Friday, September 23, 2011

Thoughts on college football, last week, this week, etc

Last week I briefly spoke about 3 games of interested, and wouldn't you know it, I nailed all 3. I said OU would beat FSU, Texas would easily win against UCLA, and that A&M would destroy Idaho. The A&M prediction was easy to make, but I feel smart nailing the OU and Texas picks. Lots of people had talked about OU's recent road struggles, but they managed to get over that, while Texas was only favored by a few points at UCLA, but just like I predicted (I'm really hurting my arm, patting myself on the back...), Texas finally decided to use their better players, dropping the odd strategy they had been employing (using their worst players), and sure enough, running away with an easy victory over an AWFUL UCLA team.

The true test start for Texas next week, so I'll talk more about them then. This week, the true test starts for Texas A&M and Oklahoma State. Here's a summary of a lot of the common thoughts from Aggie fans:

Last year, even with 5 turnovers and playing on the road, A&M statistically dominated the game only to lose on a last second field goal. Avoid the turnovers and A&M wins easily (so the thinking goes).

Last year, OSU had evil the evil genius Dana Holgerson calling plays, and they were really, really good offensively. This year, stud QB Brandon Weeden and uber-stud WR Justin Blackmon are both back, but without Holgerson calling the plays, their offense loses something (there may be something to this based on Blackmon's statistical drop-off this year and Weeden's increased interception total this year, but still too early to say conclusively, since they are average over 600 yards per game so far in 2011.). Meanwhile, in year two of the Tim DeRuyter era for A&M, the defense now knows the entire playbook and is free to run around at full speed without having to think so much, while also being free to run all sorts of crazy schemes, which will confuse OSU and A&M will slow them down and win easily (so the thinking goes).

This year, A&M's offense is one of the best there is and has no weaknesses, so whatever the defense for OSU (which has not been good so far) tries, we can counter with something and will be able to score at will. So then we will just need a few stops on defense, and should be able to win easily (so the thinking goes).

Here are my thoughts, which somewhat overlap with aspects of the above, but don't necessarily align all the way through. A&M does indeed have the best offense the history of Aggie football. We have one of the best quarterbacks we've ever had, we have the best running back tandem since Greg Hill and Rodney Thomas were running on bright green artificial turf with maroon numbers, and we have either the best or second best group of wide receivers we've ever had (the Bethel Johnson/Terrence Murphy/Jamaar Taylor/Greg Porter group was equally amazing). Put these skill players, along with a solid offensive line, up against a defense for OSU that is not spectacular, and we really should have no trouble scoring points.

A&M has already proven that we can move the ball and score points quickly, and we haven't even used big plays to do it. Amazingly, A&M only has 2 plays this season of over 30 yards (a 37 yard run by Cyrus Gray and a 32 yard pass from Tannehill to tight end Hutson Prioleau), yet the Aggies have still put up huge numbers in less than 3 quarters in each of their first two games. That means A&M is doing it bit by bit, 6, 8, 14 yards at a time, content to march down the field like that. It also means that there are big plays coming. A game like this, with so much at stake (Did I mention that this is the first matchup of two top-10 teams at Kyle Field since I've been alive? Yeah...), teams start taking chances. OSU will take chances. A&M should have a couple big (40+ yards) plays. Defenses get lulled to sleep by boring, rhythmic offenses, which is what A&M has sort of pretended to be this year. But that's the great part about this Aggie offense. They are able to be the boring, efficient offense, but rest assured, they can hit you with the big plays. Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael are both capable of making the 80 yard run at any time. The receivers for A&M are as well. So what's my point? It is this: A&M will be able to move the ball, both methodically and with big plays, all game long, in my opinion.

The game then comes down to A&M stopping OSU. I don't personally subscribe to the notion that the loss of Holgerson will hurt OSU that much. They are still, in my opinion, one of the best 10 offenses in the country, if not top 5. So can A&M stop them? I honestly think the Aggies will struggle to. OSU has scored 30 or more in 15 of their last 16 games. I think it will be very difficult for A&M to hold them under 30. The defense for A&M has shown signs of being very good, but the loss of Von Miller still hurts A&M. To win this game, the Aggies HAVE to do three things:

-Stop the run. A&M must force OSU into predictable passing situations. If they keep us off balance, they'll score 50.

-Bring pressure when we do know they're passing. We have to force Weeden to throw before he's ready. If he has time, he WILL pick us apart.

-Catch the ball if and when he throws an interceptable pass. A dropped interception cost A&M the game two years ago against this same opponent. Everyone knows how important turnovers are. The assumption is that Weeden will throw a couple bad balls. A&M must catch those.

