Cuts » special-teams coordinator during that time, along with having sev

On Sunday mornings in November, before he heads to Dallas for the weekly College Football Playoff selection committee meetings, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez crunches numbers in his office at Kellner Hall. Alvarez sits at his desk using the iPad the CFP gave him, and compiles a draft of his top 30 teams.Along with the help of basketball sports information director Patrick Herb, who for a third straight year will assist Alvarez with CFP statistics, Alvarez has prioritized six categories he feels best indicate a championship-caliber team.His most dependable metrics are shared only within the closed-door meeting room, but one of them is strength of schedule.Its so important, because not all stats are created equal when you compare bodies of work, Herb said. That has to be a part of your evaluation and a big part of your evaluation.Its one of the most frequently mentioned metrics used to explain the Tuesday night rankings, which begin Nov. 1, but its also one of the most subjective and debatable. There are fans who crave more, wanting the committees strength of schedule formula spelled out in detail, but its impossible because the interpretation of it is left to each individual committee member -- and each typically uses about four to five variations of it.Were all aware of how each of them are calculated and what the differences are within those, said committee chair Kirby Hocutt. We have all the metrics in front of us, and how we choose to interpret that particular one is up to each persons own discretion.The most elementary, public interpretation is given on Tuesday nights when the committee rewards teams that have earned the most wins against opponents ranked in the committees top 25, and wins against teams with records above .500, but the debates in the room span almost two days and go deeper. With three new committee members in the room this year -- former Central Michigan coach Herb Deromedi, former Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower, and Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens -- the committees collective view on strength of schedule will have different opinions this fall.Still, theyre all given the same information.No one relies exclusively on any kind of a metric, said CFP executive director Bill Hancock. The metrics for anyone who crunches the numbers in that way is a starting point, but thats all it is. Filling in the details to create the story of each team is what the committee does. Those details that the committee discusses could never be captured in a single number.Strength of schedule is also one of the tiebreakers the committee must consider when ranking comparable teams, along with championships won, head-to-head results, and outcomes against common opponents (without promoting margin of victory). The committee members are free to use statistics outside of those provided by SportSource Analytics (the data company the CFP has a contract with) -- as long as they understand where they come from and how theyre compiled.Alvarez uses a formula developed by Michigan State director of basketball operations Kevin Pauga, who developed KPIsports.net as an undergrad in 2003. His data is used by the basketball selection committee as a complement to RPI. His strength of schedule formula tries to account for everything you can quantify in terms of what makes one game more difficult than another while eliminating human bias.Playing a good team on the road versus playing them at home, its two different things, so just going straight by opponent winning percentages is limited, Pauga said. Beyond opponent winning percentage, if youre factoring in the location of the game, the strength of your opponents record, I think we can all agree not all 8-4s have the same meaning to them. Its digging deeper than win-loss records.The committee is given 128 team sheets in their playoff binder, filled with data from SportSource Analytics on offense, defense, special teams and schedule strength. The latter is broken down into 10 different opponent categories, such as opponents opponents records, including opponents losses to FCS teams. They can also quickly learn from the sheet the number of wins against Current CFP Top 25 teams, and a teams record against Power 5 opponents and also Group of 5 opponents.Hancock said none of the committee members rely solely on the data provided by SportSource Analytics. The committee analyzes teams against each other in groups of six or eight, so a strength of schedule ranking from 1-128 is irrelevant to them unless there is a huge discrepancy.Its much easier to evaluate and compare and dig deeply into the details when youre only evaluating six or eight teams against each other, Hancock said. ... They can look at it and say, You know, they played the team that is second in the division and has played well all season and they played them on the road at night and won. No metric can evaluate strength of schedule to that level of detail like the committee can. Ryan Dull Yankees Jersey . 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Robinson finished with 17 points, all but two in the second half, and Lawson had 14 after halftime and finished with a game-high 11 assists as the Nuggets handed Dallas its first home loss in eight games this season. J.J. Hickson led Denver with 22, and Kenneth Faried added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jacoby Ellsbury Jersey . - The Washington Redskins have cut defensive lineman Adam Carriker and punter Sav Rocca. Former Nevada head coach Brian Polian is expected to return to Notre Dame as the special-teams coordinator, a source told ESPN.com on Friday.The website 247Sports first reported the news earlier Friday.Polian will take over part of the duties that opened up earlier this week when the Irish fired tight-ends coach and special-teams coordinator Scott Booker, a source told ESPN.com. Polian is not expected to coach tight ends, though.The 41-year-old Polian had spent five previous years as an assistant at Notre Dame, from 2005-09, serving as a special-teams coordinator during that time, along with having several different defensive-coaching duties. Polian had been the primary recruiter of Hawaii native and eventual Irish linebacker Manti Teo. Teo ended up finishing second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2012, when the Irish made the BCS title game and finished 12-1.Polian and Nevada mutually decided to part waays last month after a 5-7 season, which capped a 23-27 four-year record.dddddddddddd The Wolf Pack marked Polians first head-coaching job.Polian will take over an Irish special-teams group that struggled immensely in 2016, ranking 123rd nationally in yards per punt return and 95th in yards per kick return. The Irish allowed two punt-return touchdowns and two kick-return touchdowns this season.Polian is the latest hire in a busy week for Notre Dame, which fired Booker and, according to a source, hired Wake Forest defensive coordinator Mike Elko to the same position. Notre Dame also saw offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Sanford leave to become Western Kentuckys head coach.Polian is the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame executive and ESPN NFL analyst Bill Polian. ' ' '