2019 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 17

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! The coalition is getting back to this a couple days late due to the holiday, but we are back one final time in 2019 with our NFL picks as the regular season comes to a close!

It has once again been a fun season of this weekly feature, and I want to thank Adam for his yearlong contributions, as well as Geoffrey and Joe for their fill-in contributions. This column wouldn't be anywhere near as fun without you guys to banter with.

Speaking of these guys, Adam has all but locked the column title up for the year, as well as the group title as a whole. I found myself back in second place after a Week 16 heater, taking five of seven disputed games from Joe. Please note that the standings provided in the first link are a little off due to picking errors both by myself and by Adam; he has one more point than he should, and I have one fewer than I should. It also doesn't take into account games Aiden didn't get a chance to log in and pick, and based on the honor system I gave him credit for a previous week and will do so for his blank Week 16 as well. As of posting time, his Week 16 picks weren't available yet, so his numbers are still old. The correct standings, as well as how we've picked in relation to each other through 15 weeks, can be found here.

Now, Adam sends me his picks to fill out on here, so in theory, I could go opposite of him across the board in an effort to steal the title, but that wouldn't be sporting. He and I disagree on only seven of the final 16 games of the season, so Adam, go ahead and take your victory lap.

Thank you for following along this year! One final time... let's get to it!

2019 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 16

We're down to the second to last week of the NFL season, and with that our quest to pick NFL games against the spread nears its end.

At this point, I think I all but have to concede another odd year victory to Adam. He took four of seven disputed games last week to further solidify his lead, but for most of the group it was a very successful Week 15, even for me. But I now find myself tied for third after a Geoffrey heater pushed him to second, while Jim and I are standing pat together with 32 games to go.

Adam is off gallivanting on a cruise in the Caribbean this week, so I've recruited Joe to fill in for him. With Adam gone, Joe can finally retaliate for all the unprovoked potshots Adam has taken at him this season, so this should be fun.

Joe and I disagree on seven games out of 16. Let's get to it!

2019 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 15

We're down to the final three weeks, and the race is getting a little bit tighter as the coalition comes down the stretch!

We were all pretty bunched up together this past week with relatively strong weeks across the board. Adam took four of our seven disputed games last week to push his lead to ten games with 48 to play, so at this point I'm running out of time, but my cushion for second place remains gone, as I'm in a tie with Jim and just one game ahead of Geoffrey for fourth place. It'll be a nail biter for sure.

You can view our ESPN group standings here, bearing in mind that due to various errors on my and Adam's ends, he has one more point than he should and I have one fewer point that I should. The adjusted standings, along with how we've all picked in relation to each other, are here.

Going into Week 15, Adam and I disagree on seven games out of 16. Let's get to it!

2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Official Bracket

All right, the conference championships are in the books. Let's build a bracket.

I looked over the title games last week, and tried to picture how I anticipated the at large selection process would end up going. And so after a couple hours of deliberation, we're all set for the 2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs! But how do we take the results of so many college football games and pare this down to 16 teams? And why 16?

I ran with the idea that the authors of the book pictured here proposed almost a decade ago as the ultimate counterargument against the corrupt system that was the BCS. The current College Football Playoff is better, but not perfect in my eyes. There's still a level of corruption by the refusal to acknowledge all of the teams at the FBS level. This playoff fixes that by guaranteeing every conference champion a shot at the national title as every other level of NCAA football does. That's ten spots, and I fill out the field with six at large teams to make the numbers even. The best part? The first three rounds are all played at the home stadiums of the higher seeds; no more three-quarter empty bowl games in random places that rob athletic departments blind.

So how do I decide on the six at large teams who make it, and how do I seed the field? I try to be as impartial as I can, and I do that with a number of metrics outlined below and charted here:

