Author Archives: Joel Hollingsworth

As we said in the 2020 college football TV schedule post Wednesday, beginning slowly means there’s only a handful of games this week. Our picks this year come with a major caveat, especially this week, namely that there’s a new villain in town. The Unknowable threatens to wreak havoc over all attempts to predict anything in this crazy season.

Why do we do this?

Even though we’re using Vegas spreads and other gamblingy words, our primary purpose in discussing such things and making predictions isn’t to help you lose less of your hard-earned money by making smarter wagers, it’s to hopefully enhance the entertainment value of the season by making us all better-informed fans. As it turns out, the folks in Vegas have a proven track record of knowing their stuff when it comes to these things, which makes sense for folks actually putting real money where their collective mouths are.

So like it or not, Vegas is the standard, and whether we know what we’re talking about is best measured by comparing our predictions to theirs and others who are also trying to outsmart them. If you can do so more than half the time, you’re doing pretty well.

Bottom line, we’re just hoping to help you sound smart when talking with your friends Friday afternoons before Gamedays. And if you also win your office pool, well, gravy’s good.

Final GRT SPM results for 2019

So, how’d the old GRT Statsy Preview Machine do last year? You may recall that last year we tracked three sets of data: (1) all FBS-vs-FBS games (“FBS games”), (2) those games that were also above a certain confidence level; and (3) those FBS games that were also within a certain confidence range. How do we determine confidence? The SPM spits out a projected spread for each game, and the further this number is from the Vegas opening spread, the higher the level of confidence. To be in category 2, the confidence level must be over 9, and to be in category 3, the confidence level must be between 9 and 14.

For all FBS games last season, the SPM was 382-373 (50.60%). For the ones in category 2, it was 147-119 (55.26%), and in the sweet spot that is category 3, it was 87-54 (61.70%).

Conclusions:

• Category 1: Strong opinions about these games too often taste like crow.
• Category 2: Opinions about these are a little safer, but it is not advised to get too cocky about them.
• Category 3: If you’re going to beat your chest about any of the week’s games, do it about these. This is especially true if another predictive system like Bill Connelly’s SP+ likes any of the same games. Just remember, that even on the best days, you’re likely to be wrong four out of 10 times.

GRT SPM 2020 Week 1 Picks

With another word of warning about The Unknowable, here are the Statsy Preview Machine’s picks for Week 1 of the 2020 college football season:

Of those, BYU-Navy is the only Category 3 game.

How are y’all feeling about those?

With all of the sharks and other critters trespassing into our space, we’re not diving head first into the deep end to kick off the 2020 college football season. No, no, no. This Year That Will Live in Infamy calls for a cautious dipping-of-the-toes into the shallows to see whether we can actually retrieve all of them afterwards.

So yeah, there is actual live FBS football this week. It’s just that we’re going to have to bide our time with nachos and bread until the server gets here. Funny how nachos and bread tastes like manna when you’re famished.

We usually post an abbreviated schedule curated just for Vols fans first, and because tradition matters ’round these parts, we’re doing that again today, although what matters to Vols fans this week is really not much different than what matters to everyone else. If it’s live FBS football, we’re watching.

Thursday, September 3, 2020

This one at least involves an opponent with whom we have some recent familiarity, as we beat the Blazers 30-7 a lifetime ago last fall. So, we’re rooting for them to look good.

Gameday, September 5, 2020

Hmm. Well, it’s football, and it’s football the live long day. Who’s up for finding out whether we can actually get full on peanuts?

Monday, September 7, 2020

And here we are with what will likely be an actual good game in which we have a fair degree of rooting interest. You’ll no doubt recall the Vols’ super-fun loss to BYU in the second game of the season last year, and Navy was sneaking up on people all year long last season. I’m rooting for BYU in this one despite the faint lingerings of a massive grudge.

Full searchable college football TV schedule

Here’s the entire 2020 college football TV schedule for this week: