The Andrew Extravaganza

I took some time and carefully examined the areas in which my computer predictions excelled and those in which it failed. Last week the highlighted picks were chosen purely by how much the predictions differed from the point spread. This operated under the assumption that my computer power ratings could isolate big mismatches better than the Vegas odds makers. That assumption turned out to be a bit off base. However, that careful examination of the predictions did show me that the computer power ratings did kick some serious ass in other areas.

Most of the following eight highlighted picks for this week have been chosen because their numbers are favorable in three scenarios that averaged a win percentage of 69.1%. Because I'm only working with a single week worth of data chances are good this is a slightly flawed approach, but we'll see. My confidence level is determined by the number of those three criteria that are met. 14 games met at least one criterion so the human factor is involved as I had to narrow that down to eight games. Seven actually because I decided to go with last week's method of selection to include an upset special (UNLV over Nevada).

Here are the picks:

Confidence	Away	Home	Point Spread	Prediction
	Louisiana State	Tulane	Louisiana State by 40	Louisiana State by 43
	East Carolina	Houston	Houston by 10.5	Houston by 17
	Louisiana-Monroe	Troy	Troy by 13.5	Troy by 21.5
	Maryland	Rutgers	Rutgers by 16.5	Rutgers by 23
	UNLV	Nevada	Nevada by 3.5	UNLV by 8
	Louisiana-Lafayette	Central Florida	Central Florida by 21.5	Central Florida by 32
	Notre Dame	Purdue	Purdue by 23	Purdue by 23.5
	Baylor	Texas A&M	Texas A&M by 17	Texas A&M by 7

And here is the link to this week's complete set of picks: Week 5 Picks and Results