Testing the Toy

jcarter said:
Out of 59 public school games the toy went 51-8. Missing 4 scores right now. That's IF I put everything in correctly. Pretty good if you ask me
Here is the spreadsheet with the data...
docs.google.com

wk 11 spreads

Sheet1 Home,spread,Visitor,points,actual,Difference Coolidge,is,favored,over,Penelope,by,35,f Rising,Star,is,favored,over,Moran,by,45,f Harrold,is,an,underdog,to,Chillicothe,by,45,-18,63 Motley,County,is,an,underdog,to,Aspermont,by,18,-45,63 Gold-Burg,is,an,underdog,to,Strawn,by,45,-15,60 Lorenz...
docs.google.com docs.google.com
Click to expand...

Here are the final stats for this week for The Toy:

Week 1184-16 (84%)55-10 (84.62%)29-5 (85.29%)

The first number is overall week totals. The second number is for UIL vs UIL games. The last number is non-UIL vs non-UIL. At some point I'm going to change the reporting to give me the record for "close games" too. For example, I'm more interested in how well it does in games where the teams are separated by less than 60 rating points. I just don't have that programmed in just yet.

Also, as I expected, Rankin shot up to #1 this week, adjusting everyone else who played them on their way up. There are also at least a few other surprise changes in this week's rankings! I even double-checked a few scores thinking maybe I entered something wrong somewhere.
 
rankinalum said:
And not to mention, Irion County is too high in my opinion. They haven’t played anyone noteworthy all year and I just find it funny that they’ve jumped Rankin AND May in the rankings. I know Rankin didn’t cover anywhere near the spread against Borden County, but I’m looking at a common opponent in Buena Vista, who Rankin beat 56-6, and Irion County beat 80-60. Rankings don’t matter as much as playoffs, but I just find it funny how the toy determined this weeks rankings. I think that first round matchup between May and Irion County will be a cool matchup, but I think that May exposes Irion County.
Click to expand...
Well… I like to be proven wrong! What a game by Irion County. Proved me, the Toy, and countless others wrong!
 
Rankings in D2 went pretty crazy this week. How does Silverton who lost and did not cover the spread gain 23 points? Is it because the team they beat, beat them earlier in the year? Is it a double dipping processing error? It’s hard to believe Cherokee and Loraine would plummet. If it’s strength of schedule, why is Benjamin still at the top? Just curious.
And yes I know rankings don’t mean anything at this point, I’m genuinely curious about how it could be so dramatic in one week without any big upsets (in D2)
 
Yotes2009 said:
Rankings in D2 went pretty crazy this week. How does Silverton who lost and did not cover the spread gain 23 points? Is it because the team they beat, beat them earlier in the year? Is it a double dipping processing error? It’s hard to believe Cherokee and Loraine would plummet. If it’s strength of schedule, why is Benjamin still at the top? Just curious.
And yes I know rankings don’t mean anything at this point, I’m genuinely curious about how it could be so dramatic in one week without any big upsets (in D2)
Click to expand...

I wondered the same thing. I was running the rankings yesterday and noticed Silverton above Cherokee and Loraine and immediately pulled up the code to look through thinking something was wrong.

It's not that Cherokee dropped. They did get a point increase. It's just that a few other teams got a lot more points for some reason.

The only thing I could think of is that Silverton got extra points for beating Whitharral early on. I'd think that would be erased considering they got beat so bad by them last week, but evidently not.

You're definitely not the only one scratching your head on this one, though.
 
Mike said:
I wondered the same thing. I was running the rankings yesterday and noticed Silverton above Cherokee and Loraine and immediately pulled up the code to look through thinking something was wrong.

It's not that Cherokee dropped. They did get a point increase. It's just that a few other teams got a lot more points for some reason.

The only thing I could think of is that Silverton got extra points for beating Whitharral early on. I'd think that would be erased considering they got beat so bad by them last week, but evidently not.

You're definitely not the only one scratching your head on this one, though.
Click to expand...
I think there’s glitch in the code weighing rematches, Because the teams that played each other early on in season both got a huge bump in ranking points. The losers of the games didn’t cover the spread but still gained +20 points. Meanwhile Balmorhea, Cherokee, Klondike, and Loraine got the usual 2- 10ish points.
 
Yotes2009 said:
I think there’s glitch in the code weighing rematches, Because the teams that played each other early on in season both got a huge bump in ranking points. The losers of the games didn’t cover the spread but still gained +20 points. Meanwhile Balmorhea, Cherokee, Klondike, and Loraine got the usual 2- 10ish points.
Click to expand...

So there's not really anything in the code specific to rematches (maybe there should be?). It just looks at each team's rating, and the game's final score and adjusts from there. It then re-adjusts all prior games from the new ratings. I'm thinking what happened here is that Silverton got a huge rating boost from beating Whitharral in their first matchup, simply because Whitharral's rating moved up so much this week too. It looks like the same thing happened to Amherst for beating Groom earlier in the year. They got a pretty significant rating increase for a team that lost by more than the spread predicted.

Of course I can't know any of this for sure without running tests and I probably won't do that until the off-season. Even if I were able to find something that could/should be changed, I wouldn't do it at this point in the season anyways. Looks like another off-season of playing with The Toy, trying to tweak things to see if I can make it work better.

