Paul Prattles On

Welcome back! I know it's been a while since my last post (about 4 months!), but it seems that I now have the time to do so, what with everyone staying home.  I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but teaching and other things kept pushing this project off, and then it got to where my thought was, "What's the point?"  The season has been LOOOOONG gone, and no one really cares.  But I care, so now I'm finally getting around to it. In an earlier post (Odds and Ends 12/18/19), I pointed out that I finished 2nd to Phil Steele in my conference predictions (using the formula outlined in his magazine).  I think that's pretty good, considering he's touted as the best in the business.  Just as a reminder, I beat him (and all the others) for the 2018 season.  In this post, I'm going to review my bowl prediction record, my overall prediction record, and my predictions for each individual team. For the bowls, I went 28-12, a 70% rate.  I was righ...

Welcome back! So far in my bowl predictions, I am 6-4.  That's not too bad, considering how notoriously difficult it is to pick bowl winners, but not anywhere near where I expect to be.  My dumbest pick was Boise State to beat Washington (they lost 38-7!), but picking SMU to beat FAU wasn't too bright, either.  I should have allowed myself to be convinced as I was writing up my picks from last week.  But that won't stop me from giving you another round of picks!  These will cover From today (12/26) through January 6, so this will be my last post of 2019.  I will do my National Championship Game pick probably on January 9, my normal Thursday for picks. Before I get into this next group of bowl games, let's examine how each conference has done.  So far, the bowls have only featured one P5 team- the aforementioned Washington.  But here are the standings so far: Pac 12 1-0 1.000 MAC 2-1 .667 SBC 2-1 .667 MWC 2-2 .500 AAC 1-1 .500 Ind 1-1 ....

Welcome back! Last week was my best yet! I went 1-0 for a 1.000 win percentage!  Overall, I am 649-199, which is still 76.5%.  I've done pretty well this year. Bowl week has arrived, and so have my picks.  However, please be aware that the bowls are notoriously difficult to predict.  Players sitting out, interim coaches, coaching staff changes, differing motivation levels for the 2 teams, and player suspensions all make the bowl games pretty much a coin flip.  But I'm going to try anyway! On to the predictions! Friday, December 20 Buffalo vs Charlotte (Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl- Nassau, NP)- The 49ers are playing in their 1st ever bowl game in just their 5th season in FBS, and are coming in on a 5-game winning streak, but only one of those wins- Marshall- wa...

Welcome Back! Here at Odds and Ends, I plan to look at some stats, trends, storylines, etc. as they play out.  I will also give my opinion on some issues, but you can take that for what it's worth. Today, I will examine how my preseason conference predictions panned out, and how they compare to what I consider the 4 major magazines:  Phil Steele, Lindy's, Athlon, and Street and Smith's. On pages 6 and 7 of his preseason magazine, Phil Steele outlines a method of comparing preseason predictions, one that was developed by Chris Stassen.  Using this method, I outperformed all 4 of the magazines listed above for the 2018 season!  Did I do it again? Unfortunately, the answer is no, but I did outperform 3 of the 4, and I was closer to 1st place than I was to 3rd.  Here is how the scores came out after I computed them (low score is best!): Phil Steele- 116 points Paul Anderson- 121 Athlon- 129 Lindy's- 131 Street and Smi...

Welcome Back! Today, I am simply comparing my final Power Rankings to my initial rankings.  Next to each team, you will see whether they moved up or down from the preseason, and by how much. Three teams finished exactly where they started: Utah State at #53, Colorado at #73, and Bowling Green at #121.  Nine additional teams finished within 2 spaces of where they started.  The biggest surprise team (largest move upward) was Central Michigan, who started at #114 and ended at #32.  The biggest disappointment (largest drop) was Stanford, who went from #23 to #110, a drop of 87 spots. Now, on to the rankings! 1 Ohio State +2 2 LSU +6 3 Clemson -1 4 Oklahoma +2 5 Oregon +10 6 Utah +6 7 Georgia -3 8 Appalachian State +44 9 Memphis +32 10 Alabama -9 11 Boise State +20 12 Baylor +31 13 Penn State ...