College Football Pick 'em Review - Week 3

Week 3 turned out to be an outstanding one for me on College Football Pick 'em. Or was it? First, a review (note that as I cautioned, my picks did change somewhat from the initial posting):

Texas (10), W 34-24
California (9), W 35-21
Auburn (8), W 41-30
Clemson (7), W 25-7
Virginia Tech (6), W 16-15
North Carolina (5), W 31-17
Iowa (4), W 27-17
Cincinnati (3), W 28-18
Arkansas (2), L 41-52
Utah (1), L 24-31

Not only did I score 52 out of a possible 55 points, well surpassing my 39 and 45 point totals from Weeks 1 and 2, I also look very smart for getting my top 8 games right and only my least-confident games wrong. I also moved up from the 72nd to the 87th percentile.

I wound up making some alterations to my picks because I simulated how I would perform against a 'typical' public entry, as determined by the pick statistics provided by ESPN. I ran 100 random simulations for the outcome of the weekend's games based on odds derived from Las Vegas money lines, and then determined which picks would net me on average, the greatest victory margin over the public.

Looking back at my simulation results, I shouldn't get too puffed up about having scored 52 points. My expected value for my picks was just 40.7 and only 9 times out of 100 could I have expected to do as well or better than 52. So even though I planned well, I got lucky too.

And indeed it was a good week for the favorites in general, as I still only outperformed the average entry by 6 points. As it turns out, this was not that outstanding of a performance. It was above my average expectation, but I could have expected to do better or as well 45 out of 100 times.

In other words, despite a raw total that was far beyond what I would have expected on average, my margin over the public, though slightly above expectation, was not really all that special. Had ECU beaten UNC, or better yet, Arkansas beaten Georgia, I would have looked a lot better in comparison to the public. So I am grateful for 52 points but I feel like I may yet have an even more colossal week in my future.