Closing the Books on 2023
Closing the Books on 2023
Hokie Analytics in numbers, charts, and graphs
It’s still cold outside, but presents, holiday cheer, and bowl games have been replaced by W2s, 1099s, and all the loathing and frustration that come with tax season.
In keeping with the season’s theme of counting and reflection, I’m going to spend the next week closing the books on 2023. I’ll start today with an audit of Hokie Analytics.
Volume
Print Articles
In 2023, I published 93,665 words of print content on Hokie Analytics. Spread over 76 articles, that comes out at 1,232 words per article.
Publication cadence went from one article per week, or roughly four each month, from January through August to an average of more than 10 each month starting with the season’s kickoff in September.
September was the busiest month, with 14 articles published comprising 15,392 words.
In contrast, July was the quietest month at 4,976 words spread out among four articles.
Seasonality is alive and well in college football!
Podcasts
I launched the Hokie Analytics Podcast in September. The 15 posted episodes in 2023 totaled 469 minutes of content, with an average of just over 31 minutes per episode.
Analytics, by nature, is inclined toward visual media. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, than a 1,000 word article with three graphs is basically an essay.
Bringing all that to life in a sound-only format was a challenge I was excited to tackle.
Like the print content, podcast episode topics ranged the full gamut: from detailed reviews of offensive line play to strategic decision making, model reviews, play selection, and risk management.
Growth
Hokie Analytics began to really find its audience in 2023. From a low-ish base in January, the number of total subscribers increased 10-fold throughout the year.
Among referrals, the highest number of new subscribers came via Settling the Score with Ricky LaBlue, so a tip of the hat and a big thanks to Ricky. Settling the Score is on my short list of must-reads, and if you are not yet a subscriber there, I would highly recommend checking it out.
In addition to strong growth numbers in new subscriptions, Hokie Analytics saw a roughly 5x increase in the number of page views that December articles generated compared to those published in January.
Page views are very important because I view Hokie Analytics as both a newsletter and a website. A significant percentage of the articles I write are timeless, or at least have a comparatively long shelf life, so I am keen to keep the website clean and well organized in order to invite readers to revisit posts at a later date.
Best of 2023
A number of posts really stuck out this year, either for being especially prescient or really connecting with readers. I present below the top five in chronological order
The first post to really make a splash this year was Ron Crook and the 2021 Miracle in Cincinnati. Published on March 17, this article looked at new Virginia Tech Offensive Line Coach Ron Crook and his history of coaching lines that performed, as a whole, greater than the sum of their parts. After the offensive line’s struggles in 2022, the prospect of Tech finding a coaching diamond in the rough seemed to be welcome news as spring practice began.
At the absolute nadir of college football news, in late June, I published Southern Conference Split All About Business. In this age of the supposed P2 super conferences, most Tech fans are unaware of the fact that the Hokies were once a member of arguably the greatest super conference of all-time: the Southern Conference. That’s right, Tech used to compete in a massive league that spanned the entire Southeast and featured, in addition to what was then known as VPI (no SU), Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and many others. The reasons for the initial split, the one that resulted in the formation of the SEC, will be familiar to fans today: it was all about media rights.
College football is perhaps the craziest market ever devised in the history of capitalism. In How Competitive Market Forces Impact the Virginia Tech Football Program, published on December 10, I illustrated the push and pull of the market on Hokies football. This article got a ton of views and, if nothing else, fans frustrated with the Old Dominion series, amongst other common complaints, emerged with a better understanding of the dynamics that lead to such deals getting done.
For me, perhaps the most surprising article to strike a cord with readers was The Pending Announcement Nobody is Talking About, published on December 17. For all the love Kyron Drones (deservedly) received last year, he also took a lot of hits. And while he never left a game injured, the prospect of RS-Freshman Pop Watson having to step in and replace Drones at some point in 2024 left me uneasy. I made the case that the Hokies should do all they could to convince Wells to return for his final season of eligibility. It is unclear whether the program took this advice, but Wells ultimately decided to leave the program.
Finally, I will note the high listener numbers for Episode 15 of the podcast, entitled, Apathy and the Current Bowl System. At this point, it’s clear that something needs to change with the bowls, given all the opt outs. If Hokie Analytics Podcast listeners are any indication, college football fans are open to creative proposals.
Thanks to everyone who read or subscribed in 2023. Now it’s onward and upward in 2024!