The better offenses work both ways. Since the article advocates going for it on your 10 yard line, it might be worse off in college since failing there is a lot more likely to give up a TD.

“Nearly three-quarters of fourth-and-1 attempts succeed, while around one-third of possessions result in scores. Think about those fractions. Go for it four times on fourth-and-1: Odds are you will keep the ball three times, and three kept possessions each with a one-third chance of a score results in your team scoring once more than it otherwise would have. Punt the ball on all four fourth-and-1s, and you’ve given the opponents three additional possessions. (It would have gotten one possession anyway when you missed one of your fourth-and-1s.) Those three extra possessions, divided by the one-third chance to score, give the opponent an extra score.”

That can’t be right - you aren’t giving your opponents extra possessions by punting unless you would have run out the clock if you had made the first down. Punting gives the other team a possession with worse chances of scoring on you than failing on 4th down does.

Thinking about that, maybe it wouldn’t be a medium-size school that brought the revolution. Maybe someone like Urban Meyer decides “I can get 10 yards every time with Tebow - or at least often enough to justify going for it every time.” Maybe it would take a big name at a big program going on a special kind of tear to make others realize 1) it CAN work and 2) you might get left behind if other big boys are gonna do it.

Again - all fun to think about…

The other thing that’s worth mentioning is that it’s much more likely to be something we see in college than the pros. So who knows?

I do think, though, that the conservatism at big programs runs from the huge fanbases to the athletic directors; I think you’re right that it would take a medium-size school to go on a real kind of tear before change would trickle down (up?) to the big programs.

Great food for thought, though.

The effect on play calling is a big reason why I also support this line of thinking. You see it a little bit with Tech. 3rd and 8 or more is a killer for most offenses, but Tech just throws a quick crossing pattern for 7 yards and gets in a manageable 4th down situation. That crossing pattern probably has a 75-80% chance of being successful, while the odds of hitting a deep or intermediate throw against a defense expecting a pass are much lower.

One other thing I would like to see more of is the “throw it across the field” lateral on kick returns like the Titans and SMU used in those famous finishes. I have no statistical evidence to back that up, other than the fact that kickoff returns for TDs are very, very rare unless you have a Devin Hester type at returner. I just think it would work really well if you do it when the coverage team isn’t expecting a trick return.

Plus if you show you will run this return during normal game situations, then the other team would have to change its coverage to account for it. That would probably mean that less defenders would converge on the initial ball carrier, which would then make your normal kick returns more successful.

Agreed. However, today’s academic argument is often tomorrow’s conventional wisdom. The mechanism that allows progress in an anti-empirical world (I’d argue that this is as much a human phenomenon as American) is competition.

On base percentage and slugging percentage was the vocabulary of a small society of baseball nerds who were roundly mocked by baseball traditionalists and their media mouthpieces for 25 years - now it’s the standard of evaluation for a hitter by any credible GM or fan. Now it’s the metaphysical purists who are mocked for their ignorance and mysticism.

The A’s are probably a good example of how this sort of paradigm shift could occur in college football: a small market team with nothing to lose and absent major market media pressures overachieves for several years in a row - humiliating several big market/big money teams in the process. Perenially underachieving giant (Boston) rolls the dice and embraces these ideas (bulwarked by their own huge salary cap and resources) and wins two titles in three years. Others take note. Precedent. The cautious are now emboldened. Copycatting ensues…poor Billy Beane, he’s about to be operating in semi-efficient markets with 1/4 the stack.

Consider the growth of the spread offense in Texas High School Football. Not exactly a place replete with visionaries. But getting your ass kicked over and over by a bunch of mediocre athletes will get a coach’s attention…

What do you think would foster the uptake of some of these ideas?

If you do something outside the norm and you lose? You’re the goat.

Namely, we live in an anti-intellectual country, and this is a strategy that will, on some days, fail spectacularly. And when you go to the media after the game and try to explain your reasoning, it’ll never, ever get through to the public. Not only will the media be looking to tear down your strategy, but the public at large will be seeking for you to fail.

A football coach would be run out of town just as fast as Paul DePodesta was run out of LA. There are too many Bill Platschkes and dumb fans in the world. They’d never accept the games when it didn’t work.