Are the Pirates Really a "Small-Market" Team?

In today's posting on the Pittsburgh Baseball Club blog, Pirates Columnist Dejan Kovacevic takes issue with those who call Pittsburgh a "small-market" team.  He cites a list of US television markets ranked by size to show that there are a number of teams based in smaller markets than Pittsburgh.  Using that same list and simply dividing by two when a market has two teams, we end up with the table below of teams ranked by TV market size.  The Pirates rank 25th out of 30 teams.

It seems to me that ranking at the 17th percentile in terms of market size would merit the term "small-market".  To make matters worse, a number of teams below the Pirates have sizable fan bases in nearby large markets. The Orioles have a numbers of fans in the DC/Hagerstown and Norfolk/Portsmouth/Newport News areas and the Reds have fans in the Columbus and Nashville areas.  All four of these markets are made up around a million households or more.  What other large market contains a significant number of Pirates fans?  Harrisburg?  The closest team above the Pirates are the Cardinals, who have a number of fans in nearby Memphis.  In short, the only teams that I'm confident don't have more people within their area of influence (or "country of baseball") are San Diego, Kansas City, and Milwaukee.  Even if it's the case that these three teams are in smaller markets, that doesn't disprove the notion that Pittsburgh is a small market -- remember, it's small market; not smallest market.

In terms of his other points, I agree that market-size is not a huge issue for the Steelers and Penguins -- partially due to salary caps in their respective leagues and partially due to the immense popularity of the two teams -- and that a market, to some extent, is what a teams makes of it.  I guess the demarcation is between saying that the Pirates are hampered between being in a small market and saying that the Pirates can never compete because they're in a small market.  The former is demonstrably true, while the latter is demonstrably false.

Rank	Team	Designated Market Area (DMA)	TV Households
1	Yankees	New York, NY (/2)	3,746,765
2	Mets	New York, NY (/2)	3,746,765
3	Phillies	Philadelphia, PA	2,955,190
4	Dodgers	Los Angeles, CA (/2)	2,829,585
5	Angels	Los Angeles, CA (/2)	2,829,585
6	Rangers	Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX	2,544,410
7	Red Sox	Boston, MA (Manchester, NH)	2,410,180
8	Blue Jays	Toronto (est*)	2,400,000
9	Braves	Atlanta, GA	2,387,520
10	Nationals	Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD)	2,335,040
11	Astros	Houston, TX	2,123,460
12	Tigers	Detroit, MI	1,890,220
13	Diamondbacks	Phoenix, AZ	1,873,930
14	Mariners	Seattle-Tacoma, WA	1,833,990
15	Rays	Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL	1,805,810
16	Cubs	Chicago, IL (/2)	1,750,505
17	White Sox	Chicago, IL (/2)	1,750,505
18	Twins	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN	1,732,050
19	Rockies	Denver, CO	1,539,380
20	Marlins	Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	1,538,090
21	Indians	Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH	1,520,750
22	Giants	San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA (/2)	1,251,700
23	A's	San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA (/2)	1,251,700
24	Cardinals	St. Louis, MO	1,249,450
25	Pirates	Pittsburgh, PA	1,154,950
26	Orioles	Baltimore, MD	1,093,170
27	Padres	San Diego, CA	1,073,390
28	Royals	Kansas City, MO	941,360
29	Reds	Cincinnati, OH	918,670
30	Brewers	Milwaukee, WI	901,790

notes: Dividing markets in half when that market has two teams results in misleading numbers, both because fan bases aren't split 50/50 and because most of those teams have geographic bases that cover other markets (e.g. the Yankees and Hartford, the Giants and Sacramento, and the Mariners and Portland (OR)). The figure for Toronto was estimated based on the fact that Toronto's metro area of 5.5 million people is slightly larger than the metro area for Atlanta.  I don't know what their actual Nielsen-equivalent number of households would be, but it's clearly much larger than the Pirates.

