Red Flags Part 1
My hope has been that anytime college football spreads come up in conversation, which for some of you may be more often than you think possible, and subsequently I open the door to this system I created, I could save a lot of explanation by suggesting that a person read the first 10-15 posts of this blog. It’s still a relevant idea, although I will obviously have to recommend that all the losing that occurred in the Covid year be graciously ignored. When and why the system overcomes several irregularities and starts producing again is a guess I can’t rightfully make at this point. It could be as soon as now, as the losing has curtailed a bit, with two .500 weeks in a row, although I’m afraid any turnaround will only be evident in hindsight, as even a winning set this week will only have a handful of picks to add to the sample pile, and there are enough irregularities still in play to explain a return to losing anytime.
One thing to understand about my system is that while I only produce a very specific set of picks, I actually have a guideline of sorts to follow on every single game in play, provided that both participating schools are among the 130 or so FBS level teams I am tracking data for, so that game Alabama plays late in every season, giving up 50+ points against some poor FCS victim is not one that the system can offer an opinion on. Also, I’m looking for value, so often games are eliminated from my queue simply because the odds makers see it about the same as I do, and I couldn’t begin to tell you where the value is, sans a subjective offering, which I always have, but don’t find much success with. What can I say? I’m a homer and the 2 Royals’ postseasons are far fewer than the number of triumphant runs I’ve projected over the past 34 years, and it doesn’t get much better when I attempt analysis on individual college football games, your team or mine. This is, after all, why the system was invented in the first place.
So every week, once I’ve eliminated the Vegas offerings that land right where mine do, I now have a whole lot of games to choose from, games in which my numbers tell me there is value to be found. At some point, I tracked all of them, exclusively at first, until I started testing and applying negative influencers of sorts, categories of games and teams that were bringing down my winning percentage. I call them red flags. There are 2 ways to run these tests. One is in real time, which takes years, or the other, backtracking and simulating, which is an incredible time suck, but has been very useful in finding results more immediately, just as long as I’m running tests for several concepts at once, as spending multiple hours on one failed hypothesis can be very frustrating. And there are always more and more that I’m considering; it’s an ever evolving system, although the irregularities in play this season have also postponed my tests, so not only will the system take time to recover, but it will also take time before there is opportunity to improve.
There is a delicate balance when it comes to eliminating games. For one thing, the more games I eliminate, the lesser the sample size and the more influence one debunked pick can have on my overall winning percentage. The other problem is that when the goal gets up to 60%, then a 54% subset of games could bring the average down, all the while leaving money on the table if the application of the system is fully utilized, because a 54% winner is a money maker. I will discuss the dynamics of each of my red flags in Part 2, with a likely Part 3 that gets into further concepts that have been frozen for whatever unknown period of time it is we now live in, ideas I had been testing prior to the pandemic. And speaking of the pandemic, it is notable that of my red flags, while I’ve been diligent in determining their influence on my overall winning percentage, none have been anywhere near as significant as Covid 19 itself. Anything like this in future years should be considered the ultimate red flag for every college football game anyone would want to apply the system to.
But for the sake of accountability, I will continue to provide the picks. I got a winner on Wednesday, which I reported on The Burkett System Facebook page, and I’d love to see you like if you haven’t yet. Here are this week’s games:
Wednesday
Western Michigan -2.5 at home vs Toledo
Friday
Iowa -3 on the road vs Minnesota
Saturday
Kentucky -18 at home vs Vanderbilt
Nebraska +3 at home vs Penn State
South Alabama +16 on the road vs Louisiana Lafayette
Wisconsin -4.5 on the road vs Michigan
Late addition:
Tulsa +1 at home vs SMU
