Big Red Cobcast: Statistician Paul Dalen Joins Us
I think right now there are a few different emotions going through Husker Nation. One of them is excitement and I think that it’s justified. How couldn’t you be excited when our fellow Nebraska brethren has come home and he happens to be the hottest coaching commodity since Urban Meyer left Utah. It’s easy to get behind someone who is one of us. Coach Frost has been a winner since we first learned who he was. He won as a player, he won as an assistant coach and he won as a head coach.
Winning is in his blood.
But
There’s always a “but” and I get why people don’t like them. Then again, if it wasn’t for the “buts” it wouldn’t be exciting. The “buts” are what make it fun. In this case, I think the main concern is that we’ve been here before. We’ve been excited just to be let down. It’s hard to shake 20 years of running downhill like we were racing ourselves to the gutter. I’m not even sure you can call 4-8 the gutter. It might be the sewer.
Where the fear comes in now is in the uncertainty. Uncertainty because deep down inside we all know that Frosty is a new head coach. He’s only been a head coach at a small program for 2 years. A lot of Husker fans don’t know a lot of the names that are now coaching for the Huskers. Aside from Ruud and Held, a lot of people in the Cornhusker state don’t know any of the assistants. You pair that with an almost irrational affinity for Williams and Williams, as well as a few recruits that decommitted recently and people are, understandably, a little nervous.
That’s where Paul Dalen comes in. Paul has been a humongous sports statistics nerd his whole life and has been an actual statistician for many years. Lucky for us, Paul is also a die hard Cornhusker fan. Mr. Dalen joined us this week to look at some numbers and to try and see what looks promising and what looks, lets say, less than promising for the upcoming season.
Paul uses theorems that go way over my head (he breaks them down so they are easy to digest and understand) to examine what a 12-0 season means for UFC and what 4-8 means for us. He also looks at some of the members of the staff’s previous statistics to extrapolate what might happen in the next few seasons.
This episode definitely gets nerdy but it’s such a fascinating way to look at such an emotionally driven sport. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed discussing it with Paul.
Alright, Lets Get Frosty! (we’re trying out some new catch phrases)
You can subscribe and check out our archives HERE
You can Like us on Facebook HERE
Wanna help keep this show a float – you can do that HERE
Through These Gates is available HERE and HERE
You can Follow us on Twitter Below
Tweedy