Playing the percentages
I think predicting wins and losses over specific teams is slightly insane. Obviously nobody knows or they'd be making money hand over fist in Vegas. But what does make sense to me is predicting the liklihood of beating a particular team. That said, I probably woud've assessed our chances in The Horror at 99%, so take everything here with a grain of salt.
Here are my percent chances of winning each game this season:
- 45% - Utah - I don't like the 1st game thing, and I really don't like the O-line in the first game. Call me crazy. But still, seems like our D could be better, maybe much better, than their offense.
- 90% - Miami (OH) - Could be more, but I'm not more than 90% confident of any game on this schedule.
- 55% - Notre Dame - Obviously more if their first game looks Yakety Sax. That said, I can't help but think they'll be much improved until I see differently. My Dad is an ND fan, so I'm genetically predisposed to fear the worst from them.
- 30% - Wisconsin - Damn them.
- 40% - Illinois - Damn them too.
- 90% - Toledo - Again, I'm not going higher than 90%. We should have far superior talent.
- 66% - Penn State - This could be the year the Zombie busts out, but probably not.
- 30% - MSU - I have a bad feeling this IS the year Little Brother busts out.
- 80% - Purdue - They aren't predicted to do great things, and we have kinda had their number. Like Germany has kinda had Poland's.
- 85% - Minny - They're likely near the bottom of the Big Ten this season. Before anyone asks "why not 90%??", consider that anything 80% or above is a whole lot, and we're just splitting hairs.
- 90% - Northwestern - And here's the other side of the split hair. I don't see Coach Rod losing to another spread offense with superior talent on his side. Threet has more innate ability than any of their QB's, period.
- 10% - Ohio State - Oh how it pains me to admit that percentage. We're a year away, IMHO.
Expected value of wins? Just over 7. Let me know what you think.
Agreed with everything except Little Bro. Maybe if it was in EL, but not in AA.
Guy up there going with 100% against OSU needs to learn to separate fantasy from reality...
1) They have 18 starters returning from an 11-2 team that won games against four teams from ohio not named Cincinatti. They only beat us last year because we were hobbled, but not badly enough to replace our starters. Face it, they were not a good team last year. They got destroyed by LSU, and LSU didn't exactly have Vince Young or some other playmaker lined up. They got beaten by Illinois who ran the option spread in the shoe. The only teams they beat were Wisconsin and Penn State, neither of which are honestly that impressive. Boeckman is an awful quarterback, did you watch the Michigan game? So you're ready to hand tuos a NC based on them beating wisconsin and penn state last year.
2) I'm actually going to put us at 10-1, I was just trying to compromise with what the trends are. I think Utah is a tough game, but we win RRod's opener, and that we lose to either Wisconsin or Illinois on a bunch of mistakes. I could see scares from ND or penn state, but I honestly think that ND will still be bad, although much better and that penn state lost as much as we did, has less to replace them, and we always beat them because they're coaching staff isn't very good anymore.
Threet-wise, I'm not banking on him, I'm banking on the fact that we actually have competition for spots for the first time in a few years. Last year qb and rb were locked up, and the year before too. This is Threet and Sheridan and Feagin's only shot at locking up the job before the recruits start coming in 09. They're all going to be busting ass to get their names in there now and that's going to make them all perform better. Read Life Lessons by Bo, it's all in there.
3) The guy who put 10% means that Toledo is as likely to beat us as we are to beat tuos. That's ridiculous and you know it. Obviously 100% is homerism and wishful thinking, but 60-70% isn't. tuos is garbage, they don't have emotion down there, they have paychecks. RRod and Barwis play for the last game of the year, there is no tapering for midseason games. That's why WV always won their bowl games, because they were conditioned and prepared. Not a chance RRod doesn't walk down to the shoe more than prepared to send a message.
Great, I will take UM against Miami (OH), Toledo, Minnesota, Purdue and Northwestern, even money each game. You name the amount, and don't let your vag show JHS. Talk is cheap.
And don't bring up the other games, I don't adhere to the 50:50 chance of each game.
Sounds like prevailing opinion is that I didn't do too shabby except for MSU. Obviously I hope I'm wrong, and I'll take the hit and admit I probably set that one too low. However:
1. We've beaten them an inordinate number of times in a row, with a bunch of squeakers in there
2. State thrives on emotion, and the rhetoric has been through the roof this offseason. They're going to have the emotional edge. That's when Sparty is dangerous. Given that, I probably should up the %... say, a toss-up at 50%?
Couple other notes...
Utah - If you believe the line, then plunk your money down. Vegas isn't around to predict games.
Penn State - We're all just slinging opinions here, and my opinion is Penn State is going to stink this season. The past two years against us, they barely scored. Assuming SS is even a tiny upgrade from Ron English, how does PSU even put 20 up on us? With "Spread HD"? Zombie-man is the type of coach RR will eat for breakfast. I feel pretty good about that streak continuing.
Ohio State - These percentages are being assembled in July, yes. So what do we know? We know Michigan is a giant "?" in several areas, not the least of which is scheme. What do we know about the Bucks? We know a tremendous amount (Lloyd word alert!) Anyone who would say standing here *today* that we have anything more than a 10% chance based on rivalry alone is smoking the funny weed. Obviously after getting more information I'd change some things in October.
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