Football Wrap-Up

A quick wrap-up of my performance predicting NCAA football.

This experiment started around the beginning of October, when some friends challenged me to use my program to predict football against a couple of other guys.  In addition to predicting games, we would be "betting" against the line.  We could use any betting strategy we desired to allocate $40 per week.  The default strategy was to bet the biggest differences between the prediction and the line, allocating bets of $10, $8, $6... etc.  My own betting strategy was a bit more complex.  I allocated money according to the formula:

$$ =  80*ABS(Prediction-Line)/(100+5*ABS(Line)))

.The idea being to scale the bet to the relative magnitude of the difference between the prediction and the line.  A difference of 3 points is much more significant when the line is 3 than when the line is 27.

I predicted games from Oct 16 through the end of the bowl season.  My program doesn't account for neutral site games, so the bowl games were treated as home games for the higher-ranked team.  (This works well in practice on the basketball side for the NCAA tournament.)  I predicted a total of 224 games.  The results:

Measure	Performance
Correct game winner	73%
Correct pick against the line	56%
Betting result	+$29

Overall, better results than I expected.  56% against the line is sufficient to be a winning bettor (if it can be maintained).

A Call from Bill Hancock

(I promise to get back to the prediction stuff soon -- after a dalliance with NCAA football I've started to ramp back up for basketball.  In the meantime, this imagined scenario from last night, inspired by my earlier comment that the NCAA was only allowing ten players on defense to spice up the bowl season.)

Phone call at spacious Turner Mansion last night:

(Ring, Ring)

Me:  Hello?  Oh, hello Mr. Hancock.  How is your job as BCS Executive Director going?

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: Well, you're welcome.  I'm glad my suggestion to only play ten players on defense has worked out so well.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: *Nine* on defense?  No, I'm not sure that's a good idea.  We've been counting on the fact that most sports writers can't count past ten.   So far they haven't noticed.  But you put nine players out there and someone is going to write about it.  And where does it all end?  Eight players?  Seven players?

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: No, sir, that was a joke.  I'm not recommending seven players on defense.  Listen, I don't think this is a good idea.  Baylor just obliterated the points scoring record for a bowl game.  This is Baylor, the doormat of the Big 12, a university whose only men's championship is in *tennis*.  And then you had Wisconsin -- Wisconsin of all teams! -- throwing the ball all over the field and scoring 38 points.  That's more than the Wisconsin basketball team scored last season.  I realize you want to turn it up to eleven for the Orange Bowl, but this is not a good idea.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: You're worried about Clemson's defense?  With all due respect, sir, Clemson is an ACC team.  The last time the ACC won a meaningful bowl game it was actually played for a bowl.  If you gave the ACC space lasers they couldn't defend Fort Knox against a Boy Scout troop.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: True, it is West Virginia.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: No, sir, West Virginia is part of the United States.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: No apology necessary.  It's a common misconception.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me: Well, you do what you have to do, sir.  Personally, I'm a traditionalist.  Just tell the officials the result and let them take care of it.  That's worked for Duke basketball for decades and no one's the wiser.  Do they have a "charging" call in football?  I can't remember.  But I'm sure you'll make a good decision.

Hancock: (mumble mumble mumble)

Me:  "Bet the over"?  Ha, ha, good one, sir.

Football Predictions (11/15/11)

I hope to have some time in the next day or so for some postings, so here are the predictions for this week in NCAA football.  I've been tracking this performance for a contest, and for the past three weeks I'm 56% against the line (and 71% winners).  That might be anomalously good performance, but I've been positive against the line every week, so take that for what it is worth.

As always, heed the Net Prophet Disclaimer.

NCAA Football Predictions (11/15/11)

Home Team	Away Team	MOV
Air Force	Nevada-Las Vegas	16.1
Arizona State	Arizona	18
Arkansas	Mississippi State	13.1
Baylor	Oklahoma	-14.2
Bowling Green State	Ohio	-6.7
Brigham Young	New Mexico State	15.7
Buffalo	Akron	12.3
Central Michigan	Toledo	-14.9
Connecticut	Louisville	0.4
Duke	Georgia Tech	-6.9
East Carolina	Central Florida	-8
Florida State	Virginia	16.8
Georgia	Kentucky	24.5
Hawaii	Fresno State	9
Houston	Southern Methodist	18.3
Idaho	Utah State	-8.3
Illinois	Wisconsin	-9.9
Iowa State	Oklahoma State	-17
Kent	Eastern Michigan	6
Louisiana-Monroe	Florida International	-3.3
Memphis	Marshall	-15.4
Miami (Ohio)	Western Michigan	-2.4
Michigan	Nebraska	10.2
Michigan State	Indiana	20.9
Middle Tennessee State	Arkansas State	-11.5
Mississippi	Louisiana State	-26.3
Missouri	Texas Tech	15.2
Nevada	Louisiana Tech	1.8
North Carolina State	Clemson	-9.1
North Texas	Western Kentucky	2
Northern Illinois	Ball State	11.5
Northwestern	Minnesota	14.3
Notre Dame	Boston College	22.3
Ohio State	Penn State	1
Oregon	Southern California	14.9
Oregon State	Washington	-0.4
Purdue	Iowa	-1.6
Rice	Tulane	15
Rutgers	Cincinnati	0.8
San Diego State	Boise State	-13.6
San Jose State	Navy	-1.8
South Florida	Miami (Florida)	3.9
Stanford	California	20.3
Temple	Army	15.8
Tennessee	Vanderbilt	2.6
Texas	Kansas State	3
Texas A&M	Kansas	23.8
Texas Christian	Colorado State	24.4
Texas-El Paso	Tulsa	-10.4
Troy	Florida Atlantic	11.2
Uab	Southern Mississippi	-26.2
Ucla	Colorado	12.2
Virginia Tech	North Carolina	6
Wake Forest	Maryland	11.1
Washington State	Utah	-2.4
Wyoming	New Mexico	20.4