Eastern Michigan @ Northern Illinois:

EMU looks to really struggle in nearly all our projections (258-306 total yards), yet projects 19 or 25 in 100% of our models.  That doesn’t really fit with that sort of offensive production, and given the ambiguity in model alignment and lack of value we’ll pass.

We are set to release our RECOMMENDED PLAYS tomorrow night around 5PM EST.  Last week we should have been 5-2 on our recommended plays, but settled for 4-3, at the end of the day.  We were dead-on with most of our projections, and really feel good about the plays this weekend!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PROJECTIONS FOR THE EASTERN MICHIGAN @ NORTHERN ILLINOIS GAME

Our models are inconsistent with tonight’s matchup.  Most of our math favors Buffalo, the production projections are about equal, and there doesn’t appear to me  much line value based on our projections on the other side.

This is definitely a game that we will PASS ON.  There will be bigger fish to fry this weekend!  We’ve been looking at the cards for the past 3 days, and feel that we may have some really  strong plays this weekend.

Click here to see the offensive projections as well as projected points for tonight’s matchup.

Click here to sign up for the weekend’s plays!  We’ve updated our SEASON subscription.  Sign up this week and get the rest of the year of College Football, including the bowl games.

We were 4-3 on this week’s recommended plays, which could have been a little better had it not been for an INT returned for a TD with 1:20 left to go in the ULM-Troy game.  UL-M (+14) held Troy to just 50 yds rushing and was only outgained 428-396 (including holding a 22-21 1^st down advantage and 7 minute time of possession advantage), but lost 42- 21 largely b/c of a -3 TO margin (including the INT with 1:20 to go that was returned for a TD cause the L).  We called for a 32-26 game (459-394 advantage for Troy) which if you take a away the pick 6 was pretty close (would have been 35-21,which if you consider the likely affects of the additional 3 TOs means we were nearly dead on).

We had a very comfortable W with Missouri laying 4 winning 36-17 (we called for a 31-18 W), a SU win with 7pt dog UAB 38-33 (we called for a 31-32 game), and should have had the SU W with 10 pt dog NCSU losing 45-42 (we gave NCSU a 40% chance to win SU and a 75% chance the game would be within 2 pts).  North Texas Won by 19 (11 pt Fav), and outgained WKU by 258 yards 583 – 425 (We predicted 564-344, pretty damn close).   Throw in a two that we were just wrong on (Central Michigan and Toledo), and it was a good, not great, weekend…we won’t complain about a winning weekend, but felt we should have been 5-2.

We are now 28-27-1 on our recommended plays this year.  This is despite a 1-11-1 record in bad break games (games in which the outcome matched our projected analysis but the score varied because of largely random occurrences (i.e. point erasing or creating TOs, Special Teams TDs, etc), meaning our analysis has been correct in 40 of 56 games (71%).  Those sorts of things (by their definition) will even out in the long run (meaning we would expect in the long run to win as many games where our analysis is wrong as we expect to lose when our analysis is correct), and if you follow that philosophy we should be closer to .500 in those games meaning our record should be closer to 34-22 (61%), or that 6 of our bad luck losses and ties should be wins (+/- 50% of 13 bad luck /good luck games).  Our lifetime record supports that assertion as we are now an impressive 243-143-8 (63%) lifetime in our now 6^th year of business.

We keep a log of our good luck / bad luck games and you can view that by clicking here.  I mentioned this in our weekend summary last week, but I’ll repeat it again as I think it is that important.  Long term success in this business is built by consistently analyzing games to find situations which you think are exploitable.  As in any endeavor there are things for which you can’t predict nor explain, that can make a favorable outcome seem like correct analysis or an un-favorable outcome seem like incorrect analysis.  Both statements are the horribly incorrect, and reinforce our point, that while financial success is determined from ATS Ws & Ls those handicappers that stop there are doing themselves a great mis-service by failing to uncover the real measure of their success.  When you remove the effects of unpredictable and random occurrences, how accurately do your projections mirror actual performance?  This is what our good luck / bad luck log endeavors to do.  We spend every Sunday afternoon pouring over box scores and drive logs of every game to determine how Turnovers, the location and timing of those turnovers, penalties, abnormal special teams’ plays, etc affected the outcome of the game.  We’d recommend all our customers do the same to determine for themselves the difference between a favorable or unfavorable outcome (W or L) from a successful or unsuccessful analytical projection.

