Devils posted polls for all the 4a first games. Thank you sir. After checking the numbers the posters picked 9 of 12 correct. Not bad for a bunch of arm chair quarterbacks. Missed games include: Amherst, Dinwiddie, and Heritage. Please root against Dinwiddie again this week. Lol.... Good luck to all 4a teams.
Not bad guys: Vegas,?
- Thread starter 71ShadesofNavy
- Start date
The Gilliam Ratings called the Dinwiddie win, thank you very much. Picking them again this week, too.
Some did, but the majority did not. My comment was based on the polls for each thread. I viewed your site and will take the slight advantage in the Hanover game as your ratings are accurate. Still Hanover is a good team and wore us down in the first match up. Not really confident.
Last edited:
Hey bossman. I just checked. Your ratings may have picked Dinwiddie, but you chose Monacan. See for yourself. Hmmm. Didn't trust your computer? You and your computer have done well. Just poking fun.
Hey bossman. I just checked. Your ratings may have picked Dinwiddie, but you chose Monacan. See for yourself. Hmmm. Didn't trust your computer? You and your computer have done well. Just poking fun.
In the Richmond poll Gilliam is 82% accurate and the leaders Dan and msquared are 82%. Man vs. Computer. Nice little battle.
Last edited:
Thanks. The Rich. Times Dispatch ran an article and I think they said a 15 seed had never won a game. And I was thinking Waynesboro had been a 15 seed. So thinks for correcting my memory. DP
REmember, the computer never watches a game and predicts every game in the state. It doesn't know anything but final scores. It doesn't even know what a football looks like.
I had run the ratings one time early in the week and found a mistake. When I reran the ratings correctly, Dinwiddie came out on top.
Here were the computer picks last week
I
If anyone is interested, the mistake was caused by those darn rainouts when we were supposed to get hit by the hurricane. I had to add in some half weeks during the season. This caused me to mess up a divider the last two weeks of the regular season and I treated those games like playoff games. Playoff games get slightly bigger adjustments than end of the season regular season games.
I think a lot of people really miss the point of my ratings. I don't think they are perfect. I don't think they are close to perfect and I always have 300 or 400 ideas swimming around in my head on how to improve them. The thing that is amazing to me, however, is simply this. It shows how powerful of a tool Statistics is. Sports writers and fans spend so much time analyzing this and they don't consistently come out any better than the computer. I'm not saying the computer beats everyone in the world, but let's say we had 1000 people try and pick every game (let's be mean and say those people can't look at any sort of computer ratings, they can just watch game films, see final scores, see rosters, see statistics, see injury reports). The computer sees NONE of that stuff. All the computer gets is a list of final scores. The computer doesn't seem to pick any worse than anyone else. It doesn't win every week, but it usually does pretty well and is near the top of the pack. Isn't that amazing to people? I think it is. All that information just seems to get gleaned out in the final scores somehow.
This whole thing started as an exercise to show my students the power of Statistics, but I still am amazed by just how much all the percentages come out.
Here's a crazy thing, if the computer got them all right one week, I'd think that was odd. I actually can calculate before the games are played what the computer's record will be on wins and losses, and while I have no idea which games it will miss, it almost always comes within a game or two of picking exactly what I anticipated.
This whole thing started as an exercise to show my students the power of Statistics, but I still am amazed by just how much all the percentages come out.
Here's a crazy thing, if the computer got them all right one week, I'd think that was odd. I actually can calculate before the games are played what the computer's record will be on wins and losses, and while I have no idea which games it will miss, it almost always comes within a game or two of picking exactly what I anticipated.
II think the computer predictions are neat. I know they don't have a personal interest or have a bias against a team. That's why it's neat to see how humanoids do against computers.
I enjoy looking at your ratings as well. Don't understand the formulas and if I tried my head would explode.
If you could get the computer to rate variables, coaching changes and other oddities in pro football you would be a rich man.
Keep up the good work. Hope the 82% percent accuracy includes the Dinwiddie game. Lol....
Pro football is hard. So hard in fact, I often wonder if it's rigged.
The amount of certainty I have about a particular game is given by a percentage, so for Dinwiddie, it's not high: About 57%.
The amount of certainty I have about a particular game is given by a percentage, so for Dinwiddie, it's not high: About 57%.
I figured that's why I said you would be rich if you could figure it out. I have been following your picks all season. HS football appears to be more consistent as there are fewer upsets.
I was reading the Jeff. District post earlier and trying to figure it out without formulas. I am sure OD games, strength of schedule and consistency plays a part in determining the strength of a district. I compared several districts schedules and wins/losses earlier to try and debate a point, but gave up on it, because there was no substantial proof.
Matt, I'm surprised how accurate your machine is, considering your formula is predicting what goes on in the heads and actions of teenage boys!!! You might find a market if you play with it and change the words to, will he come home on time, did he remember to close the front door, will he pass English...., and so forth!
