That's my teaser line for today. Been away out of the country but obviously checked on the score (which blew my mind when I saw the halftime score).
This is an interesting take from the "Freud of Football". A more complete dominant performance may not happen again for quite a while. SIAP.
Mind Games: Clemson review
by John F. Murray
In this post-Clemson autopsy report, we examine the anatomy of extreme defeat. We look directly at what it means (in terms of "performance") to lose in the single biggest defeat in UM program history. Imagine all those Saturdays over the past 80 some years. None was worse than last Saturday. It blows the mind. It is also the biggest loss in terms of MPI scores that I have ever witnessed.
The magnitude of this loss surprised me. It appeared to come out of left field, but hindsight is always 20/20 and if you read last week's column and look at the numbers, you realize that the Canes were fortunate to win a game when they performed worse than their opponent (Va. Tech). They even won with points to spare when they should have actually lost. This should have been a warning sign, but hope is eternal and sometimes we let our emotions create false optimism.
The truth is shown in the numbers below, and this is often much more than the scoreboard truth, which is only a rough approximation of performance. Let's look at the "actual performance" chart to see what actually happened in that debacle:
Miami Clemson
Total MPI Score 0.373 Total MPI Score 0.640
Offense 0.345 Offense 0.635
Defense 0.360 Defense 0.652
Special Teams 0.554 Special Teams 0.625
Pressure Offense 0.279 Pressure Offense 0.591
Pressure Defense 0.409 Pressure Defense 0.750
Total Pressure 0.373 Total Pressure 0.688
Where do I begin? There is no way to sugarcoat this devastation. The Hurricanes lost on every single performance match-up in this game and had their helmets handed to them. They were simply slaughtered. Clemson's defensive unit in pressure was best of all, 47.1% better than the Miami offense in pressure. The Tigers were 30.7% better overall on defense (vs. Miami's offense), 27.5% better on offense, and 26.7% better overall counting every play.
Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, the Tigers didn't even leave a morsel on special teams where they were also superior.
Clemson's total MPI score of .640 is extremely rare. This happens, on average, in less than 1 in 1000 games. In my rating of all Super Bowl games, even the 1985 Chicago Bears, with the best performance ever on Super Bowl Sunday, were about 5 percentage points worse than Clemson in terms of total performance.
When a team is blown away the way our sad Hurricanes were 58-0 they don't lose every play of the game. In fact, Clemson was far from perfect and left 36 percentage points on the field. I cannot ever remember a team scoring above 70% overall. This highlights the truth that perfection is a non-reality in football and it echoes Herman Edwards' comment that "on every play in a game somebody screws up." In fact, this is why I invented the MPI. I wanted a more precise measurement than the final score, and one that also included mental performance.
The Canes certainly screwed up last Saturday. They messed up so much our head coach was fired. What is going on in Miami? First Joe Philbin is send packing, and now Al Golden? I can only hope the future will be better in Coral Gables. It's kind of sad because I liked what Golden was doing. Philbin was a nice guy too.
Football is nothing if not a cut-throat business. It's all about now with no room for losing by 58 points or 27 percentage points on the MPI. Any change will have to be better.
Maybe mental coaching and sports psychology will help the Canes in the future. Maybe the fans will need trauma relief first!
I'm still in shock like you all are. But … in a low voice of pure unreasonable defiance, I somehow find a way to mutter the words "Go Canes!"
Dr. John F. Murray, described as "The Freud of Football" by the Washington Post, is a South Florida native and licensed clinical and sports psychologist in Palm Beach. He provides mental coaching and sports psychology services, counseling, speeches and seminars. He recently authored his second book, "The Mental Performance Index: Ranking the Best Teams in Super Bowl History," destroying stigmas about the mental game in sports and showing football teams how to perform better and win more games by enhancing team performance assessments and training. For further information call Dr. Murray at 561-596-9898, visit johnfmurray.com or email johnfmurray@mindspring.com.
This is an interesting take from the "Freud of Football". A more complete dominant performance may not happen again for quite a while. SIAP.
Mind Games: Clemson review
by John F. Murray
In this post-Clemson autopsy report, we examine the anatomy of extreme defeat. We look directly at what it means (in terms of "performance") to lose in the single biggest defeat in UM program history. Imagine all those Saturdays over the past 80 some years. None was worse than last Saturday. It blows the mind. It is also the biggest loss in terms of MPI scores that I have ever witnessed.
The magnitude of this loss surprised me. It appeared to come out of left field, but hindsight is always 20/20 and if you read last week's column and look at the numbers, you realize that the Canes were fortunate to win a game when they performed worse than their opponent (Va. Tech). They even won with points to spare when they should have actually lost. This should have been a warning sign, but hope is eternal and sometimes we let our emotions create false optimism.
The truth is shown in the numbers below, and this is often much more than the scoreboard truth, which is only a rough approximation of performance. Let's look at the "actual performance" chart to see what actually happened in that debacle:
Miami Clemson
Total MPI Score 0.373 Total MPI Score 0.640
Offense 0.345 Offense 0.635
Defense 0.360 Defense 0.652
Special Teams 0.554 Special Teams 0.625
Pressure Offense 0.279 Pressure Offense 0.591
Pressure Defense 0.409 Pressure Defense 0.750
Total Pressure 0.373 Total Pressure 0.688
Where do I begin? There is no way to sugarcoat this devastation. The Hurricanes lost on every single performance match-up in this game and had their helmets handed to them. They were simply slaughtered. Clemson's defensive unit in pressure was best of all, 47.1% better than the Miami offense in pressure. The Tigers were 30.7% better overall on defense (vs. Miami's offense), 27.5% better on offense, and 26.7% better overall counting every play.
Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, the Tigers didn't even leave a morsel on special teams where they were also superior.
Clemson's total MPI score of .640 is extremely rare. This happens, on average, in less than 1 in 1000 games. In my rating of all Super Bowl games, even the 1985 Chicago Bears, with the best performance ever on Super Bowl Sunday, were about 5 percentage points worse than Clemson in terms of total performance.
When a team is blown away the way our sad Hurricanes were 58-0 they don't lose every play of the game. In fact, Clemson was far from perfect and left 36 percentage points on the field. I cannot ever remember a team scoring above 70% overall. This highlights the truth that perfection is a non-reality in football and it echoes Herman Edwards' comment that "on every play in a game somebody screws up." In fact, this is why I invented the MPI. I wanted a more precise measurement than the final score, and one that also included mental performance.
The Canes certainly screwed up last Saturday. They messed up so much our head coach was fired. What is going on in Miami? First Joe Philbin is send packing, and now Al Golden? I can only hope the future will be better in Coral Gables. It's kind of sad because I liked what Golden was doing. Philbin was a nice guy too.
Football is nothing if not a cut-throat business. It's all about now with no room for losing by 58 points or 27 percentage points on the MPI. Any change will have to be better.
Maybe mental coaching and sports psychology will help the Canes in the future. Maybe the fans will need trauma relief first!
I'm still in shock like you all are. But … in a low voice of pure unreasonable defiance, I somehow find a way to mutter the words "Go Canes!"
Dr. John F. Murray, described as "The Freud of Football" by the Washington Post, is a South Florida native and licensed clinical and sports psychologist in Palm Beach. He provides mental coaching and sports psychology services, counseling, speeches and seminars. He recently authored his second book, "The Mental Performance Index: Ranking the Best Teams in Super Bowl History," destroying stigmas about the mental game in sports and showing football teams how to perform better and win more games by enhancing team performance assessments and training. For further information call Dr. Murray at 561-596-9898, visit johnfmurray.com or email johnfmurray@mindspring.com.
