Let's move to football for a change...

...Briefly in American, but then we'll dive into the upcoming Australian seasons, which start for both men and women in February.

Against the Vegas odds, the NFC's top-seeded Philadelphia Eagles have made it to Super Bowl LII (or 52, for you non-Roman speakers!) to face the AFC's top seed, the defending champion New England Patriots. Vegas, of course, once again favors the Pats, this time by six at the opening.

ELO-Following Football lists the game as a four-point Patriots victory, and personally I would take the Eagles if you're going to get anything much more than six points. Here's why: in all of the previous New England/Belechick Super Bowls, win OR lose, the game has always ended within one score: 

XXXVI	Feb. 3, 2002	Superdome (New Orleans)	New England 20, St. Louis 17
XXXVIII	Feb. 1, 2004	Reliant Stadium (Houston)	New England 32, Carolina 29
XXXIX	Feb. 6, 2005	Alltel Stadium (Jacksonville, Fla.)	New England 24, Philadelphia 21
XLII	Feb. 3, 2008	University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)	New York Giants 17, New England 14
XLVI	Feb. 5, 2012	Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis)	New York Giants 21, New England Patriots 17
XLIX	Feb. 1, 2015	University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)	New England Patriots 28, Seattle Seahawks 24
LI	Feb. 5, 2017	NRG Stadium (Houston)	New England Patriots 34, Atlanta Falcons 28

So I'd take the Patriots in a range of three to seven points: if it gets as close as three, bet the Pats, and if it gets as wide as seven, bet the Eagles. 

As for Australian footy, the women start their second season of "big time" AFLW game, in the heat of the late south Australian summer. Last year, the Adelaide Crows won the title by defeating the minor premiers, the Brisbane Lions. This season, the same eight teams will battle in Feb/Mar for the second title, and as one Crows supporter puts it, "We always win our titles in twos!". (The last men's premierships were back to back in 1997-1998.)

In fact, I have Adelaide winning both the men's AND women's titles this season. Here are my projections for a possible order (keeping in mind that Richmond went from 13th last year to a title last year, so anything is possible!)...

AFL Men: Adelaide                       AFLWomen: Adelaide
                       Geelong                                                     Melbourne
                       Port Adelaide                                            Western BD
                       Sydney                                                       Brisbane
                       Melbourne                                                GWS
                       Richmond                                                 Carlton
                       GWS                                                           Fremantle
                       Essendon                                                   Collingwood
                  Collingwood
                  Hawthorn
                  St. Kilda
                  Fremantle
                  Brisbane
                  West Coast
                  Western BD
                  North Melbourne
                  Carlton
                  Gold Coast

Basically, on the women's side, I don't see a reason for Adelaide to fall back, although Melbourne's good enough to overtake them and it wouldn't astound me. Brisbane's loss of Tayla Harris will be a big problem for them, and I don't see them going unbeaten again. The '17 Western Bulldogs had the critical metric indicator of huge growth next year (an abnormally high scoring percentage), so I see great things ahead this year for them, and the GWS Giants have picked up some good off-season recruits and should improve significantly. I just don't see enough growth from the rest to merit predicting anything spectacular from any of them; Carlton is the best of the lot, though. 

For the men, I have many more metrics to go off of, and they all call for Adelaide to be the best of the bunch this year. Port and Geelong are close but don't have the close-knit experience together that the Crows do. Sydney's forecast hopes that the last part of the season is really them; Melbourne's hopes their last part of the season really isn't. GWS keeps losing talent, and it won't surprise me to see them take a step back; it wouldn't astound me to see them make prelim finals, either. As for the number eight-slash-sacrificial lamb spot, I've chosen Essendon on the basis of not just metrics but the gut feeling that they've got that "something" that allows them to win the close ones at the end - and I don't see that from Collingwood (who could very well simply win their last five to close to ninth once they're no longer eligible for finals) or Hawthorn or the Saints. 

