A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article explaining my formula for predicting college football games and using it to predict all of BYU's FBS games plus some key games around the country in weeks 0 and 1. I'll be doing the same for week 2 in this article. But first, it's time for the debut of post-game updates for my formula's predictions.
Here's how this is going to work. For each of the games that we both made predictions for, I'll determine who got the closest to the actual score in terms of both point spread and point total. The scoring will work as follows:
To be fair, though, I did say I was going to include every game that involved a Big 12 team playing an FBS opponent, and I somehow forgot about Coastal Carolina vs. West Virginia (Obviously, Coastal is an FBS team because otherwise, them being the only team to beat BYU in 2020 would've been even sadder).
Oregon St vs. Houston: I said Houston 34-19. Houston won 33-20.
Baylor vs. Auburn: I said Auburn 29-21. Auburn won 17-16.
Boston College vs. Cincinnati: I said Cincinnati 39-23. Cincinnati won 34-15.
Oklahoma St vs. Tulsa: I said Tulsa 30-22. He said Oklahoma St 38-17. Tulsa won 24-10. So far, it seems that I was right about Oklahoma St not making the dramatic improvement everyone thought they would.
BYU vs. Utah Tech: I thought about not counting this one because I made this prediction myself instead of using my formula, but this is Lawless Republic, so we have to include the BYU game.
I also want to bring up that I did a competition with the point spread and totals on the cbssports.com scoreboard where every FBS vs. FBS game was included. I usually don't win in these head-to-head comparisons, but for week 1, I'm going into the SMU-Florida St game with a 117-105 lead, and the only way I can lose is if SMU wins by exactly 2 or 3 points and the point total is below 55 (The scoring works differently in this one since there are more games).
OK, now let's make our week 2 predictions. I will say that week 2 is generally when my formula is at its weakest because it doesn't account for FCS games, which are the only games some teams have so far. That means that any team that has only played an FCS game and not an FBS game will have all the same numbers they had before, regardless of how they did in their FCS game. That being said, here's what I've got for week 2:
Missouri 27 Kansas 23
Texas A&M 31 Arizona St 16
Michigan 22 Oklahoma 18
Oregon 41 Oklahoma St 16
Kansas St 28 Washington St 21
BYU 27 Arizona 22
Alabama 26 Kentucky 16
Illinois 29 Duke 26
Minnesota 25 Mississippi St 24
Pittsburgh 29 UCF 21
Washington 37 Utah St 18
Boise St 38 Memphis 22
Tennessee 31 Georgia Tech 26
Iowa 28 Iowa St 16
Ohio St 24 Texas 23
Texas Tech 37 Oregon St 17
Utah 38 Arkansas 30
The prediction I'm the most surprised about is Michigan beating Oklahoma after needing a controversial call to beat Western Michigan, but considering how heavily my formula weighs yards per play, and considerig the Wolverines held the Broncos to 3.2 yards per play, which is literally less than what BYU allowed from Utah Tech, I guess it makes sense.
Finally, here's my formula's predictions for the rest of the games on BYU's schedule. Notably, because my formula doesn't account for FCS games, BYU's numbers haven't changed, and the same is true for all of BYU's opponents that haven't played an FBS team yet. That means all my predictions for BYU's games against those teams will be exactly the same as they were before. That being said, here's what I've got:
BYU 27 Arizona 22
BYU 33 Colorado St 19
BYU 27 TCU 22
BYU 34 Iowa St 19
Notre Dame 27 BYU 23
BYU 26 UCF 23
BYU 29 Arizona St 22
Utah 29 BYU 27
BYU 32 Baylor 21
BYU 29 Kansas 23
BYU 34 Cincinnati 21
So just like before, we've still got BYU going 10-2 with their two losses being in their two biggest games. Oh well. At least the Notre Dame game is somehow significantly closer despite Notre Dame's convincing win over Wisconsin. I guess after averaging a blistering 7.3 yards per play on offense last year, only getting 5.6 against a mediocre Big 10 team didn't help them. Hopefully, this week, BYU can put up some impressive enough numbers to surpass both the Irish and the Utes.
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