Above you will find links to the bowl game prediction history.
Although results have been closer over the past few years, Kevin still holds a historic advantage.
The previous year results are shown as separate pages. Return here to navigate the rest of the site.
The history of the College Bowl Game prediction effort goes back a long time - to the mid 1970s to be exact. No one knows the exact year of the first competition.
It all started as a friendly rivalry between Kevin and his Father over who could predict football bowl games most accurately. In the first year every game as a negotiation over point spreads with a lot of give and take. This approach was too time consuming and could have gone on indefinitely without a more objective approach.
The second year the current approach was adopted where each of the competitors would select the winning team and score independent of the other. Then, on a given date before the first bowl game occurred the two competitors would send their predictions to each other through the mail. If one competitor received the other's predictions before sending their own predictions they were under very strict honor not to open the competitor's files before finalizing their predictions.
This approach lasted for many years, until the age of electronic communications (for the purpose of these two protagonists this was the late 1990s). At that point electronic communication resulted in instant communication of the predictions so both competitors had to rely upon the honor principle as it was nearly impossible to transmit the scores simultaneously.
Figuring out an objective approach to scoring was difficult. Any system devised would have to give credit to the more accurate predictor, but point spread alone was not sufficient since picking a losing team should not result in a victory even if the point spread was closer. Selecting a winning team was deemed more important than being close to the point spread. The predictors should be rewarded for accuracy as well and the system has a method (albeit somewhat arbitrary) of enhanced scoring for accurate predictions. Following is the scoring mechanism.
One point is awarded if the predictor is the only one who picks the correct team. The point is awarded regardless of point spreads selected.
If both predictors select the same winning team (or both pick the losing team) then one point is awarded to the predictor with the closest point spread. If both predictors have the same winning team and point spread the result is considered a tie and no points are awarded.
A predictor who correctly selects the winning team and the correct point spread is awarded two points.
A predictor who correctly selects the winning team and the exact score of the game is awarded four points. Exact score predictions rarely occur, but the person who gets one nearly always is the winner for that year.
Only one point award is give per game (i.e. having the exact score only gets four points)
Unfortunately, results from the earlier years have long been lost to history. People with memories better than mine remember that Dad took a beating in the early years. The reason isn't quite clear, but when he started consulting the odds page on USA today his results improved dramatically.
My strategy in the early years was to be pretty conservative with the point spreads. That way I would pick up some easy points every time Dad made a guess with a large point spread. Dad also used to show sentimental favoritism towards the Big Ten and they never seemed to do well in the Bowl Games so it was easy to take advantage of this idiosyncracy.
Perhaps, the worst year for Dad came when we spent the year in England. At that time there was no Internet and it was nearly impossible for me to get any information about College Football so it was going to be a series of guesses for me. Without any real knowledge of the teams I asked Darren and Lisa to help me pick the winners. Somehow we came out ahead this year - even with the disadvantage of no background information.
In the early days the winnings were one six pack of beer for every point advantage at the end of the games. Over the years our tastes became a bit more sophisticated and every point advantage means a bottle of good wine. In addition the loser must present the bottles of wine and the tropy (pictured above) to the winner at their place of residence some time before the bowl games start for the next year.
I can't quite remember when the trophy first arrived - probably some time after the 2003 season. The official title of the trophy is the "Peerless Pigskin Prognosticator". The winner gets to keep the trophy throughout the year and use it to keep all of the corks from their winnings (as seen above).
The design of the trophy itself caused quite a controversy. Since the trophy is a bit abstract the interpretation of the relationship to the bowl games is also not very direct. My best interpretation featured the trophy as a metaphor for the football stadiums where the games were played. The holes in the side represent the locations where Dad's hope of winning would drain out. Of course, Dad's interpretation was bit different.