As for the rest? Fremantle could very well put it together and make finals - I actually would be less surprised to see them make finals than the three teams right above them. Brisbane will be what Gold Coast was in 2014 or the Giants in 2015 - that young team starting to put it together. How quickly they do is what'll determine their final position, but I'd be surprised to see them go #18 to #8 in one year. West Coast and the Bulldogs are fading fast; North needs another year to put it together, and Gold Coast isn't showing any signs of ever putting it together. Carlton's the enigma - they feel like they're losing ground, not gaining it, and the metrics all agree. But it looks from the outside like something's brewing in blue, and even though I'm no CFC fan, I would love to be wrong with this pick.

AFL roster analysis

[Originally published in The Roar]

      Now that the trading period and draft is over, we can start to get a feel for what the 2018 rosters will look like for each of the 18 AFL teams looking to play through to the end of September this coming year. 

     If you've read my work here before, you'll remember that I'm a maths geek and like to spend my free time crunching numbers looking for trends and predicting future performance. My track record, using my "ELO-Following Football" rating system for teams and players (and now for male and female!) has proven to be more accurate than the odds-makers and the vast majority of pundits out there. (Not by much, mind you! But more than a trivial amount!) I'm not comfortable saying "use these forecasts for gambling purposes", but you do you, y'know?

     So, trying to project what each club will have to work with next year will give us a head start on projecting what they'll accomplish in league in the fall and winter. There are two numbers to share with you in pursuit of this goal.

     One is the "Following Football" rating from last September, the year-end resultant of the on-field production using the ELO method (a zero-sum calculation where you compare expectation to result and add to the rating of the team which outperformed expectation the same amount you subtract from the rating of their opponent). As we do every season, we normalized those numbers towards the mean to address the normal tendencies during the season to spread apart; in the AFL, we find that a 20% reduction figure is about right.

     The other is new to readers of The Roar: we've taken the top 29 players on each team's projected roster (nine forwards, nine midfielders, nine backs, and two ruckman) and assigned them a point value based on their projected points for the coming season, using the previous three seasons where applicable. We've been very conservative with changes - if they were, say, the one-hundredth rated player overall last season, then (barring injury, trade, moving positions or other mitigating factors) they're probably valued as about that right now. Young players will probably improve a bit; old players will probably fade a bit. You get the idea. (Incidentally, this would be easy for you to do with fantasy values - although those values aren't quite as functional for this purpose as the ELO numbers are, because they're designed for a slightly different purpose. But I won't swear they're not as good; I've just found that this seems to work better.)

     Why 29 players, when they only field 22? By the time they reach the bye, most teams have used about that many bodies on the field. If they're fortunate, they won't have to dig any deeper - if they're GWS last year, they'll be hip deep in unused guernseys. Besides that, beyond those top 29 it becomes tougher to forecast who will come out of the feeder league bushes and show improvement enough to be given a shot. 

     So, without ado, here are those numbers (written as [total roster projected points, current team rating]):

Adelaide (3409, 74.0)

Geelong (3250, 63.3)

GWS (3143, 60.3)

Melbourne (3126, 50.1)

Port Adelaide (3124, 62.2)

Sydney (3046, 75.0)

Richmond (2959, 77.6)

Essendon (2885, 46.8)

Hawthorn (2680, 50.5)

Fremantle (2621, 24.5)

West Coast (2615, 50.3)

Collingwood (2598, 51.4)

Brisbane (2546, 27.4)

St. Kilda (2408, 50.1)

Western BD (2108, 45.7)

No. Melbourne (2062, 38.9)

Carlton (2002, 35.2)

Gold Coast (2002, 16.2)

     Some things stand out, and while it may belabor the obvious in some cases, we'll point them out anyway.

     Teams that seem to have stronger rosters than their record or rating would tell us from last year? The most prominent teams are Melbourne, up in fourth on the roster point list when they didn't make finals last year, and Fremantle, which was free-falling to the bottom at the end of the year. Their roster number indicates a .500 season or so, resting 11th overall and just ahead of the co-tenants, West Coast. Brisbane's off the bottom of the table as well, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone watching this young team last season!

     Which teams are surprisingly thin on talent? The names in 15th and 16th are notable: St. Kilda is at the bottom end of the middle pack, at 2408 (the average here turns out to be right around 2700, for comparison). But the Doggies look to be in trouble this year, having only the same amount of talent as the three teams deemed to have the "least talented roster" by these numbers. the Roos and the Blues, with Dew's Crews right there too. (Too's.)

