wife breaks into phone

My wife is awesome. I'm so glad she's a great baker. I always have yummy treats at home. She can also out eat me when we have pizza. Our cats are awesome too. Go hawks!

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 8

The coalition may need a little help as we approach the halfway mark of the season.

It was a down week for the entirety of the group, as everyone finished below .500 for the week, including me for the second straight week. Part of it had to do with groupthink failing epically; there were eight games we were unanimous on, and we missed seven of those. The dissenting games worked well for me though; I won four of the five games Adam and I disagreed on.

The numbers are a little off again though; Adam is on record last week picking the Ravens over the Falcons, but his ESPN pick was the Falcons. That's actually the second time he's goofed in that direction, so his numbers are actually better than what ESPN is reporting. The numbers listed in the records below is adjusted to compensate for this. (And this is why I always double check my picks when I write this post.)

The Giants and 49ers are on a bye this week, giving us 15 games to pick once again. This week, Adam and I disagree on seven of them. With so much of the season left, he can certainly make a comeback.

Let's pick some games.

2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 9

Week 9 of the NCAA football season begins today! And with it, another batch of games that will go a long way to deciding who can make the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

We're more than a few weeks into the heart of conference play, which makes my data gathering easier. It also makes summarizing what goes on each week much easier. You'll notice the difference between the first few weeks with almost every game out of conference and a post like last week's, where there were a grand total of four out-of-conference tilts.

The big question for this metric this week: can the SEC get back in the black? They've gone two weeks in a row with negative scores based on all the FCS games this late in the year. I know we have at least one more in store, though their final week will probably be better. Even so, I find it reprehensible.

Let's take a look at the non-conference schedules for the week, and how they affect the conferences' NCSS scores.

2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 8 Edition

From the ashes of some schools' football seasons, ariseth a playoff.

This is the third mock bracket that I've been able to build, and we're getting to the point where it's harder and harder to build a playoff field. Only four teams remain unbeaten after eight weeks of action. This means that we're going to have 12 teams with at least one loss in the field. But how do we decide who makes it over whom?

The answer: a selection committee... okay, just me. But I have tools at my disposal to help build the field. I will utilize up-to-date NCSS and Playoff Points information that I've been gathering over the past two months to help frame that decision. I'm also using computer rankings to help frame the field. The late David Rothman made his formula public knowledge, but the UCLA staff member who compiled it last season still hasn't run the numbers for this year yet. Jeff Sagarin, on the other hand, has his numbers calculated already. I will use his "Rating" (the number in purple) as the rankings labeled below.

Each team will be seeded 1-16, with home field advantage going to the higher seeds for the first three rounds. Obviously, this gives regular season success more weight than the current system does. Each team will be listed by seed, and includes their NCSS and both degrees of Playoff Points, as well as the Sagarin rankings. Their seeding is organically decided by a combinated of these four metrics, plus actual win-loss record. At the end of each line was the team's seeding in last week's bracket.

Enough talk. Let's seed.

2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 8

I'm back on a normal schedule this week after pushing everything back a day last week. And of course, it was another week with some chaos, which I love.

I actually got to sit and watch a really good chunk of a college football game for the first time probably since my time at WROK in Rockford when I was at the board for Illinois football. KSU-Oklahoma turned out to be a pretty good game, and I flipped over a bit to watch parts of the first half of Baylor-West Virginia. That was really all I got to see, so most of the rest of the day any info I got was from scoreboard watching.

In the grand scheme of things though, I want to run a playoff by numbers, since I don't have the time to watch multiple games on a Saturday usually. That's what this post is for.

Most of this weekend's action was in-conference, but it always will have an impact on the Playoff Points situation. Last week saw little change in the rankings, but the playoff bracket changed pretty dramatically. Let's get to that later though.

Here's a refresher on how the Playoff Points metric works. Let's see how the Week 8 slate changed the conference outlooks.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 7

The coalition is back at it again! Week 7 of the NFL season is upon us, and with it, another set of picks against the ESPN spread!

Adam finally broke the Curse of the Even Weeks, while I saw my first sub-.500 week since Week 2. It was bound to happen, but I'm still about on pace with a coin flip. Adam also won the week head to head, as he took four of the six games we disagreed on. I still hold the lead on him overall, but I'm not in first in the group anymore, as we had someone go 13-2. He missed two games we all missed, so there's no shame in the two losses there.

This week Philadelphia and Tampa Bay have the byes, so we have a 15 game week again. Adam and I disagree on five of those, so Adam has a chance to retake the lead. Part of this will depend on if he learned one of the rules of gambling. See below for details.

Let's get to the picks!

2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 8

When I postponed this series of posts for the week, I'd figured I could get away with it and wouldn't miss any games. I forgot to look at the schedule. Louisiana-Lafayette played Texas State last night. Were MACtion going on right now, I'd be timed right. Sadly, the Sun Belt had to throw things off...

Either way, one game isn't going to throw things off too badly. It won't impact data gathering for the Non-Conference Schedule Strength metric. Last week didn't see too many major changes, other than the SEC having a negative NCSS for the week, which is rare (though I think they're the only conference that has ever run into this problem).

So what about this week? Let's run the numbers.