I admit, I was kind of shocked by that. Not shocked. More shocked that this isn't all common knowledge. And seeing that is what really put me over the top and wiped out any ambivalence I had. I'd really love to know the actual data for college. Especially knowing that offenses are highly scripted in the early going of games in college it seems it might have an even stronger impact.
I know there's coaches who have tried with limited success taking numbers games out to their max. Going for it on 4th anytime you're near midfield. Frequent onside kicks/etc. Or even in basketball doing the Grinnell thing.
But I don't think there's a whole lot of data that shows that kind of stuff works when you deploy it regularly and all the time.
I think the numbers that an amateur numbers guy like me can see (assuming it's all valid data)....it's clear as day. Regardless of the qualifiable things (wind/crowd). That data is in the quantifiable 5%. That's literally a +1 win a year figuring that you only win the toss 50% of the time. Probably MORE if you consider that a 5% bump doesn't help you in the same way against OSU as it does Minnesota.
Something else coming in to play that I just dug around on. Home field advantage is a 6-7% bump. And you figure you lose the coin toss 50% of the time. The deferral is worth almost half of home field advantage.