     Is Western really that strapped for meritorious players? Well, with the Bont not having pulled into that highest echelon (yet) as many expected, the culling of a few veteran players, and some weaknesses disguised by a joy-filled run to the flag in 2016 that the 2017 exposed, the answer is yes. Here's the list of the five highest valued players on their list (according to our numbers) in alphabetical order: Bontempelli, Dalhaus, Hunter, Johannisen, and Macrae. All good players - but how does that stack up against almost any random AFL team? You do the comparison.  

     To fill to the 29th player, we have to include back-and-forth players like Josh Dunkley, Josh Schache, Lukas Webb, and rookie draft pick Aaron Naughton, who may be wonderful but isn't likely to be their number one option this early. While most teams have this kind of issue at the bottom (else why are those players not starting?), it speaks to the fact that the Bulldogs' roster doesn't have the kind of strength at either end that strikes fear in the hearts of other teams. 

     It was also surprising to see our two highest rated teams, Sydney and Richmond, in sixth and seventh in terms of overall roster strength. Neither team should be overly concerned about that unless there's a tidal wave of injuries that overwhelms either of them this season: doing a quick simulation that combines the current team ratings (for round one) and the roster projected team point numbers (affecting each team's rating gradually up to the bye), Sydney is still one of three teams projected to reach round 15 at 12-1 (the others are Adelaide and Geelong), and Richmond should be somewhere near 10-3 at that point as well. (Those projections assume form holds in every game, which 1/3 of the time it doesn't in the AFL! We used to include that in our forecasts, but discovered it's fruitless to be guessing when fate will blow on the dice!)

     Those projections, by the way, don't reveal anything interesting that the two numbers above don't already show. Adelaide has a great roster number and a great rating, so guess what? They're likely to win most of their games! Gold Coast has just the opposite? Guess what? It's hard to find wins for them on this schedule - although I have faith that Stewart Dew can pull them up at least a little bit.

     Which brings us to our most important intangible: coaching. What effect will Dew have on the Suns? Will an invigorated Nathan Buckley show more flair with the Magpies? In general, what effect does a year make on anything related to a team? I'm convinced that the biggest difference with Richmond in 2017, especially late in the season, was not Prestia or any other new person involved, but rather just the year of growth and experience and "settling in together" of the major players for the Tigers - a year of maturation for Dustin Martin into the prohibitive favorite and winner of the Brownlow, the coordination of the front line and the back line both with time and experience together, and so forth. I'll lay odds they didn't realize what they had until they started to win some games they didn't expect to win!

      So all of this number crunching is much ado about nothing? 

      Not really. It gives us an idea what we're supposed to be looking for this season - who might have sudden surges from their farm system mid-season. It might tell us who's working with duct tape and bailing wire to hold the team together until they can bring some youth into the fight down the road. In Brisbane's case, and perhaps Adelaide's as well, it confirms what we've been thinking about their growth as up-and-coming teams. And, frankly, it's just fun to play with. Why else would we invest so much time in "fantasy football" and tipping contests when there's no serious merit to either? Because we like it! It gives us some tangible way to "be involved" in footy, even when it's a full level removed from the "real thing".

      In a sense, this is our "cos-play". If we have Paddy Dangerfield on our fantasy team, we can watch the game from his perspective, living and figuratively dying with his every possession. If we've clicked the box next to Collingwood's name, we become invested in their performance that week in a way that we wouldn't have been before - even without money riding on the outcome, our pride alone will keep us attached. 

     So take it seriously, but no more seriously than you take the game itself. And in the end, footy IS just a game.

     [NOTE: the author was later taken out, placed in a potato sack and beaten with cricket bats for his blasphemy.]

The Act II Mega-Bowl-Forecast Post Is Finally Here!

   Yes, it’s finally time to put our figurative neck on the line and make our selections for the winners of not only the 37 “meaningless exhibition” bowl games in the FBS (“football BOWL subdivision”) but also their two championship semifinals and the national championship games; PLUS the semis in the FCS and the finals in Divisions 2 and 3 college football!
   (By the way, in the spirit of anti-commercialism, we won’t be putting all the sponsor names on the. Owls unless that’s the only designation the bowl has. Those change almost yearly and leads to confusion about which game is which. Ok? We squared away, bro?)
   So let’s begin!