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(Teams that lost crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green)
update: actual rankings in parentheses -- I was within 1 for 19/30 teams

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Alabama (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Texas (2)		2.	Texas
3.	Texas		3.	TCU (3)		3.	Cincinnati
4.	TCU		4.	Cincinnati (4)		4.	TCU
5.	Cincinnati		5.	Florida (5)		5.	Florida
6.	Boise State		6.	Boise State (6)		6.	Boise State
7.	Oregon		7.	Oregon (7)		7.	Oregon
8.	Ohio State		8.	Ohio State (8)		8.	Ohio State
9.	Iowa		9.	Iowa (10)		9.	Iowa
10.	Penn State		10.	Penn State (11)		10.	Penn State
11.	Virginia Tech		11.	Virginia Tech (12)		11.	Virginia Tech
12.	Georgia Tech		12.	Georgia Tech (9)		12.	Georgia Tech
13.	Oregon State		13.	LSU (13)		13.	Oregon State
14.	Pitt		14.	Oregon St. (16)		14.	LSU
15.	LSU		15.	Pitt (17)		15.	Miami (Fla.)
16.	BYU		16.	BYU (15)		16.	West Virginia
17.	Miami (Fla.)		17.	Miami (Fla.) (14)		17.	Pitt
18.	Houston		18.	OK State (21)		18.	Stanford
19.	California		19.	Stanford (19)		19.	Nebraska
20.	USC		20.	West Virginia (18)		20.	Arizona
21.	Nebraska		21.	Nebraska (20)		21.	Wisconsin
22.	OK State		22.	Arizona (22)		22.	OK State
23.	Stanford		23.	Wisconsin (24)		23.	Clemson
24.	West Virginia		24.	Utah (23)		24.	Tex Tech
25.	Clemson		25.	Tex Tech (28)		25.	USC
26.	Utah		26.	USC (29)		26.	UNC
27.	Wisconsin		27.	Clemson (31)
28.	Tex Tech		28.	Ole Miss (33)
29.	Arizona		29.	Northwestern (30)
30.	Ole Miss		30.	C. Michigan (25)
31.	Northwestern
32.	C. Michigan

Other Random Thoughts

-Despite a number of exciting games, that was the least interesting second half of a season in recent memory -- zero (0) major upsets and virtually no BCS drama.  At least 'bama v. Texas should be an interesting match-up in the title game.

-Nebraska and Pitt both lost, in part, because of ultra-conservative play-calling late in the game.  Both have good defenses, but the coaches need to realize that good offense beats good defense right now in college football . . . and their teams were playing two of the best offenses in the country.  In Pitt's case, it marks the second time they've lost this year after being up 14 points in the 4th quarter.

-Worst play call by Pitt: an inside hand-off to their fullback on 3rd and 24 in the 3rd quarter.  2nd worst play call: a play-action pass (that resulted in a sack) on 4th down with 10 seconds left and 50+ yards away from FG range.

-It appeared that Pelini's decision to simply move the ball to the middle of the field on 3rd and 6 worked out well when they made a go ahead FG on the next play with 1:44 left.  But 1:44 is an awful lot of time for Colt McCoy to move his team into FG range.

-Speaking of McCoy, he almost made one of the dumbest plays of all time when he inexplicably let the game clock tick down to only 7 seconds remaining before snapping the ball.  Despite the initial controversy, there's absolutely no doubt that there was, in fact, 1 second left when his pass hit the ground.  But, still . . . what was he thinking?

-Somebody said there was an ACC title game today?  Did anybody else hear that rumor?

-Predicted Heisman voting:
1.) Ingram
2.) McCoy
3.) Suh
4.) Gerhart
5.) Tebow
6.) Spiller
7.) Tate

-My Heisman Ballot:
1.) Ingram
2.) Suh
3.) Spiller

update: I got the top 5 in the Heisman voting right, though time will tell how close I was on the order.  I think Suh might be higher and McCoy lower than I originally predicted.

