Some numbers showing the disparity in how Alabama is officiated

editder

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So if Bama is winning despite a massive disparity in calls we should just shrug and be okay with that?

You do realize that we should be celebrating three in a row right now, save for a non-call on the last play of the game last year?


Goodness, drama much? No one is losing any sleep, we just want the games called fairly.
Could very well have cost us three in a row in 2013, too (ineligible receiver downfield against the barn). I think we would have handled FSU.
 

KrAzY3

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Alabama was robbed against Clemson last year with the pick plays not being called. We could very easily be three time national champions.
Could very well have cost us three in a row in 2013, too (ineligible receiver downfield against the barn).
One thing to keep in mind is that the long term trend does not necessarily have any correlation to those calls. It would take a lot of analysis to figure out what was being called more often over the past four years, and what was called less often (we do know for a fact Alabama has been penalized more and the opponents have been penalized less, so the numbers would reveal something), and then you'd have to get into what games those calls were made in, etc...

So we have this staggering 779 yard penalty disparity over what one would expect (based on the previous four seasons) over the past four year period, and what actually occurred. What that could be attributed to would take so quite a lot of work to uncover. I do think it might be worth the time of someone at Alabama to try to figure out what exactly did change. If Alabama is somehow doing something different that's leading to such a difference in calls, they'd want to change it, and if they can pinpoint an issue with calls then they'd want to bring that to someone's attention. At this point though, all I can say is that the numbers don't seem to add up. That doesn't necessarily mean that phenomena altered the outcome of championship games for instance.
 
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JTBama

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Wow, we have won 5 National Championships in 9 years and y'all are still complaining and whining about the refs. I would hate to hear what y'all would say and how miserable y'all would be if we hadn't won any or just 2 or 3 championships.

Here is some free advice, take a deep breath - relax - and enjoy the run that Bama football is on. Life is too short to get worked up over the referees. RTR
How is pointing out the obvious complaining or whining? No one here is upset that we've won so many titles nor do I see anyone not enjoying the wins. Winning is not the concern here, it's winning despite the difference . After all, it's a discussion board
 

BamaMan09

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Could very well have cost us three in a row in 2013, too (ineligible receiver downfield against the barn). I think we would have handled FSU.
That play and the same exact one in the 2015 Ole Miss game were back breakers. There were other plays in both games that dictated the outcomes but they were clear penalties that were blatantly not called.
 

alamojo

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I would to see a breakdown of penalties. Offense Penalties vs Defense Penalties. That would give a better picture.
 

KrAzY3

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I would to see a breakdown of penalties. Offense Penalties vs Defense Penalties. That would give a better picture.
Or start with offensive holding.
I'd agree with both, any breakdown of what the penalties are would lead us in the direction of something meaningful.

Other than just plain old bias, I've seen two theories floated as to why there is this penalty disparity. One is that teams are better prepared and focused for the Alabama game. I could accept that if it was consistent throughout Alabama's Saban dynasty. The penalties have not been though. The other thing is I've seen it suggested that once the game is decided, once it's a blowout the refs stop blowing the whistle. That kind of makes sense, but it still doesn't explain how Alabama's penalties went up.

So, in lieu of a good explanation, it seems digging deeper into the numbers is the only thing that could bear fruit. I did a little more comparison, now there's two big caveats to this data. #1: There is no Mercer, so that skews the numbers a bit. #2. We really have no idea how many penalties Alabama should be getting called for, we just know they went up over the past four year stretch. So, without that sort of information everything is going to be a bit off.

But, I did figure out the average penalty yards for and against Alabama opponents last season and you can see how this contrasts to how things actually were called against Alabama. These are not the average of Alabama opponents in Alabama games, but throughout their whole season:
2017 opponents opponents (that's a mouthful) penalty yards per game: 46.1
2017 opponents penalty yards per game: 49.2

2017 Alabama penalty yards per game: 43.6
2017 Alabama opponent penalty yards per game: 31.7

What we can see here is that if Alabama was just an average team, they would have expected to have 46.1 penalty yards and they actually had 43.6 penalty yards per game. That's a +2.5 yards in Alabama's favor, but that really isn't saying very much. It demonstrates that a well disciplined Alabama team is still getting flagged about as much as any other opponent.

On the other hand, we have a chasm. These teams were expected to make 49.2 penalty yards on average against Alabama, and instead they end up with 31.7! That's a massive -17.5 yard gap! It's somewhat inexplicable that somehow Alabama causes other teams to make less penalties, but this gap of 15 yards in terms of what would be expected and what happens does follow the trend where I showed that things were 13.44 yards per game off of where I would expect them to be.
 
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IndyBison

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Dec 22, 2013
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Knew it was bad, but this is shocking. This should be sent to the SEC office and the Alabama athletic dept. It should be sent to Finebaum and posted on SEC and Bama boards everywhere :). I hope IndyBison sees this, I would be very interested in his comments. Anyway great compilation and presentation. Thanks
I'm a data geek so I love reading this kind of stuff. I find it really interesting. I agree the better disciplined teams are more likely to commit fewer fouls. But you can also have very good teams that are sloppy and commit more fouls. You could also have a team that likes to pull a lot which is probably the most common time holds occur. The same with teams who cut a lot. You may see more chop blocks (high/low) or low side blocks downfield that result in fouls. That doesn't mean they are undisciplined, but they are more prone to committing fouls because of those blocking techniques.

