It’s not quite August yet, but the heat has broken (for now) and the birds are singing outside my window, so it’s feeling like a good time to throw open the garage door and take the GRT Expected Win Total Machine for a spin.
For those who might be new to this, this is an alternative method of gauging your expectations for the upcoming season. Rather than just assigning Ws and Ls to games, you assign each game a confidence level as a percentage. If you’re positive the Vols will win, you give it 100%. If you’re positive they’ll lose, you give it 0%. Toss-ups hover somewhere around 50%.
We take those numbers, crunch ’em up good, and spit something back at you that we believe better approximates what you really expect the win-loss record to be this fall.
We’ll likely do this again as we get more information from fall practice, but this will give us all a pretty good benchmark heading into the season.
The GRT Expected Win Total Machine
Use the form below to submit your data and get your answer.
My results and expectations
I’m at 6.55 wins. Here’s how I feel about each game, with space between the order of the games to help show relative confidence level of each game at this point:
My preliminary thoughts about each game are below. Leave yours in the comment section.
The non-con
The Vols have a relatively easy non-conference schedule this fall. Those of you who know me know that I never get to 100% certainty, but I do have both Chattanooga and Georgia State at 95%.
UAB and BYU are both a step above the others, but I still have them at 85% and 80%, respectively.
The Big 3
Alabama, Georgia, and Florida are all likely losses this season, but in different degrees. I have Alabama at 5%, Georgia at 15%, and Florida at 30%. Offensive lines matter, y’all.
Where the season will turn
The season will turn on the games against the rest of the SEC East and Mississippi State. I currently have all of these teams as toss-ups at 50%. I had to order them for the table, so I settled on Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Missouri, and Kentucky, in order of likelihood of winning. As I said last week, I think Missouri’s a better team than Kentucky this year, but that the Vols have a slightly better chance against Missouri than Kentucky due to quirks in the schedule.
What about you? What are your numbers, what’s your expected win total, and why?