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses -- I was within one for all of the top 17, but for only 3 of the next 17

 

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Texas
2.	Texas		2.	Texas (3)		2.	Alabama
3.	Alabama		3.	Alabama (2)		3.	Florida
4.	TCU		4.	TCU (4)		4.	TCU
5.	Cincy		5.	Cincy (5)		5.	Cincy
6.	Boise St.		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	Pitt
7.	GA Tech		7.	GA Tech (7)		7.	GA Tech
8.	Pitt		8.	Pitt (8)		8.	Ohio St.
9.	LSU		9.	Ohio St. (9)		9.	Oregon
10.	Ohio St.		10.	LSU (10)		10.	LSU
11.	USC		11.	Oregon (11)		11.	Boise St.
12.	Miami		12.	OK State (12)		12.	Iowa
13.	Houston		13.	Penn St. (13)		13.	Penn St.
14.	Oregon		14.	Stanford (14)		14.	Stanford
15.	Iowa		15.	VaTech (16)		15.	VaTech
16.	Utah		16.	Wisconsin (17)		16.	Wisconsin
17.	OK State		17.	Clemson (18)		17.	Oregon St.
18.	Arizona		18.	Iowa (15)		18.	Rutgers
19.	Penn St.		19.	Oregon St. (20)		19.	OK State
20.	VaTech		20.	USC (22)		20.	USC
21.	Wisconsin		21.	Rutgers (25)		21.	Clemson
22.	BYU		22.	Miami (21)		22.	Nebraska
23.	S. Florida		23.	Nebraska (27)		23.	UNC
24.	Clemson		24.	BYU (19)		24.	Miami
25.	Stanford		25.	UNC (26)		25.	Ole Miss
26.	Oregon St.		26.	Arizona (29)		26.	S. Florida
27.	W. Virginia		27.	Ole Miss (30)
28.	Auburn		28.	Navy (31)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	BC (38)
30.	Navy		30.	Utah (23)
31.	Tennessee		31.	Cal (28)
32.	Rutgers		32.	W. Virginia (35)
33.	Nebraska		33.	Houston (24)
			34.	S. Florida (NR)
			35.	Temple (32)

games between top 25 teams next week:

LSU at Ole Miss


other losable games for top 25 teams next week:

Ohio St. at Michigan
Duke at Miami
Oregon at Arizona
Minnesota at Iowa
Penn St. at Michigan St.
Wisconsin at Northwestern
Air Force at BYU
Cal at Stanford
UNC at BC
Kansas St. at Nebraska

other random thoughts:

-worst coaching move of the day goes to Kirk Ferentz of Iowa for running out the clock at the end of the game instead of trying to get into field goal position.  When your team is tied on the road against a top team, you have to take risks to win.  When his team had the ball within 40 yards of FG range with a minute on the clock he needed to make some sort of attempt to win the game.  Instead, he let it go into overtime and promptly lost.

-I don't know why that ball Jimmy Clausen tried to throw was ruled a fumble instead of an incomplete pass.  I've never seen a fumble propelled 8 yards forward by a QB's arm before.  The only possible explanation that I can think of is that he lost control of the ball before his arm moved forward (sure would've been nice if Musberger, Herbstreit, or somebody from the ABC crew had taken the time to figure out what the actual rule was during the review or the next two minutes of game time).

-I still stand by my prediction that TCU will emerge as the best non-BCS conference team by the end of the year

-Iowa has two losses and beat Wisconsin and Penn State, who both have two losses as well, on the road.  I'm betting the AP voters rank both ahead of Iowa anyway in this week's big rankings blunder.  Other head-to-head winners with identical records that will likely be ranked below the team they beat: UNC behind Miami, Cal behind Oregon, and South Florida behind West Virginia
update: Miami is, indeed, 5 spots ahead of UNC -- who continues to get little respect.  West Virginia is also ahead of South Florida, but Cal is one spot ahead of Arizona.  And, no, I don't think it's a travesty that Houston is behind Oklahoma St. since their records outside of that game are totally different.

another update:
underrated teams: Iowa, Rutgers, UNC, S. Florida
overrated teams: Boise St., OK State, BYU, Utah, Houston

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses, I was way off -- only came within one place on 15/34 teams.

