Re-evaluating the kickers

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kickoff.jpgAs noted in earlier posts here and here, Aaron Schatz is the lead author of Pro Football Prospectus 2006, which is an innovative effort to develop the same type of objective statistical framework for evaluating professional football players that Bill James and other sabermetricians have developed and refined for evaluation of Major League Baseball players.
In this provocative NY Sunday Times op-ed, Schatz suggests that NFL teams are using the wrong criteria when they pay a large amount to acquire or retain a field goal kicker who has made almost of all of his field goal attempts in the previous season. Schatz’s argument is that a field goal kicker may have a “hot” season from time-to-time, but will almost always regress in the following season to his career success rate for field goals. On the other hand, Schatz notes that another key kicking statistic — average kickoff distance — shows far more consistency from season-to-season than field goal percentage. Kickoff distance is important because longer kickoffs generally give the team kicking off a better chance of pinning their opposition deep in their own territory, which reduces the risk of giving up touchdowns and field goals. A case in point is the Cardinals’ Neil Rackers:

No kicker reflects the difference between field goals and kickoffs better than Neil Rackers of the Arizona Cardinals. Last season, Rackers set an N.F.L. record with 40 field goals, and led the league by converting 95 percent of his attempts. But in 2004, he connected on 76 percent of his attempts. This year, Rackers is even worse, making just 67 percent of his tries. His high-profile misses include a 40-yard attempt that probably would have completed an upset and handed the Chicago Bears their first loss of the season.
Nonetheless, while his field-goal percentages have swung up and down over the past three seasons, Rackers has consistently ranked as one of the leagueís premier kickoff men. He led the N.F.L. in average kickoff distance in 2004 and 2005, and is fifth in the league this year.
This disparity in consistency between field goals and kickoffs means that N.F.L. teams are generally signing and drafting kickers based on the wrong skills.

Saves you money!

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mac090905.jpgIn this column, Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy profiles Gallery Furniture owner “Mattress Mac” Jim McIngvale, who transformed a run-down location on Houston’s near northside over the past 20 years into a furniture sale and distribution center that generates over $100 million in annual revenues.
Everyone in Houston knows Mattress Mac because of the idiosyncratic television commercials in which he frenetically hawks his store’s furniture and immediate delivery service, punctuated by his trademark “Gallery Furniture saves you money!” declaration. But under that playful exterior is a savvy businessman who has built an extraordinary business based on simple principles — a broad selection, easy access, quick service and same-day delivery. In many ways, Mattress Mac’s business success reflects why the Houston area is such a good incubator of new business. With low barriers to entry, no zoning, relatively few regulations and a public that prefers low prices and quick service to allegiance to brand name stores, Houston provided the perfect launching pad for Gallery Furniture’s success.

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Fastow singing like a canary

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Andy Fastow21.jpgThe NY Times’ Alexei Barrionuevo provides this entertaining article on former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow’s deposition in connection with the various civil lawsuits involving the demise of Enron.
Frankly, it’s rather remarkable that anyone would be particularly interested in what Fastow might have to say or so gullible to believe anything that might come out of his mouth, but you know how such lawsuits go.

The Enron Task Force’s Extraordinary Admission in Kevin Howard’s Case

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Flying somewhat beneath the radar screen of the lynch mob that is fascinated with watching former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling imprisoned for the rest of his life is the case of former Enron Broadband executive, Kevin Howard.

As you may recall, Howard was tried and convicted of five counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and falsifying the books and records under extremely prejudicial circumstances at the end of the Lay-Skilling trial. Subsequent to Howard’s conviction, however, the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in the Nigerian Barge case, which formed the basis of Howard’s motion to vacate his conviction on all charges.

The Enron Task Force put off responding to Howard’s motion to vacate for several weeks hoping that the Fifth Circuit might reconsider its Nigerian Barge decision. However, the Fifth Circuit recently declined to do so, so the Task Force was required to buck up and finally respond to Howard’s motion. In an uncharacteristic moment of clarity, the Task Force essentially admits in its response that Howard’s entire conviction must be vacated:

The United States concedes that under [the Fifth Circuit’s Nigerian Barge decision] the conduct that forms the basis for Howard’s convictions on Counts One through Four does not fall within the honest services provision. Because a reviewing court cannot determine whether the jury relied on the honest services theory to convict Howard, his convictions on those counts must be vacated.