It's also worth nothing that we're just assuming The Toy is wrong at this point. There's still a lot of football left.
 
I wasn't sure where else to put this post, so here it is...

I was looking at the spreads this morning and realized that there is only a single game picked by 45 points. While I understand The Toy is occasionally wrong, and maybe every game will end in a 45 (not really), I thought it was worth mentioning. This is a true testament to how good, and closely matched, the remaining teams are this season.

I can't wait to see the outcome of these games and want to say good luck to all the players, coaches, and even you smack talking fans! I pray that no injuries occur this week and that everyone has safe travels to, and from, these games. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving too!
 
Dang Westbrook is #3 this week, I seen the two teams ahead of them both have one loss as well. Can someone tell me who beat both of them teams?? Just curious. Also is Westbrook’s strength of schedule holding us back lol, because if so good grief. Westbrook’s schedule includes the current #1, #2, #4, #5, #13 , #16, #25 and #26 all in D1 so I wouldn’t say that’s an issue. Oh well all in good fun lmao .
 
Wildcats5421 said:
Dang Westbrook is #3 this week, I seen the two teams ahead of them both have one loss as well. Can someone tell me who beat both of them teams?? Just curious. Also is Westbrook’s strength of schedule holding us back lol, because if so good grief. Westbrook’s schedule includes the current #1, #2, #4, #5, #13 , #16, #25 and #26 all in D1 so I wouldn’t say that’s an issue. Oh well all in good fun lmao .
Click to expand...
Pretty sure strength of schedule has absolutely nothing to do with how the Toy ranks teams. Look how long Abbott was in the top half of the top 10 rankings and their strength of schedule was basically Zero all year.
 
FenceLineGuy said:
Pretty sure strength of schedule has absolutely nothing to do with how the Toy ranks teams. Look how long Abbott was in the top half of the top 10 rankings and their strength of schedule was basically Zero all year.
Click to expand...
It has to though, right? Oglesby was ranked pretty low, for an undefeated team, going into the playoffs, for what I assume was because of their schedule. Same with one loss teams, like Rising Star and Zephyr.
 
6-Man King said:
Don't know how Benjamin is that high if they haven't played anyone other than Loraine easiest bracket for them too for playoffs.
Click to expand...

I understand that point, and you very well may be right. Maybe they are ranked too high. That said, I went and watched them play Friday and, in my humble opinion, they're ranked exactly where they should be.

Wildcats5421 said:
Dang Westbrook is #3 this week, I seen the two teams ahead of them both have one loss as well. Can someone tell me who beat both of them teams?? Just curious. Also is Westbrook’s strength of schedule holding us back lol, because if so good grief. Westbrook’s schedule includes the current #1, #2, #4, #5, #13 , #16, #25 and #26 all in D1 so I wouldn’t say that’s an issue. Oh well all in good fun lmao .
Click to expand...

The upper part of DI is all wonky because those teams are all beating each other. I'm a little surprised by Happy being where they are but, since their loss to Westbrook, they've dominated and they got a huge bump after last week for beating Knox City (ranked #8 at the time) 50-0.

Remember, The Toy doesn't think like we do. It just takes numbers in and spits numbers out. It doesn't see "Westbrook beat Happy so they must be ranked higher than Happy", especially when that happened so many weeks ago. The Toy is definitely not perfect, and I'll work every off-season to see if there were things I could have tweaked to make it better, but picking 42-6 in the playoffs, to this point, is pretty darn good, by any standard, but especially for a computer.
 
kdstew3 said:
It has to though, right? Oglesby was ranked pretty low, for an undefeated team, going into the playoffs, for what I assume was because of their schedule. Same with one loss teams, like Rising Star and Zephyr.
Click to expand...
It should but who knows? @Mike can probably shed some light on it but no one can deny Westbrook has played the toughest schedule in any either division this year and that hasn't gotten them any brownie points with the Toy. Still baffles me how week one of the playoffs they 45 GC and get no bump from it, have beaten both teams ranked above them this week and still fall into the #3 spot. Believe me we don't care where we are ranked but trying to figure out how a team who played the toughest schedule this year and decimated GC and BV in the first 2 rounds still sits behind 2 teams they beat is mind boggling to say the least.
Also have to wonder how Abbott who played no one in the top 25 all season stayed in the top 5 of the rankings until the playoffs started and then mysteriously drop to #6?
 
Mike said:
I understand that point, and you very well may be right. Maybe they are ranked too high. That said, I went and watched them play Friday and, in my humble opinion, they're ranked exactly where they should be.



The upper part of DI is all wonky because those teams are all beating each other. I'm a little surprised by Happy being where they are but, since their loss to Westbrook, they've dominated and they got a huge bump after last week for beating Knox City (ranked #8 at the time) 50-0.

Remember, The Toy doesn't think like we do. It just takes numbers in and spits numbers out. It doesn't see "Westbrook beat Happy so they must be ranked higher than Happy", especially when that happened so many weeks ago. The Toy is definitely not perfect, and I'll work every off-season to see if there were things I could have tweaked to make it better, but picking 42-6 in the playoffs, to this point, is pretty darn good, by any standard, but especially for a computer.
Click to expand...
I sure wish I were 42-6 in the picks. LOL
 

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