Michigan's hiring of Jim Harbaugh was a no-brainer.
The school's former starting quarterback led the Wolverines to a Rose Bowl in his Senior season and finished as a Heisman finalist in 1986. He started 144 NFL games as a player, led Stanford to its winningest season in program history as head coach, won the Woodey Hayes Coach of the Year Award at the collegiate level, and proceeded to take the lowly 49ers franchise to 3 NFC Championships in 4 years.
So how could Harbaugh lead the Stanford Cardinal to a top 5 finish and fail to do the same at a "football school?"
How could he turn the San Fransisco 49ers' 10 year playoff drought into a 3 year championship streak and still fail to achieve a 10 win season in 5 years at Michigan?
In this podcast episode, Professor Mike Lewis and I discuss how the coaching profession often yields unpredictable results. We discuss the careers of coaches like Jim Harbaugh and Tom Herman in an effort to uncover the root of the phenomena.
In other college football segments, we break down the lack of fan enthusiasm for non-playoff bowl games as well as the state of the Notre Dame fanbase after the program's biggest win in the Playoff era.
The show concludes with a continuation of last week's election / polling conversation. I describe how initial election night results caused pollsters to appear further off than they actually were. Mike then breaks down what may have gone wrong in the polling process.
Listen to the full episode here:
Also streaming on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Transcription
Mike Lewis 0:17
Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the analytics podcast. My name is Mike Lewis. I am joined by Doug Battle. And while we are typically a sports analytics podcast, somehow I feel we're moving rapidly to becoming a popular culture show. How are you today, Doug?
Doug Battle 0:35
I'm doing well. Georgia lost the game to Florida on Saturday, but I'm hoping you know, our, our quarterback is nicknamed the mailman. And I'm hoping he delivered some late points that they have yet to count. But yeah, I'm doing well, outside of the outcome of that game, obviously. Mandalorian Episode Two was like weird in the most beautiful way. And I mean, at the end of the day, I tested COVID negative this morning, so we're winning. Well, you know, let's start there. It is one of those magical parts of fandom where when your teams are struggling and I think we're both big college football guys, I think they're a bigger college football guy than me at this point simply because your team has more success. My align I our own three your which is almost equivalent to the Georgia Bulldogs having lost two games, right. And it's one of those years. It's one of those years it's filled that fills character building, right. It's a character building here. Yeah, I'm in a situation I have another podcast towards a football podcast and talking about fandoms I mean, the Georgia football fan on season's over. And we got half the season left but season's over to the majority of the fans because Georgia lost two games in essentially eliminated from the College Football Playoff. And so it's I'm like looking at my notes and like what do I do here? How do I keep people interested in in Georgia football? It's crazy. These people are diehard fans, and I get it like when your team's eliminated and your goals a championship the rest of the seasons like an exhibition.
Mike Lewis 2:19
Yeah, I mean, I you follow some of this stuff more closely than I do. What is the what is the status? Are all the other bowl games going to play? As are some of them going to play?
Doug Battle 2:30
I'll say this in a non COVID year. I'm I'm very much anti bowl game. That's not. That's not a playoff game. I'm all for expanding the playoffs. But I just like hate exhibition football. Because your team's playing for like 15th place often. And I don't know I don't like it. But that's just me. But as of now, yeah, the latest I've seen is, is they're having bowls. And in fact, they're not requiring a team to have one a certain amount of games to play in a bowl. So every team is ball eligible this year, it's upward football.
Mike Lewis 3:03
Well, given that, you know, it looks like Wisconsin might be playing like a three game season this year. It's probably it's probably probably realistic, right? I mean, there's right. Yeah, I mean, even the what you're getting at is kind of an interesting aside in terms of the kind of the history of sports where you know, when when they moved to the college football playoff, they really did d value just about the rest of the ball season. Maybe the most phone famous bowl game name was the pulin weed eater bowl, which may or may not even exist anymore. But I do think they transitioned it to all feeling like it was just really kind of these low level marketing campaigns for some game that's played and you know, Birmingham, Alabama, between Memphis and Illinois. And in a way it's kind of caught up with him where if it's not the college football playoff, it is the seasons a bust. Now, I will say this. It really depends on your position in the in the hierarchy, right. As an ally Nye fan, I think we went to the Redbox bowl last year, that, you know, his standards really changed and we're just happy to get in that extra playing time. You know, post regular season and maybe a little bit of hope for the future.