To Sign up for Week 10 – GO HERE

We finished last season at 68% (52-24-1) against the spread on our recommended plays. We’re verified every week by Cappers Watchdog, an independent monitoring service . We have had our picks published for the last 4 years, and our overall record is an astounding 63% (215-119-7).

We hope you’ll invest in our methodology and reap the benefits of our research and experience.

We had a disappointing week going 3-5 on our recommended plays, and even more disappointing than the 5 losses was our analysis appeared to be off in 3 of the 5 (meaning at best we could have expected a 5-3 or 4-4 week).  That will happen from time to time, but doesn’t leave us with a good taste in our mouth.  As frustrating as the bad luck is, we can accept that as we don’t have much control over that, but the games where we were just wrong on are really tough to take.  We are now 24-24-1 this year and 239-142-8 lifetime.

Our two highest rated plays (#2) Oregon and Indiana won, and our free/Other plays where 4-1 so on a whole it appears were ok, just a little off in our filter.  The good news is that is correctable, and given the disproportionate percentage of bad luck: good luck games we’ve endured this year (we are now 1-11-1 in good luck/bad luck games), we are still producing a high percentage of accurate analysis (we been correct  in 36 out of 49 games 74% of the time) which given a normal distribution of good luck and bad luck should yield a record close to 30-19 (61%).

ULM – UK

ULM outgains UK 377-330  (we called for a slight UK edge of 362-349), and were pretty accurate in our call for 33 from UK (they had 36).  I am still scratching my head as to how ULM manages only 13 points despite the similar production to UK and what we projected.  The below is what happened,

Legitimate ULM Scoring Drives ended with no points

Q1 – TO on downs at the UK 10 after a 10 play sustained drive

Q2  – End of the half, ULM moves it down to the UK 4, and misses a could Endzone shots and mismanages the clock to not even get a FG attempt

Q3- ULM misses a FG attempt after stalling a drive at the UK 16

Q4 – two meaningful INTs in UK territory (UK 37 & 36).  They threw another INT to end the game, but wasn’t meaningful at that point.

That is a 3 drives in the redzone that equated to 0 points.  The most you would expext is 21, the least 9.  Give them 1 TD and 2 FGs, and that is 13 points left on the field (not including the 2 Q4 INTs) and this game ends 36-26 (we called for 33-26, which if you consider the impact of the Punt Return for a TD for UK, means this should have been closer to a 29-26 game).  A loss is a loss, but I am not sure how I could have expected the above to occur, and am pretty confident as skewed as the final score was, we were on the right side in this game.

UAB – Marshall

When I first looked at this score I just assumed we were off in our analysis, than I looked at the box score and drive logs (something I’d recommend everyone do every week to determine for themselves where they were correct in their analysis and got unlucky or incorrect in their analysis and got lucky).

UAB outgained Marshall 7.1 yppl-5.9 yppl, and was only outgained in total yards 450-432.  UAB had 3 drives end on downs in scoring territory (inside the Marshall 35), and was penalized for 135 yards, which is nearly unheard of (average per game is in the 30-50 yards range depending on the teams (even the most penalized teams LY averaged only 75ypg in penalties).

I am still not sure how you can compile 432 yards @ 7.1 yppl and manage just 7 points.  As a comparison, one of our Recommended play Oregon, totaled 416 yards @ 6.7 yppl and racked up 42 points, or a couple others not quite as similar:  Idaho 494 @ 8.1 yppl = 45 points or Cincinnati (Free play) 468 @ 8.2= 41 points).