A great breakdown someone could do is look at the TYPE of fouls. As we track fouls (foul and who flagged it), about half of the fouls are procedural (i.e. false start, offsides, illegal formation, free kick out of bounds, delay of game). The undisciplined teams tend to have more of those and they would be less likely to vary week to week (completely hypothesizing).

I would definitely expect a team like Alabama to be in the top 1/3 of fewest penalty yards, and it wouldn't surprise me if their opponents were in the bottom 1/3. I think the better analysis is comparing the number of yards (or possibly number of penalties) rather than rankings because there may not be much difference in #1 compared to #20. The penalty yardage of opponents in Alabama games compared to average yardage for those teams against all other opponents is the most interesting difference.

I know the officials on the field don't care or keep track of how many penalties have been called on the field and against which teams. It's tracked and we have to review and report it after every game, but I'm often surprised by the number called and the number for each team. That surprise is sometimes high and sometimes low. It's generally not something I think about during the game because it has no impact on anything I'm doing. If I have had guard with a couple holding penalties in the game it may cause me to pay a little closer attention to him the rest of the game, but that's probably the closest example I can think of.

But I definitely think it would be worth sometimes time to really dive into the data to see if the data can find some trends. It's more than likely just chance but for the same team to be at the bottom for consecutive years is definitely interesting.
 

RTR91

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I'm a data geek so I love reading this kind of stuff. I find it really interesting. I agree the better disciplined teams are more likely to commit fewer fouls. But you can also have very good teams that are sloppy and commit more fouls. You could also have a team that likes to pull a lot which is probably the most common time holds occur. The same with teams who cut a lot. You may see more chop blocks (high/low) or low side blocks downfield that result in fouls. That doesn't mean they are undisciplined, but they are more prone to committing fouls because of those blocking techniques.

A great breakdown someone could do is look at the TYPE of fouls. As we track fouls (foul and who flagged it), about half of the fouls are procedural (i.e. false start, offsides, illegal formation, free kick out of bounds, delay of game). The undisciplined teams tend to have more of those and they would be less likely to vary week to week (completely hypothesizing).

I would definitely expect a team like Alabama to be in the top 1/3 of fewest penalty yards, and it wouldn't surprise me if their opponents were in the bottom 1/3. I think the better analysis is comparing the number of yards (or possibly number of penalties) rather than rankings because there may not be much difference in #1 compared to #20. The penalty yardage of opponents in Alabama games compared to average yardage for those teams against all other opponents is the most interesting difference.

I know the officials on the field don't care or keep track of how many penalties have been called on the field and against which teams. It's tracked and we have to review and report it after every game, but I'm often surprised by the number called and the number for each team. That surprise is sometimes high and sometimes low. It's generally not something I think about during the game because it has no impact on anything I'm doing. If I have had guard with a couple holding penalties in the game it may cause me to pay a little closer attention to him the rest of the game, but that's probably the closest example I can think of.

But I definitely think it would be worth sometimes time to really dive into the data to see if the data can find some trends. It's more than likely just chance but for the same team to be at the bottom for consecutive years is definitely interesting.
Did you see my post in this thread or the other showing the disparity in games against Alabama compared to the rest of the season?


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B1GTide

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Did you see my post in this thread or the other showing the disparity in games against Alabama compared to the rest of the season?
I like his posts, but he keeps ignoring the obvious.
 

IndyBison

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Dec 22, 2013
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Did you see my post in this thread or the other showing the disparity in games against Alabama compared to the rest of the season?


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Yes I mentioned that in my post. I found it interesting and probably more relevant than just ranking. If #1 and #30 are really close in yardage, the ranking means less.

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B1GTide

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What obvious? That the officials are on the take and the SEC is telling them to screw the Tide? There is no response for that.
I don't know anyone who believes that, but I absolutely believe that there is a "Shaq" type of officiating that takes place in college football. Teams like Alabama are so big and powerful that officials do what you suggest - fail to call penalties because "they won't really make a difference in the outcome of a play or the game".

Want to tackle Alabama defenders - go ahead - no flag - they are going to beat you anyway.
 
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IndyBison

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Dec 22, 2013
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I don't know anyone who believes that, but I absolutely believe that there is a "hack-a-Shaq" type of officiating that takes place in college football. Teams like Alabama are so big and powerful that officials do what you suggest - fail to call penalties because "they won't really make a difference in the outcome of a play or the game".

Want to tackle Alabama defenders - go ahead - no flag - they are going to beat you anyway.
That's not at all what advantage/disadvantage means or how it's applied.

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crimsonaudio

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I don't know anyone who believes that, but I absolutely believe that there is a "Shaq" type of officiating that takes place in college football. Teams like Alabama are so big and powerful that officials do what you suggest - fail to call penalties because "they won't really make a difference in the outcome of a play or the game".

Want to tackle Alabama defenders - go ahead - no flag - they are going to beat you anyway.
I'd love - LOVE - to hear a truly logical explanation that isn't this, but I've not heard one yet.
 

CrimsonPaul

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If all of this came out in a national discussion the naysayers would point out "See all those penalties only prove that Bama is a dirty team".
 

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