Doug Battle 4:23
Yeah, I mean, I get that being from Birmingham when UAB makes a bowl game. It's like winning the Super Bowl. But yeah, for fan bases like Georgia just doesn't, nobody cares. Nobody thought the two games that matter to Georgia fans are Florida and Alabama unless both of them so they're practically Oh into and I'm learning about fandom in that way trying to find ways to engage a fan base that is probably just ready for the season to be over. So I had that loss on Saturday but then Saturday night was really fun Notre Dame Clemson and I didn't get to watch the whole game but I did get to watch the fourth quarter and both overtimes which felt like a whole game. I don't know if you caught it Mike but Clemson with their five star freshman quarterback taking the reins for Trevor Lawrence and did a admirable job. Notre Dame playing at home. Their student section packed like sardines amidst a pandemic, and ended up winning in double overtime. they stormed the field, and it was a Coronavirus nightmare. It was the pro clutters we're having a field day without one with I don't know how many thousand people all on the field celebrating together. But I know Brian Kelly had told his players before that game, they were going to win the game. And the fans were going to rush the field. And the players needed to get off the field as quickly as possible because he can't afford to have half his team catch COVID.
Mike Lewis 5:59
You know, absolutely. I mean, obviously the it's an interesting story in a lot of ways, right? So Notre Dame is now number two in the poll, Clemson is number four in the poll. They've got likely another meeting down the lines. Now we can have the college football playoff too. You know, when that really heats up, we can now have the endless debates of should the SEC get two teams in versus should the ACC get two teams in. Trevor Lawrence, you know, being being out for that game. how meaningful is it should should Notre Dame even leapfrog Clemson in that in that, Paul? That's an unpopular opinion to even debate that. But you know, I'm with you, I come back to that. And this might be something related to the difference in our ages. And like, I don't know how you perceive Notre Dame as a football program, or as a fan base. But you know, Notre Dame has always been sort of a the most iconic college football brand. Yeah. And perhaps it's a position that's not perhaps it's a position that's not deserved, right? That it's just that they've been out there for so long. That it's just reflects they say, oh, Notre Dame's the big dog. I don't recall when the last period of prolonged dominance for Notre Dame was. But you know, sometimes you see these signals and I'll relate this back to Georgia in just a second. But if you're Notre Dame you know, if you're the New York Yankees or you're the Duke, Blue Devils or the you know, the Los Angeles Lakers, should you be rushing the court rushing the field when you beat when you beat Clemson, right? It's like, acting like you, you've been there before. And obviously, the one that I was, the one that I was alluding to, was that infamous game where the Georgia fans all flew up or drove up to South Bend and turn that stadium red.
Doug Battle 7:57
Yeah, I was at that one. And I know it would seem like you would walk away from that thinking, wow, this is a weak fan base. Our fan base is so much better. But Notre Dame fans weren't nice. It was so weird. Because that year was my senior year in college. I went to every game home in a way. And so I was around and exposed to many fan bases, most of which were sec fan bases. And the treatment and and at Notre Dame was just totally different. It was like we were their guest. Everyone wanted to make sure you knew where the bathroom was. And you if you were trying to get to Cathedral to the cathedral how to get there. They wish you good luck at the game, which Georgia had and they probably regret wishing that and then they came back to Athens in 2019. lost again and I was riding on a bus back to our parking because parking is such a disaster and Athens after that game with some Notre Dame fans, and they were very gracious. And I was like wow, this is the best fan base in football. They they get it they have some perspective. But they care about their team and they believe in their history and it's like a religion, but not to the point where they mistreat others and so I actually I love to see Notre Dame thrive right now. They're number two in the country right now behind Alabama, by the way, which is wild, but I mean their playoff path is clear. They will likely play Clemson in the acc championship and I would definitely take Clemson in that game but I would still take Notre Dame I think the ACC is going to have two playoff teams this year. I think it worked out that way. And if you look at the playoffs situation it's gonna get really messy. You still got to undefeated BYU just beat Boise State. undefeated Indiana Oregon is one No, Wisconsin is one no beyond that, I don't think there's anything I guess USC is one and no and if they were to keep winning liberty is seven out so We're looking at a potential scenario where you got Alabama, undefeated, Ohio State, undefeated, Notre Dame and Clemson, probably both one loss. And then a bunch of undefeated, that feel like, Hey, we should have a shot in and they've all played a different number of games against different levels of competition. And it is just a nightmare for the playoff committee, it seems.