Games We’re Absolutely Sure About:
   The winner for Most Obvious Rout goes to the Boca Raton Bowl on Dec 19, between a 7-6 Akron team that’s only bowl eligible because it plays in the weakest division in football, against an undefeated in conference Florida Atlantic team that’s wrecked everything in its path the last two months. Oh! And the game will be played on FAU’s home field, too! We predict a three touchdown victory for the Owls.
   Our other certainties? In descending order, Florida State over Southern Miss (Dec 27, Independence Bowl); North Carolina State over the disaster that is Arizona State (Dec 29, Sun Bowl); Northwestern over Kentucky (Dec 29, Music City Bowl); and Arkansas State over Middle Tennessee (Dec 16, Camellia Bowl).

Games with a Clear Favorite:
    We’ll hit these in chronological order, since there are so many of them -
Dec 16, New Orleans Bowl: Troy over North Texas (the Green are good, but the Trojans are a league apart).
Dec 16, New Mexico Bowl: Colorado State over Marshall.
Dec 22, Bahamas Bowl: Ohio U over the best story in football, the 8-4 Alabama-Birmingham Dragons, back from the dead and in a bowl after two years dormant. Alas, Ohio is just better than they are.
Dec 23, Birmingham Bowl: South Florida over Texas Tech.
Dec 23, Armed Forces Bowl: San Diego State over Army-West Point. (There’ll be a LOT of running in this game!)
Dec 27, Pinstripe Bowl: Iowa over Boston College by three points. Strange to say it that way, but the universal opinion is that the Hawkeyes are three points better than the Eagles.
Dec 27, Texas Bowl: Missouri over Texas. Mizzou found a switch mid year and is as good as anyone in the country all of a sudden.
Dec 28, Camping World Bowl (gag): Oklahoma State over Virginia Tech. Tech’s good, but the Cowpokes are better.
Dec 29, Arizona Bowl: Utah State over New Mexico State. It’s been 57 years since NMSU has been in a bowl game, but unfortunately it will end the same way it did in 1960 - losing to Utah State.
Dec 30, TaxSlayer Bowl (gag): Louisville over Mississippi State. Lamar Jackson in probably his final collegiate game.
Dec 30, Liberty Bowl: Memphis over Iowa State, in a home game for the 11-2 Tigers.
Dec 30, Orange Bowl (a New Year’s Six game): Wisconsin over Miami of Florida.

Games That We’re Willing To Pick A Winner For:
   Again, for the sake of clarity, we’ll go in chronological order...
Dec 16, Celebration Bowl: North Carolina A&T over Grambling State. The battle for HBC supremacy should go to the undefeated Aggies, who have only had two opponents come within a touchdown of them all season.
Dec 16, Cure Bowl: Western Kentucky over Georgia State. Two six-win teams that really shouldn’t have bowl bids. WKU isn’t very good, but they’re better than GSU is.
Dec 23, Dollar General Bowl (ew): Two good teams, Toledo over Appalachian State.
Dec 24, Hawaii Bowl: Fresno State over Houston.
Dec 26, Quick Lane Bowl (sigh): Duke over Northern Illinois. A mediocre Power 5 team should defeat a mediocre Group of 5 team.
Dec 26, Cactus Bowl: Kansas State over UCLA.
Dec 28, Holiday Bowl: Always a good matchup. Michigan State should defeat Washington State.
Dec 29, Belk Bowl: Wake Forest over Texas A&M. Continuity wins out.
Dec 29, Cotton Bowl (a New Year’s Six game): Potentially one of the very best games of the season, Ohio State should be too much for Southern Cal. Should be...
Jan 1, Outback Bowl (the restaurant that claims to be Australian): Michigan is probably stronger than South Carolina. Probably...

