AbsolutePigskin Times

AbsolutePigskin.com Computer Top 25 11/8/09

Tom Loker — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:26:00 GMT

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW IT IN FULL SIZE

AbsolutePigskin.com Computer Top 25 (11/1)

Tom Loker — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:37:00 GMT

For those that do not know already this is a statistical analysis of all Division 1A, 1AA, and Division II football teams in the nation using all the statistics the NCAA currently tracks. It automatically generates a strength of schedule for each team and it appropriately takes into account wins and losses of each team to produce a ranking for each team. Without further ado here is the latest top 25 from the AbsolutePigskin.com computers.

Click on the image to view it in full size...

Weekend Free Picks

Tom Loker — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:32:00 GMT

Sure I like college football like the next guy but you know what I like more than college football? BETTING on college football. Here are some free picks courtesy of the AbsolutePigskin.com computers. Note: These picks are for fun only and are not meant to encourage you to gamble. Gambling is bad people... Some rather large lines this weekend for these games which scares me but here is what the computers are predicting. Picks in bold. Note: Prediction is a guess based on the data the computer is spitting out. This is only a reasonable estimate I make on each game based on the ratings and statistics the computer analysis spits out. The computer does not yet predict an actual score as I am currently building this feature.

Favorite	Underdog	Line	Prediction
Ohio State	New Mexico	+44	Ohio State win by 43
North Texas	Western Ky.	-13.5	North Texas win by 17
Kentucky	Miss. St.	-4	Kentucky win by 15
Nevada	Hawaii	-29	Nevada win by 40
LSU	Tulane	-36	LSU win by 47
Cinncinatti	Syracuse	-16	Cinncinatti win by 19
Idaho	La. Tech	-3	Idaho win by 10

AbsolutePigskin Computer Top 25 - 3rd Edition

Tom Loker — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:06:00 GMT

Another week of college football and the national picture became a bit more clear but I must address something I heard in the USC vs. Oregon State game from the announcers. I believe their comment was "the computers don't take into account how big USC's wins were at Ohio State and at Notre Dame early in the season". This my friends is EXACTLY why we need computer rankings and not human opinion polls to objectively decide on the best teams in the nation. The main problem with human voters is they take into account human pre-season and early season polls which are based largely on speculation and have little to do with reality more often than not. Simply because a team is ranked in the top ten in the preseason means nothing. Time and time again you can point to teams that were ranked in the pre-season top 10 and when they actually play a team with a pulse they lose. More often than not those pollsters already have a theory on the a team and over time despite what happened on the field they gravitate back to that view of the team. As a result they ultimately don't adequately penalize a team when they lose and falsely prop up the team that beats a team they THINK is good. This is what leads to a mess later in the season where voters who don't see all the games base their votes on their opinion... which largely is still swayed by their pre-season and early season thoughts on a team. Voters need to take into account the overall picture of teams and how they eventually end up doing during the season and judge a teams wins and losses by how their opponents eventually end up. I don't care if you beat a team in the top 10 to start the season if the team they beat does not finish in the top 25 at seasons end...

... with that being said here is the UNBIASED statistical analysis of every Division 1A, 1AA, and Div II school to compute the top 25 teams in the land, according to the AbsolutePigskin.com computers. (CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO VIEW IN FULL SIZE)

AbsolutePigskin Computer Top 25 - 2nd Edition

Tom Loker — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:42:00 GMT

Here is the 2nd edition of the AbsolutePigskin.com Computer Top 25 rankings. For more explanation about the computer rankings please read the first editions description here.

This week is marked by the loss of Ohio State and subsequently falling from #9 to #19. Also it sees the Texas Longhorns make a move into the top 3.

Click on the image to view it in full size.

AbsolutePigskin Computer Top 25

Tom Loker — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:56:00 GMT

After slacking off for the past week or so from writing anything on the website I figured it is time to get back on the horse and get things moving again. I have been hard at work on a statistical analysis I have put together for all Division 1A, 1AA, and Division II football teams in the country. (Since some 1A teams decided to make my job harder and play a DII school... yeah I'm talking to you Texas Tech, you should be embarrassed.) After some tweaking and fine tuning over the past few weeks the ranking system is complete and as expected after a few trial runs the numbers are jiving with what is happening on the field. I will spare you guys the nitty gritty details of how everything is calculated, it simply is way too involved for me to get in using any sort of simple explanation that won't put you to sleep within about a paragraph. Just take my word for it that it is a lot of math, a lot of visual basic programming, and a lot of formulas. Not only does this statistical analysis rank the teams of the top 25 based on their results and how those results compare with other teams but it also predicts winner for each and every Div. 1A game played each weekend. So far through more functions I have built into the computer rankings the statistical analysis is correctly getting a touch over 70% of winners correct each week. 7 out of 10 is pretty darn good... especially if you are betting on the games. (Not that I would EVER do such a thing.) I have posted some trial runs in the past weeks of some predictions with varying success when the spread on a game is involved but I am slowly but surely building a score prediction function into the process so it predicts both the winner and the final score for each game.