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Texas		2.	Alabama (3)		2.	Florida
3.	Alabama		3.	Texas (2)		3.	Texas
4.	Cincy		4.	Cincy (5)		4.	Cincy
5.	Boise St.		5.	TCU (4)		5.	TCU
6.	TCU		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	Pitt
7.	Oregon		7.	GA Tech (7)		7.	GA Tech
8.	Iowa		8.	Oregon (16)		8.	Boise St.
9.	LSU		9.	USC (10)		9.	Oregon
10.	GA Tech		10.	Ohio St. (8)		10.	USC
11.	Penn St.		11.	Pitt (9)		11.	Ohio St.
12.	USC		12.	Iowa (13)		12.	Iowa
13.	Houston		13.	LSU (11)		13.	Penn St.
14.	Pitt		14.	Houston (12)		14.	LSU
15.	Ohio St.		15.	Miami (15)		15.	VaTech
16.	Miami		16.	Utah (14)		16.	Wisconsin
17.	Utah		17.	Okla St. (18)		17.	Arizona
18.	Okla St.		18.	Arizona (19)		18.	Miami
19.	Notre Dame		19.	Penn St. (17)		19.	S. Florida
20.	Oklahoma		20.	VaTech (21)		20.	Stanford
21.	Arizona		21.	Stanford (27)		21.	W. Virginia
22.	VaTech		22.	Wisconsin (20)		22.	Houston
23.	Cal		23.	Oregon St. (28)		23.	Oregon St.
24.	Wisconsin		24.	BYU (22)		24.	Okla St.
25.	BYU		25.	Nebraska (30)		25.	Rutgers
26.	S. Florida		26.	S. Florida (24)		26.	Clemson
27.	Clemson		27.	Clemson (26)
28.	Auburn		28.	Auburn (25)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	Texas Tech (29)
30.	W. Virginia		30.	W. Virginia (NR)
31.	Rutgers		31.	Rutgers (37)
			32.	UNC (34)
			33.	Navy (31)
			34.	Notre Dame (NR)

Games between top 25 teams next week:

Utah at TCU
Iowa at Ohio St.
Stanford at USC


Other losable games for top 25 teams:

Notre Dame at Pitt
Florida at S. Carolina
Cincy vs. W. Virginia
Texas Tech at OK St.
Arizona at Cal
Michigan at Wisconsin
Washington at Oregon St.
Miami at UNC


Other random thoughts

-I'm confident that the top four teams are legitimately top 10 teams, I'm somewhat convinced that TCU belongs, but past that I'm really not sure.  I'm not buying GA Tech, (who had another close win over a mediocre team) Boise St., (who had another close win over a below average team) or Pitt (who's schedule strength has been less than impressive) as legitimate top 10 teams at this point in time.  And USC, Oregon, Ohio St., and Iowa seem to alternate between impressive and unimpressive victories on a weekly basis.

-It's hard to believe that Oregon will only drop one spot in the rankings after losing to Stanford, but they can't drop below USC, who can't drop below Ohio St.  And how many teams can jump all three?
update: Apparently they can.  Oregon trounced USC, who beat Ohio St. on the road.  All three have identical records and pretty similar wins/losses outside of those games.  But Ohio St. is #8, USC is #10, and Oregon is #16.  Huh?

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses.  I did pretty well on the top 17 (15/17 within one spot), but horribly after that (4/16 within one spot).
  

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Alabama (3)		2.	Florida
3.	Texas		3.	Texas (2)		3.	Texas
4.	USC		4.	Cincy (4)		4.	Cincy
5.	Cincy		5.	Boise St. (5)		5.	Iowa
6.	Boise St.		6.	Oregon (7)		6.	TCU
7.	Iowa		7.	Iowa (8)		7.	Penn St.
8.	TCU		8.	TCU (6)		8.	Boise St.
9.	LSU		9.	LSU (9)		9.	Oregon
10.	Oregon		10.	GA Tech (10)		10.	GA Tech
11.	GA Tech		11.	Penn St. (11)		11.	LSU
12.	Penn St.		12.	USC (12)		12.	USC
13.	Okla St.		13.	Pitt (14)		13.	Pitt
14.	VaTech		14.	Ohio St. (15)		14.	Ohio St.
15.	Houston		15.	Houston (13)		15.	Oklahoma
16.	Pitt		16.	Miami (16)		16.	VaTech
17.	Ohio St.		17.	Utah (17)		17.	Wisconsin
18.	Miami		18.	Oklahoma (20)		18.	Miami
19.	Utah		19.	Arizona (21)		19.	Arizona
20.	W. Virginia		20.	Okla St. (18)		20.	Houston
21.	S. Carolina		21.	Notre Dame (19)		21.	Notre Dame
22.	Oklahoma		22.	BYU (25)		22.	S. Florida
23.	Arizona		23.	VaTech (22)		23.	W. Virginia
24.	Ole Miss		24.	Cal (24)		24.	Okla St.
25.	Notre Dame		25.	Texas Tech (29)		25.	Cal
26.	BYU		26.	Wisconsin (24)		26.	Rutgers
27.	C. Michigan		27.	Clemson (27)
28.	Cal		28.	UNC (NR)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	S. Florida (26)
30.	Wisconsin		30.	W. Virginia (30)
31.	Navy		31.	Auburn (28)
32.	Kansas		32.	S. Carolina (37)
33.	Clemson		33.	Rutgers (31)