Can A&M do those things? I really, honestly think we can, but stopping the run is the toughest of the three, and the most important. The other two follow from the first one.

I'm gonna cheat and do two official predictions. If A&M accomplishes what I believe they need to, A&M wins 45-31.

If A&M fails to stop the run and/or struggles to pressure Weeden and catch one or two bad passes from him, A&M loses 48-45.

Ok, no cheating. My OFFICIAL official prediction is the first one. I do think A&M wins. I think this is a special group of guys that A&M has right now, and I think Kyle Field is still Kyle Field, which means that as long as the talent is close between the two teams, A&M wins at Kyle.

Gonna be a great day.

Watty's Week 4 computer picks

Disclaimer I'm still giving for at least another week or two: these numbers still aren't really meaningful for several teams, since I'm still using some of last year's stats. I think after about 5 weeks, this year's numbers will be meaningful and will be the only numbers I use. So again, for some teams, they are pretty good, but for teams with a lot of turnover from last year or with major changes at quarterback or head coach, some of these are still not statistically relevant. That being said, here are the Week 4 picks:


Teams Prediction 1 Prediction 2 Vegas spread

Oklahoma State 31 41
Texas A&M 37 36 -4.5/70

North Carolina State 26 28
Cincinnati 26 35 -7.5/60.5

UCF 17 20
BYU 19 25 -2.5/42.5

Colorado 14 18
Ohio State 36 33 -16.5/44.5

Tulane 27 28
Duke 39 31 -10/55

Toledo 18 20
Syracuse 22 19 -2.5/55

UAB 38 32
East Carolina 34 30 -14/60.5

UTEP 10 12
South Florida 27 27 -29/47.5

Western Michigan 27 27
Illinois 28 36 -12.5/53

Ohio 20 21
Rutgers 11 19 -4.5/50.5

Eastern Michigan 13 12
Penn State 35 29 -28.5/44.5

Kansas State 20 25
Miami (Florida) 31 29 -12/47.5

SMU 36 36 -21.5/54
Memphis 17 16

Temple 19 20
Maryland 18 26 -8.5/51.5

Central Michigan 11 10
Michigan State 29 30 -21.5/49.5

Georgia 45 51 -9/54
Mississippi 27 30

Bowling Green 13 13
Miami (Ohio) 21 18 -4/52.5

Army 21 20 -4/50.5
Ball State 22 20

Virginia Tech 23 27 -20.5/46.5
Marshall 9 15

Arkansas 23 27
Alabama 36 44 -12/50.5

California 26 28
Washington 21 28 -1/58.5

LSU 13 21 -5.5/49.5
West Virginia 17 28

San Diego State 39 39
Michigan 36 36 -10.5/57

North Carolina 41 35
Georgia Tech 50 50 -7/58.5

Florida 21 27 -19.5/44
Kentucky 21 32

Notre Dame 21 24 -7/54.5
Pittsburgh 15 21

Florida State 18 23
Clemson 18 23 -2.5/50

New Mexico State 19 18
San Jose State 23 18 -10.5/46.5

Fresno State 19 21 -3/52
Idaho 19 17

Connecticut 13 17 -8.5/46.5
Buffalo 9 12

UCLA 23 23
Oregon State 30 24 -5/49.5

Nevada 30 33
Texas Tech 66 54 -17/61

Vanderbilt 20 18
South Carolina 31 41 -15.5/50

Louisiana Tech 23 25
Mississippi State 45 38 -19/59

Rice 42 38
Baylor 78 59 -20.5/67

Southern Mississippi 35 33
Virginia 37 31 -3/52.5

Nebraska 26 30 -21.5/59
Wyoming 25 31

Missouri 29 31
Oklahoma 25 35 -21/56.5

Colorado State 19 16
Utah State 27 26 -9.5/56

Tulsa 21 22
Boise State 54 44 -28/62

Oregon 59 64 -15/64.5
Arizona 29 28

USC 22 22
Arizona State 33 38 -2.5/53.5

Florida Atlantic 10 11
Auburn 50 53 -31.5/57.5


Friday, September 16, 2011

A short look ahead to some week 3 college football action

It's been a fun start to 2011 college football. There are some great games coming up this weekend. I'm particularly excited for the Oklahoma vs. Florida State matchup, though I won't be able to watch it since I'll be at Kyle Field watching the Aggies destroy Idaho. But I think this is a good chance for OU to show that they are legit, and I think they will do so. They are favored by about a field goal, but I think they'll cover and win by seven or more. There are lots of reports out of Tallahassee about the amount of young talent they have, and I don't doubt it, but it's still young. Give them another year or two and we might see them contending for a championship. For now, OU wins.