With all that being said, we are now getting to a point in the season where teams have played enough games to give a relatively meaningful sample of data to give an accurate analysis of who the top teams in the country are at this point. For now I am only posting the top 25 but I will be posting rankings for all division 1A teams here soon. There are a few things to know about this top 25 rankings system. It is strictly a computer analysis that factors in the opponents each school has faced, factors in each and every statistic that the NCAA tracks and how those statistics rank against every other Div. 1A team, and it takes into account wins and losses. This is NOT A POWER RANKINGS. I don't need to get emails from people saying team x will be team y and you can't understand why team y is ranked ahead of team x. Power rankings, much like the polls, are a matter of opinion. Just because on paper it looks like team x is more talented than team y doesn't mean team x has lived up to it's potential and taken care of business on the field. This is the beauty of the analysis... no opinion is involved and results are earned on the field. You could be the best team in the history of football but if you play the worst schedule, I'm sorry for your luck! So without further ado here is the first edition of the AbsolutePigskin Top 25. (Click on the image to view it full size.) Lower scores are better.

AbsolutePigskin Picks October 3

Tom Loker — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:33:00 GMT

I apologize for being unable to write much over the recent days and weeks as other things have kept me incredibly busy but that doesn't mean I don't have time to post the AbsolutePigskin.com picks for this saturday's games. I have been hard at work developing a statistical analysis to compare teams to determine a winner. I am also working on putting a system in place to see how the game will do against the spread and the posted total (not for gambling but purely educational purposes, yes that's the ticket.) Without further ado here are the teams the AbsolutePigskin.com computers like in tomorrows games. AbsolutePigskin computer pick in bold.

Against the Spread

Michigan +3.5 at Michigan State
Cincinnati at Miami (OH) +30
Clemson -13 at Maryland
South Florida at Syracuse +7
Wisconsin at Minnesota Under the Posted Total of 53
Toledo -5.5 at Ball St.
Arkansas St. +22 at Iowa
East Carolina at Marshall +2
Virginia Tech -17 at Duke

Note: All games above are schedule to kickoff at 12PM EST. Cincinnati at Miami (OH) is a 1PM kickoff.

Straight Winners (Big Ten Games because I'm Too Lazy To Post All Winners Right Now)

Michigan at Michigan State
Wisconsin at Minnesota
Northwestern at Purdue
Arkansas St. at Iowa
Penn State at Illinois
Ohio State at Indiana

Friday Recap, Saturday Picks

Tom Loker — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:16:00 GMT

Well the good and the bad... only one game on Friday night we had to pick and it seemed as if our calculations were going to prove to be correct. Then suddenly a fumble right before Nevada scores a go ahead touchdown and Missouri's Blake Gabbert inexplicably manages to convert on some key 3rd downs with unreal plays and that is all she wrote. I guess that is why they call it gambling folks...

What did we learn however from the game. The statistical analysis of the teams is working and after a bit of fine tuning will get even more accurate. The nature of how the system is set up will become more accurate with each week so even though the prediction tonight proved to be wrong we were not very far off in terms of what happened in the game vs. what the statistical analysis told us. (Trust me on this but I'm simply too tired to post the full overview of it right now.)

As a result of some of the promise the statistical analysis tool I have designed is showing we are going to go all out tomorrow and try to provide a ton of picks based solely on unbiased statistics... no personal bias... no I think or I hope... just simple plain untainted math to point us in the right direction. I will try and provide more picks tomorrow but for now let's throw out some of the highest rated games, statistically speaking.