The Task Force’s response goes on to argue unpersuasively that Howard’s conviction on one count of falsifying Enron’s books and records should not be vacated, but it’s clear that the Task Force does not have much confidence in its position on that count. I will be surprised if U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore does not throw out Howard’s conviction on all counts.

Thus, the Task Force’s response underscores what I have been saying for almost three years now. The true criminal activity in regard to the Enron was limited to former CFO Andrew Fastow and a few of his close associates — such as Ben Glisan and Michael Kopper — who effectively embezzled millions from Enron.

As with Jeff Skilling, Kevin Howard didn’t embezzle a dime from Enron and was simply trying to do the best job he could of preserving value in Enron Broadband under difficult market conditions.

Violation of honest services charges are supposed to address the situation where an executive takes a kickback or a bribe from a third party in violation of his fiduciary duty to his company. In Howard’s case — as with the case against Jeff Skilling — the Task Force simply used those inapplicable charges as a means to appeal to juror resentment against anything having to do with Enron to obtain a conviction.

As the Fifth Circuit panel observed in its decision in the Nigerian Barge case, if you start from the premise that a defendant is guilty of a crime, then it’s far easier to conclude that the defendant is guilty of the crime. It’s far tougher to prove it honestly.

A Good Football Coach Steps Away from a Coaching Graveyard

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Dan McCarney.jpgDan McCarney, the “dean” of the Big 12 Conference football coaches, resigned under pressure on Wednesday as head football coach at Iowa State University after 12 seasons.

The announcement barely made a blip in the local Houston media, but Coach Mac’s resignation highlighted many aspects of the troubling direction of major college football.

I am biased about Coach McCarney, who is called Coach Mac by most everyone. As regular readers of this blog know, Coach Mac and I have been friends since growing up together in Iowa City, Iowa, where we played together on City High School’s championship football team in 1970.

I moved to Houston with my family shortly after finishing high school and Mac went on to play football at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, but we remained in contact over the years as I went to law school and began a legal career in Houston and Mac went on to the Iowa coaching staff after graduating from undergraduate school.

When Hayden Fry was hired to revive the downtrodden Iowa program in 1979, Coach Mac was one of the only coaches who Coach Fry retained from the previous coaching staff.

As with most of Coach Fry’s personnel decisions, retaining Coach Mac was a good one.

For the following decade, Coach Mac was a part of an extraordinary Iowa coaching staff that not only revived Iowa’s football fortunes, but also produced such outstanding head coaches as Wisconsin’s Barry Alvarez, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, Kansas State’s Bill Snyder, Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz and South Florida’s Jim Leavitt.

In 1990, Coach Mac followed Alvarez to Wisconsin, where they took over a 2-9 Badger program and, by 1993, had the team winning the Big Ten Conference championship with a 10-1-1 record, which included a Rose Bowl victory over UCLA.

The next year, Iowa State came calling for Coach Mac and the native Iowan was off to Ames for his first head coaching job.

Over the years, Mac and I have laughed many times about the fact that neither of us really had a clue of what he was getting into at Iowa State. We both knew that the university had long been a coaching graveyard and had eeked out a barely-winning record only a couple of times in the previous 15 years.

Ames is nice little college town, but it is in north central Iowa, pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the opinion of most good college football players. As a result, the football program has always struggled to attract good football prospects, who usually have sexier alternatives to living in central Iowa for four years.

The physical facilities of Iowa State’s football program were poor and the entire football budget at the time was just over $3 million, which was by far the smallest of any public school in the then newly-constituted Big 12 Conference that included such far better-funded programs as Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, just to name a few.

To make matters worse, Iowa State was a clear second fiddle in the state of Iowa to the University of Iowa, which has a far superior football tradition and an athletic budget more than twice as large as Iowa State’s.

Most folks assume that Kansas State was the toughest head coaching job in the United States before Bill Snyder resurrected it in the 1990’s, but I think a good case can be made that the Iowa State job was even more difficult before Coach Mac took over.

To Mac and Iowa State’s credit, they agreed at the outset that turning Iowa State’s program around was going to be a long-term project. As he did at Iowa and Wisconsin, Mac literally threw himself into the job of rebuilding the Cyclone football program, taking on any speaking engagement and going anywhere to promote Iowa State and its athletic teams.