Games We Picked With Our Fingers Crossed:
   These six are tough; you could argue any of them the other way and I wouldn’t be upset.
Dec 20, Frisco Bowl: SMU over Louisiana Tech.
Dec 22, Idaho Potato Bowl (on the blue turf in Boise, my home stadium) Wyoming over Central Michigan. I’d been on the fence about this one but the stronger conference argument won me over.
Dec 26, Heart of Dallas Bowl: Utah over West Virginia. Hard to know, but it seems to me that Utah travels better.
Dec 28, Military Bowl (as opposed to “Armed Forces Bowl”. Yeah, there are too many bowls...): Naval Academy over Virginia. Although the Virginia that beat Boise in September would roll over Navy...
Dec 30, Fiesta Bowl (a New Year’s Six Bowl): Penn State over Washington, but I’m not at ALL sure about that. I’m going off last year’s bowl performances and betting against coach Petersen for the first time in my life.
Jan 1, Peach Bowl (also a New Year’s Six game): the annual token appearance of a Group Of Fice power against a real test from the Power Five. And Auburn will be a REAL test for Central Florida. We’re taking a strong Auburn team that beat both Alabama and Georgia, but UCF isn’t undefeated for nothing.

Games We’re Flipping a Coin Over:
   These five are toss ups that we’ve almost arbitrarily chosen one team because we had to...
Oregon over Boise State (Dec 16, Las Vegas Bowl).
Temple over Florida International (Dec 21, Gaspsrilla Bowl).
Arizona over Purdue (Dec 27, Foster Farms Bowl).
TCU over Stanford (Dec 28, Alamo Bowl).
Notre Dame over LSU (Jan 1, Citrus Bowl).

The Championship Four(s):
   FBS - in the Jan 1 Sugar Bowl, the rubber match between Clemson and Alabama will determine one finalist (we like ‘Bama by three, but the majority of pundits pick Clemson in a close one). Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl between Oklahoma and Georgia is a virtual tossup, even in Vegas, where the point spread has crossed from one team the the other more than once. (We also have a tie.) This should be a dandy!
   FCS - we are one game away from the final everyone wants! #1 James Madison will host #5 South Dakota State this Friday (we pick JMU by five), and #2 North Dakota State hosts #6 Sam Houston State on Saturday (we pick NDSU by a full 17 points!). The winners meet in Frisco, Texas, on January 6th, for the FCS national title.
   Division II - Texas A&M-Commerce has the unenviable task of facing off against the lovable second-year program from the powerful Gulf Coast Conference, West Florida, which has ripped through higher seeds all the way to the national final. We're not going against West Florida again!
   Division III - here, we got our wish: Mary-Hardin-Baylor is going to defend their national title in the final against perennial champion Mount Union this Saturday. We can’t wait!

The Final Fours in college football!

The final four teams have been named on the shores of American collegiate football. The College Football Playoff committee has ranked these four teams at the top of the FBS and seeded them in the semi-finals, played in the Rose and Sugar Bowls on January 1^st:

  Ø  #1 Clemson Tigers (12-1, champions of the ACC)

  Ø  #2 Oklahoma Sooners (12-1, champions of the Big Twelve)

  Ø  #3 Georgia Bulldogs (12-1, champs of the SEC)

  Ø  #4 Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1, SEC).

The difficult conversation for the committee came down to whether to put Alabama (with just one loss to 10-2 Auburn on the road which happened to keep them from winning the SEC) or Ohio State (champs of the Big Ten but twice losers, including a 31-point blowout at 7-5 Iowa) in that fourth spot. The consensus of the public was there was no right answer, and even USC (two-loss champs of the Pac-12) were considered. For the record, we have Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma all at a rating of 9 on our ELO-FOLLOWING FOOTBALL rating system, and Alabama and Ohio State the only two teams ahead of them (Alabama at 6, Ohio State at 8). So, either would have been an asset and a favorite.

In the end, Ohio State was placed fifth (and out of the playoffs), Wisconsin 6^th, Auburn 7^th, and USC 8^th. All four of those schools got major bowl games as consolation prizes: USC and Ohio State are meeting in the Cotton Bowl Dec 29, Wisconsin goes to Miami in the Orange Bowl Dec 30, Washington and Penn State meet in the Fiesta Bowl Dec 30, and Group of Five champion Central Florida (12-0 after a 62-55 barn-burner win against conference rival Memphis Saturday; the only undefeated team in FCS) plays 10-3 SEC powerhouse Auburn in the Peach Bowl on Jan 1^st. 33 other bowl games were filled with 66 other teams with winning records, exhibition games that reward the teams and their fans for a successful season. (In truth, the coaches get fifteen extra practices with those bowl invites, so they get to work with their team when their lesser rivals can’t.)

