You’re smarter than the average football fan.
It’s 2020, and you recognize the value in data and analytics to make football predictions. This is true whether you wager on games, enter pools, or want to win an argument with a friend.
With the inherent complexities of football, there’s more to predictions than analytics. However, the numbers provide an objective baseline with which to start your analysis.
In addition, you have an open mind about football and other sports. You acknowledge that data can reveal the hidden truth in sports, whether it’s how to predict interceptions in football or the optimal strategy behind filling out your March Madness bracket.
I first heard about the The Power Rank on one of Gill Alexander’s podcasts. Gill said Ed was one of the few people he trusted that made money in the analytics business besides Rufus Peabody.
Ed releases great member numbers for college football and the NFL. For under $100 annually this is the best bargain in the industry in my opinion.
— Member of The Power Rank from Georgia.
To become a member of The Power Rank, click here.
From academia to football analytics
Hi, my name is Ed Feng. I’m the founder of The Power Rank, a company devoted better sports predictions through analytics.
While I’ve been a crazy fan my entire life, I never expected to work in the sports world. After getting my PhD from Stanford in chemical engineering, I was one of many in search of an academic job.
That changed in 2008. I was reading the paper on Google’s PageRank algorithm and realized all of its similarities with my research. This inspired me to develop a new method for ranking teams.
I worked out some NFL rankings and sent an email to my friends. Enough of them were intrigued for me to explore other sports. It became an obsession, and I found a way to make The Power Rank my job.
In March of 2012, SB Nation made a video of my March Madness analytics. In January of 2013, I accurately predicted Alabama would beat Notre Dame on the cover of Sports Illustrated. They called me their analytics expert.
Since then, my numbers and content have appeared in a wide range of media outlets.
In addition, the ideas in my Amazon best selling book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool have helped many people win their March Madness pool.
To become a member of The Power Rank and get all my best analytics, click here.
How to make football predictions
I want to tell you about the membership product that gives you access to my best football predictions. But first, let’s take a look under the hood at the engine that drives these analytics.
The foundation of my football analytics is accurate adjustments for strength of schedule. This started when I developed a ranking algorithm based on my PhD research at Stanford.
Let’s look at how my algorithm ranks NFL teams on offense and defense based on success rate, a powerful efficiency metric. In my methods, a play is a success if it obtains 50% of the necessary yards on 1st down, 70% on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd and 4th down.
- It gets the play by play data from every NFL game. While this includes up to 267 games for an NFL season, it can be thousands in college football.
- The algorithm creates a network in which the offense and defense of each team are nodes and games are edges that connect the nodes. This was inspired by Google’s PageRank method, which brought order and insight to the complex world of web search.
- From this network, the method develops a set of equations to be solved. For the NFL, there are 64 equations (two for each team) with 64 unknown variables.
- The algorithm solves for the 64 variables simultaneously. This is the key to accurately accounting for strength of schedule. Many other ranking systems do not do this.
- Finally, the variable for each unit (offense or defense) is transformed into a rating that gives an expected success rate against an average team.
On every morning after an NFL or college game, my MacBook Air crunches the numbers. The resulting rankings allow me to make predictions for point spreads and totals.
When I started betting football seriously, I quickly found that data and analytics is essential to being a consistent winner.
What I like so much about The Power Rank is that it not only provides excellent rankings and predictions, but also adjusted numbers for “real” football stats like Yards Per Play and Sack Rate.
Having “real” football stats adjusted for strength of schedule helps me recognize and exploit inefficiencies in the betting markets.
Jordan Jones, member of The Power Rank
Accuracy of the predictions
Members of The Power Rank has access to my best computer predictions for the NFL and college football as well as my March Madness bracket advice. These calculations go far beyond the methods used for the public predictions on this site.
For the NFL, this is how the predictions have performed against the median closing line from Don Best. I have only included games in which the prediction differs from the market spread by more than a half point.
- 2016-2019 NFL spread: 52.3% (468-427 with 39 pushes)
In 2019, the NFL spread predictions were 50% against the median closing line from Don Best. In contrast, the root mean square error (rms) of my spread prediction from the game result was 13.1. The rms error of the median closing line was 12.9.
The rms error of my spread predictions were within 1.4% of the closing median line from the markets, a better result than the previous 3 seasons. While against the spread performance can bounce around from season to season, the rms error compared to the markets tends to be more stable.
For the 2019 college football season, this is how the predictions have performed:
- 2019 college football spread: 50.0% (378-378 with 18 pushes)
- 2019 college football totals starting week 5: 49.5% (286-292 with 8 pushes)
In addition, the predictions had the game winner in 75.1% of games straight up (581-193). The closing median spread from Don Best had 74.5% of game winners straight up (577-197).
For the 2018 season, this is how the college football predictions performed in FBS vs FBS games against the median closing market values on Don Best.
- College football spread: 51.0% (388-373 with 10 pushes)
- College football total after week 4: 51.4% (292-276 with 5 pushes)
The 2019 against the spread results for college football have not been as good as 2018. However, in 2019, the root mean square (rms) error from The Power Rank spread prediction from the game result is 15.76. For the median closing spread at Don Best, the rms error is 15.43.
