Total (weeks 1-12) – SU: 121-54-1 ATS: 88-86-2  O/U: 92-82-2 

Week 1 – SU: 9-7-0 ATS: 8-8-0 O/U: 13-3-0

Week 2 – SU: 10-6-0 ATS: 10-6-0 O/U: 10-6-0

Week 3 – SU: 12-4-0 ATS: 9-6-1  O/U: 8-8-0

Week 4 – SU: 7-6-0 ATS: 5-7-1  O/U: 5-8-0

Week 5 – SU: 14-2-0 ATS: 6-9-0  O/U: 9-6-0

Week 6 – SU: 11-3-1 ATS: 8-7-0  O/U: 6-9-1

Week 7 – SU: 11-4-0 ATS: 7-8-0  O/U: 8-7-0

Week 8 – SU: 11-3-0 ATS: 8-7-0 O/U: 8-7-0

Week 9 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 8-5-0 O/U: 4-8-1

Week 10 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 4-9-0 O/U: 6-7-0

Week 11 – SU: 9-5-0 ATS: 8-6-0 O/U: 7-7-0

Week 12 – SU: 10-5-0 ATS: 7-8-0 O/U: 8-7-0

Kansas City at Oakland

Prediction: Chiefs 21-19 (57.4%)

Pick: Raiders +7.5

Total: Under 42.5

Cleveland at Atlanta

Prediction: Falcons 25-21 (62.1%)

Pick: Falcons -3.5

Total: Under 47

NY Jets at Buffalo

Prediction:  Bills 22-18 (59.8%)

Pick: Jets +4.5

Total: Over 39

Tampa Bay at Chicago

Prediction: Bears 25-19 (66.3%)

Pick: Buccaneers +6.5

Total: Under 46.5

Miami at Denver

Prediction: Broncos 28-20 (71.7%)

Pick: Broncos -7.5

Total: Under 49.5

Cincinnati at Houston

Prediction: Texans 23-21 (55.2%)

Pick: Bengals +2.5

Total: Under 44

Jacksonville at Indianapolis

Prediction: Colts 27-18 (75.1%)

Pick: Jaguars +13.5

Total: Under 50.5

Green Bay at Minnesota

Prediction: Packers 24-21 (57.5%)

Pick: Vikings +9.5

Total: Under 49.5

Detroit at New England

Prediction: Patriots 28-23 (65.4%)

Pick: Lions +7.5

Total: Over 48.5

Dallas at NY Giants

Prediction: Giants 24-22 (53.3%)

Pick: Giants +3.5

Total: Under 48

Tennessee at Philadelphia

Prediction: Eagles 27-20 (68.8%)

Pick: Titans +11.5

Total: Under 49

St. Louis at San Diego 

Prediction: Chargers 24-19 (64.4%)

Pick: Rams +5.5

Total: Under 43.5

Washington at San Francisco

Prediction: 49ers 24-18 (68.0%)

Pick: Washington Football Team +8.5

Total: Under 44.5

Arizona at Seattle

Prediction: Seahawks 25-17 (70.1%)

Pick: Seahawks -6.5

Total: Under 42.5

Baltimore at New Orleans

Prediction: Saints 28-23 (63.6%)

Pick: Saints -3.5

Total: Over 50.5

I read the article “Political Hack, Medical Quack” today about Glenn Beck and his medical problems and “treatment”.  You should read the whole thing, but there were a few quotes that I really liked.  This:

Yale neurologist and noted quackery hawk Steven Novella sums the situation up nicely: “Chiropractic neurology appears to me to be the very definition of pseudoscience—it has all the trappings of a legitimate profession, with a complex set of beliefs and practices, but there is no underlying scientific basis for any of it.”

And this:

A final, more general point: Why do celebrities keep forcing us to have these conversations about their private medical problems? Glenn Beck, Tom Cruise,Jenny McCarthy, and their ilk are entertainers, but they don’t know the first thing about evidence-based medicine. Their commentary isn’t helpful to people who do, and it has the potential to mislead people about how to manage their own health.

Cheers.

Massey collects a bunch of different college football rankings.  Below I’ve plotted the mean of these rankings on the x-axis and the standard deviation on the y-axis.  There is very little variability among the rankings for the teams at the very top and very bottom.  But in the middle, the variability is much larger.  The color of the circle represents the conference and the size of the circle corresponds to wins.