The FCS level is down to eight teams rather than four:

  Ø  James Madison (26-7 winners over fellow CAA team Stony Brook) host Weber State (30-13 winners against Big Sky rival Southern Utah).

  Ø  South Dakota State (which defeated fellow MVC Northern Iowa 37-22) plays upstart New Hampshire from the CAA (which upset Central Arkansas 21-15).

  Ø  MVC champ North Dakota State (routers of San Diego, 38-3) plays SoCon champ Wofford (conquerors of fellow Southern conference Furman 28-10).

  Ø  And Kennesaw State (which upset #3 Jacksonville State 17-7 of the OVC) defends the Big South with a battle against Southland power Sam Houston State (54-42 winners against MVC power South Dakota).

Our money is still on a James Madison defense against five-time champion North Dakota State in the final. For comparison, NDSU has a rating of 21; JMU 23. No other school is lower than 29.

We haven’t mentioned Division 2 or 3 all season, but those exist within the NCAA bounds as well for smaller, non-scholarship schools. In Division 2, Indiana of Pennsylvania hosts West Florida, and Texas A&M – Commerce hosts Harding University this weekend. And in Division 3, Mary Hardin-Baylor defends its national title against Brockport State, while 13-time champ Mount Union plays Wisconsin-Oshkosh for a change (they’ve played Wisconsin-Whitewater in the finals for something like nine years straight before last season!).

      As for our ELO-FF ratings, well, we’ve already revealed our top five. Here’s our top 25:

      1.       Alabama (rating of 6)

      2.       Ohio State (8)

      3.       Georgia, Clemson, and Oklahoma (9).

      6.       Wisconsin and Penn State (11)

      8.       Auburn (12)

      9.       Washington (13)

      10.   Stanford (16)

      11.   Oklahoma State (17)

      12.   LSC and USC (18)

      14.   TCU (19)

      15.   Notre Dame, Michigan, and the best of Group of Five, Central Florida (20)

      17.   Iowa, Miami-FL, and if you want to break the rules a mite, North Dakota State! (21)

      20.   Kansas State, Northwestern, Iowa State, Texas, Mississippi State, and Memphis (22).

In the FCS level, let’s look at our top rated teams for the year as well:

      1.       North Dakota State (rating of 21)

      2.       James Madison (23)

      3.       South Dakota State (29)

      4.       Kennesaw State, Weber State (31)

      6.       Central Arkansas (32)

      7.       Jacksonville State, Western Illinois (33)

      9.       Youngstown State, Sam Houston State (34)

      11.   Northern Iowa (35)

      12.   Illinois State, Southern Utah, Furman, Samford, Richmond, South Dakota (36)

      18.   Wofford, Montana State, and San Diego. (37)

            North Carolina A&T is the top-rated “historically black college” at 38, alone in slot #21.

This weekend’s predictions? Not much to work with…

Well, there IS the uber-traditional “Army/Navy” game, which for the first time in forever we have as a toss-up, zero points to give in either direction. (My gut says Navy’s seeking revenge for breaking The Streak – they’d beaten Army fourteen years straight.)

And there’s the FCS quarter-finals, but except for the Sam Houston State v Kennesaw State, I see double-digit margins in the neighborhood – JMU by 19, NDSU by 12, and SDSU by 16. The only reason I’m favoring Sam Houston is the fact that they’re playing their second in a row at home, and Kennesaw’s playing its second on the road: SHSU by one.

In Division II, I’m expecting a final between the two most oddly named schools: Indiana of Pennsylvania, and Texas A&M-Commerce, while in Division III, I am REALLY hoping for form to hold and produce a match between current reigning champ UMHB and perennial champ Mount Union.

Our prediction record for the year stands at 826-252, for a batting average over 76.6% for the year. We also lead the Vegas oddsmakers 250-234, and the Sagarin ratings 250-216 in accuracy. Next week, we’ll forecast all the bowl games and the lower division finals for you!