JohnFMurray.com

Was it the Steelers, Redskins, Raiders or Cowboys? New 10-Month Study to Determine the Most Dominant Team in Super Bowl History. Weekly Game Reports Begin Sunday February 25 with the 1967 Clash Between Packers and Chiefs.

Who says football is over? The Biggest entertainment and sporting event in America just got a little better. Dr. John F. Murray, a Palm Beach based clinical and sport performance psychologist (aka the “Football Freud” by the Washington Post), will use his popular Mental Performance Index (MPI) scoring system and share analyses of every play in Super Bowl history in an ongoing 41 week study to determine the winner of the Super Bowl of Super Bowls.

One game report and summary will be provided for each game in history at http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com. Ratings begin on Sunday, February 24, with the Green Bay versus the Kansas City game of 1967, and all game reports will be presented in chronological order thereafter, one game a week. Analyses will determine the most dominant team of all time, and how the 82 teams compared in many other categories including best pressure performing team, best offense, best defense, best special teams unit and more.

Palm Beach, FL (PRWeb) February 20, 2007 — The inventor of the Mental Performance Index(TM) (MPI(TM)), Dr. John F. Murray, who has accurately forecast team performance in the past five Super Bowls in the national media (by including mental factors in scoring) is embarking on a new 41-week study to determine the winner of the Super Bowl of Super Bowls. His data will be used to determine which team was the most dominant in the 41 year history of the Super Bowl.

This applies to all sports really, said Murray, and the established accuracy of the MPI is a great way to showcase the importance of psychological factors in performance.
Beginning February 25, he will present MPI statistics and game summaries at http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com with one game report every Sunday for 41straight weeks. ” What is exciting about this study is not only that the MPI is more accurate than a final score in rating overall team performance, but that it standardizes scoring on a scale of .000 to 1.000 so that any team can be compared against any other team in history,” said Murray.

Debates rage every year about which team was the best ever. “Whether the most dominant Super Bowl team was the perfect-season Miami Dolphins of 1972, Bradshaw’s Steelers, Montana’s Forty-Niners, Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys or the Brady’s Patriots of recent years will be made crystal clear in this study. It should also be fun for the diehard football fan who is upset about the season ending and cannot wait for the Fall.”

Dr. Murray’s Super Bowl forecast for 2007 reached near perfection, and the pre-game report was published in a headline front page story of the Palm Beach Daily News at: http://www.smarttennis.com/pbdailynewsfrontpage020407.htm. As Dr. Murray predicted, the Colts won easily and performed better than the Bears in all 7 MPI categories and especially in pressure situations.

Dr. Murray has long asserted that coaches minimize the importance of the mental game at their own peril by not evaluating mental performance or training mental skills as seriously as they should. “This applies to all sports really, said Murray, and the established accuracy of the MPI is a great way to showcase the importance of psychological factors in performance.”

For the past five years of the NFL playoffs, the 45-year-old Ph.D. has entered data into his computer program by assigning points on each play for “focused execution,” “pressure management,” and “reduction of mental errors.” Scoring at .600 on the MPI is excellent,” said Murray, but that is still a long way from perfection.” As NFL coach Herman Edwards once said, “On every play somebody screws up.”

Many good football coaches encourage their teams to place their focus on one play at a time. The MPI measures how well a team does this. Its power comes from the number of plays in a game (approximately 150) and the inclusion of mental factors in the scoring. While MPI scores almost always predict to game outcome, the scores show which teams are performing better, in precisely which specific areas, and regardless of which team won. This gives coaches great insight before their upcoming games. They are able to more clearly see not only how their own team is performing, but to anticipate the fine differences, strengths and weaknesses of their opponents in a scoring system that standardizes performance like a baseball batting average.

The MPI accurately forecast the blowout upset win by Tampa Bay over Oakland four years ago (in Arizona Republic), and forecast “extremely close games” the next two years, beating the official spread each of the first 3 years it was used and broadcast in the national media. Last year, in its 4th public use, the MPI accurately forecast that Seattle would perform better on offense and defense and worse on special teams than the Pittsburgh Steelers. The MPI indeed showed that Seattle would perform better, but for the first time in the 4 Super Bowls, the lower performing team on the MPI won the game primarily due to three rare big plays that altered the outcome. There was also some heavy criticism about the referees. This shows that sometimes even the best data available will occasionally not predict outcome … even while predicting to performance as the MPI has done each of the previous four years. Since the Colts won by more than the official spread of 7.5 points, the MPI forecast has beaten the official spread 4 of the first 5 years.