Mike Lewis 10:24
Yeah, no, that'd be interesting. It's like if there's multiple undefeated and multiple one loss teams in the playoff would be a a, you know, and it's one of my favorite topics, but just the this idea that and we brought it up a couple weeks ago, I think I was talking about BYU at the time, just the idea that some of the teams are really not eligible to compete for the championship yet they are somehow still in the league. You know, you mentioned the you mentioned the undefeated Indiana Hoosiers. Yeah. My favorite league so far this year, and you know, I've got a little bit of love of the chaos in me has got to be has got to be the big 10 with Indiana, who they beat in Penn State, who turns out to Michigan and state Michigan. Yeah. Off big football. Which one pence Penn State? Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, and that's, that's the beauty of this chaos of the season. Right. Penn State and Michigan were, you know, I think I think Penn State was a top 10 preseason, correct.
Doug Battle 11:29
Yeah, they, which preseason polls either collapse? I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. preseason rankings skew everything because Georgia started the season with like, a win over unranked Arkansas that felt ugly, and it turns out Arkansas is pretty good. And then a win over topped in Auburn who ends up being unranked and then a win over top 15, Tennessee who also ends up being on ranked. And so then Georgia was like top three and thinking, Oh, yeah, we're contenders. But it just turned out everyone we had played wasn't any good. I don't know. preseason rankings are very rarely accurate. I mean, LSU was top four or five?
Mike Lewis 12:09
Well, and especially this year, probably even more chaotic when, you know the shortened timelines and weird bubbles and all sorts of restrictions. The other story from the big 10 that I that I find fascinating is the collapse are the beginning to see the end of the Jim Harbaugh reign at Michigan.
Doug Battle 12:31
Yeah, it's felt like in the beginning, I was officially on a on a hot seat. It's felt like the beginning of the end, his entire career in Michigan, as a coach never really got things going. And every time where it starts to look like oh, this could be the year to really contend. things. Things go south. I said it on a on savage Pat's podcast a few weeks ago, when we were making predictions for games. And I said, Michigan, Michigan was about to play Michigan State. And I said Michigan loses games when people start believing in Michigan. And that's what they did. They lost two straight. Since there were articles coming out saying you know, Michigan for real, you know, is this the year they make the playoff, they might be back in a position where they're fortunate to make a bowl game.
Mike Lewis 13:18
Well, it's interesting, given how much success Harbaugh had coaching and other places for it to somehow come in to the to an end at, you know, really a program where he should be set up for massive so you would think that would be the easiest program for him to be successful. And I think in terms of his coaching career, he's had by far the least success to the point where, you know, historically, it was always Notre Dame, sorry, Ohio State and Michigan is the class of the big 10. I suspect that well, you know, I'll throw this back to you because I don't want to be clouded by the bias, ease of age here. But what is the number two team in the big 10 dug?
Doug Battle 14:02
Right now? Is it Michigan now it's definitely not Michigan?
Mike Lewis 14:05
Well, just, let's say just in terms of the the class of the program, I wonder has Wisconsin, Wisconsin and Penn State and state i wonder...
Doug Battle 14:16
now we got Indiana...
Mike Lewis 14:23
That's a hard one to get my head around.
Doug Battle 14:25
You touched on something that's always been fascinating to me, which is when a coach who has success in a situation that feels like it would be more difficult, gets more resources at a bigger school with a bigger brand, and struggles we've seen that I see it in basketball all the time. See, these coaches have success at mid majors. Even in the tournament, Shaka smart at VCU, taking his teams to Final Fours and then going to Texas where they have NBA players almost every year. VCU rarely had an NBA player in Texas has come every year. And they have yet to really have a top 10 or top 15. Finish under Shaka smart. You saw that with Anthony grant, also from VCU when he went to Alabama and people were thinking, Okay, if this guy was taking VCU on tournament runs, he can at least get album into the tournament, never had any tournament success at Alabama and was fired. And then last year went to Dayton and or I guess it wasn't as first year Dayton but was that Dayton last year and had them playing top? I mean, they were going to be a number one seed in the tournament, if there had been one pre COVID. So it's always fascinating to me when these coaches move from a lower resource. You look at Harbaugh at Stanford, I mean, think about the difficulties and having a top five team at Stanford where the academic requirements limit you as far as the caliber of athletes or I guess the volume of high caliber athletes you can bring in and going somewhere like Michigan, where it's his alma mater, where they have more of a football history where they're able to recruit the highest level players and not having the same caliber teams that he had a Stanford.
