<h1>Estimating NCAA Football Coaches’ Abilities An Application of Item Response Theory</h1>
<h2>Brandon LeBeau, Andrew Zieffler, and Kyle Nickodem</h2>
<h3>University of Iowa & University of Minnesota</h3>
# Background
- Began after Tim Brewster was fired at the University of Minnesota.
+ Now they have a new coach again!
- Wanted to try to predict next great coach.
- Proceeded to explore data available to answer this question.
# Data
- Data came from a few sources:
+ <http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/>
+ Wikipedia
# Goals
- Predict the 'ability' of the coaches.
- Find other variables that explain variation in the 'ability' of the coaches.
- Predict the next 'great' coach.
# Model
# Model 2
- Not a traditional IRT model as the game ID is not included.
+ The model does allow for a coaches ability to vary with years.
+ The team effect is constant.
- This model was fitted using R: `lme4` and `rstan`.
- Results shown throughout are from `lme4`.
- 'Modern' era data, 1998 onward and coaches with at least 6 games per year.
# Team Effect
# Ability Estimates
<img src="/figs/ISU.svg" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Iowa State made good hire?
<img src="/figs/ISU_good_hire.svg" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Fire Tim Brewster?
<img src="/figs/UMN.svg" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Does a coach overperform compared to average team ability?
- Value-added like logic.
- If coaches over/under perform compared to a team average
+ are they more likely to be retained?
+ if fired, are they a good fit for another team?
- How quickly does team expectation change?
# 6 Coaches on the Hot Seat
<img src="/figs/Hot_seat_coach_plot.svg" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Which of these 6 should be fired?
<img src="/figs/Hot_seat_relative_plot.svg" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Back to Minnesota
<img src="/figs/Minnesota-Coaches-2.png" alt="" height="525px" width="1000px">
# Next Steps
- Add covariates to model shown above
+ or use the ability estimates obtained above as an outcome.
- Explore moving average for team expectation.
- Explore good vs bad coaching hires.
# Connect
- e-mail: brandon-lebeau (at) uiowa.edu
- Twitter: @blebeau11; <https://twitter.com/blebeau11>
- Website: <http://brandonlebeau.org>
- <http://brandonlebeau.org/2016/07/31/jsm2016.html>