An interesting thing happened while making my pre-season projections; so far, I'm eight for eight both in winners (which is easy this time of year) as well as against the spread (which is never easy).
That's a 1-in-256 chance. Now, you can flip a coin and expect occasional runs of 10 tails in a row, but I think I may be on to something here. The first games of the year can be very uncertain, and no one's seen these teams yet. Most people (myself included) who used power ratings have to wait for a few weeks of play for them to come together. The first few weeks are considered expendable or useless for these types of systems; and after that, everyone uses a variation of the same thing, so the Vegas lines tend to be close to any good power rating. Now I'm wondering if I'm not onto something here: that my pre-season formulas are more accurate than the Vegas forecasters?
Many have had the same folly and lost a lot due to it. To test this theory I'm going to pick all of the remaining weekend games below, and see if my good results continue. If they do, I'm going to make a trip to Vegas next year at this time. Faves are in green and *asterisked* in the underdog column if they are also my winner.
Saturday, Aug 30
Favorite Line Underdog
at Arizona 27 Idaho
at Auburn 26 Louisiana-Monroe
Boston College 9 1/2 at Kent State
at California 5 Michigan State
at Clemson 4 1/2 Alabama
at Florida 34 1/2 Hawaii
at Indiana 20 1/2 Western Kentucky
at Kansas 36 Florida International
at Kansas St 26 North Texas
at Michigan 3 *Utah*
at Minnesota 8 1/2 Northern Illinois
at Mississippi 7 1/2 Memphis
Mississippi St 8 at Louisiana Tech
at Missouri 9 Illinois
at Nebraska[15] 14 1/2 Western Michigan ; very tight
at Northwestern 11 1/2 Syracuse
Oklahoma State 7 at Washington State
at Oregon 13 1/2 Washington
at Pittsburgh 13 Bowling Green
at S. Miss 10 1/2 Louisiana-Lafayette
TCU 6 1/2 at New Mexico ; on the line
at Texas 24 Florida Atlantic
at Texas A&M 19 Arkansas State
Tulsa 13 at UAB
at UNLV 12 1/2 Utah State
USC 19 1/2 at Virginia
Virginia Tech 9 1/2 at East Carolina
at Wisconsin 26 1/2 Akron ; on the line
at Wyoming 11 Ohio ; very tight
Sunday, Aug 31
Favorite Spread Underdog
at Colorado 11 Colorado State
at Louisville 3 1/2 *Kentucky*
Monday, Sep 1
Favorite Spread Underdog
at Rutgers 5 Fresno State
Tennessee 7 1/2 at UCLA
Comments