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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Inspiration for this column actually came from a play in the nerve-wracking Alabama-South Carolina football game Saturday. For those who missed it, Alabama scored the game-winning TD on a 30-yard run with 40 seconds left in the game. On the play, a SC defender let the Alabama runner score a TD after he'd made enough yards to pick up the first down.

South Carolina's coach thought he was playing the probabilities, figuring that if Alabama was stopped on the play, the Tide would run out all time on the clock and kick a game-winning field goal. This would not allow SC and its talented quarterback any time to get the ball back and drive down the field and score a winning or tying TD.

IMO, this probability logic was awful. To send the game into overtime, SC would have had to drive at least 75 yards and score a TD in 34 seconds - all with no timeouts while Alabama was playing a prevent defense.

I would have tackled the Bama runner at the 15 and then made Alabama's field goal kicker hit a game-winning field goal under more pressure than he's ever experienced in his life with 80,000 fans screaming at him. (Alabama's kicker has been shaky to say the least).

The probability this young man would have made that kick might have been 50-50 or maybe 60-40. The probability SC could drive down the field in three plays and score a TD was maybe 1-in-200.

Even if SC did score a TD against these odds, that would just tie the game. SC could still lose in overtime.

As an Alabama fan, I'm very happy Coach Beamer botched that probability call as I was scared too death about that kicker making his first-ever game-winning field goal.

One of my pet peeves is that coaches who get paid millions of dollars often don't exhibit simple knowledge of Basic Probabilities.

And I got a column out of the deal. Roll Tide Roll!

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Dave Scrimshaw's avatar

The probability that a fear-inducing probability is not accurate is 95%.

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