Some Blog Site

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 2025 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• DPE: 65%
• ITP: 65%
• MYW: 63%

This was the second time in a few years that MPWHFA was not the top percentage. I don’t know what to make of that, other than this year seemed to have some streaky teams, which helps the DPE method. We’ll see what next year holds in store.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 62.6% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

I thought it was bad last year with players sitting out college bowl games so as not to risk injury. But now we have entire teams sitting out college bowl games because they are not the playoff games. Which is understandable, seeing as non-playoff bowl games are more pointless than ever. Or would that be less pointed than ever? Less pointful? What is the opposite of pointless? Your answer must contain the word “point” in it somehow.

And the bowl games are changing names so quickly these days it’s hard to keep track, so it’s hard to care about most of them. I am slightly disappointed that the playoff games are just called “playoff game” and don’t have a decent bowl game name.

Since last year the college football bowl post-season is just like any other sport – fill out a playoff bracket. I don’t participate in brackets for other sports, so I don’t anticipate doing this every year. But I haven’t been inspired with any other ideas for the CFP yet so here it is. Note this is more wishful thinking than actual expectations.

First Round
Oregon over JMU
Oklahoma over Alabama
Tulane over Ole Miss
Texas AM over Miami Fl.

Quarterfinals
Oregon over Texas Tech
Indiana over Oklahoma (Hoosier vs. Sooner)
Georgia over Tulane
Texas AM over Ohio State

Semifinals
Indiana over Oregon
Georgia over Texas AM

Finals
Indiana over Georgia

We’ll see how it goes.

One of the more recent phrases that seems to have taken off in talk radio, specifically sports radio, is “_ope-ium”.

It is, of course, a riff on the word “opium”. I first heard it as “hope-ium” – meaning that a fan of a particular team is relying on hope to get him through the season. Like one would rely on opium to get through the day.

And then a few weeks the radio hosts used the term “cope-ium”, to indicate that the hope-ium wore off and reality is setting in and now the sports fan is trying to cope with the team being worse than expected.

Why stop there? Noticing the trend, I was inspired to coin the rest of the “ope-ium” terms. Here we go:

• Hope-ium : Anticipating a good season, expecting the best of the situation
• Cope-ium : Recognizing things aren’t as good as they should have been but rationalizing it
• Mope-ium : Realizing things can’t be rationalized and letting it get you down
• Nope-ium : Giving up on the team, jumping off hte bandwagon
• Dope-ium : Not sure on this one; I think I’ll go with “dope” as in “cool”
• Lope-ium : Addicted to walking with long strides
• Pope-ium : Looking to the head of the Catholic Church to get your fix
• Rope-ium : Addicted to, umm, rope?
• Taupe-ium : Needing beige colors to get you through the day
• Slope-ium : Rise over run, baby
• Trope-ium : Overuse of cliches

I see the terms stopped being sports-related partway through. Oh well. I did not keep the topic in scope-ium.

In the last week or so, we had the announcement of the 2025 NFL schedule. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2024 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Denver Broncos = 5-12
• Detroit Lions = 13-4
• New York Jets = 6-11

How they actually did was

• Denver Broncos = 10-7
• Detroit Lions = 15-2
• New York Jets = 5-12

Not bad on the Lions and Jets. Broncos was a ways off though.

(more…)

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 2024 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• ITP: 67%
• MPWHFA: 65%
• MYW: 65%

This was the first time in a few years that MPWHFA was not the top percentage. The NFL is setup to promote parity, with the draft setup in reverse order and teams’ schedules setup with like teams. So there shouldn’t be a big disparity with a bunch of teams at the top and a bunch at the bottom. But this year was an outlier, with more good teams having really good records and more bad teams having really bad records. Not by a huge margin, but noticeable. And that situation favored the ITP method, which follows win trends.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 62.7% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Normally by this time of the year I would have made up predictions for all the college football bowl games. But with the change of formats it’s not the same. The addition of the 12-team playoff has made for a more interesting regular season, along with the expansion of the Big Ten (and other conference shufflings).

But the downside to all that is the diminishing of the importance or relevance or meaning of the non-playoff bowl games. It was bad last year when so many players opted out of bowl games, and some coaches too, such that many of the teams in bowls weren’t the same teams they were during the regular season. So it’s basically pointless to assess matchups anymore, except for the playoff teams where everyone involved is still trying to win their game.

And now the college football bowl post-season is just like any other sport – fill out a playoff bracket. I don’t participate in brackets for other sports, so I don’t anticipate doing this every year. But I haven’t been inspired with any other ideas for the CFP yet so here it is.

First Round
Texas over Clemson
Tennessee over Ohio State
Penn State over SMU
Indiana over Notre Dame (based on common opponent of Purdue)

Quarterfinals
Texas over Arizona State
Oregon over Tennessee (no more Rocky Top)
Boise State over Penn State (Jeanty redemption tour)
Georgia over Indiana

Semifinals
Oregon over Texas
Georgia over Boise State

Finals
Oregon over Georgia

We’ll see how it goes.

In the last week or so, we had the announcement of the 2024 NFL schedule. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2023 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Los Angeles Chargers = 13-4
• Miami Dolphins = 8-9
• Tennessee Titans= 4-13
• Washington Commanders = 7-10

How they actually did was

• Los Angeles Chargers = 5-12
• Miami Dolphins = 11-6
• Tennessee Titans= 6-11
• Washington Commanders = 4-13

Those predictions were kind of all over the place.

(more…)