Saturday, October 17, 2009

Thoughts on today's games

Here are some thoughts on some of today's games using my computer's ratings as a reference point for the result.

In the early big game, Texas held on to beat Oklahoma 16-13 so my computer missed the upset pick but got the pick against the spread having picked OU by 1.1.  But one could argue that with Bradford playing more than 8 plays, OU could have won and that without him the result is as expected.  In fact, if Bradford hadn't played against Baylor and that resulted in the game being 13 points closer, the computer would have picked Texas by 1.

Ohio State was upset by Purdue, and while the computer certainly didn't pick the upset, it has thought Ohio State was overrated all year never being in the top-10 and being #13 coming into this game.  Due to that, it had Purdue plus the 14 points and got that one right.

Iowa is another team that hasn't gotten their due from the voters and Vegas having been underdogs in 3 games this season, 2 of those after the upset of Penn State put them on the map, at home by 8 to Michigan and by 3 on the road to Wisconsin today.  The computer picked them to win and they came through again to get the pick right straight up and against the spread.

The computer liked Florida by 16.4 so with the spread Florida by 24.5 the clear pick was Arkansas.  While I wouldn't say the computer hasn't liked Florida, it did have them #4 and not the consensus #1 like the polls.  And the computer has liked Arkansas a bit more than the polls having them #22 while they were around #30 in the polls.  The result?  Arkansas missed 2 field goals and Tebow got them in position for the 3 point win to eke it out and the computer got both the win and spread right.

USC visited Notre Dame with the spread by 11 and my computer liked them by only 5.1 due in large part to them being up and down and having the terrible loss to Washington.  If the "real" USC shows up, i.e. we omit the loss to Washington, USC is the computer's pick by 14.  Well, the "real" USC showed up for awhile taking a 20 point lead into the 4th but they nearly let the game get away but won by 7 just to make my computer's pick look more accurate and get the win and spread correct.

The computer has really liked Nebraska this year and picked them by 18.7 over what must be a disappointed Texas Tech, but Nebraska laid an egg and lost by a ton meaning the computer missed on both the win and spread.  Nebraska, and as a consequence Virginia Tech and Alabama may be dropping in the rankings this week.

That's it for now, perhaps more later.

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