A301381 Number of tied close American football games: number of ways for the game to end at the score of n to n and never be separated by more than one score after each play.

1, 0, 2, 2, 6, 24, 80, 208, 922, 2310, 8794, 26000, 86632, 274120, 893552, 2837882, 9254642, 29470852, 95567342, 306155908, 987994256, 3174707284, 10228816628, 32893256236, 105937526030, 340778467916, 1097194416030, 3530389210580, 11364292475448, 36571646955122, 117713073900332

Offset

0,3

Comments

Each play (counting untimed downs as part of the previous play) can score at most 8 points for one team.

The same as counting walks that return to the x-axis of x-length n from the origin bounded above by y=8, below by y=-8, and using the steps {[2,2],[3,3],[8,4],[7,5],[6,6],[7,7],[8,8],[2,-2],[3,-3],[8,-4],[7,-5],[6,-6],[7,-7],[8,-8]}.

Links

Table of n, a(n) for n=0..30.

Bryan Ek, Lattice Walk Enumeration, arXiv:1803.10920 [math.CO], 2018.

Bryan Ek, Unimodal Polynomials and Lattice Walk Enumeration with Experimental Mathematics, arXiv:1804.05933 [math.CO], 2018.

Formula

G.f.: (16*t^29-16*t^28-56*t^27+52*t^26+100*t^25-52*t^24-136*t^23+108*t^22+66*t^21-71*t^20+134*t^19-5*t^18-320*t^17+50*t^16+78*t^15-47*t^14+60*t^13+78*t^12-158*t^11-8*t^10+31*t^8+t^7+37*t^6-t^5-10*t^4+2*t^3+6*t^2+t-1)/(32*t^33-112*t^32+24*t^31+324*t^30-300*t^29-40*t^28+52*t^27-542*t^26+784*t^25+766*t^24-1610*t^23+166*t^22+792*t^21-563*t^20+420*t^19+681*t^18-1320*t^17+190*t^16+246*t^15-87*t^14+74*t^13+304*t^12-380*t^11+6*t^10-10*t^9+25*t^8-25*t^7+85*t^6-3*t^5-22*t^4+2*t^3+8*t^2+t-1).

Example

There is no way to score 1 point so a(1)=0.
The number of ways to be tied at 4-4 is 6: there must be 2 safeties scored by each team which could be ordered in 4 choose 2 ways.
a(5)=24 since there must be 1 safety and 1 field goal for each team and there are 4! ways to order them.
a(n<=8) is fairly easy to compute since the bounds do not come into effect.

Maple

taylor((16*t^29-16*t^28-56*t^27+52*t^26+100*t^25-52*t^24-136*t^23+108*t^22+66*t^21-71*t^20+134*t^19-5*t^18-320*t^17+50*t^16+78*t^15-47*t^14+60*t^13+78*t^12-158*t^11-8*t^10+31*t^8+t^7+37*t^6-t^5-10*t^4+2*t^3+6*t^2+t-1)/(32*t^33-112*t^32+24*t^31+324*t^30-300*t^29-40*t^28+52*t^27-542*t^26+784*t^25+766*t^24-1610*t^23+166*t^22+792*t^21-563*t^20+420*t^19+681*t^18-1320*t^17+190*t^16+246*t^15-87*t^14+74*t^13+304*t^12-380*t^11+6*t^10-10*t^9+25*t^8-25*t^7+85*t^6-3*t^5-22*t^4+2*t^3+8*t^2+t-1), t=0, N);

Crossrefs

Cf. A300998, A301379, A301380.

Sequence in context: A320603 A276409 A093453 * A342282 A253093 A052660

Adjacent sequences: A301378 A301379 A301380 * A301382 A301383 A301384

Keyword

nonn,walk

Author

Bryan T. Ek, Mar 20 2018

Status

approved