Date	Time	Favorite	Underdog	Spread (PTS)	Over/Under	Bet	Result
Sept 26	12 PM	Temple	Buffalo	3.5	45.5	Buffalo	Loss
Sept 26	12 PM	Cinn.	Fresno State	17	63.5	Fresno State	Win
Sept 26	12:20 PM	LSU	Miss. St.	12	44	LSU	Win
Sept 26	2 PM	Boston College	Wake Forest	1.5	41.5	Wake Forest	Loss
Sept 26	2:10 PM	Kansas St.	Tenn. Tech	32	n/a	Kansas St.	Win
Sept 26	7 PM	Oregon St	Arizona	3	44.5	Arizona	Win
Sept 26	7 PM	Kent St.	Miami OH	7	48	Miami OH	Loss
Sept 26	8 PM	Penn State	Iowa	9.5	40.5	Penn State	Loss

**Note these predictions are based statistical information compiled by AbsolutePigskin.com. This statistical analysis gets more accurate as the season goes on and but I have not yet implemented the system to predict the final score of both teams. This is simply a comparison of two teams and these predicted bets against the spread are a reasonable judgment by me based on the statistical edge one team has over another in the analysis.**

Below are straight winners of games of note, without reference to the spread. You can place a straight money line bet on these games but I'm too tired to look up the current money lines for these games. The statistical analysis put together by AbsolutePigskin.com DOES predict winners. Home team is bold. I will list the Big Ten contests with hopes of posting more straight winners tomorrow before noon.

Minnesota beats Northwestern - CORRECT
#23 Michigan beats Indiana - CORRECT
Wisconsin beats Michigan State - CORRECT
#13 Ohio State beats Illinois - CORRECT
Penn State beats Iowa - INCORRECT
Notre Dame beats Purdue - CORRECT

A MISTAKE IN THE FORMULAS FOR THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS WAS FOUND AND HAS BEEN CORRECTED. EXPECT EVEN BETTER RESULTS NEXT WEEK AS A RESULT!!!!

Friday Night Free Pick

Tom Loker — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:30:00 GMT

After just a brutal week of work and other obligations that kept me from really doing an updates here to the website I have a free pick winner tonight for the Nevada vs. Missouri game this evening. Before I get to that folks also over the past couple weeks I've been hard at work on a statistical analysis of all college football teams. Without getting into too much detail it automatically updates every statistic the NCAA currently tracks for college football and through some nifty math and forumlas spits out ranks for the teams. It spits out ranks for each and every team and it also spits out adjusted ranks when comparing two teams to try to predict a winner of the game. This is still a work in progress and I'm still refining the score prediction math part of it but right now it seems to be working quite well. In short testing it correctly predicted USC would lose to Washington last week and correctly predicted South Carolina's win over Mississippi last night. Tonight we are going to put it to the test in a trial run and we are going to say that Nevada, after a tough 0-2 start against the likes of Notre Dame and Colorado State one would think that the Wolfpack are going to be in for a long night against the 3-0 Missouri Tigers. Well not so fast my friends, statistically speaking it seems as if Nevada has a good chance of keeping this game close and and outside chance of possibly pulling off an upset here at home. Whereas the numbers aren't large enough in favor of the Wolfpack for me to go on a limb and say I am outright picking the Wolfpack to win the game and advise you to bet the moneyline I am saying that chances are higher than you may think that Nevada keeps this game within 7.5 points.

Tonights play... Nevada +7.5. Best of luck folks!

Date	Time	Favorite	Underdog	Spread (PTS)	Over/Under	Bet	Final Score	Rank
25-Sep	9:00 PM	Missouri	Nevada	7.5	61.5	Nevada

Key
CORRECT	INCORRECT

Thursday Night Free Pick

Tom Loker — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:57:00 GMT

Tonight we try to get back on the winning path after a tough tough weekend calling football games last weekend. Tonight Georgia Tech rumbles into Coral Gables Florida to face the Miami Hurricanes. Georgia Tech and it's always tough wishbone rushing attack completely gashed the Miami Hurricanes last season for nearly 500 yards rushing. This was a record against any Miami defense in the storied history of the Miami Hurricanes. What do we have tonight through? Will Georgia Tech repeat it's performance away from the confines of home and in the hostile road environment. This game is a bit of a mystery to me in the sense that I was quite impressed with Miami's victory over Florida State two weeks ago... unfortunately Florida State failed to wow me last week against lowly Jacksonville State. Is this a Miami offense that seemed to be able to throw the ball with relative ease against Florida State two weeks ago because of an improved Jacory Harris at quarterback or did they simply feast on a Florida State team that all and all continues to underachieve? The public seems to be picking Georgia Tech plus the points but many think Tech very well may repeat it's performance from last year and beat the Hurricane's outright here. The line for this game started with Miami as about a five point favorite and at last check the line has fallen to Miami -4. Secondly with any option oriented rushing attack usually that means that offense, in this case Georgia Tech's offense, will run a lot of plays and due to the sheer number of plays Georgia Tech runs it limits the overall total score of the game. But wait you say, Georgia Tech has put up over 30 points in each of the last two games with last weeks 30 point output coming against a game Clemson squad. Sure 30 points against Clemson, on the surface, is impressive but lets not forget about some of the special teams breakdowns by Clemson that lead to easy points. With all that being said still the odds-makers have set the posted total for this game is 54!