games between top 25 teams next week:

LSU at 'bama
Ohio St. at Penn St.


other losable games for top 25 teams:

UConn at Cincy
Wake Forest at GA Tech
Navy at Notre Dame
Oregon St. at Cal
Oklahoma at Nebraska


other random thoughts:

-Oregon has played too well the last few weeks to keep them out of the top ten, and maybe even the top five.  But when Brent Musberger asked when we might start thinking about them as a possible BCS title game contender, there's an easy answer: when Boise State loses.  They're playing as well as anybody in the country right now, but they were less than stellar the first three weeks of the season.  If you look at their schedule, you'll see these results:

week 1: lost to Boise St. while looking out of sorts all game and going the entire first half without a first down
week 2: barely scraped by Purdue -- a team that lost to Northern Illinois the following week -- at home, a game in which they were outgained by over 100 yards
week 3: narrowly beat Utah at home in a game in which Masoli was 4-16 for 95 yards passing

Since then, they've been a different team (though Masoli's still not a great passer).  So the question becomes: do we base Oregon's ranking on their play in October, or their play for the entire season?  I think the answer is the latter -- which means that, at the very least, we cannot rank them ahead of Boise St. right now, regardless of what Kirk Herbstreit says.  update: Last week, two people (one of them being Herbstreit) ranked Oregon above Boise St.  This week, eight people did (not including Herbstreit, who apparently didn't vote this week).

-With VaTech losing and Miami and GA Tech both trailing during the second half, it was almost a nightmare week for ACC boosters.  I think it's pretty unanimous that the Big East is the weakest BCS conference, but they'll have more top 15 teams when the next poll is released than will the ACC (2- Cincy and Pitt vs. 1-GA Tech).  5 out of 8 Big East teams have 2 losses or fewer, while that's only true of 2 out of 12 ACC teams.  That doesn't mean that the former is stronger than the latter (it doesn't take schedule strength, for one, into account), but it sure is interesting.

-The bottom of the top 25 is once again complete chaos.  I see about 16 teams that look pretty good, and then every team after that has significant weaknesses and/or lacks wins over good teams.  I don't know who's best, for example, between Arizona, Notre Dame, and Utah -- but I do know they've given me little reason to think that they're elite teams.

-update:  now that the standings are out, I'm picking Houston as the most overrated team (now that their wins against OK St. and Texas Tech look less impressive, their loss against UTEP even worse, and they're barely squeaking by teams like Southern Miss) and UNC as the most underrated team (how they failed to get a vote after beating VaTech on the road is beyond me).  I'd pick Oklahoma State as the most likely to finish the season ranked lower than they are right now and Wisonsin, VaTech, and Oklahoma as the most likely to finish higher (not very adventurous on the latter two, I know).

