• Replacing Colin Kaepernick
• The benching of Peyton Manning and what to expect from Osweiler
• Monday Night Football breakdown of Andy Dalton’s resurgence
• Aaron Rodgers’ risky “second reaction plays”

The episode rounds out with a look at the NFL, with Sharon explaining why the NFL FPI metric has been so strongly in favor of the Eagles performance. She dives into some key week 10 match-ups and highlights the most important NFL games to watch this weekend.

On the episode, Dave, Brian Burke and Virgil look back at Virgil’s playing days when he was suiting up at quarterback for the Bears while studying for his MBA at Northwestern in the off-season. It was there at Northwestern that he published his first paper, Operations Research on Football. That paper introduced the idea of expected point value based on game situation, an idea that is still at the core of advanced football analysis. Virgil also talks about what it was like to play under head coach Paul Brown, and why if it weren’t for him, Bill Walsh might have never needed to create his “West Coast” passing offense.

If you want to learn more about Virgil and his fascinating career both on and off the field, check out the following links:

Next, Sterling discusses his research on the top defensive front sevens in the NFL and explains which metrics he chose to isolate front seven performance. The episode finishes with a discussion of Sterling's work following the Patriots each week and which units he's watching closely in the second half of the season.

Links:

• Sterling's "Scramble for the Ball" weekly column
• Football Outsiders' DVOA statistics
• ESPN's Total QBR Ratings
• Sterling's Patriots game previews and recaps on Bleacher Report

Dave and Brian then discuss FPI and what it can tell us about the future of the remaining unbeaten teams, and how the upcoming return of quarterbacks from injury can raise a team's rating. They also discuss QBR and compare the seasons of Andy Dalton and Peyton Manning.

Dave and Brian then discuss how FPI can help understand upcoming week seven match-ups. The episode concludes with Brain retelling the story of how he was starstuck when he ran into some ESPN on-camera talent in the ESPN cafeteria!

Subscribe on iTunes, on Stitcher, or via RSS. Don't forget to leave a rating!

Links from this episode

• www.treycausey.com
• www.thspread.us
• Trey's article on K-means clustering
• Trey's article on putting together an NFL analytics department
• Trey's post on fine-tuning win probability
• Trey's twitter
• Boris Chen's fantasy football k-means clusters
• The NYT 4th Down Bot!

Subscribe on iTunes, on Stitcher, or via RSS. Don't forget to leave a rating! 

Mike Sando (ESPN) joins host Dave Collins to talk training camp, quarterback rankings and the team storylines he’s following heading into 2015.

Brian Burke is back for the final AFA podcast of the 2014-15 NFL season. Brian and Dave discuss the Patriots deflated ball controversy with a quick recap of high school physics before analyzing the key analytical storylines of Super Bowl XLIX.  They look at the role of analytics in the TV broadcast, break down the key matchups on both sides of the ball and finish up the show by predicting which team will be crowned the 2015 Super Bowl champion.

John Urschel, offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens and published mathematician, rejoins the show to recap his rookie year in the NFL. John covers a wide variety of topics, from describing his toughest blocking assignments, to how he makes his pre-snap reads, to breaking down how he handles crowd noise. The show concludes with a recap of some of John’s off-the-field activities, including his current mathematical research and volunteer work teaching math to Baltimore high school students.

Neil Paine (FiveThirtyEight) returns to discuss the college football and NFL conference championship games. He explains how sports betting markets evaluate the impact of replacement players and provides his thoughts on the CFB playoffs, Monday's championship game, and what future college football postseasons might look like. In the second half, Neil and Dave discuss the implications of expanding the NFL playoffs to 14 teams before previewing this weekend’s conference championship matchups.

Brian Burke is back to recap the 2014 regular season. Brian and Dave begin the show by discussing the significance of the non-pass interference penalty in last week’s Dallas-Detroit game. Next, Brian reviews his recent posts on the idea of analyzing individual player contributions as “compliments and substitutes”, the college football rankings process and his own NFL ranking systems on AdvancedFootballAnalytics.com. They close out the episode with a look back on the “best of” 2014, preview this weekend’s divisional round games and make a friendly wager on Saturday’s Ravens-Patriots game.

