Bowl Week 1 Predictions

 

Predictions for Bowl week 1. The Aggregate likes most of  the favorites in week one of the college bowl season. It does predict one victory for a non power 4 team over a power 4 team, but see's another non-power 4 team, who spent a good deal of the year ranked in the top 25, as a loser to a 6-6 power 4 squad. It also doesn't see any of the CFP games as being particularly close. 

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The Aggregate is picking the Memphis Tigers to beat West Virginia on Tuesday in the Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl. The Mountaineers were originally the favorites in this game as shown below, but that is no longer the case. DraftKings now has Memphis -190. West Virginia was the better team this season, but they are hemorrhaging after losing their head coach. In addition to their head coach the team will not have 11 of their players or their former defensive coordinator. The Aggregate has them at about 60% of their regular season strength. 

The Aggregate is picking #24 UNLV to lose to the Cal Golden Bears. The Aggregate is predicting that the loss of head coach Barry Odom will be too much for the Runnin Rebels. This all despite Cal's loss of their starting quarterback, Fernando Mendoza who is in the transfer portal. 

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The Aggregate isn't predicting any of the CFP games to be closer than six points and it's giving the all the favorites at least a 63% chance of winning their game. Texas is the biggest favorite with a 76.5% chance to win and Penn State is the weakest favorite at just a 63.3% chance to win. e. 

Saturday, December 14th
Army	11-1	36	59.0%	-6.5		-245
Navy	8-3	30	41.0%	+6.5	39	+200
Western Michigan	6-6	28	26.6%	+10.0		+300
South Alabama	6-6	40	73.4%	-10.0	59.5	-380
Tuesday, December 17th
Memphis	10-2	38	59.8%	+1.5		-102
West Virginia	6-6	31	40.2%	-1.5	56.5	-118
Wednesday, December 18th
Western Kentucky	8-5	31	36.3%	+3.0		+124
James Madison	8-4	39	63.7%	-3.0	53.5	-148
California	6-6	31	54.9%	-1.5		-120
Nevada-Las Vegas	10-3	29	45.1%	+1.5	51.5	even
Thursday, December 19th
Georgia Southern	8-4	31	74.0%	-4.5		-180
Sam Houston	9-3	21	26.0%	+4.5	46.5	+150
Friday, December 20th
Ohio	10-3	36	54.6%	-2.5		-130
Jacksonville State	9-4	35	45.4%	+2.5	52	+110
Tulane	9-4	31	37.9%	+9.5		+260
Florida	7-5	36	62.1%	-9.5	49.5	-325
Indiana	11-1	31	30.2%	+8.5		+245
Notre Dame	11-1	42	69.8%	-8.5	51.5	-305
Saturday, December 21st
Southern Methodist	11-2	24	36.7%	+8.0		+240
Penn State	11-2	34	63.3%	-8.0	52.5	-298
Clemson	10-3	20	23.5%	+10.5		+310
Texas	11-2	35	76.5%	-10.5	53.5	-395
Tennessee	10-2	31	34.9%	+7.0		+195
Ohio State	10-2	37	65.1%	-7.0	46.5	-238

Week 4 Betting Results

                                                                                                                                             

The Aggregate's week four results are in. We were unfortunately not able to publish our predictions for week 4 of the college football season, but we did make them. We should be able to publish them for this coming week even if we aren't able to mass advertise them yet. Without further ado here are the results.

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Overall:

The Aggregate: 45-18 (71.4%)

The Aggregate's main predictor. If a team has a 50.1% chance to win according to the Aggregate then they fit into this category. The only game the Aggregate didn't predict this week was the Texas Tech vs. California game as they both had a 50.0% chance to win.

ESPN's FPI: 49-14 (77.8%)

Taken off of ESPN's website. It should be noted ESPN had the worst cumulative rate last year, but early this year is leading.

W-L: 37-27 (57.8%)

We track this because it's often suggested that the most important information when predicting games is a teams win loss ratio. This is often not actually the case, but it's good to have the data to back that up. When teams have an equal record than the second decider is home field advantage.

Jeff Sagarin: 42-22 (65.6%)

By far the best predictor last year as it was at an over 80% hit rate going into the college bowl season. It is definitely a surprise to see it as the low man after one week. It will be interesting to see if this changes throughout the season. 

Vegas's Betting Line: 39-14 (73.6%)

Vegas had the almost the worst percentage last year, but has a good start this season. It should be noted that there are less games here because when we pulled the numbers there were still certain games the Vegas sites we follow had not posted a line for. 

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Summary:

ESPN's FPI has been the best indicator through this week. It will be interesting to see if that continues as it finished both behind the Aggregate and Jeff Sagarin's ratings last year. It is at least possible to think that ESPN's metric is better with limited data than the Aggregate or Jeff Sagarin's as last years data was more from the back half of the season then the front. 

Also Vegas's betting line did very well. Better than the Aggregate which is exactly opposite of what our goal is here. The fact that the Aggregate out performed the Vegas betting line was one of the reasons we decided to actually invest in this betting scheme this college football season. However, because of the way we are betting we still made out more details on that below.

