Howdy football fans. For those who have had a chance to look at this week’s GCR (posted earlier today), the Big 10 and the SEC rule the top echelon with 17 spots of the top 40. That is going to set up some juicy matchups in the coming weeks. Currently, in the FCS world of 128 teams, there are 13 still undefeated led by UC Davis (47) who scored a late TD to beat Big Sky rival Weber St (207) 17-14 – GCR had UCD >99%. Speaking of near upsets. Old Dominion (141) was down 35-7 at the half to Buffalo (151) who was the Vegas favorite -13.0. The Monarchs scored 27 in the 4th including a TD with 0:19 to go only to miss the extra point that would have forced OT: final Bulls 35-34. W Kentucky (135) just came off of a 3-point loss to undefeated Army (28) and faced Power 5 foe Indiana (84). 9 point Vegas underdogs, the Hilltoppers fought until the end despite losing the first quarter 14-0, scoring a TD with 2:32 to go to get within 2, but a late 4 and out kept the score 33-31 Hoosiers. Both of those games were GCR predicted upsets that almost, but not quite, panned out. Overall, the 17 highlighted GCR upsets resulted in a woeful 8-9 result. Those two would have helped make the week respectable. One that almost happened that I don’t think anyone saw coming was Georgia St (127) invading Power 5 Auburn (37) and held the War Tigers at bay for 59:07, leading 24-19. A questionable call (but it was a little karma for Auburn after some game altering calls against them vs Penn St (11) last week) late gave them a first down which they used to push across the line and add 2 more. Auburn 27-24, but the Panthers weren’t done and while trying to get into field goal range to force OT, the Tiger Eagles grabbed a pick 6 leading to a misleading 34-24 win.
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There were 2 substantial upsets that could have bowl, if not, playoff impact. Bowling Green (123) who are part of the MAC traveled to beautiful Minneapolis to take on the Golden Gophers. Vegas had Minnesota -31.0 and the GCR had them at 89.1%, but the upstart Falcons turned 3 turnovers and a defense that only gave up 241 total yards into a 14-10 win. Minnesota scored 31 against Ohio St (36), 31 against MAC Miami OH (167) and 30 in a shutout at Colorado (161) before they were just stopped. The other major upset was also a 45-22 blowout when Georgia Tech (129) who lost a defensive battle against Clemson (71) last week 14-8, left no doubt when UNC (99) came to town. Down 7-0 after one, the Yellow Jackets outscored the Tar Heels 45-15 the rest of the way. UNC was favored -12.0 and the GCR gave the Jackets a mere 9.0% chance to win.
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I’ll get back to upsets and predictions in a second, but first, the FCS has 13 perfect teams and 21 winless schools. In the Group of 5 (65 teams), there are 9 perfect schools – Cincinnati (31), SMU (18), UTSA (22), Army (28), BYU (16), Wyoming (26), San Diego St (25), Coastal Carolina (27), and South Alabama (34). They are offset by 5 winless teams – Navy (202), UCONN (159), UMASS (107), Ohio (205), and UNLV (163). The Power 5 has 17 with 0 in the loss column – Notre Dame (8), Boston College (14), Wake Forest (13), Baylor (12), Oklahoma (20), Oklahoma St (7), Maryland (17), Michigan (2), Oregon (5), Iowa (10), Penn St (11), Michigan St (6), Georgia (4), Kentucky (9), Alabama (1), Arkansas (3), and Mississippi (19). There are just 2 still seeking the sweet taste of victory – Florida St (111) and Arizona (134).
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I’ve predicted games for the last two weeks with GCR percentages both weeks (although I didn’t publish them 2 weeks ago) and it’s time to see how the GCR is doing. Here’s the chart and I’ll explain how to follow it (I get it, it’s busy) following.
To read any cell, the formula is “correct predictions (for the given decile)-incorrect predictions .percentage correct (expected correct predictions-expected incorrect predictions .expected percentage correct). Deciles are 50.0-59.9 (50% decile), 60.0-69.9 (60% decile), etc. The expected value is determined like this: let’s say there are 3 games for which the GCR predicts a 51.0%, 55.0% and 56.0%. The average of those is .540 (54.0%) and 3*.540=1.62 so I would expect to be correct 1.6 and incorrect 1.4 of those games. This year, I’ve publishing every predicted game (I don’t predict games against non-D1 teams or for teams that had not yet played a game), so the numbers will get large – 218 in the first 2 weeks of predicting. Overall, a 74.8% win rate (163 wins) is pretty decent at this stage (not many degrees of freedom for those stat geeks out there), but it is 4 games off the expected pace of 167 wins. Maybe I can catch up.
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That’s it for this week’s G’s Explanation – hope you enjoyed it. Now, back to vacation, G