The MPI has been featured by ESPN The Magazine (December, 2002) and Murray has appeared on hundreds of radio and television stations to discuss the MPI and sport psychology. Last year, Dr. Murray discussed the MPI on ESPN Canada, ABC television in West Palm Beach and CBS television in Sacramento. Previous appearances include Westwood One national radio, ESPN Radio affiliates (e.g., Dallas, TX and Blacksburg, VA), Ron Jacober’s award winning “Sports on Sunday Morning” on KMOX in St. Louis, Mo., numerous radio programs in Canada, and Bloomberg Radio. He made multiple media appearances leading up to the game this year and his system was featured in the Los Angels Times and on the front page of the Palm Beach Daily News … See Story Here among many others.

Murray provides lectures, mental coaching, and sport psychology services to athletes and teams in many sports and he has worked with NFL players. He authored “Smart Tennis: How to Play and Win the Mental Game,” endorsed by Lindsay Davenport, and Vincent Spadea credited Murray for helping him overcome the longest losing streak in tennis history. Dr. Murray just returned from the Australian Open where he was the official coach of Vincent Spadea who got his first win in eight years of this tournament.

The weekly MPI reports on every play and game in Super Bowl history will be available beginning on February 25 at the website: http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com

Dr. Murray is available for interviews.

John F. Murray, PhD
Licensed Sport Psychologist
340 Royal Poinciana Way Suite 339J
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Telephone: 561-596-9898
Web: http://www.JohnFMurray.com

Matt Hirsh, right, took part in Alan Jaegers yoga classes with his brother, Colorado Rockies pitcher Jason Hirsh.

They pulled their sweatshirt hoods over their faces. They let their feet dangle over their yoga mats. They breathed in unison, inhaling for three seconds through their noses, exhaling for five seconds through their mouths.

Alan Jaeger stood among them, his voice soft and his cadence slow, matching the instrumental music playing on the stereo.

“It’s August, September, October Jaeger said. “It’s the ninth inning. Youve got to finish. Come back to this moment. Come back to this breath.”

It was actually early February, in a small tae kwon do studio in the San Fernando Valley. Outside, children laughed on a playground. In a back room, an agent talked on his cellphone. But the pitchers could not have been more still if they were on the rubber.

“They’re in a trance,” Jaeger whispered.

Many pitchers prepare for the season by hiring personal trainers. Others work out at their old high schools. Some sit on their couches. And those who have tried everything, and are still looking for more, come to this studio on Ventura Boulevard, to lie flat on their backs.

Jaeger’s regimen lasts five hours a day, and for the first four hours, no one touches a baseball. The pitchers meditate, stretch, listen to music, perform yoga poses, meditate again and listen to more music. They talk about dreams and visualize games.

“The first morning, you ask yourself, How does this have anything to do with baseball? ” said Jeremy Plexico, a minor league pitcher for the Washington Nationals. “Then you get on the mound and you feel totally different, totally balanced.”

Meditation and yoga are not new to professional sports. But baseball players are famously old-fashioned, still warming up with a game of pepper and a cheek of tobacco. Breathing exercises and downward-facing dogs tend to prompt eye rolls in the dugout.

When Jaeger began his program in the early 1990s, after his pitching career at Cal State Northridge was undone by anxiety attacks on the mound, five of his friends signed up. Four of them eventually made the major leagues.

Today, one of baseballs most durable arms belongs to the Giants Barry Zito, who started training with Jaeger in college. One of baseballs most electric arms belongs to the Tiger Joel Zumaya, who used to drive six hours round trip to see Jaeger in the off-season.

“Zito, Zumaya and Zen, Jaeger said. Those are powerful.

Pitchers have been known to rub snake oil on their arms when someone has success with it, so Jaeger’s studio was predictably crowded this winter. First-round draft choices and top prospects rushed to spend part of their bonus money on yoga mats.

Jaeger, 42, is well schooled in Eastern philosophy and West Coast baseball. His pitchers are mostly in their early 20s, on the cusp of the big leagues, young enough to try something new and old enough to recognize that they need a little help.

Plexico had shoulder surgery two years ago. His teammate Clint Everts had elbow surgery. They moved this winter to Huntington Beach, Calif., so they could be close to Jaeger. Their next-door neighbor is Collin Balester, another Nationals prospect, who drives the car pool to the valley.

