2012-13 College Football Preseason Projection Recap: No Sophomore Slump

• 1 comments - College Football - posted by David Hess on January 8, 2013

Now that the 2012-13 college football bowl season has drawn to close, it’s time to take a look back at our preseason projections, and evaluate how we’ve done.

This is the second year we’ve simulated the entire season (minus bowl games) before it began. Last year, things went quite well, and our preseason value picks provided exactly what they were supposed to: value.

As with any new endeavor, it was hard to tell whether we’d been good, good and lucky, or just plain lucky.  But a closer inspection shows this season’s projections, while not perfect, were again an overall success:

• Our team win total picks and our BCS conference and division winner value picks were both profitable
• Our biggest disagreements with the public consensus were right twice as often as they were wrong
• 7 of the 10 BCS bowl teams were in the top 20 of our 2012 preseason college football rankings, compared to only 4 in the top 20 of the preseason AP poll

Let’s check out the details.

How Did Our Highlighted Team Projections Do?

In our preseason 2012 college football rankings post and our 2012 conference record projections, we highlighted a few projections that seemed to go against the grain:

Notre Dame. (#13 in our preseason ratings, UNRANKED in the preseason AP) – I think we all know how this one turned out. The Irish were outmatched in the BCS title game, and it took a few lucky bounces (missed field goal by Pittsburgh, overtime against BYU, etc) to get them there, but they were clearly one of the better teams in the country. Here’s what we said about them in the preseason:  ”The Irish have been discounted by many this year, not appearing in the AP’s top 25.  We’re more optimistic about their talent, ranking them 13th among FBS teams. A rating that high means a few lucky bounces could put them in a BCS bowl.” This one is clearly a HIT.

Florida (#10 in our preseason ratings, #23 in the preseason AP) – The Gators finished #9 in the final AP poll, almost exactly where we slotted them in the preseason. Why did we like them? We said about the Gators: “They have a strong program history, poor 2011 turnover margin (read: bad luck which shouldn’t repeat itself), and loads of returning starters. Those three qualities have historically foreshadowed a team’s improvement, and we think it’ll continue with Florida.” That’s another big HIT.

The Big 12. The Big 12 placed six teams in our preseason top 25, and four in our top 8, plus seven of the ten toughest schedules belonged to Big 12 teams. But take a look at the final AP poll, and the highest ranked Big 12 team is Kansas State, at #12. Unfortunately, this one was a MISS.

Oregon. “Oregon Favored In the Pac-12 Over USC?!” The general consensus before the season started was that USC was the best team in the Pac-12, and possibly the nation. However, we projected the Ducks as the most likely Pac-12 champs, and rated them #3 in the country, ahead of USC. While neither team ended up winning the official Pac-12 title, Oregon finished ranked #2 in the nation, and was likely the conference’s best team. That’s a HIT.

Oklahoma. The preseason polls had Oklahoma #4, while we had them #1 by a hair over Alabama. The Sooners had a disappointing season, and finished ranked #15 in the final AP poll. Clearly this one was a MISS.