But worst of all, JoPa is so conservative that he deserved to lose. Unfortunately he won. On a 4th-and-a-yard (in the first half) on the LSU forty, he punted. The Penn State kicker punted it into the endzone, for a net of 21 yards. Big deal. In the second half, near his own 40 with less than a yard to go, JoPa again decided to punt. This time the punt netted less than 10 yards as the LSU kick-return man made a nifty run. And of course, let’s always settle for 3-pointers when the opportunity presents itself. JoPa please hire a real statistician, and quit listening to the stupid pundits.

The next example was during the Viking-Bears game yesterday. It was halfway thru the 3rd Quarter, the Bears punted on a 4th and 1 near midfield. The Vikings welre killing them, running and passing them into the ground. The Bears needed to give their defense a rest. They needed to change the momentum of the game. Why the hell would you punt? Yet the announcers praised the Bears’ coach for making the right decision. The Viking, after getting the ball, went down and scored a TD. The Bears ended up getting hammered. Any pundits second-guessing this decision? Of course not, and that is why coaches are so conservative.

The last example is perhaps the strangest. The Steelers were playing the Ravens. The Steelers, who were playing with their 3rd-string inexperienced quarterback, were surprisingly ahead by 3. There was 4 minutes left in the game. The Ravens were just inside Steeler territory. Fourth and 4, they decided to go for it. The announcers were predictably apalled. Baltimore didn’t make 4, they made 20 plus. Their drive then stalled and they kicked a field goal, tying the game. They went on to win in overtime.

Coaches are way to “conservative” because of the Monday-morning backstabbers. They punt way too often and they settle for 3-points way to often. And I suspect they don’t go for 2 often enough. Please teams, hire real statisticians. You will win more games if you forget the alleged pundits.

As Sports Illustrated explaned in a recent story, Kevin Kelley, coach of the Pulaski Academy football team in Little Rock, Ark., has called for only a single punt in the past two years. Like a seasoned gambler, Kelley has figured out that punting on fourth and long near your own end zone decreases the odds of the other team’s scoring by only a relatively slim amount. So going for it will pay off in the long run: Pulaski won a state championship last year and is in the hunt this year too.

As for my brother’s point: he is just restating a way for teams in small markets to stay competitive using statistics. But some of the same methodology could be used in other facets of sports.