The site has spent the last week shuffling through Syracuse football record possibilities, starting at 3-9 and ending at 7-5. Many words were written, many more lives were lost in the comments section. In 40 years we will tell our grandchildren of the valor of defending a 6-6 record on an internet website as we fly our vanity-powered cars through the galaxy on the way to Moon Base Syracuse for space burgers and star system shakes.
The hard part of this every year is that we all couch this in “Syracuse will . . .” when what we’re all actually thinking is “Syracuse may. . .” There are no absolutes; when you forecast the strength of an investment, you generally don’t ascribe a 100% payoff — you’re actually attributing a probability of an investment payoff. While not apples-to-apples, forecasting football victories is a similar exercise — what’s the probability that a team generates an X-X record?
That’s what I want to examine from an expectations setting perspective: What’s the likelihood of Syracuse going 3-9 or 6-6 or anything else? To do that, I looked at Bill Connolly’s S&P projections, Sagarin’s preseason ratings, and Massey’s projections and ran Monte Carlo simulations. All three models are respected, if not imperfect, allowing us to at least cut a path into the universe to assign some early expectations. As a man of the people (and with the knowledge that many are so resentful of modeling that they will burn down the internet at even the faintest scent of a computer projecting football outcomes), I’ve also created a little tool to help put your preseason predictions into context and to give you the necessary ammunition to violently defend your very perfect expectations for Syracuse this season.
Football Computer Consensus: 5-7 Looks Like the Early Mark
All three examined models have Syracuse hovering around a 5-7/4-8 record.
[insert incredible shock and awe here]
S&P is the most ebullient about the Orange, expecting Syracuse to earn just a shade over five victories; both the Massey and Sagarin forecasts focus on the 4.5-win mark, a hedge that isn’t exactly ridiculous.
S&P
There’s about a 41% chance that Syracuse finishes with a record of 6-6 or better in 2017, and a 59% probability that the Orange close the year with five or fewer victories (mostly attributable to the high probability of a 5-7 record). That’s not too bad considering that the S&P model has Syracuse facing six opponents in which it forecasts a 30% or less win probability. The real focus for the Orange will be, according to S&P, holding serve against Wake Forest and getting a swing victory against Pittsburgh in the Dome. That’s the driving force behind S&P putting the Orange on the right side of five wins with the likelihood of six wins being slightly greater than finishing with four.
Sagarin
It shouldn’t melt your brain seeing the Monte Carlo simulation spit out almost identical probabilities for Syracuse finishing 4-8 or 5-7: The Oracle of Indiana is expecting 4.7 wins from the Orange in 2017. Notable aspects influencing the simulation: Sagarin sets the Middle Tennessee line at seven points (assigning a 67% win probability); Pittsburgh is installed as a six-point favorite as a visitor; and Wake Forest is essentially a Pick ‘Em. The projection from one of the first mainstream sports forecasters sees a lot of red — LSU, Clemson, Miami, Florida State, and Louisville — and the total probability for finishing with six wins or better is just 25% (the schedule, man). The good news, though, is that there’s a 74% chance that the Orange finishes between four and six wins, a fat target that is, according to Sagarin, achievable.
Massey
Massey is the softest on the Orange among the three machines — the Massey forecast doesn’t even give Syracuse a 50% chance to finish with five wins or more. This is due to the fact that Massey provides a win probability at or below 30% for seven of the Orange’s games (the schedule, man). In function, Massey reflects three highly-favored games (Central Connecticut, Middle Tennessee, and Central Michigan) and two toss-ups (Wake Forest and Boston College). That’s Massey’s path to four victories — clean up the body bags and split the Pick ‘Em dates. This projection is as black-and-white as they come, but not unexpected based on the projected spreads (Massey’s projected spreads include only two games with an expected margin of fewer than seven points).
The Fun Part: How Confident are You in Your Season Prediction?
There’s an important difference between “Syracuse will beat Boston College!” and “Syracuse will squeeze past Boston College on a game-winning field goal!” Both relate a simple assertion of relative strength — “Syracuse is better than Boston College!” — but the latter adds context to the assertion of relative strength: A dominant projected margin promotes the idea that Syracuse would beat Boston College very frequently, while a tight projected margin indicates that Syracuse and Boston College are closer to competitive equals, offering the notion that Syracuse and Boston College would trade victories and losses in the scope of a 100-game series. A team isn’t expected to win every game in which it is favored (weird stuff happens (injuries, sickness, defections, weird deflections, bonkers turnovers, oddball matchups, etc.), hence the entire reality of “upsets”), but a team that is dramatically stronger than an opponent is significantly less likely to suffer a defeat; teams that are competitively square are expected to win as many as they lose to a peer. (This is why Vegas produces odds and spreads, duh.)
When forecasting victories, assigning projected margins is valuable: The average internet commenting megaphone may not care to elucidate how six wins are achieved but, by God, they’re going to happen; however, understanding the likelihood of accruing victories, based on the relative strength of teams as envisioned through projected margins, allows for confidence testing in the forecast. Looking at a prediction with a little more context helps shape the setting of expectations and permits further illustration of the power of a prediction.
That brings us here: You may think that Syracuse is going 5-7 in 2017, but how are you (specifically) getting there and what’s the likelihood that your prediction comes to fruition? Rather than send you on a vision quest, I’ve put together a tool to help you test your confidence and provide a little color to your perspective of Earth. All you have to do is fill out the cells shaded in orange with your expected game margins (the workbook will do the rest for you).
DOWNLOAD THE 2017 SYRACUSE FAN PREDICTION MACHINE
(Click the link. You’ll need Microsoft Excel. If someone wants to put this into a shareable Google Sheet, knock yourself out.)
This tool will calculate a simple win probability for your predictions, the win probabilities then forming the basis for the projected win total. The model will also run a Monte Carlo simulation to assess the likelihood of final records based on the inputted game margins. Even your average message board lunatic can handle this. Hopefully this will either cement your expectations for this season — at least those expectations based on pre-Labor Day thinking — or realign your brain toward something a little more supportable.