I went through and completely revamped the scripts I used to generate the rankings in the original post so I wouldn’t have to do too much by hand this upcoming season. I found a minor error in the data I used to train my models, but I think it was mostly inconsequential.
That said, I decided to test my model against last season to see if this thing is worth pursuing. I took the data & results from the 2004 thru 2010 seasons (so 7 seasons worth of data) to train a model. I then used that model to predict the whole 2011 season and compared the prediction with actual results. (Think of it this way: the model didn’t know about the 2011 season, and I asked it to predict the outcomes for me.)
It correctly predicted the winners in 521 out of 680 regular season games (that’s 76.6% accuracy), and it correctly predicted the winners in 29 of the 35 bowl games (83% accuracy).
I have included the bowl game results below. Note: the numbers in the square brackets are the predictions, **not the teams’ rankings**. So it thought Louisiana-Lafayette would beat San Diego State by 4 points in the New Orleans Bowl.
I exported the simulation results of the entire 2011 season in this csv.
| Date | Teams | Game Result | Prediction Result |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12-17 | San Diego State vs. Louisiana-Lafayette [4] |
30-32 | CORRECT | New Orleans Bowl |
| 2011-12-17 | Wyoming vs. Temple [21] |
15-37 | CORRECT | New Mexico Bowl |
| 2011-12-17 | Ohio [1] vs. Utah State |
24-23 | CORRECT | Famous Idaho Potato Bowl |
| 2011-12-20 | Marshall vs. Florida International [14] |
20-10 | WRONG | Beef O’Brady’s Bowl |
| 2011-12-21 | Louisiana Tech vs. Texas Christian [17] |
24-31 | CORRECT | Poinsettia Bowl |
| 2011-12-22 | Boise State [16] vs. Arizona State |
56-24 | CORRECT | Maaco Bowl |
| 2011-12-24 | Nevada vs. Southern Mississippi [13] |
17-24 | CORRECT | Hawaii Bowl |
| 2011-12-26 | Missouri [2] vs. North Carolina |
41-24 | CORRECT | Independence Bowl |
| 2011-12-27 | Louisville vs. North Carolina State [7] |
24-31 | CORRECT | Belk Bowl |
| 2011-12-27 | Purdue vs. Western Michigan [11] |
37-32 | WRONG | Little Caesars Bowl |
| 2011-12-28 | Toledo [1] vs. Air Force |
42-41 | CORRECT | Military Bowl |
| 2011-12-28 | California vs. Texas [7] |
10-21 | CORRECT | Holiday Bowl |
| 2011-12-29 | Washington vs. Baylor [17] |
56-67 | CORRECT | Alamo Bowl |
| 2011-12-29 | Florida State [5] vs. Notre Dame |
18-14 | CORRECT | Champs Sports Bowl |
| 2011-12-30 | Tulsa vs. Brigham Young [8] |
21-24 | CORRECT | Armed Forces Bowl |
| 2011-12-30 | Rutgers [13] vs. Iowa State |
27-13 | CORRECT | Pinstripe Bowl |
| 2011-12-30 | Iowa vs. Oklahoma [18] |
14-31 | CORRECT | Insight Bowl |
| 2011-12-30 | Mississippi State [3] vs. Wake Forest |
23-17 | CORRECT | Music City Bowl |
| 2011-12-31 | Virginia vs. Auburn [1] |
24-43 | CORRECT | Chick-Fil-A Bowl |
| 2011-12-31 | UCLA vs. Illinois [15] |
14-20 | CORRECT | Fight Hunger Bowl |
| 2011-12-31 | Texas A&M [3] vs. Northwestern |
33-22 | CORRECT | Meineke Car Care Bowl |
| 2011-12-31 | Georgia Tech vs. Utah [1] |
27-30 | CORRECT | Sun Bowl |
| 2011-12-31 | Cincinnati [4] vs. Vanderbilt |
31-24 | CORRECT | Liberty Bowl |
| 2012-01-02 | Michigan State vs. Georgia [4] |
33-30 | WRONG | Outback Bow |
| 2012-01-02 | Penn State vs. Houston [25] |
14-30 | CORRECT | Ticket City Bowl |
| 2012-01-02 | Florida vs. Ohio State [3] |
24-17 | WRONG | Gator Bowl |
| 2012-01-02 | Stanford vs. Oklahoma State [9] |
38-41 | CORRECT | Fiesta Bowl |
| 2012-01-02 | Nebraska vs. South Carolina [11] |
13-30 | CORRECT | Capital One Bowl |
| 2012-01-02 | Oregon vs. Wisconsin [11] |
45-38 | WRONG | Rose Bowl |
| 2012-01-03 | Michigan [2] vs. Virginia Tech |
23-20 | CORRECT | Sugar Bowl |
| 2012-01-04 | Clemson vs. West Virginia [12] |
33-70 | CORRECT | Orange Bowl |
| 2012-01-06 | Arkansas [4] vs. Kansas State |
29-16 | CORRECT | Cotton Bowl |
| 2012-01-07 | Pittsburgh vs. Southern Methodist [5] |
6-28 | CORRECT | BBVA Compass Bowl |
| 2012-01-08 | Northern Illinois vs. Arkansas State [10] |
38-20 | WRONG | GoDaddy.com Bowl |
| 2012-01-09 | Louisiana State vs. Alabama [6] |
0-21 | CORRECT | BCS Championship |