“My arm just wasn’t getting better,Everts said. I was willing to try anything. I didnt care what people would think. I didnt care how different it might be.

So he and Balester climb on top of each other in the studio, looking as if they are re-enacting the Ultimate Fighting Championship. They stretch each others quads and hamstrings in a way that is rarely seen during batting practice at R.F.K. Stadium.

When they finish stretching, Jaeger puts them through a variety of excruciating yoga poses, with names like Dolphin, Pigeon and Warrior. In one pose, the pitchers make like ballet dancers, placing their right ankles over their left knees and raising their arms.

In theory, they are improving their balance, sharpening their concentration and learning to take deep breaths in the face of high anxiety.

“If you can calm yourself down in the middle of those poses, you can do it in the middle of the game, said Errol Simonitsch, a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. “That’s why, before every pitch, youll see me take a deep breath.

By thinking about his breaths, Simonitsch is limiting how much he thinks about his pitches, and he has a better chance of blocking out distractions. He simply rocks and fires. By the time he reflects on the pitch, it is already released.

Jason Hirsh was drawn to Jaeger after seeing how his training had helped pitchers like Barry Zito and Joel Zumaya.
M.L.B.

This technique was popularized by Zito, who takes so many deep breaths on the mound that it can look as if he is hyperventilating. When Zumaya made his major league debut last season in Kansas City, he ran down the tunnel for a moment to do his breathing exercises.

No one laughed at him, at least not after he touched 103 miles an hour on the radar gun. And no one laughed at Zito, not when he signed a contract in December for $126 million.

“I thought it was a little kooky at first, said Jason Hirsh, a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies.No one does mental training. Everyone just tells you to get big and strong. But I always thought, If it works for those other guys, why cant it work for me?

Hirsh represents the flip side of the steroid controversy, a 6-foot-8 pitcher who has spent the past four off-seasons trying to build up his mind. The meditation and the yoga are all part of a three-hour warm-up designed to prepare the arm for action.

After their studio work, the pitchers drive to nearby Pierce College and assemble on a patch of grass behind the left-field fence. They stretch their arms using rubber tubes, with one end of the tubes connected to their wrists and the other to a chain link fence.

About four hours into the workout, someone finally takes out a ball.

In spring training, pitchers usually throw for 10-15 minutes. At Pierce, they throw for 30-40 minutes. In spring training, they are rarely allowed to play catch more than 120 feet apart. At Pierce, they stand more than 350 feet apart, lobbing balls into the sky.

The amount of time that pitchers throw, and the distance they throw, has long been a source of debate in the baseball community. Jaeger says arms must be developed, not coddled, and he encourages regular long-tossing.

Because Zito has never missed a start and because Zumaya credits Jaeger with adding 5 miles an hour to his fastball, the debate is becoming more heated.

Several major league teams ” including the Mets, the Nationals and the Athletics ” are starting to endorse more rigorous throwing programs. Others are reluctant. At spring training, pitchers must follow organizational policy, even if they do not agree with it.

“When these guys are here, they are in a sanctuary, said Jim Vatcher, a former major league player who assists Jaeger. When they leave, you hold your breath.

Some of the pitchers, like Hirsh and Simonitsch, are heading out this week, reporting to spring training. They are hoping to make the big-league roster, help their teams into a pennant race and enjoy all the success they have visualized in the dark.

The lights are about to come on.

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Two of the bags are tied together and lay in a corner near his door. The other one rests in his closet. Each bag is overflowing with recruiting letters, from schools big and small. One open letter, dated months before everything in those bags became a daily reminder of the life of a big-time football recruit, invites Henry to use his imagination.

It begins:

Aaron,

Inside the doors of this weight room is where you will make your body ready for greatness.

Henry, a 5-foot-11, 169-pound senior cornerback, suddenly stands on a threshold. No more recruiting visits. No more text messages or phone calls from coaches at South Carolina or Iowa.

On Wednesday morning, Henry will sign a letter-of-intent to play at Wisconsin — the same school that addressed the open letter — and put an exclamation point on his future plans.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment since I stepped foot on a football field,” Henry says. “God has truly blessed me and my grandmother. I’m just extremely excited.”

He is one of more than 100 high school recruits in Southwest Florida and thousands across the country who are going to make their college choices official on National Signing Day.

It is the first day that a high school recruit can sign their letter-of-intent to attend a school. It is a day set aside for the rich to get richer; a day football programs see as a chance to build the foundation for immediate and long-term success with the additions of up to 25 signees.

