Monday, July 24, 2006

Bowl Winners Addendum

I am just curious: for the bowls with teams with the same record, what is the winning % of that sub-category based on Better Point Differential, Better Offense, and Better Defense?
-ArmchairGM user

Ask and you shall receive.

When bowl teams have the same record the winning percentages for each category are as follows:

Better Point Differential: 14-20 .412
Better Conference Record: 8-10 .444
Better Offense: 14-20 .412
Better Defense: 21-13 .618

When teams have the same overall record, better defense remains a good predictor of bowl winners (actually increasing from .581 when overall record is discounted). However, the other three measures all decline in their ability to pick winners, especially point differential and better offense. I wouldn't draw any dramatic conclusions from this because the sample size is quite small. What do you think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting stuff. Do you think power conference affiliation and how those conferences are perceived,(for example the SEC this year is said to be the best), can be a predictor of bowl game winners?