After posting the public week 10 college football predictions, I got some push back on why Ohio State was only a 3.6 point favorite at Iowa this week.
math guy @thepowerrank: "Ohio St will beat Iowa by 3.6 on the road. Iowa has a 39% chance of beating Ohio St" ?
Who sent it from 16.5 to 18?— Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) November 2, 2017
As of Friday morning, Ohio State is a 18 point favorite in the markets.
The public predictions are based on the team rankings that take margin of victory and adjust for strength of schedule. By this points based metric, Iowa gets ranked a strong 17th, as they beat a surging Iowa State by 3 and only lost to Penn State by 2.
17th seems way too high for Iowa, and I agree that a prediction of Ohio State by 3.6 is too low. Some of my other metrics support this.
My market rankings take closing point spreads and adjust for strength of schedule. This predicts a 17 point win for Ohio State on the road.
I use yards per play adjusted for strength of schedule to evaluate teams and make predictions. This metric makes Ohio State a 20 point road favorite.
Members of The Power Rank have access to predictions that combine these sources, which predicts a 10.6 point win for Ohio State. I believe this will be closer to the actual margin of victory.
However, I don’t like to go against coaches like Urban Meyer and Nick Saban as big favorites. The large spread implies a significant talent gap, and these coaches almost always have their teams prepared for these games.
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