Predicting the Predictions -- a meta-thread about Tennessee Football

#1

VFL-82-JP

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#1
Simple premise: tell me your win-loss prediction for the Vols in 2019, and I think I* can guess which teams you see us beating, within a reasonable tolerance.

The model goes like this, based on predicted # of Tennessee wins:

..1 - beat only UT-Chattanooga
....2 - add Georgia State
......3 - add UAB
........4 - add Kentucky
..........5 - add Vandy
............6 - add Mizzou
..............7 - add BYU
................8 - add USCe
..................9 - add Miss State
....................10 - add Florida
......................11 - add UGa
........................12, undefeated - add Bama

Some won't fit this pattern exactly. Might have adjacent teams flip-flopped (example: add Vandy before Kentucky, or USCe before BYU).

But my sensing is that it would be unusual for this table to be off more than two positions for anyone. In those rare instances, it would likely happen in the muddy middle of teams including Mizzou, BYU, USCe, and Miss State.

It's not remarkable, really. Football is, like many sports, broadly predictable to something like a 70% level. There are always surprises, upsets, even upheavals, but those exceptions don't entirely negate the sense of predictability. And so we humans take advantage of that predictability. And we mostly tend to do it in about the same way. Our guesses for # of wins may be far apart, but we probably still agree on what wins would be needed to get to each of our predictions.

I just find that interesting.

* (really, not just me, anyone who takes a minute to rank-order the opposing teams by perceived challenge level)
 
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#2
#2
Yeah, that's pretty much where I am. I might switch Mizz and BYU, but I might not.

KB gonna switch Florida and Bama, and UAB with Mississippi State.
 
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#4
#4
I'd be tempted to move Mizzou into a more challenging position. I'd love to beat 'em -- it was absolutely no fun sitting in Neyland last year for the first time in several years and watching us get shellacked. They just seem to have our number.

Edit: Sitting in Neyland is ALWAYS fun...regardless of the outcome. But some occasions are more pleasant than others.
 
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#5
#5
I'd flip Mizzou and BYU. It's too early for win prediction but I'm currently leaning 6-6 but might talk self into 7-5.
 
#6
#6
I made my predictions long ago when fake winter still teased the land. I stand by them.
======================================================

Thread was "My biggest hope/Longshot for 2019"


Yesterday at 10:19 AM #35


The OL remains in flux. But the Chaney effect will eventually take effect, I say eventually. A shorthanded and undermanned defense will see early struggles, I dare say collapses here and there. But the pieces here, and pieces there that Pruitt has assembled will start playing aggressively and a degree of meanness. I see it going this way barring injuries.

Georgia State W - by 2 points, our patchwork team hasn't meshed yet
BYU L - in a near blowout, a 4th quarter surge after a CJP sideline tirade makes it decent
Chattanooga W - close game but team mesh is better and starts to show.
at Florida * W - defensive struggle then the air Chaney show starts, 2TD victory


Georgia * L - close game but Dog defense just better than ours.
Mississippi State * L - more or less we piss this one away
at Alabama * L - we just aren't there yet but make it closer than it has been of late.
South Carolina * W - we finally shut MuschRAT up.
UAB W - air Chaney is back in business and defense shows up.
at Kentucky * W - heck of a game for 2qtrs, then we run away.


at Missouri * W - dooley do right or wrong gets dismounted.
Vanderbilt * W - defense does it when it counts the most in a shootout
 
#7
#7
I'd flip Mizzou and BYU. It's too early for win prediction but I'm currently leaning 6-6 but might talk self into 7-5.

I would probably move Mizzou to Miss. St.'s spot, and move BYU to Mizzou's spot at 6, SCe to 7, and MSU to 8.

I would say 8-4 because I believe MSU is a home game; if it is a road game I would say 7-5. And obviously those picks with a -1/+1 margin of error.
 
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#8
#8
I could see as few as 6, as many as 8. A lot of it is going to depend on how well we are playing at the end of the season relative to South Carolina, Kentucky, Mizzou, and Vandy. Lots of people's preseason "trendy" or sleeper picks don't pan out. Remember last year South Carolina was a trendy pick to "scare" Georgia for the East and have a really good season, especially by their standards. Nobody scared Georgia from the East, and Kentucky, not South Carolina, ended up being that team, which nobody really saw coming. Florida also ended up having a better year than many thought. Georgia, Mizzou, Vandy, and Tennessee had years that went pretty much as everybody thought, but Kentucky, Florida, and South Carolina did not. So yes, kind of predictable, but stuff always happens that nobody expects. Sometimes to a much greater degree than you're anticipating. That's what makes it so fun.