This implies that The Power Rank differs from the market by 2.2%. This is less than the 3.3% difference in 2018, which suggest the 2019 predictions have been stronger than last year.
I do not recommend making wagers based only on these numbers. The computer predictions should serve as an objective baseline for analyzing a game. Success in the sports markets requires not only analytics for predictions but also wide spread knowledge of injuries and market movement.
I spent a long time searching the web for analytics rather than picks. I finally found it with The Power Rank.
I signed up for the power rating and point spread analysis for football and am quite pleased with the offerings.
I need to have consistent line anticipation/prediction through objective reasoning to begin my weekly evaluation. Your site offers such reasoning on an excellent basis.
You provide an excellent foundation for determining the correct line. This assists me greatly with establishing my betting line for the week, and I’m able to adjust my line for non-objective factors knowing that objective factors have been taken into account.
I would recommend a membership to anyone in search of strong analytical reasoning and objective line determination.
— Jeff, Las Vegas, Nevada.
A membership to The Power Rank does not offer picks on football games. Instead, members get predictive analytics that help you make better decisions.
COVID-19 Policy
As a member of The Power Rank, I will give you a full year’s worth of analytics in NFL, college football and March Madness. Due to potential cancellations because of COVID-19, this might require extending your membership.
I have a formula to figure out how to extend your membership. (Of course I do, this is an analytics company.) This extension will error on the side of longer to make sure you get a full year’s worth of analytics.
To learn about the details of the COVID-19 policy, click here.
Become a member of The Power Rank
When you come in and bet me, believe me, I’m going to move the hell out of those numbers.
Chris Andrews, director of the South Point sports book on The Football Analytics Show
As a member of The Power Rank, you get the following:
- Predictions for the spread in every college game, totals after week 4.
- Predictions for the spread in every NFL game.
- The Pick Report, my off-season study on how to predict interceptions.
- Data files with rankings for college football and NFL teams based on metrics such as success rate and yards per play. You can upload these files to a spreadsheet to perform your own analysis.
- My full bracket advice for the NCAA tournament.
In addition, members get access to interactive team pages that let you instantly evaluate match ups in a game. To check out a sample page with an explanation of how the visuals work, click here.
The March Madness bracket advice has helped many members win their pool.
Thanks to The Power Rank, I won my pool in 2019. I had Virginia winning.
Guess how many games I’ve watched this season? Literally zero. I only used the cheat sheet you provide through my membership to The Power Rank.
I had guys in my pool that have watched college basketball for decades, and I beat them all.
— Mark Carvalho, member of The Power Rank
All football predictions are posted by Tuesday at noon Eastern during the football season.
It starts with an algorithm I’ve developed that does for sports analytics what Google’s PageRank did for web search: brings order and insight into a messy system.
To get a deeper insight, the algorithm is used to rank offenses and defenses based on efficiency metrics like success rate.
The team pages visualize these numbers so you can instantly evaluate a game.
- The statistics make you smarter about football because they account for strength of schedule.
- The team pages let you instantly evaluate a game.
For less than $5 a week during the football season, you get access to all the football analytics at The Power Rank.
A membership to The Power Rank is neither a handicapping service that provides picks or a get rich quick program. If you want either of these things, please save us both time and do not become a member.
However, if you recognize the power in using analytics as an objective baseline for making predictions, then you have found the right place on the internet.
To become a member of The Power Rank for $89 per year and get instant access to the premium content, click on the orange “Add To Cart” button.
This membership renews every year. If there are any cancellations due to COVID-19, your membership will get extended. You can also pay with PayPal, JCB and Diner’s Club.
The data visualizations work on almost all modern browsers. The lone exception is Internet Explorer 8 and earlier versions. If you can view this sample team page, you’re all set. Otherwise, I recommend a free download of Google’s Chrome browser.
Get The Pick Report
Predictive football models have come a long way. But what do they not consider?
Turnovers. These plays can tip a game, as a regression analysis shows that an interception is worth 5 points. For a stretch of games, a quarterback might get lucky as defenders drop dangerous balls that hit them in the hands. Points based metrics do not account for this luck and will overrate the offense.
Unfortunately, interceptions are notoriously difficult to predict. For example, the correlation of interception rate for an NFL quarterback from one season to the next is low. Interception rate is not sticky from year to year.
Predicting interceptions requires a deeper dive into the data. The Pick Report reveals this new research, which includes:
- How to calculate skill vs luck, and what this says about interceptions
- The hidden variable in the play by play that helps predict interceptions
- The rate statistic as sticky as any NFL quarterback metric that only you will know about
- The relationship between interceptions and three point shooting in basketball
The Pick Report contains the following:
- The PDF of the professionally edited report, which contains over 4,000 words and 10 color figures.
- The audio version of the report (30 min), performed by the author.
- The datafile with NFL quarterbacks statistics that can uploaded into a spreadsheet
I spent months using my Ph.D. level research skills to find an edge by predicting turnovers. In this report, the crucial results get distilled into the fewest possible words.
To get The Pick Report, click on “I want this!”
30 day, no hassle, money back guarantee
Please take up to 30 days to evaluate any of the predictions and analytics. If you’re not satisfied for any reason, I will refund your money.
No questions asked, no hard feelings.
Simply reply to the email you’ll get when you purchase. I will personally take care of the rest.