My formula predicts the rest of BYU's football games and other games in week 3

Week 2 is in the books. BYU is now 2-0 after a solid 28-17 win over Arizona. According to the unofficial Big 12 poll on Yahoo Sports, Arizona was picked to finish higher than any of the Big 12 teams remaining on BYU's schedule, so this was a big win. It looks like, according to most experts, BYU is well on their way to another Big 12 title game and their first College Football Playoff.

But who cares what the experts say? We want to know what Spencer Higinbotham's surprisingly effective fan-made formula says (or at least I do. Because I am Spencer Higinbotham).

My formula predicted that BYU would beat Arizona 27-22. It ended up only being off by six points. Not too shabby. Let's see what it predicts for the rest of BYU's games:

Formula predictions for the remaining BYU football schedule

BYU 33 Colorado St 19

BYU 28 TCU 22

BYU 32 Iowa St 17

Notre Dame 24 BYU 23

BYU 25 UCF 21

BYU 26 Arizona St 23

Utah 29 BYU 25

BYU 32 Baylor 21

BYU 30 Kansas 22

BYU 35 Cincinnati 21

So my formula says BYU will go 10-2, and unless the CFP committee notices that the Big 12 is outperforming the Big 10 right now (coughing the statement, "A team that went 0-9 in the Big 12 last year just beat a team that went 8-1 in the Big 10 last year') 10-2 probably won't be enough for an at large bid, However, the formula does say BYU will be 8-1 in Big 12 play, which will probably be good enough to get them to the Big 12 championship game.

So let's see how BYU will do in the Big 12 title game. Who would they play? According to my formula, the highest rated team in the Big 12 is... Arizona St? Not Texas Tech? After the Sun Devils just lost a game by 28 points? What kind of formula is this?

Well, it actually makes a lot more sense than you might think. The most important stat in my formula is yards per play because that's the one that's generally the most consistent in predicting future games. Arizona St had 5.8 yards per play to Texas A&M's 4.1, and Texas Tech had 4.5 to Oregon St's 6.5. And Texas A&M is a much better team than Oregon St. So actually, it makes a lot of sense that my formula likes ASU more. That being said, how would BYU do against Arizona St in Arlington?

Arizona St 25 BYU 24

And the pain we experienced on November 23, 2024 in Tempe is back. Go ahead and buy your Alamo Bowl tickets... except they're probably going to take some 8-4 Texas team that BYU beat by 31 points. Never mind, buy your Pop Tarts Bowl tickets.

Alright. Now for the part of the article where I experience some autistic joy. It's time for my nerdy little competition with Dick Harmon of the Deseret News. I grew up reading his articles, and unbeknownst to him, I've been having these kinds of competitions for a while now. It's one of those quirky Spencer things that I do, and now I want to share it with the world.

Here's how it works. Every week, I'll make predictions for all the Big 12 games as well as any other games that are likely to be relevant to BYU's CFP chase. For every game where both me and Dick Harmon made a prediction, we'll compare our predictions and see whose point spread and point total was the closest to that of the actual score. My week 2 predictions aren't available online because there were complications with last week's article, but here are Dick Harmon's predictions.

For the point spread, whoever gets the closest gets 2 points, and +4 if it's the BYU game, +2 if it's the Utah game, +2 if it's a ranked matchup, +2 if it's a Big 12 team playing a team from another P4 conference, x2 if we got it exactly right, and x2 if we disagreed on the winner. (If we disagreed on the winner, the points will go to whoever's team won even if the other person technically had the closer point spread.)

For the point total, whoever got the closest will get 1 point, and +2 if it's the BYU game, +1 if it's the Utah game, +1 if it's a ranked matchup, +1 if it's a Big 12 team playing a team from another P4 conference, x2 if we got it exactly right, and x2 if our predicted point totals were at least 15 points apart.

Here's how we did:

And the final score is... Harmon 45, Higinbotham 32. Dick Harmon wins. With that win, he now leads the series 2-0 (he won last week, too). Hopefully, I'll have more success as the season goes along. I usually do, one, because I have more numbers to go off of, and two, because my inability to account for FCS games becomes less and less important.

Alright. Here are my formula's predictions for this week. Again, it's every Big 12 game plus any other game that's likely to be relevant to BYU's playoff chase.

Texas Tech 32 Houston 21

Arizona St 30 Kansas 21

Iowa St 31 Bowling Green 15

Kansas St 34 Tulane 18

Alabama 29 Florida St 17

Cincinnati 33 Miami (OH) 21

Louisville 29 SMU 28

Utah 37 Utah St 20

Baylor 33 Louisiana Tech 19

Auburn 25 Florida 24

UCF 33 Georgia St 20

BYU 33 Colorado St 19

Northwestern 27 Colorado 20

LSU 30 Ole Miss 20

Notre Dame 32 Michigan St 15

Virginia 30 West Virginia 18

TCU 34 Arkansas St 21

Arizona 38 Northern Illinois 12

As I always say at the end of every article, remember to be kind to the officials.

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