Stats in the Wild

My top 2 remain the same this week, but they’ve flipped spots.  I’ve got Oregon moving up to number 1 and Alabama dropping to 2.  Mississippi State and UCLA both fall out of my top 4 after losses to Ole Miss and Stanford, respectively.  TCU moves up to 3, mostly because of losses ahead of them, but also because of their win over Texas.  It will be interesting to see how the selection committee deals with a choice between Baylor and TCU if they both win their remaining games and end up at 11-1.  My fourth ranked team is going to upset a lot of people: Georgia.  They move up one spot even after their loss to Georgia Tech.  First off, it was a close loss (in overtime), and Georgia Tech is actually good.  So their penalty for losing to them in minimal.  (Also, I’m not the only one who has these results.  Sagarin has Georgia 6th.)  Rounding out my top 10 is Arizona, UCLA, Miss State, Florida State, Baylor, and Auburn.

Some questions:

• If Arizona beats Oregon (again), they’d have to get in, right?
• Is Florida State in no matter what at this point?  Or could Georgia Tech knock them out?
• If FSU gets into the playoff, they are going to be at least 7 point underdogs to every team in the playoff, imho.
• FSU is only a 3.5 point favorite over Georgia Tech.  Georgia Tech will be the best team that FSU has played all year.  (Remember when everyone thought it as Notre Dame.)
• Is Alabama in no matter what?  I think the answer is yes.
• If Baylor beats Kansas State, I think you have to take Baylor, right?
• According to betting odds here are the favorites to win the College Football Playoff: Alabama, Oregon, TCU, Baylor, Florida State, Ohio State, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia Tech, Kansas State, and Mississippi.

Full Rankings

Cheers.

Total (weeks 1-13) – SU: 132-59-1 ATS: 96-94-2 O/U: 99-91-2 

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

Week 13 – SU: 11-5-0 ATS: 8-8-0 O/U: 7-9-0

Arizona at Atlanta

Prediction: Falcons 24-21 (58.3%)

Pick: Falcons +3

Total: Over 44.5 

San Diego at Baltimore

Prediction: Ravens 23-20 (58.9%)

Pick: Chargers +6

Total: Under 46

Cleveland at Buffalo

Prediction:  Bills 23-20 (58.9%)

Pick: Bills -2.5 

Total: Over 41

Philadelphia at Dallas

Prediction: Cowboys 26-24 (53.9%)

Pick: Eagles +3.5

Total: Under 56

Chicago at Detroit

Prediction: Lions 24-21 (58.3%)

Pick: Bears +7

Total: Under 47.5

New England at Green Bay

Prediction: Packers 28-26 (54.0%)

Pick: Patriots +3

Total:Under 59 

Tennessee at Houston

Prediction: Texans 24-18 (66.8%)

Pick: Titans +6.5 

Total: Under 43.5 

Washington at Indianapolis

Prediction: Colts 26-22 (61.1%)

Pick: Washington Football Team +10

Total: Under 51.5

NY Giants at Jacksonville

Prediction: Giants 23-19 (59.1%)

Pick: Giants -3

Total: Under 44.5

Denver at Kansas City

Prediction: Broncos 25-22 (58.9%)

Pick: Broncos -2.5

Total: Under 50.5 

Carolina at Minnesota

Prediction: Vikings 21-20 (51.0%)

Pick: Panthers +2.5

Total: Under 43

Miami at NY Jets

Prediction: Jets 20-19 (50.6%)

Pick: Jets +6.5 

Total: Under 42

New Orleans at Pittsburgh

Prediction: Saints 26-25 (51.6%)

Pick: Saints +4.5 

Total: Under 54

Seattle at San Francisco

Prediction: 49ers 20-19 (52.9%) 

Pick: 49ers -1

Total: Under 40

Oakland at St. Louis

Prediction: Rams 23-18 (63.3%)

Pick: Raiders +7

Total: Under 42

Cincinnati at Tampa Bay

Prediction: Bengals 21-20 (54.2%)

Pick: Buccaneers +4

Total: Under 44

Some questions:

Let’s say Alabama goes to the SEC championship game and loses.  Does that knock out Alabama and keep Miss State in (assuming they beat Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl)?

If Missouri somehow wins the SEC, they have to get in to the playoff right?  Who would get knocked out then?

I feel confident that Florida State will lose one of their next two games.  Does a 1 loss Florida State get into the playoff over a TCU or a Baylor?

Is Ohio State losing to Virginia Tech the weirdest loss of this season?

What is the playoff committee going to do with a team like Arkansas? Are they top 25?

Seriously, why is Condoleezza Rice involved in this?

Do you think when Ole Miss was 7-0 that fans really thought they had a chance to win the national championship?

Is there anyone in the world happier than me that Notre Dame has lost 4 out of their last 5?

Cheers.

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.