Mike Lewis 16:13
Yeah, I mean, 100% you go from Stanford to I mean, Michigan is Michigan's almost always going to be football royalty, even if they've got some down years, just by the nature of that. That fan base the size of that stadium, right. It's it's a it's a revenue machine. And long term revenue is really what long term revenue is really what matters in terms of sports success at the college level, being able to continually invest in fixed and fixed programs.
Doug Battle 16:44
Yeah, I'll tell you another one more coach in college football, that's like that is Tom Herman, Texas. incredibly successful as offensive coordinator for Urban Meyer both I know, he finished at Ohio State on that team with cardale Jones and the three quarterback team, Braxton Miller, and JT Berry, but he goes to Houston, and has, I believe a top 10 finish at Houston and took the team from zero to hero in two or three seasons. And then he goes to Texas. So you look at going from Houston to Texas. And the difference in resources that football program has the history has recruiting access, the brand name, and he's yet to, to truly have the success that people anticipated. I know when he went to Texas, the expectation was there, Texas and Oklahoma, one of those two teams will be in the playoffs every year. And it's been Oklahoma every time. So another one where that's that whole phenomena has always been fascinating to me with head coaches.
Mike Lewis 17:51
I think it is a good phenomena. Because when I and I have probably a tendency to look at it a little bit different just by the nature of what I do and how Yeah, I spent so many of the last few years. Because whenever I see these coaching changes, at the end, they're always just after the season or in the case of football, usually they're in the period between the end of the regular season and the ballgames. Typically, there's a bout a, I don't know, six to eight to maybe 10 names that are hot every year. And you can almost put all of those names into various flavors, and like we had the college basketball to this too. You know, one of the flavors is the guy that gets hot in the tournament, right? The guy in the mid major that breaks through. And that's the same thing with the you know, the the guy that is coaching in a non power five conference, and they happen to go undefeated or 10 in one right and they're on the list. Then there there's this other class of names who's like the, the slow and steady in the Missouri Valley where it's, you know, it's a legitimate level of competition. And this is a guy that's been going nine and three or 10 and two for a lot of years. And then there's the the sort of the gold standard assistant of coach Kay or Coach Saban. And it's, um, you know, it'd be an interesting thing to sort of really dig into this and kind of a classic small numbers problem. But really dig into that and see how successful each of those flavors tends to be when they it because because you're right, part of the issue is they all get moved up to the next level where they've got more resources. Right. But the question is, do they have more relative resources than than they used to have versus their day to day competition?
Doug Battle 19:43
Yeah, there's one other category of coach that fascinates me too. And that's the journeyman, the guy that's been there forever. And you look, you look at last year's championships and football alone. Andy Reid, who had been in the NFL for an eternity And always kind of been almost there, but not really there and kind of overlooked, I think. And I think if for a lot of NFL fans, if your team was hiring prior to any read stay in Kansas City, and he was on the list, people would say, Oh, we already know, you know, he doesn't have what it takes to win a championship. But he learned over his career and he's accumulated a lot of knowledge. And he's learned from his mistakes in the past. And at this point, I don't know if there's an NFL coach, I would want more than Andy Reed. And then in college football at orizon. That's a guy who had bounced around had gotten fired as head coach at Ole Miss, didn't keep the interim job at USC had been aligned coach a couple places, was interim coach after les miles was fired with mixed results. And LSU hired him as head coach. And there was not a ton of enthusiasm or optimism about him because he'd been around for a while. you'd much rather get a guy like Tom Herman, who's coming off, or at least as a fan, I'm saying, so many fans would rather have a guy like Tom Herman coming off as a superstar, offensive coordinator national championship stint, followed by some major success, maybe a top 15 finish at Houston. And in thinking, wow, what would he do with our resources, adores around, you'd already seen him fail. But it turned out he learned much from his failures and grew from it and became a better coach. Just like any read in the NFL
Mike Lewis 21:31
route for coach. Oh, wherever he goes. I mean, there's nothing better than a coach. Oh, interview.