Some recruits get last-minute jitters and change their mind from the non-binding verbal commitments. For others, signing day is a formality that seals the deal from a handshake that may have taken place over a year ago. National Signing Day is one the most popular subjects for alumni and fans alike.

Allen Wallace, the National Recruiting Editor for Scout.com and publisher/editor of SuperPrep magazine since 1985, says it’s like Christmas Day for college football fanatics.

“It’s a big deal in sports now,” Wallace says. “There’s a lot of tensions involved. Recruiting’s the life-blood of football and any promises that they make up to letter-of-intent day are not enforceable.

“Until that day comes and goes, college staffs don’t really know who they have.

Early signing

Imagine you are a college football coach whose job depends on the deliberations of 17 and 18-year old males. You have “verbal commitments” from guys you’ve been targeting since their junior year.

Imagine that you have gone through every aspect of the process in the proper manner. You have contacted the recruits over and over, just to be reassured that he will sign on the dotted line on that fateful February Wednesday.

Steve Helwagen, who is the managing editor for Bucknuts Magazine which covers Ohio State athletics, says many college football coaches are in favor of an earlier signing period. He says signing the letter-of-intent in November would take some of the pressure off what happens in January.

“Let’s say you’re looking at the top 100 prospects in the country, only maybe 30 or 40 of them are still undecided,” Helwagen says. “Then, the pressure really goes up on those 30 or 40 players to find out where they’re going. I think a lot of these kids are starting to wilt under the pressure and the only thing they’ve done wrong is take their time to pick their college.”

Basketball has addressed the issue with an early signing period.

Georgia Southern associate head basketball coach Carl Nash says there are pros and cons to their sport having an early signing period. If the team has a senior leaving, Nash says it gives the coaches time to fill the void immediately.

He says it also prevents them from going throughout the year having to estimate what they need.

“Once you sign a kid early,” Nash says, “it alleviates the stress and pressure of trying to get a kid late. You might be on a kid all year, and then all of a sudden you might lose him to a major Division I school that comes in late.”

“After you sign them, you’re actually able to have more dialogue.”

Bowling Green (Ohio) football coach Greg Brandon says college football coaches around the country are split in half on the debate.

Brandon, who served as an assistant coach at BG under Florida’s Urban Meyer from 2001-02, says moving signing day to December would especially benefit mid-major football programs.

“Maybe a kid has committed to Ohio State,” he says. “Well if he signs early, that gives us a little direction on who’s still out there and those types of things. I believe 80 percent of kids that sign D-I probably know where they’re going to go or at least where they want to go well before the contact period starts.”

Evaluating prospects

Naples High football coach Bill Kramer and Immokalee’s John Weber agree on this fundamental fact: Technology has changed recruiting.

J.C. Shurburtt, a recruiting analyst for Rivals.com, says their Web site is a valuable resource but not the only one college coaches use.

The process of getting information on the Web site is done in a number of different ways. Student-athletes send in questionnaires. Recruiting analyst watch tape of prospects throughout the country. They also attend combines and camps in the spring.

Shurburtt says a lot of the evaluation and film study is done during a prospects junior year.

“I think that our rankings are projections, they’re our opinions,” he says. “They’re valid and we certainly stand behind them, but when you’re recruiting for a football team, you have different needs and different types of student-athletes from different parts of the country you like to recruit.”

Dave Doeren, the co-defensive coordinator, linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Wisconsin, says the Internet has made recruiting more public.

“The arena that people can follow it in is maxed out,” Doeren says. “The actual recruiting process has changed, but signing day has always been a day where nine, 10, 12 months of work comes to fruition for the kids and for us.”

Peaks and valleys

The long and tedious process of recruiting can cause enormous amounts of pressure. Barron Collier’s Matt Clements can’t think of a moment when he felt it.

Not after taking his official recruiting visits. Or the time he received voice messages from 10 different college football coaches in one day. Even when a coach from West Virginia called after Clements verbally committed to South Carolina, he remained steadfast in the decision.

“He was like ‘Is it true that you committed?’” says Clements, who will sign with the Gamecocks on Wednesday, “and I was like ‘Yes sir, I did.’ He was like ‘Oh man, we’ll still be coming after you.’”

Clements says the persistent approach from recruiters never affected him. It did not keep him up at night tossing and turning. It did not stop him from enjoying trips to different parts of the country.

