Housekeeping Notes

Friends, the bowl season is a time for great joy, and at the same time great sadness for me. Contrary to what Stewart Mandel may believe, I think the BCS gave us at least 3 rather intriguing matchups: good vs evil in the Orange Bowl (the Super Mangino Bros are the good guys), Cinderella vs a championship contender in the Sugar Bowl, and a super-sexy Oklahoma/West Virginia showdown in the Fiesta Bowl. And hey, as a true college football fan, I'll also watch most of Fresno State/Georgia Tech. Unfortunately though, bowl season also means there are only 32 games left to be played. After early January, we have to wait almost 8 whole months for a college football game that counts:( Fear not loyal readers, just as in this past offseason, Statistically Speaking will be updated at least once a week with studies that will try to gauge who will surprise and who will disappoint next season. I've got several irons in the fire. Every conference will get the SDPI treatment, not just for points, but also for yards and possibly one other stat. Plus I've been doing some regression analysis during the season that I will get around to posting. Bowl previews will also start popping up here in the next week or so. So get excited.

Over the course of the Fab Five weekly column, I managed to go 71-60-4 against the spread. That's a winning percentage of .542. With the break even gambling mark of .524, you could have made a profit of about 3.5% if you had followed my picks and bet the same for every game. Not bad for 14 weeks of work. I give these numbers, not out of hubris, but as a reference for next season which I hope will be an improvement.

One final note, the Predictomatic contest is over. One player was downright prescient in his BCS conference picks. LSU/Tennessee, BC/VT, Mizzou/Oklahoma, West Virginia, Ohio State, and Southern Cal all won their respective conferences/divisions. His last place picks were not quite as perfect, but he also selected Hawaii to play in the BCS, so he cannot be caught, not matter which team wins the national championship. So, Edward Baker, please send me an email from the same address that you used to send your predictions. I will cut you a check for the vast sum of $12.43 (the ad-click revenue over the course of the college football season). Congrats and enjoy.