An outstanding recruiter, Mac and his coaching staff began to expand Iowa State’s traditional Midwestern recruiting base to such football hotbeds as Texas, Florida and California. Mac began to challenge Iowa’s traditional toehold on the best recruits in the state of Iowa.

The progress was slow, though — Mac’s teams lost 42 or their 57 games during his first five seasons.

However, by the 2000 season, Mac and his staff had built a solid foundation for the program. Behind QB Sage Rosenfels (yes, the Texans’ backup QB), Iowa State went 9-3 during that season and won the university’s first post-season bowl game in the university’s 108-year football history (over Pitt in the Insight.com Bowl in Tucson).

That started a 40 game run where Mac’s teams were 25-15, a remarkable feat considering that Iowa State was competing in the brutally-tough Big 12 Conference and playing cross-state rival Iowa each season (Mac’s teams won six of their last nine games against their in-state rival).

By the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Coach Mac had his teams on the cusp of the Big 12 North Division title both seasons only to lose them in an agonizingly close final games in each season.

Nevertheless, after Iowa State had gone to only four bowl games in its history before Coach Mac’s tenure, Mac took the Cyclones to five bowl games in six years, winning two of them. Coming into the 2006 season, optimism was high that the Cyclones would again contend for the Big 12 North Division championship and go to yet another bowl game.

Alas, the 2006 season did not turn out as planned.

First, the Cyclones faced one of the toughest schedules in the country, including an initial stretch of Big 12 games at Texas, at home against Nebraska, at Oklahoma and at home against Texas Tech. Iowa State lost all four and were battered in the process, losing six senior starters to season-ending injury.

Lack of depth is a chronic problem at a place such as Iowa State, so a thin and deflated Cyclone team was smoked over the past two weeks by mediocre Kansas State and Kansas teams. That brought out the “what have you done for me lately” crowd in full force, many of whom were calling on Iowa State to fire Coach Mac despite the fact that few of them have any idea how difficult it is to win consistently at the top levels of major college football.

Suddenly, a little over a year after one of Mac’s best wins as a coach, Mac concluded it was not right for him to become a divisive issue for the university. Understanding Spike Dykes‘ advice that “you lose 10% of your support each season” as a college football coach, Mac understood that he was 20% in the hole at Iowa State based on that formula.

So, Coach Mac elected to resign as head football coach at Iowa State, a difficult job that he would have gladly continued to perform for the rest of his coaching days.

Take a moment to watch his performance during the press conference (click the video camera icon on the left side of the page) to announce his resignation — Mac exudes the class and passion with which he handled all of his duties at Iowa State. In this age of cold-hearted and businesslike coaches who are constantly posturing for the “better” job, it is refreshing to watch someone such as Mac, who wears his big heart and humanity on his sleeve.

Thus, 12 years after arriving at Iowa State, Mac leaves the football program in far better shape than he found it.

The football budget has quadrupled in size under Mac, but it remains the smallest of any public institution in the Big 12 Conference (Texas and A&M’s football budgets are at least 4 to 5 times larger than Iowa State’s). Mac worked behind the scenes continually to improve Iowa State’s facilities and they have improved substantially during his time there.

However, Cyclone athletic department officials are now attempting to raise another $135 million for facilities upgrades in an effort to keep up with the seemingly endless arms race of major college football. In one of the more bizarre aspects of Mac’s resignation, that imminent capital funds campaign was one of the key pressure points that prompted the resignation of the best fundraiser in the history of the Cyclone football program. So it goes in trying to keep up with the Joneses in the wacky world of college football.

After coaching the Iowa State team in its final two games this season, Mac will kick back for a few days, but then I suspect that he will back out looking for another opportunity. His motor is always running and he has a passionate love for coaching. Inasmuch as Mac is widely popular among his fellow coaches, I am confident that he will land on his feet.

However, I am not so sure about Iowa State. The institution is caught in the proverbial rat race of attempting to compete with far-better funded programs and the gap between Iowa State’s resources and those of programs such as Texas and A&M are likely to get even larger. The pressure of that competition has now prompted Iowa State’s administration to take what appears to be a huge risk that the program will decline from the solid foundation that Mac painstakingly built over the past 12 years.

Does Iowa State think that it is going to hire someone who will magically recruit better athletes to Ames than Mac? That’s highly doubtful as Mac is one of the best recruiters in the business and Ames is always going to be a difficult sell to all but a few of the best football prospects.