Jimmy “J.I.” Halsell, former Redskins salary cap analyst and director of analytics and contract advisor at Priority Sports and Entertainment, is on to discuss coaching changes and salary cap strategy. J.I. describes his work in the Redskins front office, and shares some of the data and resources teams use to make major front office decisions. He explains how during his time at Priority Sports, he used different methods to build relationships and find added leverage for his NFL clients. At the end of the show, he and Dave take a look at the newly vacated head coaching positions and brainstorm some likely (and unlikely) matches for the jobs.

Mike Sando (ESPN) returns to the podcast to recap his list of the best and worst offseason player acquisitions. Mike and Dave discuss the challenges of building a roster through veteran acquisitions, and review Mike’s picks for 2015 NFL MVP. They look at which coaches are on the hot seat, and debate which potential coaching vacancies present the best opportunities for success. The episode ends with a deep dive into Mike’s daily work covering the NFL. He provides Dave some detailed pointers on how he watches live and televised games in order to learn the most about team personnel and individual matchups.

Chase Stuart (Football Perspective) returns to discuss the college football playoffs, analyze long term trends in NFL passing offense and preview week 15 matchups. Chase and Dave look at the teams with fluid QB situations going into next season and predict which teams are the best destinations for the top college QB prospects. The episode wraps up with a look at the Baltimore Ravens and this Sunday’s Dallas/Philadelphia and Houston/Indianapolis games.

Kevin Quinn, Economics Professor at St. Norbert College (WI) and author of “The Business of the NFL” and “Sports and Their Fans”, is on to discuss his research on the economics of the NFL. Professor Quinn outlines his model for optimizing owner behavior and explains the value of regional monopoly power in sports. He and Dave discuss the state of NFL ownership and how the current media contract helped shape the modern NFL. They conclude with a look how different economic tools can be used to model NFL team success on the field and weigh the advantages of each.

Brian Burke is back on the podcast to answer reader and listener questions. Digging into the email and twitter archives, Brian and Dave dig up some of their favorite and most difficult to answer questions from the past few years. From the implications of intentional penalties to predicting kicker success, this episode covers a little bit of everything in the world of Advanced Football Analytics.

Neil Paine (Senior Sportswriter, FiveThirtyEight) discusses with Dave how he and the team at FiveThirtyEight use Elo scores to rank NFL teams and explains how his research on backup quarterbacks led to surprising conclusions on the importance of backup QB skill level. Dave then digs up some of Neil’s older research examining how much individual wide receivers are responsible for their quarterback’s success. They close out the show with a look at the structure of the NFL playoffs and weigh the pros and cons of Neil’s proposal to make the NFL postseason more “fair”.

Keith Goldner, Chief Analyst at Numberfire.com and regular AFA contributor, rejoins the show to break down the best and worst individual player performances this season. Keith and Dave discuss the optimal strategy for goal to go offensive play-calling, and examine the underlying reasons behind the net expected point (NEP) production of the NFL's top QBs, RBs, and WR/TEs.

Alok Pattani (ESPN Stats and Info) rejoins the podcast to break down the new college football playoffs process. Alok explains the statistics he and his colleagues at ESPN developed to frame the on-air debate over which teams are the “best” vs. which teams “deserve” to be selected by the playoff committee. Dave and Alok analyze the first set of rankings released this week while Alok shares takeaways from his conversations with committee representatives and makes his probabilistic predictions for which teams will make the “Football Final Four”.

Brian Burke is on the podcast for an (almost) mid-season recap of the NFL season. Dave and Brian go team by team and dive into some of the more interesting 2014 team successes and failures. They also highlight visualizations and tools buried deep in the new AFA site, and make some predictions for what to expect in the second half of the season.

The AFA podcast is back with a brand new episode featuring sports economist Dave Berri, author of “The Wages of Wins” and “Stumbling on Wins”. Dave and Dave begin with a discussion of the Detroit Lions recent success, and look at some of Professor Berri’s research on the predictive power of quarterback stats. Professor Berri then explains his views on the business of college football through the lens of labor economics and describes what it was like to testify during the Northwestern unionization hearings.