{"id":6303,"date":"2013-12-05T06:46:30","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T11:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=6303"},"modified":"2013-12-05T06:46:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T11:46:30","slug":"guest-blogger-in-defense-of-both-mickey-matthews-and-his-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=6303","title":{"rendered":"Guest Blogger: In Defense of Both Mickey Matthews and His Firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MickeyMatthews\"<\/a>It seems to me that if you\u2019ve been paying attention to JMU football over the last few years, you had an understanding that Coach Matthews\u2019 job was less than secure. Some of that insecurity is due to expectations built up over a successful run from 1999-2013 or at least the appearance of one. Matthews compiled a .606 winning %, appeared in the playoffs 6 times, and won one national championship. However, his tenure was not great across the board: There were 7 years that were marked by a record of .500 or worse in conference play. Was it reasonable to expect anything different over the last few years? (Note: 2010 and 2013 were years in which JMU was less than .500 in conference play). An argument could be made that while frustrating in any particular year, Matthews gave us exactly what was reasonable to expect given his career at JMU- moments of greatness while moments of futility. Just two short years ago, JMU got to the second round of the playoffs. This was only the third time this happened in Matthews\u2019 tenure. In fact Matthews\u2019 greatest run was from 2004 to 2008 which went championship, missed playoffs, first round loss, first round loss, semi-finals loss. This run was bookended on one side by 4 consecutive years without a playoff appearance and on the other side by two years without a playoff appearance. It isn\u2019t rational to expect any different than what we know already from Matthews and what we know is that his tenure was marked by highs and lows. Does this mean Matthews should have been retained? I don\u2019t think so but the reality is that our expectations should have been in line with Matthews\u2019 track record<\/p>\n

I do think Matthews should have been removed as coach because of his coaching. I want to admit that I am by no means a football know-it-all. I know football neither as well as Rob nor Todd nor some of the commenters on this blog. However, I have studied the behavior of high-level managers in similar settings; namely, CEOs and MLB managers. Individuals in these positions are unique because it is hard to measure their \u2018input to production\u2019. It is easy to measure how many hits\/TDs a \u2018worker\u2019 gets and the effect of those on wins. The inherent problem is \u201chow many of those hits\/TDs are due to coaching?\u201d Coaches, like CEOs, are graded on circumstances beyond their control. Coaches certainly have an effect on which plays are run but not how they are run. Players can be taught but there are things that are \u2018random\u2019 that have an effect as well- weather, mindset of the players, etc. \u00a0As such, coaches are compensated for the uncertainty inherent in evaluation of their job performance. For instance, Matthews\u2019 makes more than the average person but only when you fail to account for the randomness. Under a rational pay scheme, pay should increase as it becomes harder to measure the input to production. Hence, middle managers make more than line workers etc.<\/p>\n

This uncertainty leads managers to make decisions that may or may not lead to positive outcomes. They make these decisions to minimize the uncertainty. If we look at mutual fund managers, we can see that they tend to pick the same stocks as their peers. They do this because a manager who deviates from the norm and fails looks much worse than a manager who deviates from and succeeds look better. This result is irrational but holds in a variety of settings: \u2018taking a chance\u2019 and failing hurts you more than \u2018taking a chance\u2019 and succeeding helps you. As such, managers who are in fear of their jobs tend to \u2018herd\u2019 with other managers. In baseball, this result is clear. We see managers bunt in situations where it is irrational to do so because it is the seen as \u2018right\u2019 thing to do, i.e. go along with the herd. In football, we see this same behavior. Matthews\u2019 tenure illustrates it perfectly. During the 2004 to 2008 time period (when I was sucked back into JMU football by Rob and Todd), I loved watching JMU eschew the punt in favor of going for it on 4th down many more times than the average team. This behavior is rational. It has been shown by an Economist that teams should go for it much more often than they do<\/a>. \u00a0One of the reasons the author gives for this seemingly irrational behavior is that the \u2018conservative\u2019 play is a herd mentality (and demonstrates severe risk aversion). I believe that as Matthews began to worry about his job, he played more conservatively and as such, lost more games.<\/p>\n

What should you take from this? 1) Our expectations of Matthews were at least partly unfair. We expected him to be better than what his career illustrated. 2) These expectations led Matthews to fear for his job. 3) As the probability of being fired increased, Matthews exhibited herd behavior and lost more games.<\/p>\n

This was a guest post written by friend of JMUSB, Rich Prisinzano (aka Coach Priz in the comments). Rich is a JMU grad who went on to earn his PhD in Economics from\u00a0the University of Texas becasue he convinced the department studying the hiring and firing of MLB managers was valid economic research. He’s also taught Sports Economics at Southwestern University and Johns Hopkins University and has been published in\u00a0the\u00a0Journal of Sports Economics<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n