Mike Is Back With His Feature Picks

August 20, 2018 by Mike Mitchell

I am happy to say that I, Mike Mitchell, am back with my Feature Picks for a 14th consecutive season. My function is to highlight certain picks from the computer rankings that I believe have the best chance of being correct - the idea of which is to combined the accuracy of the algorithm with the intelligence of a human. My wife has often argued that I am not all that intelligent, and at times, not very human. But I digress.

The 'computer' and 'algorithm' references I make are to the Congrove Computer Rankings. It does whatever it does with the data at its disposal, and then I review it and put it in to two categories - Easy Pickins and Hold Your Horses. The computer will also have upset picks, which plainly stated are games in which the computer has a different team winning than the consensus of all the oddsmakers. I don't include the upsets in my picks, but I do offer commentary on their validity or absurdity.

My focus is to find the few games that I believe the computer has underestimated the margin of victory for one team or the other (Easy Pickins), or overestimated that margin (Hold Your Horses). I then explain why I chose each game. Sometimes the supported logic is rather concise as I my selection may be based on a single determining factor, while other times I find it necessary to do a deeper dive into the numbers.

My attempt to outwit the computer, or at least match wits with it, have been pretty revealing. The computer picks every single game every week and is correct 75% of the time straight up and 53.3% against the spread over its 25-year past. By comparison, my 14 years of being very selective have produced records of 74.7% correct straight up and 50.05% against the spread on Easy Pickins, with better results on the Hold Your Horses category of 81.3% straight up and 51.4 ATS.

It is also interesting to note that the computer's outright upset picks have been correct 44.2% of the time. At first glance, the notion is to criticize a number like 44.2%, but keep in mind that those picks are going against the grain of all the so-called expert humans. Even more impressive is that the computer's upset picks are correct against the spread 54.3% of the time.

Week one of the 2018 college football season has just 4 games, and only one that I have selected. In most weeks, I will highlight 3-5 selections in each category while the number of computer upset picks can vary greatly.

Please make it a point to come back weekly to check out the Feature Picks.