2023: Bowl Picks

My school has an intramural event for bowl picks that uses the ESPN site to organize bowl-selection competitions, which looks like part of their fantasy sports site.  In the site, you can pick a winner for each of the games, and then order how confident you are in each.  There are 43 games, so 43 slots for your confidence, each with the index of that slot for the points you earn if your pick is correct.

Well, I tried out a few options and got better results that what I had in my last post.  Then I used the ratings to figure out who I thought would win each game.  I then sorted that list by the difference in ratings.  A higher difference means I think that team is more likely to win, so I put those in the slots that yield more points.

Here is my list, from least points (1) to most points (43).  The team in all caps is the team I picked to win.  (If the chosen team name is already an acronym, then I put stars around it to be more clear.)

1. *UCF* v Georgia Tech 
   
2. Texas Tech v CALIFORNIA 
3. SAN JOSE ST v Coastal Carolina 
4. Utah St. v GEORGIA ST 
5. WYOMING v Toledo 
6. NOTRE DAME v Oregon St 
7. NORTHERN ILLINOIS v Arkansas St 
8. KANSAS ST v NC State 
9. LOUISIANA v Jacksonville St. 
10. Boise St. v *UCLA* 
11. OHIO U v GA Southern 
12. MARSHALL v UTSA 
13. WASHINGTON v Texas 
14. Florida A&M v HOWARD 
15. OKLAHOMA v Arizona 
16. Rice v TEXAS STATE 
17. APPALACHIAN ST. v Miami OH 
18. MINNESOTA v Bowling Green 
19. MARYLAND v Auburn 
20. OLD DOMINION v WKU 
21. *LSU* v Wisconsin 
22. FRESNO ST v New Mexico St. 
23. Tennessee v IOWA 
24. BOSTON COLLEGE v SMU 
25. National Championship Game:
    (Michigan v Alabama winner) v (WASHINGTON v TEXAS WINNER)
    
26. West Virginia v NORTH CAROLINA 
27. Northwestern v UTAH 
28. DUKE v Troy 
29. Tulane v VIRGINIA TECH 
30. MICHIGAN v Alabama 
31. Air Force v JAMES MADISON 
32. SYRACUSE v USF 
33. OKLAHOMA ST v Texas A&M 
34. PENN STATE v Ole Miss 
35. Eastern Michigan v SOUTH ALABAMA 
36. OHIO STATE v Mizzou 
37. MIAMI FL v Rutgers 
38. FLORIDA ST v Georgia 
39. LOUISVILLE v USC 
40. Kentucky v CLEMSON 
41. IOWA STATE v Memphis 
42. UNLV v KANSAS 
43. OREGON v Liberty

Technically I think I can change any of these up until close to the time of the game.  If I were really optimizing this, then I'd review after each game and see if there's any changes I should make.  I don't think I'll actually be putting that much effort into it, though!

Wish me luck!

2023: Week 14 (Conference Championships)

2023 is the last year of the four-team playoffs (and the PAC-12, sadly).  So, of course there was going to be a lot of drama picking the four teams that will go to the playoffs.  Conference Championships were yesterday.  The playoff committee made their picks known today:

1. Michigan (13-0, Big Ten champions)
2. Washington (13-0, PAC-12 champions)
3. Texas (12-1, Big-12 champions)
4. Alabama (12-1, SEC champions)
5. (Didn't make it) Florida State (13-0, ACC champions)
6. (Didn't make it) Georgia (12-1, lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game)

There's quite a bit of furor about putting Alabama over Florida State.  I won't get into all the controversy, though I disagreed that Michigan should be above Washington.  But, let's see what my (buggy) ranker says!  I stuck with the parameters from before: 35 max point differential and using the quarter-circle function.

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 722 of 4160 games (17.35576923076923%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 7618 (8.853918480724305% of total margin points)

That is an improvement from last week!  Let's see how the top 25 shook out:

1. Washington
2. Florida St
3. Texas
4. Oregon
5. Michigan
6. Louisville
7. Ohio State
8. Oklahoma
9. Penn State
10. Notre Dame
11. Arizona
12. Alabama
13. North Carolina St
14. Oregon St
15. Georgia
16. Kansas St
17. Duke
18. Clemson
19. North Carolina
20. Oklahoma St
21. James Madison
22. Kutztown
23. Kansas
24. Miami FL
25. LSU

There's one obvious outlier in Kutztown, but otherwise I think this is pretty good.  I am looking forward to rerunning things from this season once I get this ranker working better!

 

2023: Week 13

Rivalry (Hate) Week has come and gone.  After some big games, the rankings look really good now.  

Important note: I noticed that the radio options actually have the Square Root function as the default, not the Quarter-circle.  I don't know at which point I reset my browser, so it's possible that some of the prior weeks were using the Square Root function instead of Quarter circle.  

For this week, I have switched back to quarter-circle, but kept the max victory margin at 35.

My upset stats are even worse this week:

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 724 of 4126 games (17.547261269995154%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 7655 (8.95510165882876% of total margin points)

And then there was stuff after the table...

But the rankings are really good!  Definitely teams that I would think should be near the top.  The only real surprise is how far down Georgia is.  (They are currently ranked #1.)

