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The last time I added a method of predicting the winners of NFL games, it wasn’t all that impressive. That was YPP, and it was not an improvement over MPW.

MPW has been the leading indicator for the last few years, better than any other automated, statistics-based predictors.

But now MPW is pushed to second place, because MPWHFA has taken the lead.

I added MPWHFA (and its results) to the list of NFL game-predicting methods.

It wasn’t just slightly better than the old leader – it averaged a full percentage point better.

Of course, that’s not entirely fair to MPW. HFA stands for “Home-Field Advantage”, and MPWHFA is really just an improved version of MPW. Take MPW, add a few points to the home team, and see which team has the larger number. That team should be the winner.

Next step: predicting not just the winner, but also the point spread. MPWHFA does that too (and at around a 60% success rate, I might add). MPW and MPWHFA are based on net points. That should be all you need to know to figure out point-spread predictions.

Enjoy!

Since there is some debate about the best way to measure who won the Olympics (correct answer: “We all did”), I thought I would prepare the results using several different methods so that various countries could claim to be the winners.

Usually, there is some sort of debate as to whether the winner should be the country with the most gold medals or the country with the most total medals. In keeping with Soviet tradition, these Olympics removed the options and give you only one choice: Russia. No debate necessary.

Since there are too much data to put into one post, I’ll summarize the results in this post and also point to another page that contains the unsummarized data.

Summary: The Netherlands won the 2014 Olympic games.

I prefer to normalize the Olympic rankings by athletes or, as they are sometimes called, delegates. How many contestants did a country send to win medals? And how many medals did they win? It’s more of an efficiency rating, but I think it is better than comparing medals to the general population.

When one adjusts the points total by number of athletes sent to the Winter Olympics, The Netherlands is the winner. They and Belarus were the only countries to earn more than one point per athlete or, as I ranked them, less than one athlete per point.

For the complete data, please view the charts on the 2014 Olympics Results page.

For those of you not familiar with the story of the indirect conversation between Richard Sherman and Peyton Manning, please read this article about how Peyton Manning throws ducks.

As you may have heard, Peyton Manning admitted he throws ducks. I found it odd there was no footage of this, so I went about my blogging business and got some footage.

It could use some more frames, to make the animation smoother, but I don’t have that much free time. Someone else can improve it.

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.

The 2013 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results:

• ITP: 61%
• MPW: 61%
• HTW: 60%

ITP is listed first because it was one game better than MPW – the first year that MPW or MYW did not win.

This year saw the addition of YPP to the prediction methods. “YPP” stands for Yards Per Point and contends that the team that will win is the team that is most efficient at converting yards into points. It fared okay, not good but not bad either. (For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Okay, okay, it is 2014 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2013 because they match with the 2013 predictions made in 2013 for the 2013 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 2013”.

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):

Washington. St. over Colorado St.

USC over Fresno St.

San Diego St. over Buffalo

Tulane over ULL

East Carolina over Ohio

Oregon St. over Boise St.

Bowling Green over Pitt

Northern Illinois over Utah St.

Marshall over Maryland

Minnesota over Syracuse

Washington over BYU

Notre Dame over Rutgers

Cincinnati over UNC

Louisville over Miami

Michigan over Kansas St.

Navy over Middle Tennessee St.

Georgia Tech over Ole Miss

Oregon over Texas

Arizona St. over Texas Tech

Boston College over Arizona

UCLA over Virginia Tech

Mississippi St. over Rice

Texas A&M over Duke

Georgia over Nebraska

UNLV over N. Texas

South Carolina over Wisconsin

LSU over Iowa

Michigan St. over Stanford

Baylor over Central Florida

Alabama over Oklahoma

Missouri over Oklahoma St.

Clemson over Ohio St.

Vanderbilt over Houston

Ball St. over Arkansas St.

Florida St. over Auburn

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 20-15 (better than last year)
• CBS120 picks were 20-15
• HTW was 20-15 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
• HTW was 20-15 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
• Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 18-17 if using HTW
• ITP was 18-17 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 Michigan State and Florida State. I know the BCS has Auburn as the number 2 team, but it’s the playoffs – lose and you’re out. Too bad we’ll never know…
2. Remember what I said about the SEC last year? No? Good. Never mind.

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 2013 (and the first bit of 2014) season.

• AAC: 4-3
• ACC: 3-6
• Big 10: 2-5
• Big 12: 3-3
• Independent: 2-1
• MAC: 0-5
• MW: 3-3
• PAC12: 6-3
• SEC: 7-3
• Sun Belt: 3-1
• USA: 2-2

So the best conference was the Sun Belt (they won 75% of their bowl games) and the worst was the MAC (at 0%).

Or maybe the Sun Belt and Conf USA are the worst conferences because they sent the fewest teams to bowl games again this year.

Perhaps you could say that the SEC was the best because they had 10 teams go to bowls. Or you could say they were just the most popular conference.

Perhaps you could say that the ACC was the best because they won the championship. Or maybe the SEC is the best because they won the most bowls (at 7).

I don’t know what happened to the MAC. It’s hard to lose all 5 bowl games. At least they have company with the Big Ten and their 5 losses.

Next year: playoffs! Maybe I’ll get to put a bracket together. Don’t worry – there will still be plenty of meaningless bowl games to predict too.

Based on the popularity existence of last year’s article predicting bowl games in haiku form, I present to you this year’s all-haiku bowl game predictions. Still America’s only all-haiku college football bowl game predictions.

These are listed in order of date (earliest first). Some picks are whom I think will win, and some picks are whom I want to win. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide which is which.
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I thought about what I sometimes do as a dad, and then for some reason I wondered how to make it a competition. If there were Olympic events for dad activities, here are some possibilities:

1. Throwing Height – tossing your 35-lb. child into the air (and catching him). Contestants are ranked by highest toss.

2. Throwing Reps – tossing your 35-lb. child into the air (and catching him). A toss must be at least two feet into the air to count. Contestants are ranked by number of reps.

3. Crib Crawl – You need something that was left under the crib of the sleeping baby. You must open the creaky door, walk to the crib (avoiding any noisy toys scattered on the floor), reach all the way under the crib to retrieve the item, and make your way back out. The child must remain asleep for at least 10 seconds after you shut the door in order for the attempt to count. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

4. Back Breaker – While standing, you load as many children as you can on your torso (on your back, on your shoulders, in your arms). Each child must be touching only you or another child who is on you. Only your feet may touch the ground. Contestants are ranked by amount of weight carried.

5. Loaded Race – Load a 50-lb. child on your back and carry a 20-lb. child in each arm. Run 100 yards. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

6. Stroller Push – Load a 30-lb. child in a standard umbrella-type stroller. Push the stroller for up to 10 yards before letting go (before the foul line). Stroller must remain on the track for the push to count. Contestants are ranked by longest distance of stroller travel.

7. Stroller Race – Load a 30-lb. child in a standard umbrella-type stroller. Run for 2 miles while pushing the stroller. At least one hand must be touching the stroller at all times. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

8. Unloading Race – There are 3 sleeping children (50 lbs, 30 lbs, and 20 lbs) buckled in car seats in a minivan. You must put each one in the correct bed with the correct blanket and teddy bear (all of which are tossed in the back of the minivan). You may unload the children in any order, but you may not unload another child if any child inside the house is awake (you must get him back to sleep first). Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

I was going to make it 10 events (a dadecathlon), but I wasn’t happy with anything else I came up with. Leave a comment if you have any ideas for the final 2 events.