 Posted by Danny, on December 3rd, 2010, at 9:49 am 
It’s Friday, the SEC Championship game is tomorrow, football talk is in the air, and time for me to unburden myself of something that has bugged me for a week. Time for Friday fun.
Birmingham News reporter Kevin Scarbinsky wrote in Sunday’s News:
As good as he is, as much as he’s done, Saban still has to prove he can win a great majority of his games when he doesn’t have a decided edge in talent.
This season, in games decided by a touchdown or less, Alabama is 1-2. During his four years in Tuscaloosa, that record is 10-8.
Now look at Gene Chizik’s Auburn record under the same parameters. This year, the Tigers are 6-0 in close games. In Chizik’s two years, they’re 8-3.
This was a small part of a larger article, but someone at the News made it a bigger deal by putting a teaser on the front page above Sunday’s masthead, “In close games, Saban only average.”
Folks, it just doesn’t follow that great teams will necessarily have great records in close games. When really good teams win games, they tend to win by bigger margins – because they are really good teams. When really good teams lose games, they tend to lose by smaller margins. Very good teams tend to have good won-loss records, but their records in close games tend to be not as good.
Continue reading “The Best Way for Good Teams to Win Close Games”
Posted by Hilary, on October 8th, 2010, at 10:40 am In a highly contentious 2008 Alaskan senatorial race (corruption allegations, federal investigation), Anchorage mayor/ Democrat Mark Begich defeated Institution Ted Stevens by at least 8 votes. Here’s one of Begich’s ads, which Chris Cilizza (The Fix) applauded for “using the power of a 30-second television ad to effectively deliver the message that [...]
Posted by Danny, on August 20th, 2010, at 8:33 am Out of a discussion with a good friend…
If you could vote for any Alabamian for Governor except the nominees Robert Bentley or Ron Sparks, for whom would you vote? While we are at it, let’s take Bradley Byrne, Artur Davis, Tim James and anyone else who ran for Governor this year out of [...]
Posted by waltm, on August 13th, 2010, at 12:23 pm How else to explain U of A football tickets that misspell Mississippi? Or maybe it was a game prediction or otherwise taking the mickey. Right? The cow bells will be loud….
Posted by Danny, on June 25th, 2010, at 8:43 am If you enjoy blindfolded state Senate candidates being good sports at a Walker County rodeo, then today is your lucky day.
Republican Greg Reed and Democrat Brett Wadsworth, November opponents in the race to succeed Republican Charles Bishop in Senate District 5, do the Watermelon Crawl in what the P.A. announcer calls the “2010 [...]
Posted by waltm, on May 21st, 2010, at 10:28 am This has been a bad week for faith in government. A hearing date has been set for the impeachment of Mobile County Commissioner, Stephen Nodine. A Coosa County prosecutor, Frank Teel, and an associate have been arrested for extortion, bribery and ethics violations. Allegedly for not seeking a murder indictment in [...]
Posted by Hilary, on May 14th, 2010, at 11:44 am Tim James!
Well… at least one New Sons of Liberty group endorses him. Whether it’s the same group as the one who placed a $1 million mystery media buy that the Mobile Press-Register’s George Talbot wrote about on Wednesday is — in my opinion — doubtful.
This Facebook group carries the [...]
Posted by waltm, on April 23rd, 2010, at 12:49 pm While we are all recuperating from the Legislature’s adjournment, a short object lesson on translating political press releases from the Korean Central News Agency. Although one wonders if this a matter of commission rather than omission.
I suspect a family is now enjoying a 30 to 40 year stint in a rural [...]
Posted by Danny, on March 5th, 2010, at 11:18 am Fairly significant distractions at this end today, but at the very least I have time for some Friday Fun.
Here is the world’s largest Rube Goldberg machine (inexplicably called here “a perpetual motion machine”) from the band OK Go who also brought us the fun-in-its-own-right Treadmill video.
Also, I think [...]
Posted by Danny, on October 9th, 2009, at 10:30 am 
Here are some of the odds and ends bouncing around here like a fumbled football on an Auburn punt return.
Posted by Danny, on October 2nd, 2009, at 8:11 am 
Pavo Magazine is doling out, one a day, its list of the twenty all-time greatest Birmingham songs (along with audio). We have only a few more days to go before they finish the list. “Tuxedo Junction,” sure, but how many of the rest do you know?
Fun.
Check it out.
One day [...]
Posted by Danny, on September 18th, 2009, at 11:59 am 
A few notes…
- There are those close to the Troy King grand jury who say that it will reconvene on Sept. 22.
- We hear George Wallace, Jr. declared he was a Republican candidate for state Treasurer last night at a Save Alabama PACT meeting in Auburn.
- Several readers have commented to the [...]
Posted by waltm, on July 10th, 2009, at 8:00 am According to the Montgomery Advertiser, sales of the beach themed “Sweet Home Alabama” car tag are out selling the “God Bless America” tag by a 3-to-1 margin.
According to polling, this state would be the buckle of the Bible Belt, which makes this interesting or perhaps not so.
Posted by Danny, on June 19th, 2009, at 2:27 pm This week has been quite busy for me which means more things have piled up in the notebook.
Posted by Danny, on June 5th, 2009, at 11:15 am 
Bing.com is Microsoft’s new internet search engine. I will be interested to know what strengths you find it has over Google, if any.
WolframAlpha is intriguing. Not really a search engine, it’s billed on its front page as a “computational knowledge engine.” Wired has an article on it here.
Type “population [...]
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Legislative DispatchBy Joe Hubbard on June 8, 2011 This Thursday will mark the last day of the legislative Session. For some, it was a Session that seemed would never end. For others, it was one that ended much too quickly. It may be early, yet, to write an obit on this Session, but as we approach the finish line, some perspective may be in order.
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AL House, AL Senate, Legislative Dispatch, Uncategorized | By John Merrill on May 24, 2011 As you know, a very important piece of legislation will be presented for our consideration in the House tomorrow in Montgomery – Senate Bill 310 – the “Students First” tenure and fair dismissal reform bill. Like me, many House members have been inundated with phone calls and emails from opponents of this bill, and some have been [...]
Legislative Dispatch | By Cam Ward on May 17, 2011 There are a lot of issues to debate before we begin the final days of this session. In fact, I am quite certain there will be some comments on this post debating many of them. Before we get into the last seven day of the session I wanted to bring up a topic that [...]
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