Many people will be interested in the Texas - UCLA matchup. I think Texas wins this one pretty easily, actually. Benching Garrett Gilbert was one of the easiest paths to improvement for the Horns, and now that they have finally done that, they can at least move forward as an offense. They'll still have to be creative to find ways to hide Ash and McCoy's inexperience, but Harsin is a creative guy. Throw in the fact that it seems that Malcom Brown is ready to take over as the lead running back (which is the obvious choice- he's far superior to any of their other running backs), and they will now have a new pep in their step. Oh, and UCLA is an awful, awful team. Texas wins easily.

Other big name games include Ohio State and Miami (come on, no one has a clue what will happen there), Tennessee and Florida (two teams looking to get back to past glory), Notre Dame and Michigan State (can Notre Dame finally win one of these crazy games?), and of course the always heated Buffalo versus Ball State matchup (just kidding, those are completely made up teams).

As for A&M, they are favored by 5 touchdowns against Idaho in what should be an easy tune up. Obviously you still have to take every opponent seriously, but Idaho shouldn't offer much resistance to the efficient Aggie offense. A&M kept things admittedly conservative against SMU, but with Oklahoma State looming, I'd hope the Aggies open things up just a bit more to work out any kinks that need working out. Official prediction: I'll go with A&M winning 51-14.

Watty's Week 3 College Football computer picks

Here are my computer formula-based picks for week 3 of the college football season. I'm still using 2010 stats plus 2011, so a lot of these are still meaningless, but there still isn't enough 2011 data for that be meaningful on its own. Maybe after a couple more weeks. So here are the picks, along with the Vegas lines as of Tuesday.


Prediction Vegas line
LSU 27 -4/49.5
Mississippi State 28

Boise State 42 -20/60.5
Toledo 23

Iowa State 17
Connecticut 20 -4/43.5

West Virginia 20
Maryland 27 0/57

Auburn 50
Clemson 28 -3.5/61.5

Pittsburgh 21
Iowa 30 -3/50.5

Akron 9
Cincinnati 34 -34.5/56.5

Wyoming 17
Bowling Green 17 -9.5/54.5

Eastern Michigan 19
Michigan 53 -28.5/63

Penn State 19 -6.5/44.5
Temple 21

Central Michigan 17
Western Michigan 24 -7.5/55.5

Mississippi 30 -2/47
Vanderbilt 25

Duke 17
Boston College 19 -7/47.5

Kansas 20
Georgia Tech 36 -14.5/61

Colorado State 21
Colorado 29 -7/50

Wisconsin 44 -16.5/64
Northern Illinois 38

Miami (Ohio) 17
Minnesota 22 -5/46.5

Tennessee 29
Florida 33 -9.5/51

Michigan State 27
Notre Dame 27 -4.5/51.5

Virginia 25
North Carolina 31 -10/48

Texas 26 -4/43.5
UCLA 22

Washington 21
Nebraska 38 -17/55

Texas Tech 43 -21/55.5
New Mexico 12

Northwestern 25 -7/54.5
Army 23

Tulane 20
UAB 27 -13/54

Navy 32
South Carolina 40 -16.5/58

Washington State 25
San Diego State 41 -5/58

Louisville 24
Kentucky 36 -5.5/41

Houston 34 -6.5/70.5
Louisiana Tech 25

Marshall 13
Ohio 20 -.3/47.5

Idaho 16
Texas A&M 37 -35.5/57.5

Buffalo 11
Ball State 14 -4.5/52

Arizona State 35
Illinois 33 -1/59

Kent State 12
Kansas State 31 -17.5/46.5

Syracuse 19
USC 31 -16.5/47

Oklahoma 35 -3.5/55
Florida State 31

UTEP 23
New Mexico State 14 -3/49.5

Ohio State 35
Miami (Florida) 27 -2.5/47.5

Utah 25
BYU 21 -3.5/46

Oklahoma State 61 -13.5/69
Tulsa 38

Hawai'i 43 -20/59
UNLV 16

Stanford 46 -9/54.5
Arizona 33

Louisiana-Monroe 13
TCU 39 -29/52

Arkansas State 22
Virginia Tech 36 -24/53

UCF 26 -5.5/51
Florida International 21

North Texas 15
Alabama 54 -46/53.5

Troy 27
Arkansas 62 -22.5/63.5



















Friday, September 9, 2011

Watty's Week 2 computer picks


My super secret formula at work again... And again, early in the season, some of these are pretty worthless, though some are pretty good. For now, I'm using all of 2010 plus 2011, so for teams without much turnover, I have a pretty good model, but obviously for teams like Auburn and TCU, it's pretty worthless until we have a few more weeks of real data. That being said, here's what I have for this week. In theory obviously, if you were using this to make picks, you'd look for ones with huge differences between my model and the actual lines and pick accordingly. But based on my admission that these are mostly last year's numbers and that I pretty much just made this model up myself, you'd be pretty stupid to use this for real money betting (though I think I actually have a pretty good model... did I say that already?)

p.s. Sorry about the weird formatting. I suck at computers and internets.

