I’m just unfamiliar with this, explain the stats behind that? Or are these numbers flipped?
Well, I obviously just got screwed up on which coach was going where.
On the larger point, I'm going from the numbers I developed for a presentation to the NSAA classification committee a couple of years ago. There was a lot of private/public talk at the time, but what my research showed was that the top factors for predicting future athletic success were:
- district student poverty as measured by free-reduced lunch
- past success (specifically the five previous years)
My supposition was that the purpose of classification was to create the best level playing fields. The numbers to me meant that continuing to create classes just by number of students wasn't doing that in the best, most efficient manner.
The most surprising numbers to me were the ones that showed that being in the bottom quarter of your class in enrollment was not a predictor of lack of success. The numbers for the different quarters of enrollment were not statistically significant.
I got a lot of push back (largely from a couple private school coaches that I believe didn't really read my numbers but rather were reacting to the general conversation in the state about the advantages their schools had) mainly saying that good coaches win. Since then, it has been my desire to study coaches moves and see if there is a pattern of coaches moving toward low F/R lunch schools which would mean that those schools have better opportunities to bring in best coaches. I haven't been able to find the time and/or method to do that.
That's what I jumped on, erroneously, the other day.
Looking at the three moves now, the Motz move from Columbus to Norris fits my priors. The move from Norris to Norfolk, is opposite of what I would predict, and the Norfolk to Crete (38% to 39%) move is a wash according to my theory, but flies in the face of what I consider conventional wisdom of coaching moves (i.e. that coaches are climbing the ladder to bigger schools).
Here's the
slideshow I put together for the committee presentation.
And here's the
podcast episode I did to talk about it at about the same time.
My thesis was basically that NSAA schools should develop a classification formula that melted enrollment with poverty factors and success factors. I certainly didn't have a specific formula but was hoping they would take that ball and run with it.
My secret hope was they would use that paradigm change in classification as a chance to return Nebraska to 4 or maybe 5 classes instead of our current 6/7 system.
Spoiler alert: the committee punted and didn't address poverty or success factors.