July 13, 2011 · 12:41 PM

The least interesting statistician in the world

To KC Joyner, all I can say is that if you’ve got a study which claims Marcus Lattimore is only the fifth best running back in the SEC, perhaps you should tear that sucker up and start over.

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15 Comments

Filed under SEC Football, Stats Geek!

15 Responses to The least interesting statistician in the world

  1. Mayor of Dawgtown
    July 13, 2011 at 1:04 PM

    This just proves that you can make statistics say anything you want.

    • Senator Blutarsky
      July 13, 2011 at 1:12 PM

      No, it proves that some people don’t know what they’re doing with statistics. (Not to say that Joyner hasn’t engaged in the sort of behavior you refer to before.)

      • HK
        July 13, 2011 at 2:51 PM

        News outlets used to only need one sensationalist headline per day to sell their product; the one on the front page. Now they feel the need to make every headline as sensational as possible to get you to click on it. Hence, this.

  2. Reverend Whitewall
    July 13, 2011 at 1:12 PM

    Hopefully his statistics can show that Alshon sucks too. I’m sure that will make our game against them much easier.

  3. John John
    July 13, 2011 at 1:48 PM

    Or a study that doesn’t have Trent Richardson in the top 6. Also, the criteria he uses are laughable.

  4. HK
    July 13, 2011 at 2:38 PM

    I think the saddest part is that the ESPN SEC blog considers it newsworthy to report that someone came up some statistical criteria and made a list.

    Next headline: DIFFERENT GUY’S STATS SAY TAUREN POOLE NOW BEST BACK IN SEC, DESERVES TO BE ON HEISMAN WATCH LIST

  5. Dubyadee
    July 13, 2011 at 3:16 PM

    The major flaw here is pretty simple: using a numerical ranking to assign points can grossly inflate minor differences in performance (or understate major differences).

    The number of minor flaws in the method is too numerous to list, but that’s the biggie.

  6. 69Dawg
    July 13, 2011 at 3:26 PM

    Well I think Lattimore is a good back, I think he had a great day against us but then a lot of people did. The Davis kid is used to great advantage by his coach where as Lattimore was SOS’s great hope. Lattimore was shown to be human when SC played good D’s.

  7. JaxDawg
    July 13, 2011 at 3:37 PM

    This is bullsh*t. Any list that leaves off Demps and Rainey is completely bogus.

  8. Doug
    July 13, 2011 at 4:48 PM

    I will say that if my star RB got more than 20 percent more carries than the next most heavily used backs in the conference (Poole and Davis), he’d better put up some big yardage numbers. But even with that in mind, to put Lattimore behind Bolden is kind of silly. Poole, too, though I’ll give him credit for working behind an offensive line that was one step away from holding open casting calls on the UT campus.

  9. Mohammar
    July 13, 2011 at 5:28 PM

    While on the run, I was talking to my dancing girl, a sullied ex-Tigerette, who told me she thought Michael Dyer had a chance to overtake Lattimore as the best back in the SEC this season. A few weeks ago, my security caught a couple of Rival guys and someone from Finebaum’s radio show trying to interrogate her over Summer break. They escaped but I think we winged a couple of them. After rescuing her, she told me Trooper Taylor was over in the Med this Summer taking a Love Boat cruise to celebrate the championship. Always being in need of replacement Troopers, I said, “Take me to him.” She did and, as expected, Trooper tried to go all-in and hug me like he hugged my African brother Obama. When he made his move, my girl bodyguards tranquilized him. We took him off the boat and sent him over to the duty plastic surgeon, who will turn Trooper into one of my body doubles which, unfortunately for Trooper, has been a little more risky job than usual this Summer.