Does being unconventional mean you can't win at the top level

Last weekend was the off week for both Georgia and Georgia Tech and I listened to a bunch of the sports talk shows on 790 Saturday. There was a lot of discussion of whether the Yellow Jackets should fire their coach. They need to win 4 out of their last 6 games to keep their streak of years going to a bowl game alive and the Georgia game is the only one they should be an underdog in. Both GT and UGA have been to a bowl 16 straight years. The only teams with longer active streaks are FSU (30), Florida (21), and Virginia Tech (19).

Anyway, the consensus seemed to be that GT should be content being an above average football program that once in awhile competes for an ACC title but isn’t really relevant in national championship talk. The academic reputation makes it difficult to recruit top notch players and we don’t want to lower the standards any more or go out and hire someone like Nick Saban and emphasize football too much.

Furthermore, people are again questioning whether Paul Johnson’s “high school offense” can be win at the highest level of college football. Now I’m going to try to relate that to whether canapé can win at the highest level of bridge. The triple option and running style of Paul Johnson’s offense can demolish weak competition in much the same way that canapé can create a big advantage against weak to intermediate bridge players. The unfamiliarity of the offense/bidding system is just something that the masses just aren’t capable of handling effectively. Does that system edge go away when you start playing the cream of the crop or is it just that the talent isn’t there to beat the cream of the crop? Is the system holding back the team’s potential?

Certainly the top football programs will have more talent and naturally do better but is the trickiness of the option and persistent running game and opening 4 card suits and keeping 5 card suits hidden now more of an advantage to the opposition? My instinct is that system doesn’t matter. In terms of pure effectiveness against the best opponents, the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out. But the extra mental strain to learn an unusual system might take away from one’s ability to perform the more basic tasks effectively.

There’s no doubt the learning curve is steep when starting to learn a new offense or bidding system but being different is fun. Since players are only in college at most 4 years, they’re spending disproportionally more of their time just getting used to the unconventional style at Georgia Tech so I kind of lean toward running a more typical offense, similar to what the masses run. In bridge, however, a strong partnership lasts a lot longer than 4 years so you can afford the growing pains of learning an unconventional system. Eventually, it will get to the point where bidding Swedish canapé is as easy and natural as 2/1. I don’t think it has quite reached that point with any of the few people I play it with – I mean, the basics of the system are still being defined – but it will get to that point soon, and that’s when results will get even better.

On that note, through 7 weeks, here are the top 30 in college football according to my computer. 

Rank	Prev	BCS		W	L		Team	Str. of Sch.	Total Rtg.
1	1	5		6	0		NOTRE DAME	10	94.097
2	4	1		6	0		ALABAMA	46	90.727
3	2	2		6	0		FLORIDA	26	89.042
4	5	8		5	0		OREGON STATE	25	87.107
5	10	4		6	0		KANSAS STATE	61	83.422
6	3	13		5	1		WEST VIRGINIA	32	80.797
7	19	17		5	1		TEXAS TECH	17	78.999
8	6	NE		7	0		OHIO STATE	65	78.338
9	18	18		5	1		TEXAS A&M	41	77.438
10	9	3		6	0		OREGON	86	76.883
11	22	9		4	1		OKLAHOMA	24	74.919
12	8	7		6	1		SOUTH CAROLINA	51	73.838
13	16	22		5	1		BOISE STATE	71	73.424
14	14	12		6	0		Mississippi State	116	71.851
15	20	15		6	0		RUTGERS	113	71.665
16	7	20		4	2		STANFORD	4	70.087
17	24	6		6	1		LSU	75	69.610
18	12	21		5	0		CINCINNATI	118	69.016
19	11	11		5	1		GEORGIA	83	68.525
20	17	14		6	1		FLORIDA STATE	107	67.031
21	26	10		5	1		USC	78	66.760
22	15	24		4	2		IOWA STATE	3	64.809
23	53			5	2		UCLA	58	64.744
24	23			7	0		Ohio	123	64.644
25	21			5	1		Louisiana Tech	100	64.578
26	28	23		5	1		TCU	101	63.664
27	30	16		6	0		LOUISVILLE	120	63.100
28	25	19		5	1		CLEMSON	106	63.021
29	13	25		4	2		TEXAS	21	62.398
30	37			6	1		Northwestern	104	62.159