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses, I was within one spot for 29/31 teams in the easiest week to predict yet

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Alabama		1.	Alabama (2)		1.	Alabama
2.	Florida		2.	Florida (1)		2.	Florida
3.	Texas		3.	Texas (3)		3.	Texas
4.	USC		4.	USC (4)		4.	Cincy
5.	Cincy		5.	Cincy (5)		5.	USC
6.	Boise St.		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	Iowa
7.	Iowa		7.	Iowa (7)		7.	TCU
8.	Miami		8.	LSU (9)		8.	Penn St.
9.	LSU		9.	TCU (8)		9.	GA Tech
10.	TCU		10.	GA Tech (11)		10.	Boise St.
11.	GA Tech		11.	Oregon (10)		11.	Houston
12.	Oregon		12.	Penn St. (12)		12.	Okla St.
13.	Penn St.		13.	Okla St. (13)		13.	Oregon
14.	OK St.		14.	VaTech (14)		14.	VaTech
15.	VaTech		15.	Houston (15)		15.	LSU
16.	BYU		16.	Ohio St. (17)		16.	Pitt
17.	Houston		17.	Miami (18)		17.	Ohio St.
18.	Ohio St.		18.	Pitt (16)		18.	Oklahoma
19.	Utah		19.	Utah (19)		19.	W. Virginia
20.	Pitt		20.	W. Virginia (20)		20.	Miami
21.	Tx Tech		21.	S. Carolina (21)		21.	Notre Dame
22.	West Virginia		22.	BYU (26)		22.	S. Carolina
23.	S. Carolina		23.	Oklahoma (22)		23.	Ole Miss
24.	Kansas		24.	Notre Dame (25)		24.	Arizona
25.	Oklahoma		25.	Ole Miss (24)		25.	Cal
26.	Notre Dame		26.	Arizona (23)		26.	Wisconsin
27.	Ole Miss		27.	C. Michigan (27)
28.	S. Florida		28.	Cal (28)
29.	Nebraska		29.	Wisconsin (30)
30.	Michigan		30.	Navy (31)
31.	C. Michigan		31.	Kansas (32)
32.	Cal
33.	Arizona

games between top 25 teams next week:
Texas at Oklahoma St.
USC at Oregon

Other losable games for top 25 teams:
Georgia at Florida
Indiana at Iowa
Miami at Wake Forest
Georgia Tech at Vanderbilt
UNC at VaTech
West Virgina at S. Florida
South Carolina at Tennessee

Other Random Thoughts
-Not only does it look like the refs blew the call on Florida's fumble at the goal line, they also failed to call the most obvious excessive celebration of the season.  After all the flags they've thrown this season for people calling attention to themselves, I don't know how they missed somebody high-stepping into the endzone.  I don't for a second believe there's any sort of conspiracy, but you have to believe that Florida's luck with the officials has to run out at some point.

-Worst coaching decision of the day goes to Lane Kiffin for failing to try and move closer for the game winning field goal.  His team had 1st and 10 with about 41 seconds left in position to kick a 44 yard field goal.  Despite the fact that his kicker had already had a 43 yarder blocked after kicking it too low and missed a 47 yarder short, Kiffin decided to play it safe.  They ran toward the middle of the field for no gain, let the clock run down to 4 seconds, spiked the ball, and then attempted the kick.  Not surprisingly, it was blocked after it was kicked too low.  When you're playing the #1 team on the road, you have to take some risks if you want to win the game.

-TCU deserves to skip over some teams above them after their performance, but I'm somewhat skeptical that they will.  Does anybody see LSU getting jumped after their best victory of the year?  It's possible that Iowa could fall after once again barely eking out victory against an inferior opponent.  They probably should jump Boise State, but I don't see that happening either.

-Hardest team to predict this week: BYU.  With two losses and a win over Oklahoma, they have a pretty good case for staying above the Sooners, but with the way they've been shellacked by FSU and TCU since that opening victory, I have to believe at least a few people will simply drop them from their top 25.

-I've previously picked Kansas, Missouri, LSU, Oregon, and Boise St. as overrated.  I was right on the first two.  LSU had its best victory, but that's not really saying much.  Oregon is starting to make a believer out of me, but they really weren't that good the first few weeks of the season regardless of how well they play at the end.  And nobody knows how good Boise State really is.

-Last week I picked Oklahoma, VaTech, Penn State, and Texas Tech to finish higher in the polls than they were at the time.  I guess three out of four ain't bad.

