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#1
I am going to try a new approach this year with posting. I hate posting my bowl picks - for a bunch of reasons - but mostly because Covers douchebaggery making it not very fun.
But I do like talking about games. And I get asked a lot about the statistical side of things - so I am going to provide some statistics that I have calculated that I use to help me handicap. THIS IS ONLY PART OF THE PROCESS. It is not the whole thing. There is gut feel (eye test), and these power ratings are limited in their use.
But I feel like it might be interesting to some, and I really do rely on these numbers throughout the season pretty heavily - but even more so in bowl season.
Keep in mind these points:
* These are weighted stats. This is at the crux of what I believe statistics need to be in order to be effective. This means they are weighted by the strength of the opponents - and not only the overall strength of opponent - but broken down in to offensive categories and defensive categories. So if a team rushes well against a top 10 rushing defense, that counts more than rushing well against a bottom 10 rushing defense.
* Bowl games are strange. Especially early bowl games. And because of the makeup of the college football schedule (only 3 games or so outside of your own conference), relative strength of conferences can be hard to compute. So when you have a team in the MWC playing a team from the Sun Belt (SJS vs Ga St), and my number is about 10 points different than the real line - it is less significant than if this was in the Championship Semi Finals. There is just more variance here. Doesnt mean I dont like Ga St - I do and it will be one of the bigger games of the early bowl seasons for me - but I have no illusions about it being anything more than a shit game where a lot of variance could happen.
* Coaching changes and motivation are not included here. You can read your own tea leaves when it comes to these two subjects - I do it as well - but they arent represented here.
* These are season long numbers. They do not represent trends (teams getting better or worse ie: Oregon), current injuries (Baylor QB situation etc), or injuries during the middle of the season that are now resolved (TCU).
I use these numbers each and every week. But they are a starting point for me. I go through a process on each game after seeing these numbers.
Hope they help - and I would be willing to discuss all of this if anyone is interested. The copy and pasting of a table here is terrible, but I am going to try and get it right.
GL all.
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