Week three of Ivy League football is here. In Week two our model stayed perfect going 2-0 in predictions again! Princeton trounced Columbia is a large and expected blow out and Dartmouth was able to protect their home turd against Penn, but in surprising 37 – 14 fashion. Last week also premiered the inaugural edition of Mike vs. the Machine. In our first week I split my game, but the machine carried on and is carrying as perfect record so far.
There were some large changes in Elo scores due to the two games last week. Princeton gained 33 Elo points in their blowout of Columbia. Dartmouth gained a similar 32 Elo points in their similar blowout victory against Penn. This week I am releasing the Elo ratings graph so we can check out teams’ progressions each week. And as always check out my original Elo article for a full explanation of the model.
Week 3 Predictions:
Dartmouth at Yale, Friday, October 5th at 6:00PM
This game is going to be an interesting one. Dartmouth is coming off of a strong victory against Penn, while Yale’s last Ivy Game was only a slim victory against Cornell. This game is going to be down in New Haven, but I am going to award this game to a red hot Dartmouth team. I don’t think this will be a blow out by any means but I have a feeling that Dartmouth will be able to pull it out.
Machine: Yale
Mike: Dartmouth
Harvard at Cornell, Saturday, October 5th at 1:30PM
Despite knowing that the model is undefeated thus far and that picking against it in both games this week will probably end poorly for me, I can’t help but pick Cornell in this game. This decision is not even one of school pride. In Cornell’s last contest against Sacred Heart (who is of course non-Ivy and admitted from the model) the Big Red looked great. The team put up 40+ points and could have scored more if they did not rest the starters. Harvard is a good football team, but if Cornell is going to pull a big upset this year it will be in this game.
Machine: Harvard
Mike: Cornell
We will see how both the Model and I fair next week keeping coming back for weekly game predictions!
Machine’s Prediction Record: 4-0
Mike’s Prediction Record: 2-2
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