Let’s consider some of the interesting cases.  The team with the largest variability is Northern Illinois.  Their mean rank is 62 and are ranked as high as 23 and as low as 95.  Northern Illinois is 8-2 in the MAC and basically no one has any idea what to do with them.  They have some wins over bigger conference football teams such as Northwestern (who just beat Notre Dame somehow) and UNLV.  Their two losses are to Arkansas and Central Michigan.  They are indeed and very confusing team to rank.

Marshall is another interesting case.  Yes, they are undefeated, but they haven’t exactly played the most difficult schedule  (#understatement).  Some ranking called the Nolan Power index has them ranked 2 (behind Ohio State ?!?!).  They are also ranked as low as 37.  No one ever seems to know what to do with these undefeated teams that play terrible schedules.

Arkansas is the highest variability team of the major conferences.  They are 5-5 but all five of those losses came against teams that were ranked top 10 at the time they played (Auburn, Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi State). Their big win before this week was Northern Illinois.  And just this past week, they beat LSU.  That is indeed confusing.  As a result they are ranked as high as 10 and as low as 76 with an average of about 31.

Interesting stuff.

Cheers.

Assume that all 4 NFC South teams lose their remaining non-divisional games.  Then Tampa Bay wins both of their remaining divisional games over Carolina and New Orleans and finish 4-12.  Then Carolina beats New Orleans and Atlanta and finishes 5-10-1.  Then it doesn’t matter who wins the remaining Atlanta-New Orleans game, the Panthers would win the division at 5-10-1 and HOST A HOME GAME against a team like Dallas.  I love the NFL.

Cheers.

I think everyone agrees that with Alabama’s win over Mississippi State that they should move up to number 1 and my rankings agree.   I’ve got Oregon up 4 spots to number 2 after their  win over Utah.

Ole Miss stays at number 3 even with two losses, and Mississippi State drops three spots to number 4.  I’m sure many people, likely including the college football playoff committee, will dismiss Ole Miss as a top 5 team with their two losses, but I think this is just another example of being too focused on raw wins and losses.  Don’t forget, they did beat Alabama. (And I’m not the only one who has Ole Miss ranked in the top 5.)  Rounding out my top 5 is TCU after surviving at Kansas.  The rest of my top ten includes UCLA, Georgia, Baylor, Auburn, and Florida State.

Speaking of Florida State, here is a simple test you can do to see if a voter in one of these college football polls knows what they are doing.  Anyone who votes for Florida State number 1 over Alabama is completely clueless.  Alabama is 9-1 and 7-1 against teams in the top 30 (according to Sagarin).  That means they have played 8 of their 10 (!!!) games against top 30 teams for the second toughest schedule in college football behind only Auburn.  That’s a gauntlet.  And they’ve made it through it nearly perfect.  Alternatively, Florida State is 3-0 against top 30 teams, which is good enough for the 51st toughest schedule.  Those 3 top 30 wins?  Notre Dame, Louisville, and Clemson.  Notre Dame just lost at home to Northwestern, Clemson just lost to Georgia Teach, and Louisville has an unexplainable loss to Virginia on their resume.  This means that all three of these “big” FSU wins came against teams that now all have 3 losses.  Not as impressive in retrospect.

If this FSU team finishes undefeated, they will obviously get into the college football playoff.  But I think we might have a Notre Dame-2012 type situation on our hands where some SEC team is going to absolutely annihilate them.   The only question is if Florida State can produce a weirder story than the Manti Teo-Catfish episode.  Hopefully they are at least up for that challenge.

Cheers.

Full Rankings

Deadspin posted this story today: UNC Athletes Were Steered To School’s Sports Ethics Professor.  It’s the latest in the scandal that is happening at UNC academic fraud case related the the athletics department.  It’s an easy joke to make: ethics professor leading the way in unethical behavior.  And this was exactly my first thought.  There is something about college sports that makes adults act like idiots and fools.  I’ll never get it.

