KJ.

So since you're basically saying that 40 times are everything, would you care to explain how Jerry Rice ran a 4.71 and Brandon Kinnie ran a 4.45? And how that slow guy is in the HOF while that speedy is now answering phones for a living? Just face it buddy, the evidence is completely clear that 40 times are completely meaningless and say nothing about how that player is going to turn out. You're just as likely to make the NFL as a 5.9 40 guy than as a 4.4 40 guy. There's so many other important factors that make the 40 100% useless.

He was on a few months ago.

Ignore star ratings and rely completely on the hard-hitting analysis of "OH HE'S GREAT, HE'S A GREAT GREAT PLAYER, I DROOL WHEN I WATCH HIM YOU'RE DUMB FOR NOT THINKING THAT HAHA!".

Lil' Red is a complete a-hole. Or at least, one particular one from a few years ago was. Herbie was cool. But Lil' Red can go pop himself.

You lost me at this projection. That red line is more or less pulled out of thin air. The red line is a linear extrapolation of the blue line. In general, this thread should really stop trying to discuss correlation vs. causation and statistics in general. It's painfully obvious that the hard hitting analysis required to answer that question isn't offered until the graduate level pyschology courses.

But...but Bo doesn't get private planes! Evil Harvey forces him to take the MegaBus around the country to see recruits!

Very doubtful. I'd say Maher was significantly better than Smith and he never really came that close.

What good would that do when it's the ability to understand the results that you're lacking?

It would not be the "same story" unless you consider varying by 30-40 spots within a "degree of accuracy". There is a correlation to some extent. But the last few top 5s have also included Texas, USC, Florida and Michigan. I haven't seen those teams finishing in the Top 5 recently. Struggling to get in the Top 25. I'm not sure you know how this works.

Yep. It would be the same story, although the degree of accuracy would vary. It's not a coincidence that the last few recruiting top 5's have been made up of Alabama, Florida State, Ohio St., etc and the bottom 5's are made up of Massechussets, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, etc. A pretty strong correlation exists, there's really no debating that.

Giving Bo a pass on his first year (which works to his advantage in this post), he has fielded 5 teams with an average rivals recruiting ranking of 21.76. Those same 5 teams have finished their seasons with an average AP ranking of 21.80. It's crazy how well 'manipulated bullsh#t' does at predicting results! That alone should make you concerned about our low recruiting rank this year. But what you should probably be even more concerned about is the slopes of those two graphs. Taking red minus blue: So in the first two years looked at, our AP ranking was better than recruiting would indicate. In the last three, it's been worse. On average, it's spot on. But does that trend look good to you? Since you probably can't visualize it, here it is:

75% of people probably think the term has something to do with death, too, as opposed to how a probability distribution changes as one end is slowly truncated. Combating disinformation is fine and dandy so long as you don't imply "their opinion is wrong, so our opinion is right". Most people probably think those events are complements, and they're not. Especially when it comes to something as pointless as "will the ACA work/fail/etc". First day on the internet? Seventh, still adjusting though.

It's not just guys with journalism degrees. It's also groups with quite a bit of health care knowledge like the Kaiser Family Foundation: http://kff.org/healt...dable-care-act/ Keep in mind that this is using a number of 18-34 enrollees that is overtly pessimistic. Not quite the death spiral that had been hyped, eh? Are you just as amused by the doom sayers who refuse to even entertain the idea that this might work? The latter isn't going to happen under the ACA. No one of any intelligence has even tried to claim otherwise. It's an incremental step . . . and a hell of a compromise at that. I did chuckle at the phrasing of "the health system has not yet self destructed." You should write headlines for certain TV networks. I think you're assuming my post was taking some sort of stance on the matter, which it wasn't. Just that it's funny that a journalist is critizing politicans' viewpoints, like anyone should be listening to them in the first place on a subject like that. In all the projections that have been put out there by either the Society of Actuaries or American Academy of Actuaries (you know, the people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to things like this) I don't think that's ever been a serious concern. Saying "Look guys, the conservatives were WRONG!" is fine and dandy to appeal to a liberal audience, but at the end of the day it's like cheering that you won an argument with a toddler who told you that 2+2=Banana.

I get a kick out of when guys with journalism degrees, in absolute terms, say things like "the actuarial death spiral won't transpire for several reasons" and "thus preventing a death spiral" like it's some sort of done deal and they are the leading technical experts on projecting that. About the only thing you can say for certain right now is that the health system has not yet self destructed, and also not yet become as efficient and awesome as anyone could ever dream. Both those futures exist with non-zero probabilities, but acting like we have any idea which path we are more likely on after 15 days of 2014 makes no sense whatsoever.

It's not as cool as a train, but yeah, it would still be pretty sweet!