Most importantly, Clements says, is that it did not stop him from being honest.

Dr. John Murray, a sport psychologist and internationally-known business consultant, says communication and honesty are two key components that help student-athletes avoid stressing over the pressures of recruiting.

“The pressure comes from making a decision that’s going to affect you for the next four years,” Murray says. “It’s a good pressure to have, if you have multiple schools after you.

“It’s a time where the stakes are raised and I think everybody needs to relax a little bit more. It’s important to be prepared for it and anticipate what’s going to happen a little bit.”

Shurburtt says the real worry comes from those recruits who aren’t being offered scholarships and are forced to sit and wait.

Estero High School’s Caleb Nemitz knows the feeling all too well. After a record-breaking senior season in which he eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing and passing, Nemitz has received very little interest from colleges.

He’s sent out game tapes to a handful of schools. He’s filled out questionnaires. Nemitz says the next option is to attend a recruiting fair later this month at Cape Coral High School.

Until then, the anticipation, worry, and suspense builds for Nemitz and all the student-athletes in his position.

“You’re just waiting,” he says. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s hard not knowing what you’re going to do and what options you have. What I want to do is play Division I in Florida, or somewhere in Florida.”

Parental control

Richard Barry remembers the phone calls he made to college coaches letting them know his son, Mike Barry, was no longer interested.

“With some of them it felt like they just lost a loved one,” Richard says.

He, too, remembers being on the other end of that conversation. The coach from a Patriot League school called to say they were no longer interested in Mike, a student-athlete at Barron Collier.

“He said ‘We know that he’ll go to a great school. He’s a great player, we just hope he doesn’t go to an Ivy League or Patriot League school because we don’t want to play against him,’” Richard recalls. “I said ‘Thank you so much for calling me. We hope our son does play for an Ivy League or Patriot League school because we’d like to get to meet you after a game.’”

Mike Barry will sign a letter-of-intent to play football at Colgate University, a Patriot League school in Hamilton, N.Y.

For Richard, the nine-month recruiting process consisted of hours on the computer researching schools. Plenty of one-on-one conversations with coaches. Plenty of times when he and his son sat together and talked to coaches through speaker phone.

“There were a lot of times when you felt disappointed,” Richard says. “There were a lot of times when you were happy. It was a daily thing with me.”

While the decision to attend Colgate ultimately came down to Mike, Richard says he and his wife were forthcoming about their hopes to see Mike sign with a school known more for its academics rather than football success.

Dr. Robert C. Eklund, an associate professor for educational psychology and learning systems at Florida State, doesn’t fault parents who are involved extensively when their student-athletes are being pursued by college coaches.

“College football ends at 22 or 23 for most players and that’s really the end of football, period,” he says. “Some go on to the NFL and do very well, but those are the exceptions. I’m sure that once you have a son 18 years of age, you’re not entirely in a position to dictate what they do or don’t do.

“But I strongly suggest that parents help their student-athletes also consider the long term implications of career path ways and education.”

‘School daze’

Ereck Plancher stood outside his dorm room at the University of Central Florida, shocked by the thousands of students walking across campus.

He trudged from one brick building to the next with his map in hand, trying desperately not to be late for his first college class.

But then he realized.

“While I was following my map, I noticed that I had already gotten lost,” says Plancher, a rising freshman on the football team. “Luckily, one of my teammates was there and he got me to all my classes. It was an eye-opener that first day.”

When Plancher decided to graduate a semester early from Lely High School and enroll at UCF on a football scholarship in January, he essentially traded the most comfortable four months of his life for a long stretch of uncertainty and anxiety.

He left behind family, friends, two jobs and a chance to a sign a letter-of-intent with his teammates. The NCAA doesn’t require freshmen who enroll at a university early to sign a letter-of-intent before practicing.

Plancher’s decision centered around this logic: Enrolling early will give him a chance to contribute immediately and graduate early.

From the academic course load to the weight lifting schedule to the team meetings to the study halls, Plancher’s transition overwhelmed him at first.

For the thousands of recruits enrolling in the summer or fall, the beginning of a college football career means the end of just about everything else.

Jim Hamad, an academic counselor for the University of Pittsburgh football team, says student-athletes experience the same problems as regular students do once they get on campus.

“Let’s say a kid comes from Florida to Pittsburgh,” Hamad says. “A lot of times he’s going to get homesick. He might have a girlfriend that he’s missing or he’s maybe not adjusted to the weather. So these issues, especially those first two semesters of that freshman year, really factor in to whether or not they’re going to be content up here.