Unknown Speaker 21:36
Yeah. Right. I
Mike Lewis 21:36
mean, it's like the character from his character from the water boy you know, brought from life and nothing better than that. I
Doug Battle 21:44
kind of hated seeing him. You know, it's such a perfect,
Mike Lewis 21:47
perfect coach for the SEC.
Doug Battle 21:49
Yeah, the SEC coaching. roster right now. is phenomenal when you just purely for meme content. I don't put Kirby smart or next. Oh, Nick Saban has his moments. But you look at Lane Kiffin.
Mike Lewis 22:04
Okay, Can Can I interrupt you just for a second? Because I want you to explain something to me. And probably to a lot of folks not sitting down here in sec country. So one of these things going around the internet was the Florida coach. And on the top is a Do you know what I'm talking about? And the bottom of the picture. He's dressed as Darth Vader at a press conference. Yeah. And on the top of the picture, he's naked laying on top of a shark. Can you give me a little context on that?
Doug Battle 22:37
Um, I haven't seen that. I know what it's just from your description of it. I know that. Obviously, the Darth Vader was Dan Mullen showing up his presser last week and in Darth Vader costume, following a game where he essentially initiated that was highly controversial, and then shut up his presser in Darth Vader costume was just hilarious. And it's embarrassing. The Georgia lost to him after that. The shark thing was there were some kind of weird allegations with their former head coach about his potential relationship to a shark. They'll put it delicately. And it became a meme and every time anybody played them, there was all this shark stuff. So I'm sure it's the photograph you describe was definitely in reference to that. But it's a different head coach that wasn't
Mike Lewis 23:35
well in let let's say this. I mean, it's it's ludicrous. And maybe when it's happening, it's it's not appreciated by either the the home or the opposing fan base. But after the fact, you know, it's a beautiful situation. I mean, it just adds so much to the craziness adds so much to the to the history of the league and sort of the the passion of the fans going going forward. I mean, that's, you know, you probably a lot, you know, as a Georgia guy thought you'd be too young for this. You know, every Georgia fan hated coach Spurrier down at Florida. Oh, yeah. But in hindsight, it's like you got to be glad that he existed because he brought so much passion and heat to that rivalry.
Doug Battle 24:19
Yeah. And even as even when he was at South Carolina coach Spurrier was a great feeling because everyone would get some extra energy from him throwing his headset on the ground and his visor so it's great to have a good bill into one villain Georgia fans just don't like anymore or it's not that they don't like you obviously never liked the villain but are just tired of it is Nick Saban because that is our hurdle. Georgia has not been able to get over and I think that goes for a lot of teams where it's like, Okay, this isn't fun anymore. This isn't Batman and Joker. This is just like you playing your dad and basketball when you're like five He just keeps beating you and you're like, you got to let me win at some point. But he never does. Well,
Mike Lewis 25:07
let's go back to something you kind of started with today you were talking a little bit about the Notre Dame fan bases being these kind of really kind of beautiful, lovely, polite Midwesterners.
Unknown Speaker 25:21
Who,
Mike Lewis 25:22
which fan base in the sec, is the worst in your mind the most? Oh, worst people?
Unknown Speaker 25:30
Let's that is a difficult question. And I know you're probably asked me to answer that with all my biases intact, because I can try to remove those.
Mike Lewis 25:42
At this point, I'm I'm off the clock. I'm just just actually flat out curious.
Doug Battle 25:47
Yeah, I like I have ones that are my least favorite. But that doesn't mean I think they're the worst people because I actually think there's some of the best people, ironically, is part of what irritates me about them. That's all. I mean, LSU probably has the reputation across like different teams that have had experiences in Baton Rouge or whatnot. I've I've had some good experiences with LSU fans, but I think they're the one with the reputation. But I again, I can't hate on LSU as long as it is there a way that was a big job or a fan to.
