Should We Accept What Experts Say?

How About Regarding Sports?

{Since this is slightly off-topic, I will resume regularly scheduled programming later this morning. If you are not into sports, get a coffee or take a brisk walk — and be patient!}

Several of my recent posts have recommended that you NOT accept everything experts say, until you have applied Critical Thinking to it. It’s important to note that this applies across the board, not just to national technical issues (like energy matters)…

Last year there was a major dustup regarding the US College Football Championship. Florida State University (FSU) had an unblemished 13-0 record and was widely expected to be included in the top four teams of the country for the national playoffs. However, they were not chosen, while two of the four teams selected had a loss. This was part of the reason that the NCAA has now decided to have the playoffs include the top twelve (12) teams.

Fast forward to this year, and the experts predicted that FSU would win its conference (the ACC). They were also chosen as the #10 ranked Division 1 team in the entire country.

For my undergraduate degrees (physics and math) I went to Boston College (BC) whose football team is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NCAA. Despite having some excellent teams in the past (e.g., recall Doug Flutie beating Miami, in one of the most famous games ever), they get no respect.

The same this year — even though they have a brand new coach! Bill O’Brien not only coached under such stalwarts as Nick Saban and Bill Belichik, and coached Penn State, but he also had been a successful NFL coach (Houston). In other words, he didn’t just fall off a turnip truck… He lives near Boston so said that this was his dream job.

One interesting data point was that in this day and age where players transfer for literally any reason (e.g. because they have a girlfriend near another college), NONE of the BC team transferred after this major coaching change was announced. IMO this says good things about the work and teamwork ethic of the BC football players.

None of this mattered to the experts, as BC was predictably picked to be at or near the bottom of the seventeen-team ACC.

Many teams start their season with a game against a very inferior opponent. It’s like a warmup for the real competition to come.

Not BC, as their first game was against FSU— nationally the #10 ranked team, plus the number one team in their conference. It’s likely that FSU looked at the unranked BC team to be little more than a practice scrimmage — after all, FSU even arranged that it would be a home game for them.

Another tidbit: after their 13-0 record last year, and top national ranking, FSU publicly informed the ACC that they were considering changing conferences. One of their main reasons was that they wanted to be in a football conference that was more competitive. In other words, they were bored playing such also-rans as BC — even though BC almost beat them last year (29 to 31)! [Remember that they were unbeaten otherwise…]

Just to increase the pressure on BC, this game was not only on national television, but it was the only college or pro football game played yesterday — so almost every football addict would be watching BC get pummeled by a far superior team, playing on their home turf, in front of a boisterously supportive crowd. It had all the earmarks of a major embarrassment for BC.

What happened? BC took FSU to the woodshed!

BC won EVERY team stat of importance. For example, after the first quarter (BC leading 7 to 0), FSU had gained only six yards in eight plays!!! There was no luck here or fluke plays to explain the result: BC dominated FSU from start to finish, offensively and defensively. The final score was 28 to 13.

But don't take my word for any of this. Read this commentary about the game.

Once again the takeaway here is that Critical Thinkers should take EVERYTHING they hear from “experts” with a heavy dose of salt and skepticism…

PS — After I made the post, a friend sent me the following Facebook post. I’ll add the video when I see it…

Here is the latest on the Facebook saga! Not surprisingly the big talker has gone into hiding…

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