Mid-Week Metrics: Projecting the Big Ten

I'd like to know whether you are calling them a W or not. I'm assuming we lose to Nebraska and Ohio given the records above..  I'm just wondering where the other losses are coming from.  I think I'd rather lose to SDSU than ND.

Very interesting idea. 1 quick thing, in your original post explaining PAN, the 3.95 should be 4.95.

Also, I may just not be understanding correctly, but how is the defense taken into consideration exactly? I get that it is taken into consideration when adjusting for the final PAN,  but you have this whole scoring system for offense and nothing for defense. The way I undertsand it now, you're not really considering how good a defense is, but an offense's ability to perform against the average for the defense it is facing. So is there a PAN type stat for defense?

I'd take 8-4 this year with a win over the Buckeyes and losses to ND, Nebraska, Iowa, and an upset from Illinois or NW.

EDIT TO ADD: Forgot to mention that these kinds of things are much appreciated and what separates this blog from any other team blog on the web. How you crazy math guys come up with this stuff, I'll never know. It's witchcraft, I tell you.

Thanks for all your hard work on your posts, they are great reads and have plentu of valuable information.

They're forecasted for an average of 0.2 losses; this means your program thinks they're *heavy* favorites against Georgia, correct? That is a very surprising outcome...interesting.

Great work, Mathlete. Cool stuff.

Hey, have you done this for past seasons?  How good generally are the predictions pre-season?

Interesting that Northwestern is predicted to be 4-8. I would be surprised if that actually happened, unless Persa's knee really hinders him that much. As you said, it seems more likely that the model seems to skew the numbers for Northwestern for some reason.

i would be beyond happy with 8-4.  thanks as always.  a few questions:

was the regression term (halfway) from undefeated's post?  i didn't see it in a quick skim or remember.  have you had an opportunity to run anything along these lines with PAN to figure out in-season correlation?  if you were just doing some best guessing, what would change if you switched up the regression term?

ty.

Provided one of the wins is over that suckhole Dantonio.

Final prediction.

I just can't see us finishing any worse than 13-0.  I mean, I started with your 8-4 prediction and then started thinking who that would mean we would have to lose to.  You are predicting 1 non-conference loss, most likely ND, but I can't imagine we would drop that one under the lights with all of the excitement.  So that puts us undefeated coming into the big ten schedule, then the only two teams I could see us maybe losing to are tOSU and Nebrawska.  I think the whole team is smelling blood with tOSU wounded, so mark that down as a win at home.  Nebrawska is the wild card, but us coming in at 10-0 and having the Heisman front-runner at that point in the season, I think momentum caries us through that one.  Obviously we will win the bowl game, WE'RE MICHIGAN.  So there you go, 13-0.

Toledo gets one of those predicted 9 wins in their 2nd game.

Nice job, Mathlete - love this analysis.

Just curious-- do you have an advanced degree in math or a math-related field?  You seem to have your stuff together from all of your posts.

So is it just interest, or do you work with numbers for a living?

Indistinguishable between Michigan, Iowa, and Michigan State.  I'll take that for a coaching transition year.  That seems to fit with the concensus pick of 8 wins this year.

I think we all have some fear as we are transitioning and will accept an 8-4 season. I hope we get to look back on this season as one where we found our footing and started competing for the BigTen Championship every year.

Nice...now we dont even have to play the season...can we sim the season to see the results?

given that no matter who the starter is now, he has no quality experience at the position. Remembering what it was like to be a scared rabbit doesn't seem like it should be an advantage.

Nice breakdown.  Think 8 wins makes sense, and I agree that the bunching at the top of the conference should make the final champion harder to distinguish early on than in years past.  I actually think OSU is going to suffer more than your numbers maybe presume with the loss of Pryor and the rest of the players for the first 5 games.  They caught a break with Miami having eligiblity issues, but that should be a close game against a talented team that might be playing with even more FU potential than OSU.  MSU should also benefit from a still-reeling OSU in their matchup.  Plus, OSU's offense was so reliant on Pryor the past couple of years that whomever they trot out there will be a downgrade and may stall the offense even more.  I actually see them struggling to get to 9 wins, maybe closer to 8.  

Still, great breakdown.  I am not sold on WVU winning the Big East just because they seem very schizophrenic when given high preseason expectations, but most of the other conference winners sound about right.  

I think we end up better than Penn State. I also think Northwestern and Illinois should get a little more love than what they are getting but I understand why they aren't yet. Other than that this all looks reasonable to me.

But now i am beginning to understand why it had relevance in my life.  thank you mathlete.  Although I see the glass half empty, with losses at Evanston, E. Lansing, Iowa City, at home to ND, NB and OSU.  People forget that Tressel went 7-5 his first year with the same kids (except some freshman name Mo) that won the NC a year later.  Rasta.

Interesting that you see an effect for defensive starters but not offensive starters (except QB). Or that a returning QB matters about as much as any returning defender.

Just curious: when you say you regress halfway to the mean, is that because you've modeled and tested that halfway leads to the best prediction, or because it just makes sense?

In any case, I'm always impressed with the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the analysis!

ND, MSU/Corn, SuperCorn, and OSU?

And if our SoS is #12 in a year where everyone is calling it "easy", maybe we shouldn't base our success estimations on schedule, because it's always going to be hard.

...Air Force is underrated...

God Bless my Falcons.