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Showing posts from September, 2023

Paul's Picks 2023 Week 5

Welcome Back! Last week, I was once again much better than usual, as I was 54-13, or 80.6% correct. Overall, I am 265-56, or 82.6%, a drop of 0.05% from last week. I typically finish around 73%, but my goal is always to finish at or above 75%. This week, there are a lot of conference matchups, and only a very few games against FCS opponents- 59 games overall, the fewest so far this season. With conference play in full swing, the games are much harder to predict, so my accuracy is likely to drop. Oh well; I'll enjoy being 80+% for as long as it lasts! Now... on with the picks! Thursday, September 28 Middle Tennessee @ WKU - The Hilltoppers lead the series 36-35-1, taking the lead by winning the last 4, and 7 of the last 8, including 35-17 last year. The Blue Raiders haven't won in Bowling Green since 2012. This is a series that began in 1914, played 18 times between 1914-1941 (WKU 12-5-1), played every year from 1952-1991 except for '86 (MT 24-15), then picked up again in 20

Odds and Ends 9-27-23

Welcome Back! Yesterday, I presented my Power Rankings. New this year is points added based on how the teams are doing statistically. So far, these are the teams playing the best offensively and defensively combined based on my analysis. I'll let you decide if each team is really this good, or if this is the result of them playing poor competition. 1. Oregon 2. Syracuse 3. Miami, FL 4. Penn State 5. Notre Dame 6. Georgia 7. Oklahoma 8. UCLA 9. Ohio State 10. Clemson Here are the teams playing the worst both offensively and defensively combined, based on my own formula. The one listed #1 is worst, #2 is next worst, and so on. 1. Nevada 2. Kent State 3. Arkansas State 4. Ball State 5. FIU T6. Buffalo T6. Central Michigan 8. Charlotte 9. Eastern Michigan 10. San Diego State Inter-conference results  For these purposes, all Independents (except Notre Dame) are considered G5.  Here are the results of all out-of-conference games. Overall 1) Pac 12 29-5 .853 2) SEC 33-8 .805 3) Big Ten 29

Power Rankings 9-26-23

Welcome Back! With almost every team playing this week, there was plenty of movement in the rankings. In addition, I have added some new statistical factors into the rankings. However, the effect of these are mitigated by my preseason numbers, which is fortunate because so many teams have played FCS opponents that the statistics could be skewed somewhat. There is some effect, as you will notice when you see that some teams that lost may have moved up (or stayed the same) while others that won may have moved down (or stayed the same). Those teams usually moved just 1-4 places, and I would consider these adjustments, or corrections, for perhaps being misplaced in the preseason rankings. At any rate, I am less concerned with being correct  right now  than I am with being correct at the end of the season. As most of you realize, you could probably take the teams listed from about #13 to #65 or so, place them in a hat and draw the names out randomly and probably be just as accurate, as ther