Coaches Must Stink at the Game of Gin

Calculating simple risk-benefit probabilities are beyond most coaches … as well as most world leaders, which is why the world suffers so many unnecessary “losses.”

Author’s note: What follows is a “vent column” written by a life-long Alabama football fan. I recognize many of my subscribers probably don’t give a hoot about the outcome of a college football game. Still, I hope a few readers will hang with me as I think my larger point demonstrates why and how many of the bad outcomes in the world came to pass.

Alabama got beat yesterday. Such traumatic things happen, even to Alabama. Bitter defeats are part of the deal if you happen to be a passionate fan of one or more teams. The thrill of victory wouldn’t be so sweet if you hadn’t been gut-punched many times by the agony of defeat.

Regarding some of these defeats, the terrible after taste that lingers for a lifetime are those losses that really shouldn’t have happened. Great credit to the Volunteer players and coaches, but Alabama couldawouldashouda broken your hearts again yesterday.

Vent Proper - Why Alabama shouldn’t have lost this game …

Behind its unflappable, ultra-talented quarterback Bryce Young, Alabama drove down the field in the final minutes to get into position to kick a game-winning field goal. Which is where the bonehead play calls of Coach Nick Saban and his staff either prevented victory or failed to remove the possibility of losing in regulation.

After a Young completion, Alabama had the ball at the Tennessee 33-yard line with about 30 seconds left on the clock. Alabama had two timeouts in its pocket. What Alabama’s coaches should have done is run the ball two times, picking up a few more key yards and move the ball to the center of the field.

Alabama should have used its timeouts after those running plays and attempted what probably would have been a 45-yard field goal (not a 50-yarder). The Tide should have attempted this field goal with 3 seconds left on the clock. That way if the kicker missed, the clock would have expired. Worse case scenario, the game goes into OT, where Alabama had a 50-percent chance of winning.

Tennessee would have never gotten the ball back. Instead, Alabama’s kicker missed his 50-yard attempt with 20 or so seconds left on the clock. Tennessee took over possession at the 33 and had time to complete three passes against Alabama’s porous pass defense. Tennessee then kicked the winning field goal from 42 yards on the last play of the game.

We’ll never know for sure, but I believe that if Alabama’s usually-excellent field goal kicker had been a few yards closer, and lined up in the center of the goal posts, his kick (which was a few yards to the right) would probably have been good. Game over. Alabama, just like it did at Auburn last season and Texas this season, would have won another game where for most of the game it seemed to have done everything in its power to lose said game.

Lessons Gin Rummy Could Teach Coaches …

I’m no world-class gin rummy player, but I love the game and think I’m pretty good at it. I say this because I consistently beat the only people I’ve ever played against (my late parents, my two brothers, a few friends and now my wife). They don’t know why I beat them almost every time, but I do. In this column, I’ll go ahead and reveal my “winning secret,” knowing that my wife (whose game is rapidly improving) is going to read this piece.

Gin, like football, can be a game of luck. If you get the best cards, you’ll most likely win that  hand. But long-term over many hands, the player who better understands basic probability theory is going to prevail.

I’ve simplified gin to its core and key questions: Which card should you pick up and which card should you discard?  If you know your opponent is saving hearts or twos, don’t discard a heart or a two.

The first rule of Gin (and football and geopolitical strategy … and Covid public health policy): Don’t help your opponent win.

Here I would analogize “public health” outcomes to hand-of-gin outcomes. In “public health,” the maxim “First do no harm” should carry the most weight. If some policy might actually hurt your real cause - protecting the health of billions of people - don’t do it. Don’t make a stupid discard that defeats the whole purpose of playing the “game.”

The other key discard decision is a tad more complex. You have a hand of 10 cards. If you’re like me, you put your potential discard card(s) on the far right. Now you look at the card your opponent just discarded and your brain immediately starts firing.

Here’s what you are thinking (remember 82 cents could be on the line here): Will picking up that card give me a better chance of winning this hand? All the scenarios play out in your head. Here’s  my bottom-line thought process: I pick up that card if I think it might give me even a 1 percent greater chance of winning the hand  (compared to keeping the card on the far right of my hand).

Bill’s No. 2 Rule of Gin: Try to improve your odds of winning with every card you pick up (or decide not to pick up), but also try to reduce the probability you will lose.

Now let’s revisit Saturday’s game, pretending I’m the head coach, using play-calling and time-management strategy like a smart gin player would.

What actually happened? After getting into field goal position, Alabama’s coaches called three consecutive pass plays. The coaches will say they were trying to win the game, but they actually reduced the probability this outcome would happen. For starters, three incomplete passes stopped the clock - which ultimately gave Tennessee enough time to mount its game-winning drive.

Furthermore, while we can’t rule out Bryce would have hit another big completion - perhaps even for a touchdown - calling pass plays at this point on the field and this point in the game was actually very risky.

For example, if you watched the game, you saw that Alabama had 18 penalties - the most in the Saban era. About five of these were illegal motion penalties probably caused by the deafening crowd noise and pressure-packed environment. Alabama also had many holding penalties called against it. Furthermore, Bryce Young was scrambling for his life on many plays.