Teams play differently throughout the year, and those games at the back end of the schedule in particular are hard to gauge. Hell, IMO South Carolina, Kentucky, Mizzou, and Vandy all seemed like winnable games before the season started last year - "winnable" in the sense that we'd win 2 or 3 of them. We only won one of them, and oddly enough it was against the best/highest ranked team of the bunch.
 
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#10
#10
8W (including bowl) 5L
Sounds about right...unless coaching + second year in program/expectations + SC program + alot of upper classmen = a Barnes type leap like 2017/2018 bball team. Don't really see it, but is just as possible as another 5-6 win team...so, 7 regular season and bowl win is probably pretty realistic. Also, weaker, but not easy, schedule.
 
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#11
#11
I could see as few as 6, as many as 8. A lot of it is going to depend on how well we are playing at the end of the season relative to South Carolina, Kentucky, Mizzou, and Vandy. Lots of people's preseason "trendy" or sleeper picks don't pan out. Remember last year South Carolina was a trendy pick to "scare" Georgia for the East and have a really good season, especially by their standards. Nobody scared Georgia from the East, and Kentucky, not South Carolina, ended up being that team, which nobody really saw coming. Florida also ended up having a better year than many thought. Georgia, Mizzou, Vandy, and Tennessee had years that went pretty much as everybody thought, but Kentucky, Florida, and South Carolina did not. So yes, kind of predictable, but stuff always happens that nobody expects. Sometimes to a much greater degree than you're anticipating. That's what makes it so fun.

Teams play differently throughout the year, and those games at the back end of the schedule in particular are hard to gauge. Hell, IMO South Carolina, Kentucky, Mizzou, and Vandy all seemed like winnable games before the season started last year - "winnable" in the sense that we'd win 2 or 3 of them. We only won one of them, and oddly enough it was against the best/highest ranked team of the bunch.
Yeah, think that's what got us last year. I really continue to struggle with how we played against MIZ/Vandy, when we played so well against KY, Aub, and largely, SC...only thing I can come up with is we were whipped out physically, so, I'm really hoping that Year 2 in S/C program starts to pay off...and if it does, can hedge us up to maybe 8 wins. Also, if you think about it, Aub and KY were pretty one dimensional, and think that's where Pruitt is really good at game-planning. However, we struggled against Shurmur and Lock, veteran QB's, who both had balanced run/pass offenses.
 
#12
#12
Yeah, think that's what got us last year. I really continue to struggle with how we played against MIZ/Vandy, when we played so well against KY, Aub, and largely, SC...only thing I can come up with is we were whipped out physically, so, I'm really hoping that Year 2 in S/C program starts to pay off...and if it does, can hedge us up to maybe 8 wins. Also, if you think about it, Aub and KY were pretty one dimensional, and think that's where Pruitt is really good at game-planning. However, we struggled against Shurmur and Lock, veteran QB's, who both had balanced run/pass offenses.
I had a really hard time figuring out the team in November. I'm not sure it is because they were whipped physically, because the Kentucky game was late in the year and they played extremely well. There definitely seemed to be inconsistent effort in the second half of the season. They fought really hard in the loss at South Carolina, sleepwalked through the Charlotte game, balled out against Kentucky, got totally dominated by Mizzou, then appeared to mail it in against Vandy.

I think you might be on to something in your comment about Auburn and Kentucky being one-dimensional offensively, and if you rely too much on one thing Pruitt is pretty good about scheming to take that away. Of course West Virginia was pretty one-dimensional and they carved up our secondary, but that was also Pruitt's first game and their WRs and QB were just so much better than our secondary.

I'd like to not get blown out in any game this year. With the exception of South Carolina, each loss last year was very one-sided.
 
#15
#15
Wait, isn’t this the time of year where D4H comes around and trolls a national championship prediction? Is that still a thing or is he gone?

