Buy/Sell: We receive the opening kickoff 12 times this year.

Sell. 11 times.

To me this is the biggest indictment of Lebby because it's so simple. You should always defer. Always. The math is clearly in favor of deferring. It's the only time in the game you can get two offensive possessions in a row.

What about the other four games?

Sell. Someone is going to win the toss and choose to receive just to 17 with us.

And they will probably score. Quickly.

If Arnett and Lebby squared off behind the locker room my money would be on Arnett, so at some point in the season we’re going to defer.

I understand the winners want the ball mentality and go score first, but I would rather have the confidence to say take the ball, because my defense isn't going to let you do anything with it, and I'm going to defer and get an extra possession out of it.

I really just hope we don't receive 12 kickoffs in the first 2 games.

Looking at you Arnett.

I’m way more concerned that State may not get to kick off more than 12 times total in 9 SEC games.

POTUS said:

To me this is the biggest indictment of Lebby because it's so simple. You should always defer. Always. The math is clearly in favor of deferring. It's the only time in the game you can get two offensive possessions in a row.

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1) It’s not really the only time you can get 2 offensive possessions in a row. Turnovers happen all the time. Onside kicks. Muffed punts, etc

2) The offensive possessions aren’t really “in a row” when you have a half hour of rest time between them. That greatly dilutes much of the advantage with a tired defense. And the 1st half has to play out a very specific way for it to happen in any sort of advantageous way.

My understanding is that analytics data is slightly in favor of deferring in the NFL, where the talent is evenly distributed, all the stadiums except for 3 or 4 are sterile / mostly inclement weather-proof, have predictable wind patterns, and few localized raucous fan sections.

College football is just different, there’s not nearly enough data to say what’s better or worse for coin toss choices. There’s way too many variables to draw meaningful conclusions. Sometimes, you’re going to want to pick which side of the field you’ll be on in the 4th quarter. A game that starts under sunshine but heavy rain forecasted starting in the 2nd quarter, you definintely want the ball first.

It simply isn’t some binary, universal right/wrong choice at the college level. I’m no Lebby apologist at all, but this is a non-issue. Lot’s of college coaches take the ball first more often than not.