Mike Lewis 26:25
Okay, so as we move towards the end of this week, I'll put it out there let you make the call. Do we want to revisit the the last week's election or perhaps the ongoing election, depending on how things are likely to proceed this week? Yeah, also, depending on who you're talking to
Doug Battle 26:45
all say this really interesting election from purely from the standpoint of looking at the polls, because initially, it looked like the polls were so far off that it was bizarre. And again, depending on how you look at it, of course, but the general story is that the mailing votes, and some of those key states were counted last. So you got the majority of the Trump votes first, and then the majority of the Biden votes last. And so of all the criticism that that we gave the pollsters and those that first night really, I don't know how far off the polls were from the final, final counts as far as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. So it was kind of interesting to me. At first, I tweeted out some about Trafalgar group, and I think that Trafalgar groups, taking into account, the shy Trump voter was really impressive and something that can be learned from by other pollsters. But on the flip side, it's like maybe the initial polls projected the final outcome a little better than we thought. Well,
Mike Lewis 27:59
you know, it's tough. And it's like, I'm sort of trying to call pull up the pull up the numbers here. But I think, you know, perhaps both both stories are true, right? Because I think the national average had Biden winning the, and, you know, there's too many polls to dig in state by state, but the national average had Biden up by seven or eight points, right? I mean, yeah. And I and I think the popular vote, ended up being about two to three points. So there, there really is something systematically, systematically wrong with the with the polling industry. And, you know, the real question is, what is the, you know, what, what is the underlying bias that is causing it to be to be off so far, because, you know, one of the things that I heard in, in Look, this is actually even for someone like myself, kind of hard to dig into, and really diagnose. One of the more telling comments I heard, and this has just said in passing, is that all the pollsters agreed on a voting model, essentially, relatively early on. And what that gets at is essentially this model of who's going to show up the percentage of Democrats, the percentage of Republicans, the the number of women, the number of different minority and ethnic groups that are going to show up. And it's, it's such an important thing that is given so little attention, right, because if you think about the way polls work, they really can be a house of cards where once you decide on who you're going to survey who's going to come out for the election, well, that's really going to dictate what you get. It really is almost something where you need polls that are going to dig into who's going to vote, and then polls that are going to dig into To how they're going to vote and but but I'll say this and this is I think, you know, in a lot of ways this is an incredibly tenuous time for, you know, the reaction to the election i think is is potentially going to be we may be in for another four years of acrimony just coming at it from the, from the, from the other direction, right. I think part of a lot of what frustrates people about these polls is sort of a gut feel for what is for what is happening. And look, I live in the world of academia, and, you know, academia, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say anything that should be considered controversial. academia is very much kind of a one party system, right? Yes, 90%, Democrats or liberals, the media is also a one party system, 90% democrats or liberals, I think the pollsters kind of operate in that kind of universe. And so when you've got some sort of systematic bias, while at the same time, you've got, you know, essentially only one group that gets to, you know, have a voice in the decisions, you're just headed for trouble. And I mean, it's such a dumb example. But I keep finding myself coming back to, you know, here's a here's a crazy situation. You imagine that football fan clubs in Georgia, somehow a rule is put in place, that they have to have equal representation. Okay. Okay. And then suddenly, your Georgia Bulldog fan club is merged with the Georgia Tech fan club, right? You know, what, what could go wrong in a way, right. And so then you start to go down the path where maybe only Georgia fans get to be in a position of leadership in that in that fan club. And you imagine how the the content goes, right, I probably should have chosen it differently. I should have had the merger between Auburn and Georgia, where the example then becomes, you know, who are they going to say is the greatest, the greatest running back in college football history, when only either the Georgia folks or the Auburn folks kind of have a voice in the conversation? And I think that's why, you know, all this stuff with the polls ends up being this kind of really, I don't know, lightning rod for, for these discussions. And, look, I mean, I'm fascinated to see this stuff play out in a lot of ways. I think we're in for I get let's put it this way. I suspect 2020 has another curveball for us before this is all said and done?
Doug Battle 32:51
Yeah, well, we'll see what happens. At this point, nothing in 2020 would surprise me. I will say as far as the insinuation that that I often hear that pollsters try to make it look a certain way I understand where that's coming from. I do think oftentimes, the the people talking about such things tend to come at it from one side. But it was especially interesting to me that fox news polls, because I would try to keep up with Fox and CNN and try to see how they differed. And they were largely similar all throughout, and clearly coming at it from from different angles. As far as what Fox, you know, where they tend to lean and we're seeing intense, the leaner, NBC tends to lean. And so to me, it was really interesting to see. You know, maybe this isn't a bias in the sense of trying to manipulate but maybe it's it's more of an unconscious bias where people are truly attempting to depict the pulse of the nation. But somehow there's there's something off or they're not, they're not quite detecting it accurately.