But then I thought, what exactly is unethical about what she, Jan Boxill, is alleged to have done?  She is basically alleged to have given passing grades to athletes who were doing almost nothing.  Sure, if these students are trying to get a degree, giving them credit for nothing is clearly unethical and devalues the degree for everyone.  But a lot of these athletes aren’t there to get some B.S. (pun intended) degree in [insert joke major].  This is big time college sports.  They are there to prepare for a career in sports.  And she is doing the best she can to help them focus on preparing for that career by keeping them eligible.  Remember, these students have almost no other options in preparing for a career in sports.  They pretty much have to bow down to the NCAA for at least a year.

Imagine this scenario in reverse where a student desperately wanted to be a physicist, but they wouldn’t let him or her work in the lab because they were failing basketball.  That’s insane.  But it happens all the time with sports.  That’s why I think that students should be able to major in a sport.  Call it athletic studies.  Make them take courses in finance, kinesiology, sports management, and whatever sport they are interested in.

The garbage argument in response to this is always, but most people don’t go on to play professional sports.  If getting a job in your major is the criteria for allowing a major to exist, then we need to get rid of philosophy, music, art, english, etc.  Basically anything outside of STEM.  (Speaking of ethics, is it really ethical to let an 18 year old study philosophy for 4 years and send them out into the world with $200K in debt?  At least some athletes don’t have to pay for their lack of marketable skills.)

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that, isn’t it possible that in some weird twisted way Boxill is actually acting ethically?  Or at least more ethically than one of the the lowest ethical bar setting organizations in the US: the NCAA?

#paytheplayers

Cheers.

Total (weeks 1-11) – SU: 111-49-1 (69.25%) ATS: 81-78-2 (50.93%, -4.8 units)   O/U: 84-75-2 (52.80%, +1.5 units)

Week 1 – SU: 9-7-0 ATS: 8-8-0 O/U: 13-3-0

Week 2 – SU: 10-6-0 ATS: 10-6-0 O/U: 10-6-0

Week 3 – SU: 12-4-0 ATS: 9-6-1  O/U: 8-8-0

Week 4 – SU: 7-6-0 ATS: 5-7-1  O/U: 5-8-0

Week 5 – SU: 14-2-0 ATS: 6-9-0  O/U: 9-6-0

Week 6 – SU: 11-3-1 ATS: 8-7-0  O/U: 6-9-1

Week 7 – SU: 11-4-0 ATS: 7-8-0  O/U: 8-7-0

Week 8 – SU: 11-3-0 ATS: 8-7-0 O/U: 8-7-0

Week 9 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 8-5-0 O/U: 4-8-1

Week 10 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 4-9-0 O/U: 6-7-0

Week 11 – SU: 9-5-0 ATS: 8-6-0 O/U: 7-7-0

Buffalo at Miami

Prediction: Dolphins 23-20

Pick: Bills +5.5 (57.09%)

Total: Over 42

Detroit at Arizona

Prediction:  Cardinals 22-21 (52.0%)

Pick: Detroit +1.5 (52.26%)

Total: Over 42

Atlanta at Carolina

Prediction: Panthers 24-21 (57.5%)

Pick: Panthers -2.5 (50.46%)

Total: Under 46.5

Minnesota at Chicago

Prediction: Bears 24-20 (63.4%)

Pick: Bears -3.5 (53.71%)

Total: Under 46.5

Houston at Cleveland

Prediction: Texans 22-21 (50.2%)

Pick:Texans +3.5 (60.04%)

Total: Over 41.5

Philadelphia at Green Bay

Prediction: Packers 27-23 (60.9%)

Pick: Eagles +5.5 (54.61%)

Total: Under 55.5 

Seattle at Kansas City

Prediction: Seahawks 21-19 (56.1%)

Pick: Seahawks +1.5 (60.31%)

Total: Under 42

Cincinnati at New Orleans

Prediction: Saints 27-23 (63.6%)

Pick: Bengals +7.5 (57.41%)

Total: Under 51

San Francisco at NY Giants

Prediction: 49ers 22-20 (54.3%)

Pick: Giants +4.5 (58.48%)

Total: Under 44.5

Oakland at San Diego

Prediction: Chargers 26-18 (69.6%)

Pick: Raiders +10.5 (59.42%)

Total: Under 45

Denver at St. Louis

Prediction: Broncos 27-21 (65.8%)

