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A DECISION THEORY EXAMPLE IN FOOTBALL
Author(s) -
Janssen C. T. L.,
Daniel T. E.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5915.1984.tb01213.x
Subject(s) - football , college football , mathematical economics , operations research , game theory , computer science , point (geometry) , decision theory , mathematics , statistics , political science , law , geometry
In the 1967 Harvard‐Cornell football game, Harvard was ahead 14–0 late in the game when Cornell scored two touchdowns. On both occasions, Cornell tried and failed on the two‐point conversion attempt and lost the game 14–12. Postgame arguments were divided on the merits of Cornell's strategy. For this frequently occurring scenario in college football, we derive a maximum expected utility decision rule for the decision of kicking versus running/passing based on the relative utility of a win, a tie, or a loss and the probabilities of success with a kick as opposed to a run/pass.