Does the institution think that it is going to hire someone who will coach better than Mac? Maybe, but Mac is a pretty darn good coach and how many more wins does Iowa State really believe it can achieve through slightly better coaching methods? And even Iowa State officials readily concede that it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to find someone who can match Mac’s tireless enthusiasm for promoting the institution and the football program.

The bottom line is that seasons such as the one that the Cyclones and Mac are enduring this season are inevitable at a program such as Iowa State’s. That is one of the costs of attempting to compete with limited resources at the highest level of major college football.

That’s not a particularly pleasant reality, but it’s dubious decision-making to take big risks based on an emotional reaction to a disappointing result that is inevitable. That appears to be precisely what Iowa State is doing in letting Mac get away. Wouldn’t embracing a good coach who understands the institution’s limitations and has competed effectively in spite of them be far less risky and much more likely to result in continued success?

Ironically, the Cyclone family now finds itself looking for a new head coach who has the depth and characteristics of . . . well, Dan McCarney. Iowa State will be extremely fortunate if they find one.

Why it’s not a good idea to soak the energy companies

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mars6.jpgWhen you meet someone who doesn’t quite get the correlation between high energy company profits and the capital-intensive nature of oil and gas production, pass along this NY Times article to them:

As oil consumption grows and access to most oil-rich regions becomes increasingly restricted, companies are venturing farther out to sea, drilling deeper than ever in their quest for energy. The next oil frontier ó and the next great challenge for oil explorers ó lies below 10,000 feet of water, through five miles of hard rock, thick salt and tightly packed sands.
ìItís not a place for the timid,î said Paul K. Siegele, the vice president for deepwater exploration at Chevron, which commissioned a survey by the Neptune. ìItís a place where a lot of people have lost their shirts.î
To picture the challenge, imagine flying above New York City at 30,000 feet and aiming a drill tip the size of a coffee can at the pitcherís mound in Yankee Stadium. Then imagine doing it in the dark, at $100 million a go.
Even after hitting pay dirt, it will take another decade and billions of dollars to transform oil from these ultra-deep reserves into gasoline. Some of the technology to pump the sludge from these depths, at these pressures and temperatures, has not yet been developed; only about a dozen ships can drill wells that deep, and no one knows for sure how much oil is down there.
While most people regard affordable and abundant supplies as an essential element of the nationís prosperity, few realize how complex and costly the quest has become, even in the nationís own backyard. At the same time, some experts argue that the industry is nearing the limits of what it can do to maintain a growing supply of fossil fuels.

Amen. Read the entire article.

The Best Vegas Sports Book

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Stardust casino.jpgIn late 1980, I helped my friend, prominent criminal defense lawyer David Chesnoff, move to Las Vegas. Inasmuch as it was the first trip to Vegas for either of us, Dave and I ventured on to the Strip and quickly discovered the Stardust Casino’s venerable Sports Book. For a couple of single young lawyers with a little bit of money and a lifelong interest in sports and betting, Dave and I thought we had died and gone to Heaven.
Over the years, the Stardust’s Sports Book has been surpassed by bigger and glitzier sports books at the newer Vegas hotels and casinos. Nevertheless, it was with a touch of sadness that I read this fine Jeff Haney/Las Vegas Sun article on the closing of the Stardust’s Sports Book last week. Interestingly, the success of the Stardust’s Sports Book was based on a fundamentally sound business principle — hire the most competent people available and then let’em rip:

The secret of the Stardust’s success, [Scotty Schettler, the boss of the Stardust sports book from 1983 to 1991] said, lay in the skill of its oddsmakers. They not only could create point spreads with uncanny accuracy, but also set betting limits – higher than most, but not unmanageable – with precision.
“We were a true ‘book joint,’ ” Schettler said. “We knew the limits we could get away with that would give us the maximum amount of action laying 11-10 both ways.” [. . .]
For six years in a row, the book never sustained a losing month, Schettler said.
“The other guys said the Stardust was lucky,” Schettler said. “I say it was skill.”
A bookmaker in his native western Pennsylvania as a teen, Schettler held others from that part of the nation in high esteem.
“I hired all guys from back East,” he said. “Kansas City was the furthest west I ever hired anybody from. They were bookmakers – no suits and ties.”

