NCAA Week 12/NFL Week 11 Early Plays

I’ll save the recap for when I blog the full lineup of picks tomorrow. Here are our picks/lines for the weekday games:   NFL Other Plays (7-4 YTD) Miami -5 vs. Buffalo [MP Line: MIA -8.3]   College Football Other Plays (24-15 YTD) Ball State +4 at Akron Massachusetts [MP Line: Ball St +0.1] UCF -20 vs.…

CFB Bracket for Nov 15

The Massey-Peabody bracket reconciles politics and analytics, leaning on good analytics while acknowledging political reality. We begin with the traditional Massey-Peabody Power Rankings, a predictive analytics model built to identify the “best” teams. We then impose a few political constraints in order to also consider which teams are “most deserving”: 1) Every team starts the…

CFB Week 11 Lines

Figured I’d post a full set of lines, for anyone who’s interested. I’m including all Week 11 games, including those that have been played and those that have already started. Akron -3 vs. Bowling Green Toledo -10.9 at Kent State Ohio -1.9 vs. Buffalo Northern Illinois -4.6 at Ball State Clemson -23.5 at Wake Forest…

College Football Week 11 Picks

Week 10 Recap: We dropped both of our plays last week, in our lowest volume week of the year. Fresno State (-12.5), our Big Play, was blown out by a Wyoming team that we rated as one of the worst in the country. Fresno wasn’t just unlucky either; they drop 10 spots to #86 in the…

CFB Bracket for Nov 8

The Massey-Peabody bracket reconciles politics and analytics, showing that predictive analytics can and should be used even in a political process. We begin with the traditional Massey-Peabody Power Rankings, a predictive analytics model built to identify the “best” teams. We then impose a few political constraints in order to also consider which teams are “most…

CFB Bracket for Nov 1

The Massey-Peabody bracket attempts to reconcile analytics and politics. We begin with the traditional Massey-Peabody Power Rankings, a predictive analytics model built to identify the “best” teams. We then impose a few political constraints in order to also consider which teams are “most deserving”: 1) No influence from pre-season expectations (hence we use Massey-Peabody’s “Hybrid”…

College Football Week 10 Picks

Week 9 Recap: Our picks went 3-3-1 last weekend, with Big Plays 1-2-1 and Other Plays 2-1. We were oh-so-close to a profitable weekend and a 3-0 record on Other Plays, but a last-minute fumble by Alabama (-17) at the Tennessee 1-yard line cost us the cover. I probably jinxed that game by mentally grading it too early, when…

CFB Playoff Bracket

We figured we should offer a bracket for this year’s college playoff. Since the playoff committee is announcing their first rankings next week. And, you know, since nobody else seems to have an opinion on the matter. The challenge is that we want a bracket informed by analytics – predictive analytics – but one that…

College Football Week 9 Picks

Sorry to say that we’ll be pushing picks back to Thursday mornings. The good news and bad news is that publishing our picks appears to be having an impact on the market.  I know that posting picks later means there may be less value, but I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, as I can’t justify compromising my…

College Football Week 8 Picks

Week 7 Recap: Another excellent weekend for our picks. Our official plays went 6-0 and our leans went 1-2. Both our big plays won handily: Rice (+2) beat Army 41-20 and Troy (-6.5) beat New Mexico State 41-24. Our Other Plays were all underdogs: Illinois (+25.5) played Wisconsin close, losing 38-28. UNLV (+10.5) won outright against…