Top 25 Update

A recap of this weekend.
(teams that lost crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update:  actual rankings in parentheses -- I was within one on 26/33 (I knew the bottom half would be tough)

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (2)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Alabama (1)		2.	Florida
3.	Texas		3.	Texas (3)		3.	Cincy
4.	VaTech		4.	Cincy (5)		4.	Iowa
5.	Boise St.		5.	USC (4)		5.	Texas
6.	USC		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	USC
7.	Ohio St.		7.	Iowa (7)		7.	TCU
8.	Cincy		8.	Miami (8)		8.	Miami
9.	Miami		9.	LSU (9)		9.	Penn St.
10.	LSU		10.	TCU (10)		10.	Houston
11.	Iowa		11.	Oregon (12)		11.	OK St.
12.	TCU		12.	Penn St. (13)		12.	GA Tech
13.	Oregon		13.	OK St. (14)		13.	Boise St.
14.	Penn St.		14.	GA Tech (11)		14.	Oregon
15.	Nebraska		15.	BYU (16)		15.	LSU
16.	OK St.		16.	Houston (17)		16.	VaTech
17.	Kansas		17.	Utah (19)		17.	Pitt
18.	BYU		18.	VaTech (15)		18.	Ohio St.
19.	GA Tech		19.	Ohio St. (18)		19.	Tx Tech
20.	Oklahoma		20.	Pitt (20)		20.	West Virginia
21.	S. Florida		21.	W. Virginia (22)		21.	BYU
22.	S. Carolina		22.	Tx Tech (21)		22.	Oklahoma
23.	Houston		23.	Kansas (24)		23.	Utah
24.	Utah		24.	Oklahoma (25)		24.	Nebraska
25.	Notre Dame		25.	Nebraska (29)		25.	Ole Miss
26.	Pitt		26.	S. Florida (28)		26.	Michigan
27.	Auburn		27.	Ole Miss (27)
28.	West Virginia		28.	S. Carolina (23)
29.	Ole Miss		29.	Michigan (30)
30.	Wisconsin		30.	Notre Dame (26)
31.	Missouri		31.	C. Michigan (31)
32.	Arkansas		32.	Cal (33)
			33.	Arizona (32)

games between (projected) top 25 teams next week:

TCU at BYU
Oklahoma at Kansas

other losable games for top 25 teams:

Tennessee at Alabama
Oregon St. at USC
Auburn at LSU
Iowa at Michigan St.
Oregon at Washington
Penn St. at Michigan
Georgia Tech at UVa
South Florida at Pitt
Air Force at Utah
UConn at West Virginia

other random thoughts:

-Other than figuring out how high Iowa and Cincy will rise (my guess: not as much as they deserve to), it's hard for me to imagine the top 17 being much different.  But everything after that is almost a blind guess -- I see a lot of teams that don't deserve to be ranked that high and nowhere else to put them.

-A couple weeks ago I said I was skeptical of Kansas and Missouri -- that seems like a good guess.  And I'm still skeptical of LSU, Oregon, and Boise St.  Add BYU to the list of teams I expect to fall as the season continues.  I expect Oklahoma, VaTech, Texas Tech, and possibly Penn St. to finish the regular season ranked higher than they will be this week.

-Is anybody else completely underwhelmed by what they've seen by Texas so far?  I'm underwhelmed by Florida as well, but that's partially because the bar was set so high in the first place.  Both teams were mighty lucky to escape with wins today.

-If we ranked teams purely based on what we've seen on the field so far this year, the top 5 would have to be: 1.) Alabama, 2.) Cincy, 3.) Iowa, 4.) Florida, 5.) Texas

update: I think it was well-deserved, but I'm still quite surprised that 'bama jumped over Florida to claim the #1 ranking.  I was also surprised that S. Carolina and Notre Dame only dropped one place each, but I think those are fair rankings.

Does Gun Control Work?

I always assumed that states with stricter gun control also had more gun deaths per capita, for two reasons: 1.) I figured more rural areas usually had less crime and since more rural states are more conservative, that they'd also have laxer gun control laws, and 2.) states with more gun deaths would have more motivation to pass stricter gun control laws.   If my assumption were true, it would be easy for anybody to argue that states with fewer gun regulations also have fewer gun deaths.  Apparently I was wrong.