Pick: Rams +9.5 (60.75%)

Total: Under 51.5

Tampa Bay at Washington

Prediction: Washington Football Team 24-20 (62.4%)

Pick: Buccaneers +7.5 (58.72%)

Total: Under 45.5

New England at Indianapolis

Prediction: Patriots 27-26 (52.2%)

Pick: Patriots +2.5 (59.26%)

Total:  Under 58.5

Pittsburgh at Tennessee

Prediction: Steelers 22-21 (52.2%)

Pick: Titans +5.5 (63.25%)

Total: Under 46.5

A few weeks ago the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee published their first rankings.  That led to this train of though:

• Wow.  Those look a lot like the AP rankings.
• I wonder what rankings the CFP is closest too?
• Where can I get a bunch of different ratings to compere?  MASSEY!

So, I downloaded all of the ratings that Massey had collected and compared each of them to the CFP rankings using Kendall’s Tau.  And guess what?  The AP rankings are the most highly correlated rankings with the CFP with tau=.8478261.  So basically, we’re back to the days when the AP picked the national champion?  Well not exactly.  Now we have the AP AND the RPI.  Because guess what’s next most highly correlated? Real Time RPI!  At tau=.833333333333, the RPI falls just behind the AP in the most highly correlated rankings. This is rather alarming, because basically anyone who has any idea what they are doing, knows the RPI is terrible.  (See this, this, and this.)  To highlight this, I’ll take a quote from that second link from Nate Silver in regards to the RPI in terms of selecting NCAA basketball teams:

Over the long run, R.P.I. has predicted the outcome of N.C.A.A. games more poorly than almost any other system.

Basically, the RPI is terrible, everyone who knows what they are doing knows it, but it still gets used because….I have no idea.

Following the RPI, you have the USA Today Coaches poll with a tau of .8115942.  So basically the CFP is using some sort of secret combination of two human polls and basically the worst non-human ranking that is available.  As opposed to the BCS which was a known combination of two human polls and 6 computer systems that ranged from very good to dreadful.  (At least the BCS didn’t involve completely inexplicable people like Condoleezza Rice.  Seriously, why is she involved in this?  If you really want a woman on the committee aren’t there literally thousands of women more qualified for this than her?)

Also, for the sake of it, I made a decision tree to try to predict the CFB rankings.  It looks like the formula for getting into the playoff is be top 15 in coaches poll and then be top 3 in RPI.   The three variables are the USA Today coaches poll (X.USA), the AP poll (X.AP), and Real Time RPI (X.RTR).  My response was the CFP rank with all teams not ranked set to 26.

All of this of course would infuriate me if the NCAA was earnestly trying to find the 4 best teams in college football to put into a playoff.  But I suspect that’s not necessarily their goal.  The NCAA is about one thing: MONEY.  They can say whatever they want, but they are ruled by money (none of which goes to the actual people who produce the product!).  Because of this, this sham process somehow bothers me less.  The NCAA is trying to get the 4 “best” teams into the college football playoff.  They are just using their definition of best, which is probably much different than that of the average fan.  And besides I’ve got bigger problems with the NCAA. (See here, here, here, here, here, and here for starters.)

Cheers.

Mississippi State stays number 1 virtually everywhere (including my rankings) after remaining undefeated at 9-0.  My rankings have Alabama and Ole Miss moving up to numbers 2 and 3 after an OT victory over LSU and a blowout win over Presbyterian, respectively.  Auburn moves in the other direction, dropping 2 spots to number 4 after losing to Texas A and M.  So, if I were choosing the college football play-off, I’d take 4 teams from the SEC West.  Will this happen?  No.  For starters, a number of these top 4 teams have to play (beat the crap out of each other) in the next few weeks (i.e Miss St-Alabama, the Egg Bowl, Alabama-Auburn).  As far as I am concerned, all of these are de facto play-off games.

