Last year during the offseason, I swore that I'd spend more time learning about football statistics and how to present them in a visually interesting format. It never happened. This year has rolled around and it remains a goal. I think it would make things more interesting to digest, although, I have to be honest, it's probably less interesting to people than if we were to do more photoshops of Urban Meyer or Brady Hoke in compromising positions involving farm animals. Maybe that's another goal.
In any case, I have taken what might the most uninteresting set of statistics in college athletics - Big Ten baseball statistics - and created a few data visualizations if for no other reason than to see if I can get any reaction from them.
After the jump are the data visualizations. I am using IBM's Many Eyes, which is fairly simple to use. It requires that you have java running in your browser, but a lot of sites use java so that requirement isn't so uncommon.
I'll be honest - the visualizations do have some problems. Percentages, for example, are rounded to the point that there are little differences between them. If you look at the Fielding Statistics visualization you'll see little difference between the teams until you look at the individual statistics (Indiana - passed balls and erors, wow!).
In any case, I hope you find it interesting. If you do, leave some comments, please, and if you think it's just a waste of time, well let me know that too.
Enjoy.....
2012 Big Ten Batting Statistics – All Games By Batting Average
2012 Big Ten Pitching Statistics – All Games By ERA
2012 Big Ten Team Fielding Statistics - All Games By Percentage