Hey Navy, I'm an even bigger nervous wreck this week than I was last week! And a wreck earlier in the week. I may need a padded room by Friday!
Yes, you need a padded room, but it has nothing to do with football.
Gilliam's rating gives us a 57 % chance of winning. It's better than last weeks 52%. With Cheatham out I am OK with those odds. Balaza is darn good, so we have to play sound ball.
Relax and lets see what happens. Hanover has to stop the pass and we have to stop the run. Best defense wins. Remember they will not kick deep to us, so we should get good field position. Should be a good one.
I've said this before. The winner gets the reward of playing LT. What did our parents say? Be careful what you wish for.
Do we know the actual circumstances that caused the ejection? Are there any extenuating circumstances that could lead to Claytom being allowed to play?
Matt's mad machine also misses about 16% of the time, too!
With respect to LT, I'm like the punk in the Dirty Harry movie. I just gotta know. And I never much listened to my parents, until after I got hurt.
Matt's mad machine also misses about 16% of the time, too!
With respect to LT, I'm like the punk in the Dirty Harry movie. I just gotta know. And I never much listened to my parents, until after I got hurt.
You think? There was a thread earlier started by someone talking about your ratings' prediction of the Pulaski/Salem game where your prediction was Salem by 39 points. Predictably, everyone seemed to think this was Salem saying "Salem wins by at least 39, y'all" and we got lovely articles from local writers that included excerpts such as
"It appears that the good folks of Salem have installed their Spartans as a 39-point favorite to defeat the Cougars Friday night. We’ve already talked about the underdog thing. I get it. But 39 points! But there is a poll. It cuts the Cougars a bit of slack. The poll is taking bets on if Salem will simply win by five touchhowns, or not cover the spread. I understand that Salem considers the regular season as simply something that is mandatory, and even a bad season for them is a high seed in the playoffs. I get that. But being pompous and showing a lack of respect for your opponent, I don’t get."
I'll spare you the rest of that predictable article(I believe it's done by the same guy who calls PC's games on the radio) but suffice it to say your rating and the ensuing poor understanding of them by one person precipitates a lot of bad ideas and dumb thoughts.
Correction: Winner gets the winner of the LT vs. Kings Fork game.. Not counting those chickens...They haven't hatched yet.
This article was my fault, not anyone associated with the Salem program. I had no idea the stuff it would stir up, and honestly had no intentions of causing a stink. I really appreciate Gilliams Ratings and just saw that the ratings had them as a heavy favorite and wondered if they were that big of favorites by the people as well as the computer. I simply like to talk high school sports on here, not try to get people emotions going. Needless to say, posting the poll was a lesson learned on my part.
I don't know you sir, but you have my respect. Right or wrong you owned up to your post. Keep posting sir.
I second that, Keith. You are one of the most respectable members of our forum. I've never seen you say anything that was not honest, valid, and respectful. Personally, I didn't see your post in any way different that you meant it. Keep talking football my friend. I, too, love it!
Does anyone think LT will cover the 39 point spread over Kings Fork?
Just teasing Devils. I have no idea what Gilliam's computer spit out. Just being silly!
Just teasing Devils. I have no idea what Gilliam's computer spit out. Just being silly!
When I saw the 39 point spread by the GilliamRatings I did some figuring and said based on point differential between common opponents between Pulaski and Salem the line should be 29. Salem won 42-13 so the 29 point differential was spot on. It was weird how that worked out.
Classy statement, however, the vast majority of the good people on here have already bought feed for your chickens...LOL!
Ultimately no harm but believe me, some people need essentially no actual facts to start railing off against some teams.
Last edited:
Oh, I can take it. I went 5-4 when I picked lower seeds. Actually, there were a lot of upsets that didn't happen I was rooting for, would have like to see a few more upsets. Of course, I wanted Bird to win, but Hermitage was the better team, no doubt about it. Too much speed and better line play. I'm happy for the Panthers, I know they wanted it after the last three years.
Oh, I can take it. I went 5-4 when I picked lower seeds. Actually, there were a lot of upsets that didn't happen I was rooting for, would have like to see a few more upsets. Of course, I wanted Bird to win, but Hermitage was the better team, no doubt about it. Too much speed and better line play. I'm happy for the Panthers, I know they wanted it after the last three years.
I called Western's loss and Hylton's loss and Sherando's loss, those were probably the best picks of the night.
I called Western's loss and Hylton's loss and Sherando's loss, those were probably the best picks of the night.
Only picking the NoVa area, i finished up 10-1 tonight and correctly called two of the three upsets (Stone Bridge and Woodgrove; missed on Thomas Dale)
Had lunch in Salem (Mac and Bobs) went to game at Glenvar which I am told is decidedly NOT Salem.
Good game to go to with Giles. VHSL-REFERENCE & Maxpreps considers them Salem, but they are Roanoke Co. Maybe if they win another championship Salemites will finally claim them?