“People think just because a guy’s on scholarship with a big school that he’s got the world in the palm of his hand. They get overlooked from just the normal population, and the normal football fan doesn’t realize that.”

Hamad says more and more student-athletes across the country are choosing to enroll during the summer to make the transition easier going into the fall semester.

“I would recommend that everyone get that early start,” Plancher says, “because it’ll give you a chance to get your degree earlier. It’ll give you something to fall back on, because not everyone can make it to the NFL.”

Fulfilling a dream

Every day, two or three times a day, Henry thinks about where he’s going. Every day, two or three times a day, Henry thinks about where he’s been. And yes, every day, two or three times a day, Henry thinks about winning a Big Ten championship and a national title.

When Ohio State sent the letter of recognition, Henry thought he’d be achieving those goals with the Buckeyes.

Really though, Ohio State never stood a chance against a you man’s intuition.

“From the time Wisconsin started recruiting me, I always felt in my heart it was the right place for me,” Henry says. “It’s been a long and tiresome process and I can’t wait to sign that letter-of-intent.”

Using his “Mental Performance Index,” a method of estimating how close a team has come to performing to perfection on a scale of .000 to 1.000, Murray has forecast that “the Colts should soundly defeat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.” According to a news release, “Indianapolis (.547) scored much better than Chicago (.520) on the total MPI throughout the playoffs, and higher than the Bears in all six other categories.

“The Colts were superb on offense, where they posted a .548 to .510 advantage over the Bears. They also held the advantage on defense (.536 to .515), special teams (.560 to .558), pressure offense (.458 to .394), pressure defense (.673 to .621) and total pressure (.570 to .507).”

Murray concluded, “Taken together, it appears that Chicago is outmatched in this game. The Bears will have to play an almost perfect game, win the battle of turnovers, and make huge plays to win this one. Indianapolis has so decisively outperformed Chicago that a two- or three-touchdown victory looks imminent.”

Murray said his system has beaten the spread three times in the past four years, and predicted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ easy victory over the Oakland Raiders in the 2003 Super Bowl.

He doesn’t mean the 2006 Bears, or the 1985 Bears, but the 1984 Bears.

And he’s not referring to what those players did on the field, but what they did on the sideline.

With a large Gatorade bucket.

Hampton told a Chicago-area newspaper that he’s tired of the 1986 New York Giants getting credit for the first Gatorade shower — the team’s drenching of coach Bill Parcells to celebrate victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI.

Hampton claims the Bears invented the tradition when they doused coach Mike Ditka after a victory at Minnesota on Nov. 25, 1984 — a triumph that clinched the Bears’ first division championship in 21 years.

“Just because John Daly can use a sand wedge from 127 yards, it doesn’t mean he invented the club,” Hampton said. “Gene Sarazen did. It’s akin to saying Pearl Jam invented the term `heavy metal,’ when that was a phrase coined by Steppenwolf.

“It’s just not right, and you get sick of seeing it every year around Super Bowl time, because that’s when they show the Giants and Parcells.”

Especially if your team finally makes it back to the Super Bowl after 21 years and you have to watch the team on the other sideline partake in the tradition you invented in 1984.

Sports psychologist Dr. John F. Murray foresees a Gatorade bath for Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy this Sunday.

Using his “Mental Performance Index,” a method of estimating how close a team has come to performing to perfection on a scale of .000 to 1.000, Murray has forecast that “the Colts should soundly defeat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.” According to a news release, “Indianapolis (.547) scored much better than Chicago (.520) on the total MPI score throughout the playoffs, and higher than the Bears in all six other categories.

“The Colts were superb on offense, where they posted a .548 to .510 advantage over the Bears. They also held the advantage on defense (.536 to .515), special teams (.560 to .558), pressure offense (.458 to .394), pressure defense (.673 to .621) and total pressure (.570 to .507).”

Murray concluded, “Taken together, it appears that Chicago is outmatched in this game. The Bears will have to play an almost perfect game, win the battle of turnovers, and make huge plays to win this one. Indianapolis has so decisively outperformed Chicago that a two- or three-touchdown victory looks imminent.”

Murray said his system has beaten the spread three times in the past four years and predicted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ easy victory over the Oakland Raiders in the 2003 Super Bowl.

For those still unclear on MPI, we offer this condensed version: Bet against the team that has Rex Grossman.