This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
All-Haiku Bowl Results, 2014
Jan
15
2015
Okay, okay, it is 2015 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2014 because they match with the 2014 predictions made in 2014 for the 2014 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 2014”.
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):
Nevada over ULL
Utah State over UTEP
Colorado State over Utah
Air Force over Western Michigan
South Alabama over Bowling Green
Memphis over BYU
Marshall over N. Illinois
San Diego State over Navy
Western Kentucky over Central Michigan
Rice over Fresno State
Louisiana Tech over Illinois
Rutgers over North Carolina
NC State over UCF
Virginia Tech over Cincinnati
Arizona State over Duke
Miami over South Carolina
Boston College over Penn State
USC over Nebraska
West Virginia over Texas A&M
Oklahoma over Clemson
Arkansas over Texas
LSU over Notre Dame
Georgia over Louisville
Stanford over Maryland
TCU over Ole Miss
Boise State over Arizona
Mississippi State over Georgia Tech
Auburn over Wisconsin
Baylor over Michigan State
Missouri over Minnesota
Oregon over Florida State
Alabama over Ohio State
Pittsburgh over Houston
Iowa over Tennessee
Kansas State over UCLA
Washington over Oklahoma State
Florida over East Carolina
Toledo over Arkansas State
Oregon 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 21-18 (similar to last year)
- CBS120 picks were 22-17
- HTW was 22-17 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
- HTW was 25-14 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
- Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 22-17 if using HTW
- ITP was 23-16 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 for all predictors – every method was over 50%. I just need to figure how to better predict outcomes. Especially against the spread.
Because of the disparities between institutions and between conferences, it is tougher to predict bowl games than NFL games. But one thing seems to be pretty consistent: if you don’t want to do a lot of research, just pick the team whose campus is closer to the bowl game.
Thoughts on the season’s results
I bet TCU agrees with me that an 8-team playoff would be an improvement on the current format of 4 teams. But 4 teams is better than the previous format of 2.
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 2014 (and the first bit of 2015) season.
- AAC: 2-3
- ACC: 4-7
- Big 10: 6-5*
- Big 12: 2-5
- Independent: 2-1
- MAC: 2-3
- MW: 3-4
- PAC12: 6-3*
- SEC: 7-5
- Sun Belt: 1-2
- USA: 4-1
* additional win/loss due to playoff + championship game
So the best conference was Conference USA (they won 83% of their bowl games) and the worst was the Big 12 (at 29%).
Or maybe the Sun Belt is the worst conference 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 12 teams go to bowls. Or you could say they were just the most popular conference.
Perhaps you could say that the Big Ten was the best because they won the championship. Or maybe the SEC is the best because they won the most bowls (at 7).
Next year: playoffs again! TCU and I will be awaiting the expansion of the format to 8 teams. It might be too early to tell with only one sample year, but 8 seems to be the most reasonable number to whittle down 120 teams to a champion.
The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, “Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably.”
1 Kings 22:13
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:39 am and has been carefully placed in the Sports category.
