My dog was right. Everyone else was wrong.
For those of you who didn't see last week's article, I started a new feature where my dog, Wooford Woodwoof, makes a prediction for each BYU football game. I tell him to lick my right hand if he thinks BYU's going to win and my left hand if he thinks the opponent will win, and I tell him to lick once for every point they will win by. He picked BYU to beat Notre Dame by 7, and they won by 4. Then, he picked UCF to win by 1, and they won by 8 in double overtime, which is kind of like winning by 1. Woofie is the only person I know of who went 2 for 2 in those games, so congrats to him.
I was happier about him being right about the Notre Dame game.
So what did he say this week? Well, he licked my right hand once, paused, licked it three more times, paused, and then licked it five more times. So at first, he was saying they'd win by 1, then he changed his answer to 4, and then he changed it to 9. He seems determined that BYU will win by a perfect square.
OK, now it seems pointless to even mention what my formula says because we know Woofie will be right, but let's do it anyway. Here's what my formula says for the rest of BYU's games:
Arizona St 19 BYU 33
BYU 29 Utah 27
Baylor 20 BYU 31
BYU 32 Kansas 25
Cincinnati 22 BYU 39
And then what about the Big 12 championship? Well, I used my formula to predict every game involving a team that currently has one loss or fewer, and based on those results, BYU would finish in a three-way tie with Arizona and Oklahoma St. (Shockingly, my formula has Utah losing 3 of their last 5 and Texas Tech losing 4 of their last 5.)
So I used mred's Big 12 tie-breaker simulator where you can put in results for each of the remaining games and see who would win the tie-breakers if all of the results you put in happened. For each game, whichever team is favored to win is the default, so I put in all the results my formula predicted, and then left all the other games at their default position.
According to the simulator, this tie-breaker would come down to who's Big 12 opponents had the best combined win percentage. Based on my formula's results plus the default results, BYU's opponents had the best win percentage, and Arizona's had the second best, meaning it would be BYU vs Arizona in the Big 12 championship. My formula said BYU would win that game 28-25. I also decided to have it predict the matchup with Oklahoma St, and it said BYU 33-29. So either way, my formula says BYU's still winning the Big 12 title and getting an auto bid to the CFP.
It's time to see whether my formula or Dick Harmon of the Deseret News came in second behind Woofie last week. Here are my predictions, and here are his.
For each game where we both made a prediction, whoever got the closest in terms of point spread (or whoever picked the correct team if we disagreed on the winner) gets 2 points, with bonuses of +4 for the BYU game, +2 for the Utah game, +2 for ranked vs ranked games, +2 for nonconference Big 12 vs P4 games, x2 if we disagreed on the winner, and x2 if we got it exactly right.
Also, whoever gets the closest in terms of the point total gets 1 point, with bonuses of +2 for the BYU game, +1 for the Utah game, +1 for ranked vs ranked games, +1 for nonconference Big 12 vs P4 games, x2 if our predicted point totals were at least 15 points apart, and x2 if we got it exactly right.
I currently lead the series 4-3, having won 4 of the last 5. Let's see if I can make it 5 of the last 6.
Game | My formula's prediction | Harmon's prediction | Actual score | Point spread winner (+2) | Point spread bonuses | Point total winner (+1) | Point total bonuses | My points | Harmon's points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pittsburgh vs Miami | Miami 35-21 | Miami 34-17 | Miami 52-23 | Harmon | None | Me | None | 1 | 2 |
Indiana vs Michigan | Indiana 24-19 | Indiana 24-17 | Indiana 13-6 | Harmon | x2 (exactly right) | Harmon | None | 0 | 5 |
Texas Tech vs Cincinnati | Tech 33-32 | Tech 27-21 | Cincy 37-24 | Me | None | Me | x2 (disagreed by at least 15) | 4 | 0 |
LSU vs Auburn | LSU 25-21 | LSU 34-21 | LSU 38-17 | Harmon | None | Harmon | x2 (exactly right) | 0 | 4 |
West Virginia vs TCU | TCU 36-21 | TCU 24-17 | WV 24-20 | Harmon | None | Harmon | x2 (disagreed by at least 15) | 0 | 4 |
Baylor vs Kansas | Kansas 30-26 | Baylor 21-20 | Kansas 25-24 | Me | x2 (disagreed on winner) | Me | None | 5 | 0 |
Tennessee vs South Carolina | SC 25-24 | Tennessee 38-31 | SC 27-24 | Me | x2 (disagreed on winner) | Me | x2 (disagreed by at least 15) | 6 | 0 |
Texas A&M vs Alabama | Bama 30-17 | Bama 31-24 | Bama 31-20 | Me | None | Tie | None | 2 | 0 |
Kansas St vs Arizona St | KSU 32-30 | KSU 17-14 | ASU 28-17 | Me | None | Harmon | x2 (disagreed by at least 15) | 2 | 2 |
Colorado vs Oklahoma St | OSU 32-26 | OSU 27-21 | OSU 57-24 | Tie | None | Me | None | 1 | 0 |
Ole Miss vs Texas | Texas 28-18 | Ole Miss 27-24 | Texas 34-27 | Me | +2 (ranked vs ranked) x2 (disagreed on winner) | Harmon | +1 (ranked vs ranked) | 8 | 2 |
Iowa St vs Arizona | Arizona 34-26 | Arizona 31-27 | Arizona 39-3 | Me | None | Harmon | None | 2 | 1 |
Utah St vs Texas St | TSU 39-24 | TSU 21-17 | TSU 20-17 | Harmon | None | Harmon | x2 (disagreed by at least 15) | 0 | 4 |
Houston vs Utah | Utah 32-30 | Houston 34-31 | Utah 21-13 | Me | +2 (Utah game) +2 (ranked vs ranked) x2 (disagreed on winner) | Me | +1 (Utah game) +1 (ranked vs ranked) | 15 | 0 |
BYU vs UCF | BYU 26-20 | BYU 31-21 | UCF 39-31 | Me | +4 (BYU game) | Harmon | +2 (BYU game) | 6 | 3 |
And the final score is... Harmon 27 Me 52. It was actually closer than the final score suggested. The last game that was played was the Houston-Utah game, and if Houton would've won, Harmon could've won. He either would've needed the point total to be at least 64 or for Houston to win by exactly 3. This gives me a 5-3 lead in the series.
Here are my formula's picks for this week:
Baylor 23 UCF 27
Arizona 30 Texas Tech 27
Notre Dame 37 Navy 24
Wisconsin 18 Iowa 19
Auburn 23 Ole Miss 32
Kansas St 25 Colorado 30
Arizona St 19 BYU 33
Colorado St 26 Utah St 33
Florida 23 Georgia 34
Kansas 18 TCU 29
Northwestern 20 Oregon 28
Utah 34 Cincinnati 32
South Carolina 21 Oklahoma 25
Clemson 23 Florida St 28
Oklahoma St 38 Iowa St 29
Miami 28 North Carolina 27
Mississippi St 18 Texas 30
Ohio St 25 USC 21
As I always say at the end of every article, remember to be kind to the officials.
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