1. Washington
2. Oregon
3. Florida St.
4. Louisville
5. Michigan
6. Texas
7. Ohio State
8. Oklahoma
9. Penn State
10. Notre Dame
11. Georgia
12. Arizona
13. North Carolina St
14. Oregon St
15. Kansas St
16. Duke
17. Alabama
18. Oklahoma St
19. Clemson
20. North Carolina
21. Iowa
22. James Madison
23. Kansas
24. Miami FL
25. LSU
     

 

2023: Week 12

We finally got there!  It only took 12 weeks. Washington is on top!

I used the default values (again) and the upset results are actually worse than last week, both in percentage of upsets and margin of victory points:

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 714 of 4027 games (17.730320337720386%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 7695 (9.175241751821336% of total margin points)

The entire top 25 now consists of actual good D1 schools.  Here we go:

1. Washington
2. Oregon
3. Texas
4. Ohio State
5. Louisville
6. Florida St
7. Michigan
8. Kansas St
9. Oklahoma
10. Penn State
11. Oregon St
12. Arizona
13. Notre Dame
14. Oklahoma St
15. Georgia
16. Alabama
17. Kansas
18. North Carolina
19. Clemson
20. Duke
21. Southern Cal
22. UCLA
23. Iowa
24. North Carolina St
25. Missouri
    

It's plainly obvious that I have a lot of work to do to 

• Improve the interface
• Improve the algorithm
• Incorporate overtime

I'm really glad it actually converges, even if this year it took nearly all year to do so.  I don't think it took this long in years past.  Perhaps now there's less overlap between D1 and D2 schools. 

2023: Week 11

The Week 11 results are just more evidence that I have work to do to improve the ranking.  (Or maybe I should ditch the defaults.)

The ranking converged in 574 rounds, similar to last week.  Unfortunately, the results are worse: the only reasonable team in the Top 25 is at number 18.  The upset stats are just about the same, though:

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 655 of 3851 games (17.008569202804466%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 6733 (8.352768955934895% of total margin points)

Here are the top 25.  As normal, you can try to do better here: http://kyleburke.info/collegeFootball/cfbRanking.php

1. Kutztown
2. Shepherd
3. East Stroudsburg
4. Slippery Rock
5. California PA
6. New Haven
7. Indiana PA
8. Bentley
9. West Chester
10. Assumption
11. Millersville
12. Lock Haven
13. St Anselm
14. Bloomsburg
15. Shippensburg
16. Seton Hill
17. Gannon
18. Florida St
19. Southern Conn St
20. Texas
21. Michigan
22. Washington
23. Ohio State
24. Oregon
25. Louisville
    

2023: Week 10

Using the default, the algorithm converged in 565 rounds for this week.  (I wasn't tracking that stat for the prior weeks.)  We now have a top 25 with a lot of reasonable teams, though the top few are still awkward.  

Here are the upset stats:

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 600 of 3501 games (17.13796058269066%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 6030 (8.25914258320778% of total margin points)

These got even worse from the last week, so I'm confident someone can come up with a better one.  Try it out here: http://kyleburke.info/collegeFootball/cfbRanking.php

Here are my week 10 top 25:

1. Shepherd
2. Kutztown
3. Slippery Rock
4. East Stroudsburg
5. California PA
6. West Chester
7. Bentley
8. Millersville
9. New Haven
10. Bloomsburg
11. Lock Haven
12. Indiana PA
13. Assumption
14. Texas
15. Florida St
16. Ohio State
17. St Anselm
18. Louisville
19. Penn State
20. Alabama
21. Shippensburg
22. Gannon
23. Washington
24. Michigan
25. Oregon

Let me know what kind of results you get!

2023: Week 9

I'm using the default values again.  Here's what I got:

Ranking Stats

Upsets: 544 of 3139 games (17.33035998725709%)
Margins of Victory in upsets: 5484 (8.309468612209645% of total margin points)

The percentages are a bit worse, so I'm sure there's a better configuration out there.  Try it out yourself at: http://kyleburke.info/collegeFootball/cfbRanking.php.

The top teams are very similar:

1. Slippery Rock  (+0)
   
2. Kutztown  (up 1)
   
3. East Stroudsburg  (up 2)
   
4. Shepherd  (down 2)
   
5. California PA  (down 1)
   
6. Millersville  (up 2)
   
7. West Chester  (up 8)
   
8. Indiana PA  (down 2)
   
9. Assumption  (down 2)
   
10. New Haven  (up 4)
    
11. Bloomsburg  (new to the top 25)
    
12. Gannon  (up 7)
    
13. Lock Haven  (down 1)
    
14. Shippensburg  (up 4)
    
15. Bentley  (up 6)
    
16. Charleston WV  (new)
    
17. Ohio State  (down 6)
    
18. Texas  (down 9)
    
19. St Anselm  (down 3)
    
20. Frostburg St  (new)
    
21. Florida St  (down 11)
    
22. Seton Hill  (new)
    
23. Oregon  (new)
    
24. Penn State  (down 11)
    
25. Washington  (down 2)
    

I bet there's a better configuration that has more meaningful results.