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Betting Results:

The Aggregate made 11 bets for the fourth week of college football. We put money on 10 games in which the Aggregate had predicted at least an 80% chance or better for a team to win. We then more then doubled the money in three games in which the Aggregate saw a 90% chance or better. We also made one parlay bet that included four money line bets on teams in which the Aggregate saw one team as a 90% chance or better. 

We won 8 out of the 10 single game bets and won the parlay bet. As a result we came out ahead and made about a 6.5% gain on our money for the week. Unfortunately because of a dismal week 0 we are still down about 10% on our total money. 

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Single Game Bets:

LSU over UCLA

Chance to win: 96.7%

Money line: -2100

Gain %: 2.9%

Duke over MTSU

Chance to win: 91.7%

Money line: -600

Gain %: 15.2%

Miami (FL) over USF

Chance to win: 100%

Money line: -850

Gain %: 11.8%

Mizzou over Vandy

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -1200

Gain %: 7.1%

Sam Houston over New Mexico

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -850

% Change: 7.1%

Kansas State over Brigham Young

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -225

% Change: 4.8% (total)

Clemson over NC State

Chance to win: 88%

Money line: -1200

% Change: 7.1%

Memphis over Navy

Chance to win: 88%

Money line: -355

% Change: 4.8% (total)

Kentucky over Ohio

Chance to win: 86.1% 

Money line: -1350

% Change: 7.1%

Fresno State over New Mexico

Chance to win: 86.1%

Money line: -600

% Change: 14.3%

Parlay

Miami over USF

Duke over MTSU

LSU over UCLA

Indiana over Charlotte (100%)

Money line: -263

Return on Investment: 38.3%

Total

90% Single game picks: 3/3 

ROI: 8.9%

Remaining Single game picks: 5/7

ROI: 10.2%

Parlay: 1/1

ROI: 38.3%

Total: 9/11

ROI: 6.6%

American Athletic Conference Coaches Adjusted Winning Percentages

I've often felt that winning percentage is not a great look at how good coaches actually perform as it does not factor in a multitude of items including environment, player talent and competition. As a result I devised a formula to try and tackle some of that problem and give a more accurate portrayal of what part of the wins and losses the head coach was responsible for. 

This metric, the adjusted win percentage for FBS coaches, tries to take into account at least the players that each coach is responsible for. For example when a new head coach wins in their very first year the credit only lies somewhat with them. Many of the players they are winning with were recruited by the previous staff. Often these coaches go on to not be successful in the long term. The best examples I can think of are Ed Orgeron at LSU or Gene Chizik at Auburn. Both should be noted actually had their best year a few years in, but neither lasted after a prolonged time. On the flip side new coaches often lose heavily in their first year because it takes time to recruit and install new systems and to get a full buy-in from players. Think Sabin's first year at Alabama or Bobby Petrino's first at Arkansas.

The basic thrust of the formula is this, the longer a coach has coached a team the more accountable he is for their wins and losses. The transfer portal has changed some of this in that the formula now holds coaches more accountable sooner. Gone are the days when you had four years to show some results.

Special notes, these statistics are based on fbs wins and losses only. The time period for the coaches is endless so all the coaches years are included, but it is only an evaluation of current coaches not coaches from the past.

We get to the fifth in our series the American Athletic Conference. The American was the 7th highest rated conference last season, but lost it's highest rated team in SMU. We'll see how the conference does without them. It certainly looks healthy though. Jon Sumrall leads the adjusted win percentage after two great years at Troy. Sumrall, the new coach at Tulane, has an adjusted win percentage of 85%. Also at the top are perennial contender Jeff Traylor (76%) at UTSA and former Houston and Texas head coach Tom Herman (65%) who is in his second year at Florida Atlantic. Full results are below.

AAC Coaches	Team	W	L	W Pct
Jon Sumrall	Tulane	17	3	85.0%
Jeff Traylor	UTSA	35.5	11.5	75.5%
Tom Herman	FAU	31.5	17.25	64.6%
Ryan Silverfield	Memphis	27	16.5	62.1%
Jeff Monken	Army	64	42.75	60.0%
Alex Golesh	USF	3.5	3	53.8%
Mike Houston	East Carolina	22	30	42.3%
Eric Morris	UNT	2.5	3.5	41.7%
Brian Newberry	Navy	2.5	3.5	41.7%
Kevin Wilson	Tulsa	24	37	39.3%
Mike Bloomgren	Rice	19	35.5	34.9%
Trent Dilfer	UAB	2	4	33.3%
Biff Poggi	Charlotte	1.5	4.5	25.0%
Stan Drayton	Temple	4.5	13.5	25.0%

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American Athletic Conference End of Year Rankings

 The American Conference finished the college football season in a pretty good place, but they lose their best team next year to the ACC. After the bowl season UTSA moved up one spot over Tulane. USF jumped three spots after their blow out win against Syracuse. 

Aggregate Predictions for Games December 29th

The Aggregate predictions for December 29th. The Aggregate likes every one, but one favorite. It favors Ohio State above Missouri. The Tigers are 10-2, but the Aggregate has been very slow to value them. It sees Mizzou losing by 14 to Ohio State. The Aggregate also likes Clemson by 13 compared to the Vegas line of 4. It's almost perfectly in line with Vegas in the other two games though picking Notre Dame by 7, they're a 6.5 point favorite and Iowa State by 8, Vegas has them as an 8.5 point favorite.