Groundhog Day and applied statistics
Growing up I was always an irrationally huge fan of Groundhog Day. The fact that we so rarely get early spring makes this Tuesday morning's revelation from Punxsutawney Phil that much more exciting.
So to go along with my irrational excitement, here's a meaningless statistical analysis of Penn's performance in years when the groundhog doesn't see his shadow (all stats since 1970).
- In the last 40 years, the rodent has declared early spring 12 times. Penn has won the Ivy League seven of those years, giving them better than 50 percent odds this season.
- In those 12 seasons combined, Penn went 128-40 (0.762).
- The last time Punxatawney Phil graced American with an early spring, Penn won the Ivy League, going 13-1 in 2006-07.
- The worst Penn has done in an early-spring year was 7-7 (1984, 1990), ensuring that the Quakers will do better than last year.
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