You've gone quiet, what's up?

I've been reminiscning about the time I spent writing and updating this blog today, and I think a brief update on why I've gone quiet is in order!

Well, I have 3 kids and job leading Data Science for Facebook Events. I've also taken up more playing of the piano, and more working out

All those things together combine to take up maximum cognitive and physical energy, so I expect to stay quiet for a while. However I hope to return one day. In the meantime, please check out some of my favorite past posts.

• Why Ohio State did not deserve a spot in the 2018 CFP
• Posterior Win Probability - the core methodology underlying my College Football Model
• Super Tuesday 2016 - Remembering how I built my own decision desk and updated live on primary nights
• Introducing my super simple and elegant world cup model
• Advocating for marriage equality in Washington

Conference Championships

I am in Hawaii with my family and have been mostly spending my days snorkelling, so the update this week is light. And as the regular season is winding down there will be fewer predictions to make, and more time to just enjoy football. The watchability scores for the conference title games doesn't come as a huge surprise, The top 3 just look awesome, but really all conference title games carry exciting possibilities. 

I'll wind down doing updates on the dashboards, because as with the games of the week there's less and less to predict. There may be some mid-season bowl content (I'll be back home after bowl start on 12/18), and in the meantime enjoy all the great football!

NCAA Football Week 13

I realize some of the SEC (hi bama) took the week off, but there is plenty of football fun to be had this Saturday. All 3 of the top games would be just amazing upsets if they were to actually happen. Can you even imagine Texas A&M knocking Georgia out of the CFP? What a world. Plus SMU @ Navy has serious implications for who gets to be the "Group of 5" representative in the CFP bowls.

As always, enjoy your college football saturday.

College Football Week 12

We should talk about the top 25. LSU beat Alabama in the game of the year. 2 vs. 3, battle of 8-0s, high drama. In response my rankings have ... Bama the same and LSU up one. How can you not punish Bama?

Well, data doesn't reward or punish, respect or disrespect. If a team performs differently from the model's expectations, the model adjusts that team's rating. If a team continues to exceed the model's expectations, it'll continually adjust the rating.  I still have LSU below (but very close to) Alabama. That means if they played again I'd still have Bama as a small favorite. Especially with a health Tua. I think that's where the oddsmakers would be too.

 For Baylor and Minnesota, the concept is the same, I've continued to move up their ratings all season, and each have at least one impressive win (I particularly enjoyed Minnesota's last week) the simple fact is they actually are both underdogs to OU and Iowa respectively.

College Football Week 11

The battles of the 8-0 teams is here.

This week we get to watch Minnesota vs. Penn State, then jump right into LSU- Bama. All 4 teams are 8-0 and right in the hunt for the national title.

It's worth pausing to discuss why neither has the top Watchability score. The short explanation is that Watchability doesn't factor in CFP / Bowl / Conf Title Leverage. All it does is look at how good the two teams are, and how close the game is likely to be. 

In the case of this week, I've got Bama and Penn State both around 80% to win their games. Which means we could see some very exciting games, but we also might see a 17 point snoozer. I realize it's a bit unusual to not have those games at the top, and I considered adding in some kind of leverage calculation, but ultimately only one team can win the Natty, and college football wouldn't be fun if that were all that mattered. So I will continue to let Watchability be ignorant of playoff context, and let the GOTW data on the RHS speak to CFP / Bowl / Conference Title Leverage.

Happy Football.

College Football Week 10

Quite a precipitous fall for OU after their shocker to K-state. I was looking at their dashboard, and the loss really did drop their CFP chances - to around 5%. That felt low to me, but it makes sense looking at the rest of their schedule. They don't have a single gimme game left, and in fact I think it's more likely they have at least one loss than run the table.

Before K-state, they might have had wiggle room to absorb a loss, now they don't. Then even if they do win out, they have to argue they are more deserving than 1-loss Bama / LSU.

It was an amazing game, against K-State though.

Looking ahead, it's a pivotal week for the Pac-12 South, the two contenders (Utah, USC) have two strong opponents (Washington, Oregon) so fortunes could swing quite a bit. In SEC we've got Georgia vs. Florida, and every SMU game is much watch at this point!

College Football Week 9

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

I'll be in Vegas this weekend, betting on my model, playing poker, and sweating all my bets. I'm feeling pretty excited about the slate of games on for my trip, Wisconsin's recent downfall notwithstanding. Ohio State - Wisconsin even fell off the top 10 games, dropping to a Watchability score of 56. Even though Ohio State are two TD favorites, and could run away with the game, it obviously would be a huge shake-up if Wisky were to pull off the upset.

As an aside last trip to Vegas I made a large bet on Ohio State -400 to beat Maryland(!!!) and had to sweat it allll the way to the end, when Maryland missed a 2point conversion in OT. Model likes a bet on Ohio State this game too, we'll see if I take the plunge again.

Lots of other fun to be had this week, LSU gets another real test, as do Notre Dame and Penn State, and I get a test to see how well I remember 20/40 holdem.

Game times can and will change during the week, I usually re-check toward the end of the week and update, but double check times for yourself.

Enjoy the week!