Mike Lewis 34:05
Definitely could be a case of groupthink, right. I mean, so if you're a professional pollster, and everyone is using the same voter turnout model, then you you probably do start to feel a little bit crazy. I think Rasmussen in this Trafalgar group tended to be the the outliers in terms of the the polls that were published. And, and look, I mean, you kind of see what happens right? Because those polls ended up getting a little bit a little bit more heat a little bit more criticism in the in the lead up. I mean, you know, that that Trafalgar guy was all over? Well, he was all over Fox. Yeah, a few days before the election. And, you know, he's like, he was out there throwing fireback out there, but you know, he had to step across the line and kind of be an outcast from it from his industry. So that's a you know, it's not an easy thing to do that people tend to people tend to overlook.
Doug Battle 34:58
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So from a getting back to fandom and kind of how we always talk about sports, the fandom implications of the selection are interesting to me I've seen, honestly, we've talked about it for a while about how it feels like there's the Trump fandom and then the anti Trump fandom and not really much of a Biden fandom, I've seen more of a Biden in in more of a Kamala Harris fandom. In recent days, where it's like, I think, defeating Trump or coming across to defeat Trump at this point in time, depending on you know, who you're talking to, has generated that kind of enthusiasm. And in that kind of accomplishment that sports fans get when they watch it, a team beat Alabama or beat the Patriots, where it's, you know, maybe some fans come out of that. So it's been interesting to see that. And then on the flip side, with Trump, you know, I kind of have an idea in my head of how I think that fandom takes things. But at this point, you're seeing a lot of defense and loyalty. It's one of those deals where you could see a bandwagon fandom type effect, where, you know, we're the jump ship for the next guy, and in 2024, or whatnot. And so, I don't know,
Mike Lewis 36:14
what do you think it's even a Why do you think it's even a next guy? I could see. I mean, now we're, we're far afield from sports. But I like how you set this up? Because I do think in a lot of ways, this real, the sports fan analogy is the right way to look at it, because it is that kind of very similar level of passion. And this notion of well, we we won or we lost or we've been cheated, we've been, we've over we've overcome something. You know, looking ahead, Trump has. He's got a fan base. So what's he gonna do with that? Yeah. And it's like you look at it from these kind of first principles. Well, maybe Trump's going to create his own media platform. Yeah. And maybe he's going to essentially run for the 2020 for office for the neck. I mean, and again, look, I still will say that I suspect we've got another another bump in the road or something else. Interesting happening, right. But assuming that Biden is sworn in, in January, that maybe Trump runs for office for the next for, you know, attacks for two years and then runs for two years.
Doug Battle 37:24
Yeah, I mean, the Trump family, you know, you got Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, and then Baron Trump down the line. And so that fandom, as far as as far as capitalizing on that fandom, we could see, potentially, the Trump faction of the Republican Party attempts to capitalize on what they've built through Donald Trump and pass it down to you know, if anyone else in that family has an interest in a career in politics, so it's, it's interesting to me from that standpoint, because there's also the standpoint of like when a team like the Golden State Warriors, what happened to all their fans this year, you know, I used to know everybody, every other basketball fan and he was a Golden State Warriors fan. And now some of them pull for the Nets with Kevin Durant's. Some of them pool, some of them pull for the Warriors, some of them pull for just whoever you know, and so it's like, do now that Trump has lost and like you said, come January if Trump has has lost and Biden is sworn in the summer that fandom start to, to question his methods and go elsewhere with their enthusiasm.
Mike Lewis 38:42
Well, we will keep watching. So to wrap up this week, anything you're rooting for this week, you want to say go dogs yet again, something different?
Doug Battle 38:49
Yeah. Hey, I'm a dog. todai go dogs win or lose. We got Mizzou this week and feels like it could be a win. And I'm kind of like it doesn't matter. I don't know. But go dogs also. Go baby Yoda.
Mike Lewis 39:04
Okay, and I'll say this. Well, two points real quick. I am now watching the Mandalorian I am going to catch up with you and we will do a special episode on Mandalorian slash Star Wars fandom. And the team I'm rooting for at the moment and this this hurts my soul even do it being an Illinois guy. But loving the chaos of college football you know I'm gonna root for the Indiana Hoosiers. Let's keep this rolling. Let's go. Let's get weird here in the big time.
Doug Battle 39:34
I like it.
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