The rest of my top 10 includes: TCU, Oregon, UCLA, Baylor, Florida St, and Georgia.  TCU is up 2 spots with it’s win over Kansas State (who fell 3 spots and out of my top 10).  Oregon remains in 6th, with UCLA up 2 spots to 7th.  Baylor made the biggest move into the top ten this week jumping 11 spots to number 8 after their destruction of Oklahoma.  If Baylor and TCU win out, I see Baylor being ranked higher than TCU as a results of Baylor’s head-to-head win over TCU and Baylor’s remaining game against Kansas State.  TCU’s remaining schedule is Kansas, Texas, and Iowa State whose combined records are 10-18.  TCU basically can’t improve, whereas Baylor has one big game left to help it jump into the top 4.  Florida state continues to slowly climb the rankings moving from 10 to 9.  They are hurt by there very weak schedule, and that “big win” over Notre Dame looks a lot less impressive after Notre Dame got blown out by Arizona State.  If they go undefeated, their obviously in playoff.  No questions asked; No matter how weak their schedule.  Rounding out the top 10, I have Georgia after a blowout victory over Kentucky a week after recovering from their dreadful loss to the Florida Gators.

As for teams that dropped out of my top 25 this week: Notre Dame fell from 14 to 27; Michigan State fell from 21 to 32; Louisiana Tech fell from 25 to 34.

An finally, congratulations to New Mexico State for moving out of the basement, swapping places with Georgia State.  Go team!

Full Rankings: http://wp.me/PlZJR-Hv

Total (weeks 1-10) – SU: 102-44-1 () ATS: 73-72-2 ()   O/U: 77-68-2 ()

Week 1 – SU: 9-7-0 ATS: 8-8-0 O/U: 13-3-0

Week 2 – SU: 10-6-0 ATS: 10-6-0 O/U: 10-6-0

Week 3 – SU: 12-4-0 ATS: 9-6-1  O/U: 8-8-0

Week 4 – SU: 7-6-0 ATS: 5-7-1  O/U: 5-8-0

Week 5 – SU: 14-2-0 ATS: 6-9-0  O/U: 9-6-0

Week 6 – SU: 11-3-1 ATS: 8-7-0  O/U: 6-9-1

Week 7 – SU: 11-4-0 ATS: 7-8-0  O/U: 8-7-0

Week 8 – SU: 11-3-0 ATS: 8-7-0 O/U: 8-7-0

Week 9 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 8-5-0 O/U: 4-8-1

Week 10 – SU: 9-4-0 ATS: 4-9-0 O/U: 6-7-0

Cleveland at Cincinnati

Prediction: Bengals 25-19 (65.8%)

Pick: Browns +6.5 (52.3%)

Total: Under 46

St. Louis at Arizona

Prediction: Cardinals 23-19 (61.6%)

Pick: Rams +7 (58.1%)

Total: Under 43.5

Tennessee at Baltimore

Prediction: Ravens 24-18 (66.3%)

Pick: Titans +10 (61.5%)

Total: Under 44

Kansas City at Buffalo

Prediction: Bills 21-20 (53.3%)

Pick: Bills +2.5 (60.3%)

Total: Under 42

Miami at Detroit

Prediction: Lions 24-20 (60.1%)

Pick: Lions -3 (51.7%)

Total: Under 44

Chicago at Green Bay

Prediction: Packers 26-22 (62.5%)

Pick: Bears +7.5 (58.5%)

Total: Under 53.5

Dallas at Jacksonville

Prediction: Cowboys 24-20 (61.8%)

Pick: Jaguars +7.5 (59.3%)

Total: Under 45

San Francisco at New Orleans

Prediction: Saints 25-22 (56.1%) 

Pick: 49ers +5.5 (59.4%)

Total: Under 49.5

Pittsburgh at NY Jets

Prediction: Steelers 21-20 (51.1%)

Pick: Jets +6 (65.6%)

Total: Under 46

Denver at Oakland

Prediction: Broncos 28-20 (70.3%)

Pick: Raiders +12 (62.7%)

Total: Under 50

Carolina at Philadelphia

Prediction: Eagles 25-22 (58.7%)

Pick: Panthers +6.5 (59.7%)

Total: Under 49

NY Giants at Seattle 

Prediction: Seahawks 25-17 (69.3%)

Pick: Giants +9.5 (56.9%)

Total: Under 45.5

Atlanta at Tampa Bay 

Prediction: Falcons 22-21 (50.7%)

Pick: Buccaneers +3 (57.8%)

Total: Under 46