I tend to think this game ends up somewhere in the neighborhood of 24-20 in favor of the Canes. My of the night will be the UNDER of the posted total of 54. If you are feeling saucy I'll throw out a and say Miami covers the 4 points as well. I hope you guys had a great Thursday and an even better Thursday night! Happy gambling folks!

Date	Time	Favorite	Underdog	Spread (PTS)	Over/Under	Bet	Final Score	Rank
17-Sep	7:00 PM	Miami	Georgia Tech	4	54	UNDER
17-Sep	7:00 PM	Miami	Georgia Tech	4	54	Miami

Live Game Updates

Monday Bonus Free Pick

Tom Loker — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:51:00 GMT

Well what did we learn the first week of the NFL season folks? Well you can never be too sure about anything. The Chargers and Raiders went over the posted total as predicted but who would have thought the Raiders would play a sound and fundamental game to prevent the Chargers from covering? Oh well you win some and you lose some and that my folks is why they call it gambling. Until the start of the next week of college football my gambling friends have a great week!

Date	Time	Favorite	Underdog	Spread (PTS)	Over/Under	Bet	Final Score	Rank
17-Sep	7:00 PM	Miami	Georgia Tech	4	54	OVER	33-17
17-Sep	7:00 PM	Miami	Georgia Tech	4	54	Miami	33-17

Key
CORRECT	INCORRECT

Results... big two for two on the night. The game didn't go exactly like I had pictured it but hey folks a wins a win. The key is to keep the momentum going into a big weekend of college football betting. Have a good night everyone!

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Free Pick Winner Sunday

Tom Loker — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:01:00 GMT

After just a brutal Saturday here at AbsolutePigskin picking games combined with a maddening loss by Ohio State to USC, what better way to get back on the winning track then to delve into a little NFL football on week one. Like I said, yesterday was just a brutal game with several teams who I thought were locks like Oklahoma State and Michigan State not only did not cover but they lost outright to underdogs. Today we get back on the winning track and hit you with a big 4 star pick to get back on the winning track. Today the Philadelphia Eagles travel to Carolina for a tough opening game match up with the Panthers. The Eagles offense should be a good one this year folks but with the defense having some question marks lingering from the preseason as well as being annual slow starters I look at the total of 43.5 and I'm going with the over on that for an easy pay day out there folks. Happy Sunday to you all!

Date	Time	Favorite	Underdog	Spread (PTS)	Over/Under	Bet	Final Score	Rank
13-Sep	1:00 PM	Eagles	Carolina	2.5	47.5	OVER	38-18

Key
CORRECT	INCORRECT

Quick Analysis: Ohio State vs. USC

Tom Loker — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:42:00 GMT

Having so many thoughts racing through my head after watching the Ohio State vs. USC game this evening (all bad thoughts) I figured it best to, instead of writing a long drawn out piece on the game, just throw out the main observations of the game.

