Lions Nominees

[Hambone]

After last night Bighill's chances are just that. He has a big hill to climb to get the West nomination. TSN spent a ton of time focusing on Sherritt and the record and when it comes time to vote it becomes very difficult for voters to overlook a guy who has just set an all-time CFL record. Similarly Cornish breaking a 55 year old record makes Harris' chances that much more difficult.

Unfortunately, I agree. It's all about hype and stats, and Sherritt and Cornish were hyped for three straight hours last night.

I've never been a Sherritt fan. The Esks finished the season with the league's worst defence overall, worst against the run, and second-worst against the pass (less than one yard per game better than Hamilton). Without Sherritt, they could only be better. In fact, in the one game he missed due to injury, the Esks contained a powerful Hamilton offence and broke their 5-game losing streak. Similarly, the game he missed due to injury against B.C. last year, the Esks held Andrew Harris to 6 yards from scrimmage after he had picked up 175 yards in the previous meeting with Sherritt in the lineup. Coincidence? Not a chance.

The Esk D was very good for the first few games until their DL started dropping like flies. I think at one time their whole starting DL and a key backup or two was out due to injury.

[Hambone]

Some interesting numbers in the Harris vs Cornish debate. Everybody remembers when Cornish publicly threw his OL under the bus after being held to -1 yard on 6 carries against the Lions in Week 5. At the time everybody wondered how his OL would react and how it might work against him........apparently not the least bit.

1st 5 games:
Cornish 199 yards rushing 76 receiving = 275 total from scrimmage
Harris 351 yards rushing 277 receiving = 628 total from scrimmage

Last 13 games:
Cornish 1258 yards rushing 262 receiving = 1520 total from scimmage
Harris 761 yards rushing 441 receiving = 1202 total from scrimmage

[Hambone]

Hey all,

I was thinking about the Lions' chances of being selected as the Western Reps at the Player Awards, and I think the Lions are going to get skunked. And I hope they do, for a couple of reasons.

Personal awards are nice I think all of us and more importantly all of them want to be awarded only one thing and that's the Grey Cup. Sometimes that's the way things go. In 2007 the Lions just about made a clean sweep of the awards, but didn't even play in the Grey Cup game much less win it.

[TheLionKing]

Hey all,

I was thinking about the Lions' chances of being selected as the Western Reps at the Player Awards, and I think the Lions are going to get skunked. And I hope they do, for a couple of reasons.

Personal awards are nice I think all of us and more importantly all of them want to be awarded only one thing and that's the Grey Cup. Sometimes that's the way things go. In 2007 the Lions just about made a clean sweep of the awards, but didn't even play in the Grey Cup game much less win it.

Yup, I'll be very happy and content to see the Lions hoisting the Grey Cup on Nov. 25th

[sj-roc]

On the matter of Cornish v Harris, some of you might recall I posted a graphic a few weeks ago in support of comments from B.C. Fan showing how Cornish has racked up rushing yardage mostly against weaker teams while Harris's numbers showed greater balance among his opponents. For what it's worth I've updated the graphic below with the stats for the entire 2012 season and the point remains, particular when you get past the weak run defences of Hamilton and Edmonton, that Harris's numbers are generally less opponent-sensitive than are Cornish's: for every rushing yard per game Harris gains against Mtl, he gains 10.7/13.8 = 78% as many yards against his toughest opponent in Ssk, whereas for Cornish, each RYPG vs Ssk yields only 7.7/16.5 = 47% as much production against his toughest opponent in Tor.

But hey, Cornish has a cute butt so let's give him the MOC award.
...

[WestCoastJoe]

On the matter of Cornish v Harris, some of you might recall I posted a graphic a few weeks ago in support of comments from B.C. Fan showing how Cornish has racked up rushing yardage mostly against weaker teams while Harris's numbers showed greater balance among his opponents. For what it's worth I've updated the graphic below with the stats for the entire 2012 season and the point remains, particular when you get past the weak run defences of Hamilton and Edmonton, that Harris's numbers are generally less opponent-sensitive than are Cornish's: for every rushing yard per game Harris gains against Mtl, he gains 10.7/13.8 = 78% as many yards against his toughest opponent in Ssk, whereas for Cornish, each RYPG vs Ssk yields only 7.7/16.5 = 47% as much production against his toughest opponent in Tor.

But hey, Cornish has a cute butt so let's give him the MOC award.
...

Nice pie charts, sj.

What software do you use?

[Upper Bowl]

Great info sj-roc! That should be e-mailed to every CFL media voter!

[B.C.FAN]

That chart is further evidence that Edmonton can't stop the run. I don't think it will help Harris win an award nomination against Cornish but I sure hope it helps Bighill against Sherritt.

[WestCoastJoe]

We have a near great team. Team. We need to win the Cup to be called great IMO.

I think Harris is better overall than Cornish.

I think Bighill is better than Sherritt.

And I think Lulay is the MOP.

But we might get shut out in the individual awards. Just because of the way things shake out.