Over at 538 today, Tom Schaller mentioned that, outside of DC, "the ten states with the lowest per-capital gun death rates voted for Obama."  He referenced this chart of firearm deaths per 100,000 residents by state.  If we cross-reference these data with the percent that voted for Obama in each state (here), we get a rather striking picture.

DC is a notable outlier -- it's no surprise that there are more gun deaths there than anywhere else.  But if we look at only the 50 states, the correlation between gun deaths and the percent who voted for Obama is a strikingly high -.63, (p<.001).  If we graph only the 50 states, it's readily apparent that the relationship is quite strong.

The data are almost too perfect -- there don't even appear to be any real outliers.  Indeed, if we look at the original chart in a new way -- color coded by the political leanings of the state -- it again appears almost too perfect.  In the chart below, the state is blue if it voted for both Kerry and Obama, purple if it voted for Bush and Obama, and red if it voted for Bush and McCain in '04 and '08.

24 of the top 25 states voted for Bush in 2004, and and 20 of the 25 bottom states voted for Obama in 2008.  If we break down the average gun deaths by type of state, we get:

red: 13.83
purple: 12.1
blue: 7.47

In other words, blue states have almost half the rate of gun deaths as do red states.  If we regress gun deaths on the percentage voting for Obama, we find out that a 10 percentage point gain in Obama voting is associated with a decrease of 2.9 gun deaths per 100,000 people, or .67 standard deviations (r squared = .402).

So, what does this mean?  Well, I think it's fair to assume that the percentage of people in a state who voted for Obama is fairly reasonable proxy for how liberal a state is -- which should also be a fairly reasonable proxy for how strict a state's gun control laws are.  So it seems almost certain that, controlling for nothing else, states with stricter gun control laws tend to have fewer gun deaths per capita.  Which means that gun control works . . . right?  Not really.  Like I said, this controls for nothing else.  One potentially mediating variable is gun ownership.  I have to believe the rates of gun ownership are fairly strongly correlated with how conservative a state is -- hence states with more guns were less likely to vote for Kerry or Obama.  Though even if that's true, I see two problems with arguing that it invalidates these statistics:

1.) One of the arguments against gun control is that people can -- and do -- safely own guns.  And that guns don't kill people -- people kill people.  But if states with higher rates of gun ownership also have higher rates of gun deaths that calls that assumption into question.

2.) One of the goals of gun control is to reduce both the number of people who own guns and the number of guns each person owns.  The narrative I've heard in the media is that it's not very successful at doing this -- which I find quite plausible -- but it's still possible that gun control reduces gun ownership a little bit, which would mean that gun ownership would be associated both with how much people feel they need guns and rules regarding gun ownership.

One of the commenters on 538 argues that gun deaths is a misleading statistic, and that we should use homicides involving guns instead.  But I disagree.  Gun control doesn't aim only to prevent murders with guns, it also aims to prevent gun accidents (e.g. by requiring child-proof safety locks).  It's certainly worth looking at both, but I'd put the latter above the former in terms of importance.


I find it most interesting that despite having more urban areas (which usually have higher rates of crime), more liberal states have fewer gun deaths.  Indeed, if we were going to conduct a rigorous investigation of whether gun control works or not, we'd certainly have to factor in urbanicity, poverty, non-gun crime rates, gun ownership rates, and a number of other variables.  We'd also want to know if there were any other effects of the gun control policy beside that on gun deaths (e.g. were more people killed with knives, or were there more home invasions b/c robbers knew homeowners were less likely to have guns?)

Anyway, here are the possible conclusions we can draw from these data (and given the limited scope we can't be sure that any one of these conclusions is better than the rest):

1.) The data are faulty -- real life isn't usually that neat and clean, and the list could have been doctored or simply made up

2.) Gun control works -- states that have stricter gun control laws also tend to have fewer gun deaths despite being more urban

3.) Gun control is irrelevant, demographic factors matter a lot more

4.) Gun ownership is dangerous, regardless of whether one is in an urban or rural location


5.) Nothing.  Far more research would be needed to draw any conclusions.

I'll stick with number 5 until I see more evidence.