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Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:05 am
by photoman
At least UGA is showing some compassion with their newly announced promotion for the UMass game. They'll be handing out free cigarettes and blindfolds to all UMass fans in attendance.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:31 am
by m626t
Yah. The fact that we still stink all these years after making the move to FBS is embarrassing. :oops:

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:00 am
by Carl Spackler
UMass has now put the finishing touches on the “How to screw up your transition from FCS to FBS” manual. Presidents, AD’s and alumni will thank us for clearly illustrating what not to do.....of course they won’t need the manual because avoiding the pitfalls requires only common sense....have the backing of the administration, have the financial resources, have an adequate stadium, if you’re in the northeast, have an indoor practice facility, have a fan base, have a conference, have a good coach.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:10 pm
by harbo
^ ...hava nagila.
(sorry)

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:03 pm
by capezona
javelina

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:27 pm
by nighttrain777
Have a ‘Gansett.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:13 am
by MJatUM
Carl Spackler wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:00 am UMass has now put the finishing touches on the “How to screw up your transition from FCS to FBS” manual. Presidents, AD’s and alumni will thank us for clearly illustrating what not to do.....of course they won’t need the manual because avoiding the pitfalls requires only common sense....have the backing of the administration, have the financial resources, have an adequate stadium, if you’re in the northeast, have an indoor practice facility, have a fan base, have a conference, have a good coach.
Have a respectable FCS roster when you finally do move.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:17 am
by eldonabe
UPDATE - total wins over/under is now set at 2.


I'll take the under :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:15 am
by Steve81
Sticking with 4 home and 1 away win.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:14 am
by McKinney
UMass87 wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 11:25 pm
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:12 pm For what it's worth ESPN's (I think fivethirtyeight) FPI still has us with 5.7 to 6.3 wins.
That's pretty reasonable.
ESPN now at 4.3 to 7.7 wins. I think the team has been performing so poorly compared to expectations there's so much volatility in that prediction. Reaaaaaly broad confidence interval there.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:05 am
by MJatUM
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:14 am
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:12 pm For what it's worth ESPN's (I think fivethirtyeight) FPI still has us with 5.7 to 6.3 wins.
ESPN now at 4.3 to 7.7 wins. I think the team has been performing so poorly compared to expectations there's so much volatility in that prediction. Reaaaaaly broad confidence interval there.
How is it possible that the ceiling increased? I can't even fathom the metric that increased the win probability. I haven't watched every game for every team left on our schedule, but I can't imagine anyone has been playing worse than UMass.
Bill Belichick wrote: Stats are for losers. The final score is for winners.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:21 am
by McKinney
MJatUM wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:05 am
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:14 am
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:12 pm For what it's worth ESPN's (I think fivethirtyeight) FPI still has us with 5.7 to 6.3 wins.
ESPN now at 4.3 to 7.7 wins. I think the team has been performing so poorly compared to expectations there's so much volatility in that prediction. Reaaaaaly broad confidence interval there.
How is it possible that the ceiling increased? I can't even fathom the metric that increased the win probability. I haven't watched every game for every team left on our schedule, but I can't imagine anyone has been playing worse than UMass.
I'm pretty sure it's a confidence interval. And UMass' performance against ESPN's expectations has increased the volatility of the prediction, ie the standard deviation has increased.

Let's say they're using a 95% confidence interval, that's about ~2 sigma (standard deviations) from the mean in either direction. So before FIU their prediction was a mean of 6 wins with a standard deviation of 0.15 wins. Now their prediction still has a mean of 6 wins but the standard deviation has gone up to 0.85 wins.

Because UMass is not meeting expectations, the ability to predict their performance after FIU is nearly six times as hard as it was last week.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:46 am
by 69MG
McKinney wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:21 am Because UMass is not meeting expectations, the ability to predict their performance after FIU is nearly six times as hard as it was last week.
No it isn't. sadly. :(

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:46 pm
by Dickie Dunn
I prefer the S&P numbers by SB Nation's Bill Connelly to ESPN FPI, simply because it seems to take a much deeper dive into the overall numbers and does not factor home field nearly as much as FPI does.

S&P link

He cautions that you should use "projected wins" rather than simply accumulating the results of each individual game. But for the purposes of that argument, for this week, they both are the same ... 4.0.

That said, I'm not ready to throw the season completely down the drain yet. I maintained all along that in order for the 2018 season to be "on schedule," they needed to be no worse than 3-4 heading into the bye week. Most practical people (hi!) figured a split with Georgia Southern and FIU was the best approach, but that's gone now.

So, assuming (sorry, a big "if) a win this weekend against Charlotte, that places a HUGE emphasis on the next game at Ohio. FPI gives UMass only ~ a 33 chance in that one, but S&P has UMass as a slight favorite (54 percent). Ohio is no great shakes this year, and beating the Bobcats on the road will be a challenge given what we've seen so far. But UMass easily could have won the game last year -- two first-half turnovers hurt, and then the banged-up defense fell apart in the second half.

If ... if ... IF ... UMass somehow won those next two, then it would come down to the key three-game stretch out of the bye. FPI still has UMass as small favorites in all three, but we've seen those numbers fluctuate weekly as team performances go up and down. Conversely, S&P has UMass as small 'dogs against both Coastal (42 percent) and Liberty (40 percent). Again, wins the next two weeks could just as easily flip those back in UMass' favor.

But it all comes down to the next two weeks (barring unlikely/improbable/impossible wins against South Florida, BYU or Georgia). Win them both, and UMass has a chance to salvage the season and achieve its goals. That all might sound pie-in-the-sky, but it's up to the team and the coaching staff now to prove they're up to the task.

Re: Total Wins

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:38 am
by McKinney
ESPN now at 4.7 - 7.3 wins after Charlotte. Favored against Coastal, UCONN, and Liberty.