2014 Lock Of The Week, Week 4

Michigan State -45.5 v. Eastern Michigan

Vegas is expecting the score of this game to be 49-3.  That's definitely on the table, and Eastern is the worst team in 1-A according to Sagarin at the moment, but this is just too many points to pass up.

Last Week:  UCLA -7 v. Texas (incorrect).  Jerry Neuheisel...knew as soon as he showed up that lock was busted.

Season:  1-3

2014 Lock Of The Week, Week 3

Not the best week if you were a fan of the sport.

A thin Saturday slate means there is a thin selection of appealing lines this week.

UCLA -7 v. Texas

Frankly, this is a narrow line because people are, justifiably, unimpressed with the Bruins.  I'll take that narrow line because Texas' offense is inert at the moment.  But I'm not brimming with confidence here.

Last week:  Michigan v. Notre Dame.  Total points 56, taking the over.   (Incorrect)

Season:  1-2

2014 Lock Of The Week, Week 2

Week 2 is fraught with peril, with loads of overreaction to one game that featured months of preparation.  Dangerous, tantalizing point spreads out there.

So I'm avoiding them entirely.

Michigan v. Notre Dame.  Total points 56, taking the over.

Game seems primed for a shootout.

Last week: 1-1.  Auburn yay, FSU nay.

2014 Lock Of The Week, Week 1

After slumping to a 6-10-1 season last year, we begin fresh with two picks for your consideration:

Auburn -18 v. Arkansas 

Arkansas is so far behind their SEC West brethren and simply lacks the defense to keep this close.

Florida State -17.5 v. Oklahoma State

Similarly, Oklahoma State lost everyone from their defense last year, and now has to face the Florida State offense.  Whoops.

2014 Preview

Greetings friends!  I am one happy dude because the college football season is almost upon us.  Please enjoy these projections:






Conference Championships:

Florida State over Pitt (I'm way too bullish on Pitt, far too low on Penn State)
Michigan State over Wisconsin
Marshall over Rice
Bowling Green over Ball State
Utah State over Fresno State
Oregon over UCLA
South Carolina over LSU

No bowl projections.  Far too much ambiguity with this new system to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

PLAYOFFS?!?

Florida State over Oklahoma
Michigan State over South Carolina

Can't see 2-loss LSU in over MSU and OU squads with quality wins.  Same with Oregon.

Florida State over Michigan State.  I'll believe Michigan State reaching these heady heights when I see it.

2013 PRI+ Ratings

For the last 6-8 weeks, I have been working on adding a performance metric to my football ratings, and I am very pleased to reveal them to you now:



I was not interested in adding a simple margin of victory component, instead creating a calculation that considered:

-who did you play
-what was the expected margin of victory (h/t here:  http://www.footballstudyhall.com/picks)
-what was the actual margin of victory

Some selected examples:

Florida State v. Clemson:  Both teams had double digit wins and could be considered upper echelon teams, or "equals".  FSU was expected to win by 4, ended up winning by 37.  This results in a big bonus for Florida State, and a big penalty for Clemson.

Florida State v. Syracuse:  An elite team v. a mediocre team.  FSU expected to win by 43, won by 56.  Small bonus for FSU, small penalty for Syracuse.

Central Florida v. Temple:  Elite v. Poor.  UCF expected to win by 30, won only by 3.  Big penalty for Central Florida, big bonus for Temple.

I'll be keeping track of the old and new methods next season (PRI/PRI+) although the latter will most likely not be calculated until later in the season.

2013 Predictions Revisited

Better late than never.  I've actually had these ready to go for a while, but shifted my attention towards working on the margin of victory component, which is taking a lot of time.  I hope to have a finished product ready for your reading no later than May.

Much to my surprise, considering how badly I underestimated about half of the eventual BCS participants, I actually did better than last year, missing on average of 1.96 games per team.