        Prediction Vegas Line
BYU          19
Texas          28         -7/48

Missouri         28
Arizona State 22 -10/51

Oregon State 17
Wisconsin   34 -20.5/57.5

Iowa                 25      -6.5/44.5
Iowa State 15

Toledo        9
Ohio State 38 -17.5/52.5

Mississippi State 32 -5.5/57
Auburn                35

Northern Illinois 35 -4.5/62
Kansas                17

UTEP        18
SMU        26 -19.5/54

Cincinnati         25
Tennessee         31 -4.5/56

Virginia Tech 53 -17.5/63.5
East Carolina 24

Nevada        25
Oregon        46 -26.5/63

California         28 -6.5/47
Colorado         22

Alabama         32 -9.5/42
Penn State 13

TCU                 25
Air Force    21 -1/49.5

South Carolina 25 -3/51.5
Georgia        29

UAB        18
Florida        39 -23.5/53.5

Utah                 25
USC                 27 -8.5/51.5

Notre Dame 34 -3/55
Michigan         29

Houston        39 -21.5/64.5
North Texas 27

Friday, September 2, 2011

My Texas A&M preview


So for what it's worth, here are a few of my thoughts and my official prediction on the 2011 Ags.

On offense, A&M is pretty loaded. Trying to take off my maroon glasses and find weaknesses, and there just aren't many. Tight end, maybe? A&M is young at that position, but at the same time, they have three or four guys that they feel are adequate, so they have depth, if not dominance.

So going down the roster by position, we start at quarterback. Most people know the story by now. Halfway through 2010, A&M made the change from Jerrod Johnson, who never fully recovered from off-season shoulder surgery, to junior Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill exploded early, reeling off huge numbers against Kansas and Texas Tech before coming back to earth a bit. Even so, he led A&M to victories against OU, Nebraska, and Texas before finally suffering his first loss as a starter against LSU in the Cotton Bowl.

Tannehill returns as the unquestioned leader, and while I personally think most A&M fans gave him a little too much credit last year, he's still a top level QB by most accounts (don't be surprised when he goes very, VERY high- like top 5 high- in the NFL draft next year).

He has tons of weapons to throw to. At wide receiver, A&M returns the best receiver in school history in Jeff Fuller. He owns basically every record A&M has and I've been saying he's an NFL-ready receiver since his freshman year. One record he actually shares is the record for most catches in a season. He shares that record with Ryan Swope, who also returns. They are joined by Uzoma Nwachukwu, who has had a strong two seasons to start his A&M career, and a handful of other contributors. In fact, A&M returns their top 7 receivers from last year.

In addition to that, A&M returns the best two running backs in the Big 12, Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael. Either one is capable of carrying the load, but having both will allow Mike Sherman to ride the hot hand and keep them fresh. With Cyrus coming off a 1,000+ yard season, A&M is one of only four teams in America to return a 1,000 yard receiver (Fuller) and runner.

They will all be helped by an offensive line that is young on the edges but extremely good. The tackles are both true sophomores, but everyone in the A&M program thinks they are sure-fire NFL talents, and it was in large part due to them that A&M rolled off the six straight wins late last year, relying mostly on a dominating running attack.

So again, long story short, A&M's offense is loaded. There is a very real possibility that A&M's starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver will all be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft next year. I assume that is something that has not happened many times. This is unquestionably the most talented team at the skill positions that A&M has ever had.

So then, how will the defense be? Well, that's the million dollar question. Most people think the defense will improve over last year because they are in year two of the Tim DeRuyter era. He supposedly runs a complex scheme and year one is quite the learning curve, but in year two, the theory goes, the players now know the defense and are able to play faster and do more creative things scheme-wise.  Of course the question that can't be answered is the issue of how will A&M replace Von Miller? Miller left Aggieland as a consensus All-American and the highest draft pick in school history. A&M will try to replace him by committee, as a stable of promising players like Caleb Russell and Damontre Moore will fight for reps.

The other linebackers should be solid if not spectacular. Certainly good enough. The defensive line is the same story. No All-Americans, but solid play and plenty of returning talent from last season's conference-leading run defense.