What a place. There is nothing quite like the feeling of nailing and collecting on a three-game parley for the first time. Thank you, Stardust. Rest in peace.

Rumblings from Aggieland

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cainemutiny2.jpgIt’s not been a pleasant week in Aggieland.
As noted in Monday’s weekly local football report, Aggie head coach Dennis Franchione made several dubious decisions late in last Saturday night’s 17-16 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners. In particular, Aggies everywhere are wondering why Coach Fran decided to have Aggie QB Stephen McGee — who was passing poorly in the game anyway — throw a pass on 3rd and goal at the Sooners 2 yard line late in the game down 17-10 rather than simply hand the ball to the Aggies 275 lbs RB, Javorskie Lane on 3rd down and even 4th down, if necessary. After McGee was forced to throw the ball away under heavy pressure on the 3rd down play, Coach Fran settled for one of the most unpopular field goals in the history of Aggieland on 4th down.
Well, all of that went over about like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl in Aggieland and reopened the lingering doubts that many Aggie fans have about Coach Fran from last year’s disastrous season (see here and here). It was in that volatile environment that Coach Fran faced media questions on Tuesday about his decision, and this is what he had to say:

“Hindsight is always easy, and you certainly rethink everything that you do in situations. We wouldn’t have called the play on third down that we called if we didn’t think it was going to work.”
“Well, a lot of those [short yardage plays in which Lane has been successful] are not on the 2-yard line where defenses are bunched down as close as they are. A lot of them are in the field in a little bit different situations.”

Apparently, Coach Fran was unaware of the fact that Lane had previously carried the ball on 3rd & 4th downs this season 27 times, resulting in 18 first downs and 6 TD’s. In other words, an 89% success rate. Moreover, Lane has not been stopped short of a 1st down on 3rd or 4th down in the Ags’ last seven games, including all six of the Aggies’ Big 12 conference games. On 16 of his 18 successful 1st down conversions, Lane has run for more yardage than needed to make the 1st down.
In light of these facts, the rabid Aggie fans — who were not pleased with the call to begin with — are livid now.
With tough games looming at home against Nebraska and at Austin against Texas, the Aggies are squarely facing a potential three game losing streak to close the regular season and a minor bowl game, which will not sit well with most of the Aggie fan base. Win one of the next two games and the Ags will finish 9-3 and probably head to San Diego’s Holiday Bowl, which most Aggies would consider a reasonably successful season given last year’s disastrous season. Win both games and the Ags would finish 10-2 and head to the Cotton Bowl, which no one could complain about. Regardless of whether the Aggies win either of their next two games, my sense is that Coach Fran is safe for at least one more season. However, if the Aggies get blown out in both of those games — not likely for a team that is only five points away from being undefeated — then all bets are off.

They play for keeps at the Country Music Awards Show

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faith_shock.jpgOne does get the impression from the video below that country-music singer Faith Hill does not believe that former American Idol Carrie Underwood should have received the Best Female Country Singer Award at Monday Night’s Country Music Awards Show in Nashville.
The Hill-McGraw public relations machine was in full gear afterward.

Checking in down at the Stros farm

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tpatton3.jpgPence663.jpeg.300.jpegThe all-consuming football season in Texas tends to blot out news on virtually any other sporting front, but the fall is also an important period for development purposes in professional baseball. And with the Stros currently trolling the expensive free agent market for some desperately-needed hitting and better left-handed relief pitching, a couple of top prospects are turning heads this fall.
Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan likes what he sees ($) in the Arizona Fall League from Stros pitching prospect Troy Patton, who played last season at A Lexington and AA Corpus Christi:

The Astrosí Troy Patton looked very good in two shutout innings. He has been a starter his whole career, but he looks like he could be a lefty reliever for the ëStrosówho have struggled to find one over the yearsóas early as this spring. He’s not just a specialist; he has four pitches, including a very effective change-up according to [Jason Grey, author of the AFL Scouting Guide] Grey. His sizeóa slight 6-1óand his slider may doom him to a limited role, but heís capable of much more. Ron Villone comes to mind.

Goodness knows that it’s high time that the Stros quit rolling the dice on situational lefties out of the bullpen such as Mike Gallo and Trevor Miller.
But even more importantly, Sheehan reports that one of the most impressive players in the Arizona Fall League was Stros OF prospect Hunter Pence, who tore up the Texas League last season at AA Corpus:

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