• Playoff Points: This is an idea that I originally stole from the IHSA. They use a system of adding up the number of wins by opponents on a team's schedule and use that to try and determine a strength of schedule. This metric comes in three forms.
• First Degree Playoff Points (PP1): The closest to the original idea. For every opponent a team beats, they receive a number of points equal to that opponent's total wins on the season. Those numbers are added for every defeated opponent over the course of a season. As an example, Rutgers went 2-10 on the season with wins over Massachusetts (1-11) and Liberty (7-5), giving them eight PP1 for the year. Obviously, more wins means more chances for points, and wins over better teams means more points from each game. The caveat is that wins over FCS opponents do not award any Playoff Points.
• Second Degree Playoff Points (PP2): An extension of the original idea. PP1 answers the question to an extent of "How good were your opponents?" PP2 extends on that idea, by taking the mean of the PP1 of defeated opponents. Using the Rutgers example again, they beat Massachusetts, who finished with no PP1, and Liberty, who finished with 14. That gives Rutgers a PP2 of 7.00. More wins will generally mean more points, which I why I factor this metric as a mean rather than a sum total. This will result in some quirks; for example this year Miami (Florida) finished with a PP2 of 28.50 despite finishing 6-6; wins over teams like Virginia and Louisville helped bolster this number for them. Again, wins over FCS teams result in a score of zero for that win, which will drag the average down.
• Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP): Similar to PP1, except that for every loss by a team, I subtract the losses by their opponent from the total. This is my way to factor in losses as a metric, something not covered by either of the first two metrics. Obviously, losses to really good teams won't hurt, but losses to mediocre or bad teams will hurt worse. Going once again to the Rutgers example, their eight PP1 points still count, but are offset by each of their ten losses. The loss to undefeated Ohio State didn't cost them any points, but a Week 6 loss to 3-9 Maryland cost them nine points just from that game. All told, Rutgers finished with -33 aPP for the 2019 season. Again, wins over FCS teams don't award any points, but losses to FCS teams apply double the loss penalty. This year, there were three losses by FBS teams to visiting FCS opponents. As an example, Central Arkansas went 9-3 in their regular season (I don't count playoff games for this metric), including a win over Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky lost six aPP due to this loss.
• Computer Rankings: To try and make sure that I'm avoiding any bias, I work other metrics into the fray in the form of computer rankings. While this was a flaw of the BCS, part of the flaw was that margin of victory wasn't factored into theirs. I've found three sets of computer rankings that do, and I average them out to find one average ranking. This ranking is taken from the mean of Jeff Sagarin's rankings, the late David Rothman's rankings, and rankings from All My Sports Teams Suck.
• Results versus playoff teams: This is a fairly new metric kind of formalizing something I already look at to some degree. It's a metric I look at in stages; initially I start only with the ten conference champions as the playoff teams, and look at records for all the candidates at that time. As I add at large teams, I update the records accordingly before picking the next one. This finalizes when the 16 team field is set and I use it to help with seeding. As a general rule, losses aren't killer, and if you play playoff teams you're likely in better shape than if you don't, even if you lose. Wins over other playoff teams though will certainly help your resume.

I then try to organically combine all these factors when I build out the field. You will see that field seeded 1-16 after the jump, followed by my at large selection process and a rationale for how I seeded the field.

2019 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 14

We're officially three-quarters of the way through the NFL season, which means our contest is winding down, and I'm running out of time.

I spent a couple weeks crowing about my Thanksgiving heater, and early in the slate things looked okay... then I went ice cold in the late afternoon and Sunday night games. Adam took four of six disputed games, including going a perfect 3-0 on hero picks, to push his lead over me back to nine games while I still find myself in a tie for second (Adam's tiebreaker stuff be damned), with Geoffrey just one game behind us in fourth.

You can view the standings here, with a couple asterisks. Adam has one more point on here than he should due to an earlier picking error. Meanwhile, after I've spent years giving Adam crap for screwing up, I finally did by forgetting to log my picks on ESPN, meaning I missed the deadline for the Bears-Lions game on Thanksgiving. So in reality, I have one more point on ESPN than I should. You can see accurate standings, as well as how we've all picked in relation to each other, here.

I've all but resigned myself to the pattern holding firm and Adam winning yet another odd numbered year, but with 64 games left, we can't guarantee that. This week, he and I disagree on seven games out of 16, so I've got a chance to make a dent. Let's get to it!

2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Auto Bid Games and At Large Picture

I'm going to take a break from reveling in an all-time upset to look at the highest level of college football as we approach Championship Week.

The regular season is finally over and we're onto what are essentially play-in games for the College Football Playoff, but also for the Death to the BCS Playoffs, based off the system proposed in the book pictured here. As I'd hoped, I was able to track results over the course of the entire season and logged my metrics here. I've also, over the past couple weeks, been looking at computer rankings to prepare myself. I haven't officially built a mock bracket yet, but I at least kind of know where I'm going. I just want to get it in writing before the games are played, with the knowledge that computer rankings may change and with new factors getting added that things may end up changing.

But the point of this post, as in years prior, is to look at the upcoming games to determine automatic bids. Most of these are pretty straightforward. One piece I am adding in each entry this year is how at large odds look for each conference. The exact selection method will be explained next week when I build the bracket.

"I Am a Champion, and I Refuse to Lose"

Photo from The Canton Repository

It's November 26, 1994. I've just turned five years old and am probably playing with toys or something while my parents decorate the house for Christmas. Bill Mack has just led the North Central Cardinals football team to their second consecutive 3-6 season, but closed the campaign with back to back victories. Meanwhile, up in Michigan, defending Division III national champion Mount Union has lost to host Albion College in the second round of the playoffs. The Britons would go on to win the Stagg Bowl two weeks later.