Pryor Is A Mental Midget - For all the talk of him really learning the offense in the off-season and really working on the fundamentals of the quarterback position, when it mattered and things got tight he regressed back to his high school days. Terrible footwork, inability to look off defenders, locking onto receivers (can't he look for anyone other than Posey out there?). Quite simply put Pryor, for all his athletic abilities, is simply a really bad quarterback. There is just no other way about it, he doesn't have the mental fortitude to carry this team on his back and worse yet he just doesn't have the understanding of the position to consistently be a threat to good teams. When he is not the best athlete while on the field then he ceases to be truly effective. One positive, there was no Mike Vick references anywhere on Pryor's body today.
Tressel PLEASE Stop Calling The Plays - There is just no other way to put it, when it comes to offensive scheming and play calling Jim Tressel sucks. He is entirely too quick to abandon any wrinkles in the offense that are working as soon as he gets a bit of a lead. His asshole puckers up tighter than a drum against good teams when he has a lead and simply plays the field position game. This approach simply does not work against good teams. Look at the Penn State game last year, the field position game doesn't work. Look at the Fiesta Bowl loss to Texas last year, the field position game doesn't work. Look at the USC game tonight, the field position game doesn't work. Those three games, especially the last two, are eerily similar in their outcomes because Tressel lacks the killer instinct and this spills over to his team. Speaking of killer instinct...
Red Zone Offense - This Ohio State team is entirely too comfortable kicking field goals when they have good chances in the red zone instead of scoring touchdowns. This team has no killer instinct... no member of the offense has a killer instinct. For the third or forth year in a row this team just leaves entirely too many points on the table and Tressel does not seem to mind it. It fits his style to just play for a field goal. His offensive philosophy in the red zone can be summed up like this, don't play for the touchdown, play not to miss out on the field goal. This does not work against teams of equal talent. Let's face facts this evening. Ohio State faced a USC team that really had a quarterback working with a limited offensive playbook in terms of passing the football. Consistently the Ohio State defense put the offense in GREAT FIELD POSITION and in positions where the offense should have scored 7 points... not 3. 6 points from 2 field goals is worthless when you find out you needed 14 points to win the game.
Ohio State Offensive Line Shows Promise: All and all a very good performance from this group. They gave Pryor time... were pretty good in run blocking against a good USC defense, and it was nice that they showed a bit of their potential and played well. Just maddening that Tressel and staff can't seem to take advantage of this nor does Pryor seem to have a clue when the pressure is on to take advantage.
Coaching Staff Has The Wrong Attitude - Tressel is a conservative guy, wears the sweater vest, keeps things pretty low key, etc... etc... some might even call him a bit of a tight ass with things. This way of thinking leads to him surrounding himself with those coaches who have a similar attitude it seems. This in turn filters down to the team who, when it matters, also plays tight (especially offensively). Look no further than Pryor's choke job again in this game. He choked against Penn State with the late game fumble and he froze in this game making bad decisions and throwing away everything we heard he had improved upon when it counted. In turn look over at USC. Pete Carroll is a pretty low key guy like Tressel but he is loose, loose, loose. Smiling, enjoying himself... you don't think this filters down to his team and to his freshman quarterback instilling in the quarterback the confidence to manage a game winning drive there?
Ohio State Defensive Effort - The defensive line looked GREAT against a front five of NFL caliber offensive linemen. Granted those lineman held the defensive lineman a great deal towards the end of the game without a call but that is nothing but an excuse at this point. The secondary played well against good receivers though USC wasn't exactly firing with a full passing playbook with a freshman quarterback. All and all though it is hard not to be happy with this defensive effort. One of the positives of this team.

All and all this loss can't be measured in simple words for the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes officially took a HUGE step back in terms of their reputation across the nation. If Tressel keeps calling the plays and keeps an ultra conservative philosophy that seemingly infects the team then I fear it is going to be a long season for the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes, even if they manage to share a Big Ten title (they aren't beating Penn State) it does not matter whatsoever. Who cares about winning a conference of MAC level teams at this point. The Buckeyes, unless major changes are made, are nothing more than one good team among mostly mediocre teams in the Big Ten. In other words, they are not the elite team they have the talent to be....

CentSports.com

Tom Loker — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:46:00 GMT

A friend of mine turned me onto this site and I must say it is quite impressive and oddly entertaining. It is called CentSports.com where basically you are allowed to gamble for free as it is entirely ad driven. You start with $0.10 to bet with and your payouts are determined by viewing ads. Quite a novel way to entice people to view advertisements online. If you are looking to kill some time then I strongly recommend you sign up. Hell, you may even end up winning enough money to buy a soda or something.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT CENTSPORTS

Or cut and paste the following link into your browser.

http://www.centsports.com/?opcode=555699

On a positive note...

Tom Loker — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:25:00 GMT

Still somewhat flustered by the Ohio State performance today I am unable to sit back and objectively write anything about this Buckeye team. Maybe a day or two to cool off wll give me a more level head to find both the good and the bad with the team but now it is hard to think much more than bad thoughts about this Buckeye team.

On a more positive note it was a successful day picking games against the spread. Out of 6 games we hit 5 winners today and hope to keep this going throughout the season. Here is a recap of today's plays, the lines I got, and the result of these picks. (My pick in Red.)

Daily Recap: 6 Bets... 5 Winners.

Minnesota -7.5 at Syracuse (LOSS)
Western Michigan at Michigan -13.5 (WIN)
Nevada at ND -14 (WIN)
Georgia at Oklahoma St. -7.5 (WIN)
FAU at Nebraska -25 (WIN)
Maryland at Cal -21 (WIN)