PDA

View Full Version : JeffHCross Project #2: Progression, Examined



JeffHCross
02-20-2011, 10:44 PM
This is #2 in a series of, for lack of a better description, projects that I want to do before NCAA 12 is released. Hopefully long before NCAA 12 is released. I'm creating these threads to hopefully increase my own incentive to work on the projects.

Think of it as incentive by potential public embarrassment.

What I'm going to do is take a look at the Rivals 5* players from 2007-2010, and look at their OVR, SPD, and AWR ratings from each version of the game, NCAA 08 - NCAA 2011. There have been some changes in how OVR works in those years, but I'm hoping I can still draw some conclusions from the numbers. I'm particularly interested in how players progress from their first year in the game to the second. I suspect there's a lot more of a logarithmic growth to a player's OVR, rather than the linear progression system we currently have. I'd like to advocate changing progression, but in order to do that, I need some hard numbers to back me up.

steelerfan
02-21-2011, 12:20 AM
Sounds good, Jeff.

But wtf? No updates yet? Are you gonna do this or what? :P

psusnoop
02-21-2011, 08:51 AM
Nice, should be interesting.

JeffHCross
02-21-2011, 07:17 PM
But wtf? No updates yet? Are you gonna do this or what? :PI consider that I once again have NCAA 08, 09 and 10 sufficient progress for now, lol.

steelerfan
02-21-2011, 07:19 PM
I consider that I once again have NCAA 08, 09 and 10 sufficient progress for now, lol.

Just keeping you motivated, bro. ;)

JeffHCross
03-05-2011, 07:50 PM
Finished grabbing the 5*s from NCAA 08 and 09, plus all of their ratings from both 08 and 09. So I'm about 1/4 of the way done. It doesn't take as long as I expected, so I might be able to finish off grabbing the ratings tomorrow if I get the motivation.

It's interesting so far ... there isn't as much correlation between the jump in OVR and the jump in AWR as I expected. So I might end up only looking at OVR. SPD seems absolutely all over the place, so I'm pretty confident I'll be throwing that out.

Between NCAA 08 and 09, there were a lot more 1 or 2 pt increases than I would have expected. This may tell me something about the way that their rosters are generated. However, and this is what I really wanted to see ... there are guys like Eric Berry, Noel Devine, and Donovan Warren that had 10 pt, 7 pt, and 13 pt OVR increases, respectively. Those type of jumps are very rare in the game, especially for Freshmen.

steelerfan
04-21-2011, 06:46 AM
Update? Don't get lazy on us, Jeff. :smh:

Papa LoneStar
04-21-2011, 08:34 AM
Lazy is his middle name :p

JeffHCross
04-21-2011, 09:40 PM
Lazy is his middle name :pIs not.

I got all the data before the last Community Event, but haven't had time to put it together in any kind of presentable form. The graphs aren't nearly as consistent as I expected, so they just end up being an ugly mix of lines. If I can figure out how to better do that, I'll post it up. Until then, it's really not useful.

JeffHCross
12-18-2011, 12:46 AM
So, when I originally went into this project, I expected that the real-life progression would follow some kind of general, consistent, path. Probably logarithmic.

Yeah ... not so much.


http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/ac330/jeffhc/RL_progression.jpg

This depicts most of the 5* prospects from 2007 - 2009, and the progression of their OVR ratings from their Freshman season to their Junior year, based on the default rosters for NCAA 08 - NCAA 12. The Senior year wasn't included in the graph because so many 5* prospects skip their senior season. There are 64 players depicted in the graph.

For the sake of graphing, I put in a "Base" level of 0 change; makes it easier to see the progression to Sophomore year. The delta to the Sophomore year ranges from +13 to -4. For the Junior year, the delta since their Freshman year ranges from +17 to a confusing -13. While 9 of the 64 players had negative change from Freshman to Sophomore, there were 3 players who were below their original Freshman rating in their Junior year. It's not directly depicted in the graph, but there were also 7 players who decreased between their Sophomore and Junior years.

Two results worth noting are that only two players had the same OVR rating from their Freshman to Sophomore years. In one case, the Junior rating was +13. In the other, it was -13. That's admittedly a head scratcher.

It is worth noting that these players were from NCAA 08, NCAA 09, and NCAA 10. There were certainly some changes to the OVR rating between those games, and it's difficult to diagnose how those changes may have influenced these results.

At some future date I hope to track some 5* in-game prospects through multiple seasons, and compare it to the results here. I would expect the in-game results to be much more linear.

steelerfan
12-18-2011, 01:16 AM
Good stuff, Jeff.

I, too, would expect the in-game recruits too be much more linear in their progression. It would be great if this data were able to influence in-game progression.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

mew3782
12-18-2011, 07:09 AM
Interesting study...your distribution could actually be normal. What was the average improvement from year one to year two? Based on your graph I'd guess something like +3...if that's the case, it looks like a normal distribution (majority of guys improved a little; similarly fewer guys improved by a lot/by nothing-or-got-worse). This makes sense; a 5-star person should get better year-to-year but some will blow away expectations and some will fall flat. If you reset your graph from year two to year three you'd probably also see a normal distribution.

This is a good thing; it means the player-raters making the game actually pay attention from year to year, at least a little...

JeffHCross
12-18-2011, 10:52 AM
It's definitely not normal. The chart is deceptive in that regard because it doesn't show the lines are overlapping. For example, there were 9 players who were at +1 in Year Two, as well as 9 who were at +5, but both of those are represented by only one line on the graph. Unfortunately, none of the other available graph types do a decent job at that either, so we're left with what we've got.

Here's the breakdown by Count:

Value SO JR
-4 2 0
-3 1 0
-2 3 0
-1 3 1
0 2 4
1 9 1
2 3 4
3 6 3
4 2 0
5 9 2
6 4 4
7 4 8
8 6 3
9 3 6
10 2 8
11 1 3
12 1 6
13 2 4

JeffHCross
12-18-2011, 11:53 AM
So here's the same type of graph, with the same players, but depicting their progression in AWR, instead of OVR.

As you'll see, the AWR progression is all over the place. I've said in previous posts and discussions that my biggest problem with in-game progression is that it doesn't show the kind of progression we see with real freshmen. AWR absolutely bears this out. You see everything from a +41 to a -20, just from their Freshman ratings to their Sophomore ratings. I have some thoughts on what could be causing this (and yes, operator error on entering the values in my spreadsheet *could* be it), but since it would just be pure speculation on my part, I'll leave it be for another time.

http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/ac330/jeffhc/RL_awareness.jpg

I'll say it again ... +41. In one year. :smh:

EDIT: It is worth pointing out, however, that there are busts in this chart too. There are several players whose AWR in their JR year, versus their FR year, was -3 or -4. There's another which was basically flat: 0 and +1.