Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
College sports; College sports; Football--Coaching; Football--Offense; Football--Scouting;
Abstract
The popularity of college football is indisputable. In 1987, over 350 million people attended NCAA football contests which pushed the three year attendance figure from 1985 to 1987 to over one billion. Because of this popularity, however, intense pressure to win has been placed on players, coaches and administrators. To confound the problem, offenses have grown in complexity since the early years of college football. To assist teams in preparing for upcoming opponents, coaching staffs view films of the opponent's previous games. The coaches gather information from the films and develop tendencies in hopes that the upcoming opponent will repeat these tendencies. This study analyzed the effectiveness of these previous tendencies toward future play selections. Eight opponents of the University of Northern Iowa were tested using the chi-square statistical method for goodness of fit. The study tested goodness of fit between previous and current run/pass proportions given four situational factors: opponent; down and distance; field position; and hash mark. If offenses followed previous tendencies, scouting would be a worthwhile endeavor for coaching staffs. If not, scouting and tendency development is an inefficient way for coaches to spend their limited time. The results of the study overwhelmingly support the use of tendency development. All four situational factors provided a better than 50-50 chance of repeated run/pass proportions. Specifically, the best predictors include the right hash mark, the down and distances of second and long and second and medium, and the field positions of the -26 to the -49 yard lines, the SO to the +30 yard lines, the +29 to the +6 yard lines, and the +S to the +1 yard lines.
Year of Submission
1998
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services
First Advisor
Nancy P. Hamilton
Second Advisor
Larry D. Hensley
Third Advisor
Iradge Ahrabi-Fard
Date Original
1998
Object Description
1 PDF file (60 leaves)
Copyright
©1998 Ross Michael Els
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Els, Ross Michael, "The Predictive Effectiveness of Previous Offensive Play Selections on Future Play Selections in College Football" (1998). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1796.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1796
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.