Behind them is one of the best secondaries A&M has had in a long, long time. They can all tackle, they can all cover, and they're all aggressive and cocky. A&M didn't put up great pass defense numbers last year, but some of that was a little deceiving, because A&M played a very pass-happy schedule, as they will again this year.

So, as long as A&M can pressure the quarterback, the defense should be good. It has a chance to be really good. In my unbiased opinion, it won't be "great," but it doesn't need to be since the offense absolutely has a chance to be a top national unit.

The big question mark remains special teams. Randy Bullock has developed into a pretty good placekicker, but A&M's inability to find a dependable punter the last few years has been frustrating, and spring and fall reports seem to indicate that the problems are still there.

A&M has plenty of options at kick returner, and, assuming they can hold on the ball, punt returner seems to be ok as well.

From my perspective, A&M has enough talent to run the table. I'm not saying they will, but they legitimately could. The issue is that it's just hard to win every week, even against teams that are supposedly inferior. OU, Arkansas, and OSU are teams that A&M can certainly beat, but at the same time, beating all three is asking a lot, especially since only one of them is at Kyle Field. And aside from those three, you still have teams like Texas, Missouri, Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas State that could very easily beat a team like A&M on a given week. So it's just asking a lot to go through all that without ever slipping up against the decent teams while rising to the occasion to beat the best teams.

My point? I think A&M is a legitimately good team this year, but I do think OU will beat them, and I think the Ags will split with Arkansas and OSU, and I think somewhere along the way, A&M has one more bad week and ends up 9-3. I think 10 wins is more likely than 8 though, if that matters, and that 11 is more likely than 7.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

College football week 1 computer predictions

One thing I thought would be fun (for me, at least) would be to try to come up with my own statistical model to use to try to predict the outcomes of college football games. A couple people on texags.com already do it, so I stole the idea from them and decided to give it a try this year.

Basically I compiled all the stats I felt were relevant, and then organized them and created ratings (relative to the average) for a handful of different categories. Then, using my own ideas of how they relate to each other, made a few formulas that I can use to plug those statistics in and then get a prediction for how those teams will fare against each other. Basically I do two sets of predictions and then average them. One of them looks at things from one team's offensive perspective and pits them against the defense's ratings, and the other looks at that same team's defensive stats and pits those against their opponents offensive ratings. From there, I add in home field advantage and my own top secret rating to account for strength of schedule, and out comes a prediction.

I will try to post these each Thursday in advance of that weekend's games. I'll probably only do around 20 games a week, mainly Big 12 games and other games of note, simply because it can be a little time consuming. And for the first few weeks, I'm forced to use last season's stats, which admittedly is somewhat useless. I am hoping that about 3 or 4 weeks in, each team will have enough current history to maybe make some semi-valid predictions. Until then, I'm using last year's numbers and with all the year-to-year turnover in college football, it renders these predictions pretty useless, but still fun. I expect that some of them will be pretty good, and some of them will be wildly wrong.

As you'll see, a few of these really jump out, and for some of them, there are obvious reasons. The Auburn score, for example, is obviously affected by the fact that Cam Newton was on the team last year. Everyone with a brain this year has rated Auburn to be worse than they were last year, so take this first prediction for what it's worth.

Some big numbers also pop up. Oklahoma State will supposedly score 72 points. That may sound crazy, but at the same time, that actually probably does happen once a week in college football, so it's not much of a stretch to say that OSU could do that this week. I actually kind of like the fact that my predictions include some huge blowouts and high scoring games, because those things do happen in real life, but people rarely predict them.

Anyway, all that being said, here is what came out of my computer for week 1:


Teams/Vegas line/My computer prediction

TCU -6/56       36
Baylor              24

SMU                26
A&M -16/56     36

UNLV               11
Wisc -35/56    36

Miss St -29      50
Memphis          12

Wake Forest      7
Syracuse -6     30

Utah St               16
Auburn -22/56    62

Akron                     6
Ohio St -34/48     47

Miami (OH)               9
Mizzou -17/47.5      31

Kent St                      6
Alabama -37/45.5    30

UCLA                     28
Houston -3/61.5     56

W. Michigan             34
Michigan -14/61       33

Minnesota               26
USC -21/51.5         47

S. Florida                   15
Notre Dame -10/47    19

BYU -3/55                  35
Mississippi                 30

S. Carolina -20/62      62
E. Carolina                 28

Rice                           19
t.u. -24/55                  48

Tulsa                         31
OU -24.5/64.5           58

Boise St -3.5/51         27
Georgia                      17

Oregon -3/55          32
LSU                         22

ULaLa                           18
Ok State -36.5/62.5       72

FAU                              10
Florida -35/46.5            35