Monday, November 23, 2009

BourbonCon! Random Statistical Belligerence

The short week is getting in the way of our pre-BourbonCon responsibilities. Stupid job! Stupid Boss!

Above is statistical proof that UGA underperformed this year and Georgia Tech was wildly unpredictable, though it did improve throughout the year. Per Jeff Sagarin, Jeff Sagarin's ratings can be used to determine the spread on any game simply by finding the difference between two teams Sagarin Ratings and adding or subtracting 3 points (give or take) for home field advantage.

Theoretically this means we can compare the actual score of a game to the Sagarin generated spread and determine if a team over or under achieved. Any team that beats the Sagarin generated spread over achieved. For example, according to their Sagarin Ratings Georgia Tech (88.16) plus home field advantage (3.12) minus Wake Forest (71.92) was Sagarin favored by 19.3 points. Tech won by only three points. While a win is a win, the Jackets offense was pooptacular, and thus the team underperformed against Wake.

The above graph charts the difference between Tech and UGA's Sagarin generated spread in each game and their actual performance. The corresponding blue and red trend lines demonstrate that Tech, while erratic, improved throughout the year, while Georgia did not. In fact Georgia's trend line indicates a solid, consistent level of under performance

1 comment:

  1. May I be the first to say that your graph don't mean shit? You can make what you want of it, but I ain't buying it.

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