Hey there guys,
I am a huge college football enthusiast. I grew up in the Southeastern United States so I know what it's like to wake up on Saturday and prepare for a game like it's the second coming of Jesus, then emotionally invest myself into 60 minutes of football more than all other relationships combined. Ever.
I have learned to subdue my emotions, a little bit, and focus on a more widespread vision of college football. Primarily the SEC.
I am a student at the University of Mississippi, and while sports will always be my first love, I am the News Editor at The Daily Mississippian, the student newspaper.
I am a numbers nerd. I have created my own database of statistics which I keep myself. I do my best to watch every SEC game, though I never sit through commercials, always having a backup game at the ready. I read through every official box score at the end of the game so that I can understand the game, the feel and the numbers, as best possible. I find those odd statistics that your regular football "experts" don't ever find.
For four years (began in '07) I posted preseason predictions of the major conferences (BCS). In 2011 I will only post the SEC, because I am narrowing my focus since I have a full-time job and am a full-time student.
This will be my fifth year to predict every game in college football week in and week out. I do it for fun, but I have been told on several occasions that I seem to be pretty good at it.
In '07, the only year that I did not use a calculation, I picked correctly 68% of the time. My preseason predictions would have finished fifth out of 15 magazines/websites, based off Stassen.com's point system.
In '08 I began to use a calculation, at the time it was based off of a simple power ranking where I subtracted their overall rank and adjusted for home/away. I was correct 78% of the time, finishing second for my preseason predictions. In '09 I began to use a very simple calculation that took a teams points per game on offense and defense in certain situations (Home/Away, Grass/Turf, vs. Conf/vs. Non-Conf, etc.) and compared that to their opponents. I was correct 76% of the time and posted the most accurate preseason predictions.
Based off that success I started up this website in January of 2010. My calculation evolved, adding more situations and more numbers. I went from predicting just a score to predicting a miniature box score, including passing and rushing yards. I had my most successful week-to-week predictions upping my success to 79%. My preseason predictions finished third.
As I have stated before, in 2011 my focus will shift to the SEC because of time constraints. However, I will still post week-to-week predictions. In the SEC I have evolved my main calculation into eight different calculations! For games involving top 25 teams I will use '10s calculation, and everyone else will use '09s. Therefore I may not be as accurate overall as I was in '10.
My plan for the future is to eventually publish a magazine that posts numbers and predictions that rival that of Phill Steele, who publishes the magazine which inspired me to begin writing about college football in the first place.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)