A five-yard penalty, a 10-yard-holding penalty or a sack would have each taken Alabama out of field goal range. Simply lining up and executing two of your best running plays would have been far safer. Most importantly, if implemented, this strategy would have given Tennessee a zero percent chance of winning the game in regulation (save a blocked kick returned for a TD).

The odds Alabama’s kicker makes a 50-yard field goal from the right hash (maybe 50 percent) might have been bumped to 70 percent if he tries a 45-yard field goal from the middle of the field. Success in life - not all the time, but a lot of the time - is about first calculating and then playing the smarter percentages.

After all the “hay is in the barn,” the outcome of a football game between two evenly matched teams is going to come down to a few pivotal coaches’ calls  …. or borderline flags thrown by referees who love throwing that hankie (a vent column for another day.)

I actually think Nick Saban is the smartest coach in football. I love the guy and am grateful he’s led “my” football program for 15 seasons, but this isn’t the first time I’ve screamed in vain at my TV screen after observing some of Coach Saban’s coaching decisions. These den tirades also emanate from my belief that Saban sometimes doesn’t understand the importance of simple “risk-benefit” calculations.

Another example of not understanding risk-benefit calculations ….

A long-time pet peeve regarding Coach Saban is that he keeps playing his key starters long after blowout games no longer hang in the balance. Here’s my thought: When the outcome’s been decided, put your key starters on the bench. This makes the probability you will lose a key player to a season-ending injury … zero. The goal of any season is to win championships. If one assumes certain players make that goal realistic, you don’t risk losing those players to an injury that will sink the entire season.

This happened to Alabama four years ago when Coach Saban put Tua Tagovailoa back into a game against Mississippi State that Alabama led by 30-something points and couldn’t have  lost if it tried.

(Tua had already been hurt earlier in the season and came back the week before the Miss. State game, playing in a narrow loss to eventual national champion LSU although he was clearly hobbled in that game. Tua, who every UA fan was worried about getting healthy, then suffered his inexplicable season-ending injury, which probably cost Alabama a later loss to bitter rival Auburn, a loss that probably kept Alabama out of the playoffs and a potential rematch with LSU … this time with a healthy Tua.)

Here’s my critique: What “benefit” did Coach Saban or Alabama derive from letting Tua play one more series? At that point in his career, did Tua really need extra game reps? Does it really matter if Alabama beats Mississippi State by 42 points instead of 35? Wouldn’t this have been a good time to give the backups some valuable game experience?

Any above-average gin player would know that you don’t risk losing the long game by taking a completely unnecessary risk. Don’t give your opponent a two when you know that two could let your opponent utter those terrible words, “Gin.”

The Bigger, ‘Real-World’ Lesson …

You’ve probably picked up on the fact that what really bothers me is the decisions of leaders who don’t comprehend basic logic or risk-benefit calculations. Although I’m one of Alabama’s two million “biggest fans,” I do know the outcome of a college football game isn’t life or death.

But the same irrational decisions we see coaches make in games every Friday, Saturday and Sunday are made in the “real world” by our leaders all the time. These people also don’t know how to play winning gin and these decisions sometimes do have “life-and-death” consequences.

Consider the “risk-benefit analysis” that gave us all our Covid lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations. Here the alleged “risk” was that millions of people would die if we didn’t shutdown the world, cancel civil liberties and get everyone to take an experimental “vaccine.”

It wasn’t Nick Saban playing this game of gin, it was people like Anthony Fauci. The centuries-old maxim “First do no harm” never even came up. We all played along even though the people we delegated to play this particular “game” Knew Not What They Were Doing (or maybe they did?)

Global Warming (now “Climate Change”) is another game of gin where the alleged genius class tells us we HAVE to play these cards … or else the world will end.

The Most Important Thing …

I’m going to cut Coach Saban some slack on one game. Because I know he’s smart, I’m confident his team will learn some hard lessons from this defeat and, as always, be right back in the national title hunt come the final holes of this national title tournament.

The real reason Nick Saban has been so consistently successful as a head coach is that he excels at the “Most Important Thing” in his profession. The Most Important Thing is recruiting great football players from all over the country. The only reason Alabama could have stolen a victory from Tennessee Saturday is Alabama had Bryce Young.

Getting - and then developing - future Bryce Youngs is what has allowed Saban and Alabama to be in the national title hunt almost every year he’s been Alabama’s coach. Said differently, Saban’s “genius” comes from his never-ending focus on getting the cards that will let him win big games. One might also say he stacks the deck in his favor by using his magic “Process” to get all those Ace players.

What citizens who care about the future of our country should want is at least a few adults in the room who also understand the Most Important Things, the things that let us actually have a greater chance to win “games.”  But does anyone really think such people reside at the top of the organizational charts of the important organizations in our country?

Speaking for myself, I don’t. I think we have a lot of people who get to make decisions for the rest of us who couldn’t beat my family’s new puppy in a game of gin. Or if they do apply basic probability theories to their gin games, they don’t use sound risk-benefit analysis in making decisions on the most important things.

Because of this, we get a New Normal that’s degenerating into a disaster of epic proportions. My larger vent is not about the game strategy that produced a nauseating scoreboard screen shot Saturday in Knoxville, it’s that so many of our trusted leaders are making decisions that give our nation a much greater chance of losing … or no real chance of winning.