quote:
I've always felt that this phrase was misleading. Things don't truly tend to "regress", they simply are not likely to be an outlier the second time. Nothing has changed, and there is no causal relationship between scoring an extreme measurement and the likelihood of scoring near the mean on the second measure. The fact that you are more likely to score toward the mean remains constant, regardless of your first measurement.

The roulette wheel has no memory. If things truly regressed toward the mean, then a smart bet would be to wait until the ball hit a green (0 or double 0) and then bet heavier on red and black. But in reality, the wheel has no memory - the odds of hitting green remain identical to what those odds were before the last spin, regardless of the outcome.

You're assuming that football operates on simple probability like blackjack or roulette.

It doesn't work like that.

This post was edited on 8/29/14 at 11:23 am

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Posted by Crimson Legend

Mount St Gumpus

Member since Nov 2004

15478 posts

Posted on 8/29/14 at 11:29 am to Volatile

quote:
You're assuming that football operates on simple probability like blackjack or roulette.

It doesn't work like that.

Not assuming that at all, but you do make a great point. There is nothing simple about the probability of a football outcome. IF we could identify all the factors that impact the outcome and create an identical set of circumstances, then the probability of the second result would be identical to the probability of the first result.

But this is the nature of the problem with determining the relative strength of a team in football. It is highly, highly complex, and most of us are guilty of oversimplifying it and giving far too much weight to one or two factors. "This team can't win on the road" or "Of course XYZ State was going to lose, their coach always loses big games" are usually ridiculously far from accurate.

And then, amazingly, we all are shocked when the team everyone thought would win it all loses in an upset. It happens over and over and over...