College Football Mid-Season Update: "What was I thinking?" Edition

At the beginning of this season I conducted a little experiment to determine whether using an objective analytical process to select your wagers had any more value than my arbitrary prediction methods. I also wrote an extensive blog post about all of this which probably robbed potentially productive waking hours from anyone who tried to read it. I just thought since the college football season is about two-thirds complete, this would be a good time to check in on how my predictions were fairing. The main gist of this exercise was to pick 20 teams that I thought had favorable odds of winning the next BCS National Championship (taking a big of a shotgun approach I know, but there were 100 other teams I didn't select). The were:

1) Wisconsin Badgers
2) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
3) Rutgers Scarlet Knights
4) Texas A&M Aggies
5) UCLA Bruins
6) Michigan Wolverines
7) Virginia Tech Hokies
8) Louisville Cardinals
9) Oregon State Beavers
10) Arkansas Razorbacks
11) West Virginia Mountaineers
12) Auburn Tigers
13) Nebraska Corn Huskers
14) Iowa Hawkeyes
15) Oregon Ducks
16) Boston College Eagles
17) Georgia Bulldogs
18) California Golden Bears
19) Penn State Nittany Lions
20) Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Now with any sample that covers so many teams i was bound to get a few clunkers in there somewhere. Plus given that this college football season is already going to go down as one of the wackiest and craziest in terms of unpredictability and upsets, I think I can be forgiven if my predictions turned out a little poorly. After all its not like many people had many accurate forecasts going into this season. With all that said, my objective predictions aren't going well. by which I mean, they stink. The team I had the most confidence in still needs to win out and a lot of luck just to win its conference championship. No team in my top ten has fewer than two losses. Like I said, to good.

Comparing the objective predictions performance to some theoretical ideal doesn't do much good though. How well are they doing compared to the season as it has actually transpired. Afterall with so many twists and turns, it's perfectly possible I stumbled onto a diamond in the rough somehow. There are eight or nine teams with any legitimate hope left to win the BCS title this season. They are Ohio State, Boston College, Arizona State, Kansas, LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, West Virginia, and possibly Missouri. I ruled out three of them (Ohio State, LSU, and Oklahoma) because they already won a BCS championship (but they are among my arbitrarily selected picks, Sheet 3). I will stick with that judgment for now. Though when discussing my experiment with my brother he wisely pointed out that if teams who had won in the past had good odds of making it to the championship game, then there must be good odds that some year two of them will make it and my theory will be blown out of the water. I do have three of the contenders in my list of twenty (BC, WVU, and Oregon), though admittedly they are all ranked low according to my "analytic" standards. Missouri has an outside shot if it wins out, though other teams will probably get the nod over it. For similar reasons I am not including Hawai'i which may well go undefeated but which will definitely not get a chance to play for the title. The last two teams are in neither of my pools of picks and since Vegas did offer odds on them not even my cover-all pick on "the field" would save my bacon. This season is promising to have a dynamite finish. So it only makes sense that I would have a 25% chance of both sets of picks being completely blown up by a dark horse champion.

None the less, I am never discouraged. I have already begun a new "objective" analysis tool, and may be able to show that off come season's end. I also will try to come up with another arbitrary bowl prediction method to entertain you in December.There is a lot more study and review to happen after the season wraps up. Until that time enjoy the college football games we have left.