[sj-roc]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Nice pie charts, sj.

What software do you use?

Nothing fancy, just a screen dump from Excel to Paint.

Great info sj-roc! That should be e-mailed to every CFL media voter!

They should already know it or try to look into it as part of the task. I don't know about any other league pundits but Glen Suitor was pretty singular on 1040 recently that he was solidly backing Harris for his more well-rounded play. It seems some of the voters think the ballot is for MORusher.

That chart is further evidence that Edmonton can't stop the run. I don't think it will help Harris win an award nomination against Cornish but I sure hope it helps Bighill against Sherritt.

Haha, I hadn't even thought of that but you're probably right. Oh well, too late now, the division winners have already been crowned.

The more I looked at that graphic though, the more dissatisfied I became with it; the percentages aren't really a physically tangible quantity and the slice sizes kind of make them redundant anyway. So at the risk of getting too carried away with this exercise I replaced the percentages by the actual rushing yards per game (and games played) by opponent, which I was trying to convey in the first place. This makes it more obvious now for example, that Cornish, had he run as poorly against everyone as Tor, would have finished with 41 x 18 = 738 yards, or just over 50% of his actual total. For Harris that percentage is much better: (48 x 18) / 1112 = 78%.

Harris's greatest undoing, I believe just as much as the lack of voter attention to the sort of statistical analysis we're discussing here, might be his relatively weak finish, especially in the head to head matchup with Cornish in our penultimate game. With neither team having anything to play for (we had def clinched 1st and I believe Cgy was already locked into 2nd), that game was basically billed as a JC v AH contest and our guy simply didn't deliver enough that night to sway the voters, who in any event would be putting more weigh on their final (more recent) impressions than their initial ones.

I'll close this post with a National Post Letter to the Editor about Jon Cornish from a longtime (VERY longtime) Argo fan that appeared in yesterday's print edition: one that echoes much of what has been said here about him. The letter appears at this link and you'll have to scroll ~2/3 of the way down past the other letters for it or just read it below here (any typos are verbatim from source).

Jon Cornish is no Normie Kwong

Re: Eskimos Think Fast, Nov. 2.

Normie Kwong’s CFL single season rushing record of 1,437 yards, which he set as an Edmonton Eskimo in 1956, was broken on Saturday night by Jon Cornish of the Calgary Stampeders. Mr. Kwong was an outstanding athlete but perhaps even more importantly he has always been a class act. After an outstanding football career he went on to become the 16th lieutenant governor of Alberta, president of the Calgary Stampeders and a co-owner of the Calgary Flames. In 1988 he was named to the Order of Canada. He is one of the very few Canadians to have his name on both the Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup.

Which brings us to Mr. Cornish. Early this season, he publicly criticized his offensive line for their poor blocking efforts. Recently he mooned the fans in Saskatchewan and was fined by the league for his actions. Corey Chamberlin, the coach of Saskatchewan was not impressed by the incident and said so publicly. Cornish petulantly responded by saying, “for a coach to call out a single player is not classy.” It was interesting to note that when he ran off the field after breaking the record, his first utterance, picked up by the TV camera, included a word starting with the fifth letter of the alphabet.

Jon Cornish may have broken Normie Kwong’s rushing record — but he is still miles behind in terms of class.

Bob Erwin, Argo fan since 1947, Ottawa.

...

[notahomer]

thanks for posting sj-roc.

I agree with what the longtime Argo fan had to say but I'm a little curious. I wonder what the first word Cornish said after the game. He says it starts with the FIFTH letter of the alphabet (E, right?). I'm guessing he actually means SIXTH letter (F). Still agree with his letter.......

[TheLionKing]

Agree with the long time Argo fan.

[sj-roc]

thanks for posting sj-roc.

I agree with what the longtime Argo fan had to say but I'm a little curious. I wonder what the first word Cornish said after the game. He says it starts with the FIFTH letter of the alphabet (E, right?). I'm guessing he actually means SIXTH letter (F). Still agree with his letter.......

Yes, I was also wondering on that 5 vs 6 point and you're right; in fact I just reviewed the tape on the TSN VOD archive where it showed him coming off the field after claiming the record (cue up the video with about 0:30 left in Q3) and you could hear him yell something like, "That's how I f***in' roll!" I noticed that before I sent it so like I said the typos were from source (I think they got the spelling of the Ssk coach's name wrong, too).

That moment actually reminded me of Geroy who said something similar after scoring a late, game-winning (?) TD at Taylor Field in 2007 (the season after he won MOP in 2006), "That's why I'm f***in' MVP!"

[David]

Wally Buono said as much about Jon Cornish breaking his longtime friend, Normie Kwong's record (the abridged version is it should carry an asterisk beside it due to Kwong accomplishing his feat in 14 games, and teams really game planned running attacks back then).

This did not receive a lot of play in this market but I can tell you that it didn't go down too well in others.

You can be sure that it will be motivation for the Stampeders and the Calgary media if they make it to the West Final.


DH