Big Red Car here.  Going to be a great day in the ATX.  Nice cold, crisp, sunny day.

So you probably watched a bit of college football yesterday, no?  The Boss loves college football and is often mumbling that college football is very much like the startup business.  [I think he’s just trying to justify how damn much college football he’s been watching lately.  Bowl games, yeah!]

One game that caught his eye was the University of Central Florida v the Baylor Bears.  A very exciting game in which nobody gave the UCF Knights a chance against those fierce prolific scoring Bears.

Both teams were 11-1 going into the game and Baylor had just put a barbed wire enema on the Texas Longhorns.  The Knights apparently were not paying attention.

Discipline

Discipline is difficult to find in the box score for most college football teams.  Sometimes it shows up in the penalty stats.

In this particular game:

1.  University of Central Florida Knights had four penalties for a total of 40 yards penalized.

2.  The Baylor Bears had a total of seventeen — 17, really Big Red Car, that’s a lot of damn penalties — for a total of 135 yards.

If one were tempted to net out the penalties, the UCF Knights were gifted a net total of 95 yards by the Baylor Bears.  Thank you very much.

Blind spots

The game stats were pretty damn equal.  Total yards gained were FCU 556 v Baylor 560.  The other stats were pretty damn equal.  It was a very well matched game.

Take a look at the box score here:  UCF Whips Baylor Like a Red Headed Step Child With a Lisp.  [OK, Big Red Car admits to fabricating the headline of the article.  Sorry.]

The scoreboard showed CFU 52 – Baylor 42.

The stats show no real advantage — except for those penalties, Old Sport — so what are we missing?

Those 95 net yards penalized against Baylor and in favor of UCF was the scoring difference.  A total of 95 yards — one length of the field — was traded for one touchdown and a field goal, the margin of victory.

Kind of simple accounting and not IAW GAAP to be sure, Old Sport.  Illuminating nonetheless.

What is showed is that a very well prepared and coached team had a blind spot — it is just about the worst team in college football for penalties.  Ugh.

Companies and CEOs have similar blind spots

Companies and CEOs sometimes can have similar blind spots in which there is some element of their planning or performance which is similarly being overlooked.

This is why it is so damn critical that the Vision, Mission, Strategy, Tactics, Objectives, Values and Culture of the company be documented in writing so that there is alignment amongst the team and the critical objectives of the enterprise.

I am sure that Coach Art Briles — who will definitely NOT be getting the Longhorn coaching job — did not intend to ignore penalties.  Somehow it did not get into the game plan and it sank the freakin’ ship, Big Red Car.  It sank the ship.

So, CEOs, make damn sure that you get your plans out of your head and onto paper cause you absolutely don’t want to be flagged for an illegal receiver down field, right?

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway?  I’m just a Big Red Car.