Some Blog Site

Okay, okay, it is 2013 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2012 because they match with the 2012 predictions made in 2012 for the 2012 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2012”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.

Results

Here is the list (correct predictions in green, incorrect in red):

Arizona over Nevada

Utah St. over Toledo

San Diego St. over BYU

Central Florida over Ball St.

Louisiana-Lafayette over East Carolina

Boise St.over Washington

Fresno St. over SMU

Western Kentucky over Central Michigan

Cincinnati over Duke

San Jose St. over Bowling Green

UCLA over Baylor

Rutgers over Virginia Tech

Texas Tech over Minnesota

Ohio over Louisiana-Monroe

Oregon St. over Texas

Air Force over Rice

West Virginia over Syracuse

Arizona St. over Navy

TCU over Michigan St.

Southern Cal over Georgia Tech

Vanderbilt over N. Carolina St.

Iowa St. over Tulsa

LSU over Clemson

Oklahoma St. over Purdue

Michigan over South Carolina

Georgia over Nebraska

Northwestern over Mississippi St.

Stanford over Wisconsin

Florida St. over Northern Illinois

Florida over Louisville

Kansas St. over Oregon

Texas A&M over Oklahoma

Pitt over Mississippi

Arkansas St. over Kent St.

Notre Dame over Alabama

And here are the results of the various forecasting methodologies (see the first year for description of the methodologies) (also, use the word methodologies if you want to sound important; methods would work just as well and is shorter) :

• Some Blog Site picks were 18-17 (worse than last year)
• CBS120 picks were 19-16
• HTW was 21-14 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
• HTW was 24-11 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
• Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 17-18 if using HTW
• ITP was 19-16 if using GHT

I won’t analyze the results as much as I did last year, mainly because I had more time and more sleep last year. But it was a good year all predictors – every method was over 50%. I just need to figure how to better predict outcomes. Especially against the spread.

Thoughts on the season’s results

1. That was a nice playoff round. Now let’s have the championship game between Alabama and Texas A&M. I know the BCS has Oregon as the number 2 team, but I think the Aggies could beat the Ducks. Too bad we’ll never know…
2. You know what? – we should just skip the national championship game and give the title to the winner of the SEC again. I predicted as much last year, so let’s keep the streak going.

Conferences

Since the strength of the conference has something to do with the results, I thought I would tally each conference’s bowl game record for the 2012 (and the first bit of 2013) season.

• ACC: 4-2
• Big 10: 2-5
• Big 12: 4-5
• Big East: 3-2
• Independent: 1-2
• MAC: 2-5
• MW: 1-4
• PAC12: 4-4
• SEC: 6-3
• Sun Belt: 2-2
• USA: 4-1
• WAC: 2-0

So the best conference was the WAC (they won 100% of their bowl games) and the worst was the Mountain West (at 20% – if you are not Boise St., then you didn’t win).

Or maybe the WAC is the worst conference because they sent the fewest teams to bowl games again this year.

Perhaps you could say that the Big 12 and SEC were the best because they had 9 teams go to bowls. Or you could say they were just the most popular conferences.

Perhaps you could say that the SEC was the best because they won the championship (again). Or maybe the SEC is the best because they won the most bowls (at 6).

I don’t know what happened to the MWC. They used to win their bowl games, and Boise St. was supposed to strengthen the conference. They ended below 0.500 in bowls this year again.

Since the conferences are going to change slightly for next football season, who knows which the strong bowl conferences will be? But if I must predict, I’m saying Conf. USA will win 80% of its bowl games again. I’ll also make the standard prediction that the SEC will win the BCS again.