I say we beat Vandy and KY this year. Mizzou Miss St BYU USCe could go either way. I say 7 reg season wins
 
#16
#16
I made my predictions long ago when fake winter still teased the land. I stand by them.
======================================================

Thread was "My biggest hope/Longshot for 2019"


Yesterday at 10:19 AM #35


The OL remains in flux. But the Chaney effect will eventually take effect, I say eventually. A shorthanded and undermanned defense will see early struggles, I dare say collapses here and there. But the pieces here, and pieces there that Pruitt has assembled will start playing aggressively and a degree of meanness. I see it going this way barring injuries.

Georgia State W - by 2 points, our patchwork team hasn't meshed yet
BYU L - in a near blowout, a 4th quarter surge after a CJP sideline tirade makes it decent
Chattanooga W - close game but team mesh is better and starts to show.
at Florida * W - defensive struggle then the air Chaney show starts, 2TD victory


Georgia * L - close game but Dog defense just better than ours.
Mississippi State * L - more or less we piss this one away
at Alabama * L - we just aren't there yet but make it closer than it has been of late.
South Carolina * W - we finally shut MuschRAT up.
UAB W - air Chaney is back in business and defense shows up.
at Kentucky * W - heck of a game for 2qtrs, then we run away.


at Missouri * W - dooley do right or wrong gets dismounted.
Vanderbilt * W - defense does it when it counts the most in a shootout


Yeah...you lost me at "beat Ga State in Knoxville by 2, then beat UF in Gainesville by 2 TD's".

8 wins, maybe. An O/U of 6 is more realistic, but 8 wins not out of reach. This OL still gives me serious reservations about the '19 season.
 
#17
#17
Yeah...you lost me at "beat Ga State in Knoxville by 2, then beat UF in Gainesville by 2 TD's".

8 wins, maybe. An O/U of 6 is more realistic, but 8 wins not out of reach. This OL still gives me serious reservations about the '19 season.

I can imagine, but it's what I think. Plus Aaron and Abe allowed me free use of their Primer chrono-divergent device. Thus I saw each game unfold. So there. :)
 
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#18
#18
GreyWolf, regarding my Ga Ste and UF games, an item of note. 2018 --
Charlotte W 14 - 3 then right after that --- Kentucky W 24 - 7

That team was unpredictable. The 2019 team will be too.
 
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#19
#19
IMO, #s 5-9 could be arranged in several different ways. I like the BYU game earlier in the season but not the 1st game.

Miss St., USC, Vandy, Mizzou...who knows?
 
#21
#21
Simple premise: tell me your win-loss prediction for the Vols in 2019, and I think I* can guess which teams you see us beating, within a reasonable tolerance.

The model goes like this, based on predicted # of Tennessee wins:

..1 - beat only UT-Chattanooga
....2 - add Georgia State
......3 - add UAB
........4 - add Kentucky
..........5 - add Vandy
............6 - add Mizzou
..............7 - add BYU
................8 - add USCe
..................9 - add Miss State
....................10 - add Florida
......................11 - add UGa
........................12, undefeated - add Bama

Some won't fit this pattern exactly. Might have adjacent teams flip-flopped (example: add Vandy before Kentucky, or USCe before BYU).

But my sensing is that it would be unusual for this table to be off more than two positions for anyone. In those rare instances, it would likely happen in the muddy middle of teams including Mizzou, BYU, USCe, and Miss State.

It's not remarkable, really. Football is, like many sports, broadly predictable to something like a 70% level. There are always surprises, upsets, even upheavals, but those exceptions don't entirely negate the sense of predictability. And so we humans take advantage of that predictability. And we mostly tend to do it in about the same way. Our guesses for # of wins may be far apart, but we probably still agree on what wins would be needed to get to each of our predictions.

I just find that interesting.

* (really, not just me, anyone who takes a minute to rank-order the opposing teams by perceived challenge level)

Great post OP.

I think I’m in the 5-7 or 4-8 camp. The two conference wins being UK and MAYBE Vandy. I think our ceiling is 7-5 with added wins over BYU and USC if things really go our way in those games.
 
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#22
#22
I think Mizzou on the road at the end of the year will be tougher than BYU or USCjr at home. I also thing UF on the road will be harder than UGA at home especially with UF being the last of a 4 game stretch and UGA coming after a bye. Same with Vandy at home easier than UK on the road.

Again, not super different than what you have, but more nuanced. With all that said, this team can win 9 games without achieving a real upset so a bowl game should be a foregone possibility.
 
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