Estimating NCAA Football Coaches’ Abilities An Application of Item Response Theory
Brandon LeBeau, Andrew Zieffler, and Kyle Nickodem
University of Iowa & University of Minnesota 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:
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
Iowa State made good hire?
Fire Tim Brewster?
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
Which of these 6 should be fired?
Back to Minnesota
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.
Resume presentation
Estimating NCAA Football Coaches’ Abilities An Application of Item Response Theory
Brandon LeBeau, Andrew Zieffler, and Kyle Nickodem
University of Iowa & University of Minnesota
