No Reason to Watch NASCAR in Homestead

The NASCAR Chase for the Cup kicked off today with a victory from Mark Martin. The Chase for the Cup is NASCAR's version of the playoffs, a ten race showdown with the twelve best drivers from the first 26 races of the season. The Chase begins in Loudon, with races in Dover, Kansas, Fontana, Charlotte, Martinsville, Talladega, Texas, and Phoenix before wrapping up in Homestead on November 22nd. However, ESPN doesn't think the Chase will go down to the wire, as this evening the bottom line proclaimed there are only eight races left in the Chase.

Apparently, ESPN believes that the Chase will be over by Homestead.

Brent Musburger reports that Dan Buckner has a body.

Musburger is breaking news tonight by informing the American people that Texas Wide Receiver Dan Buckner "has a body". I thought that having a body was a prerequisite to playing football. According to Musburger, you only need a body to be a Tight End, which is Texas' plan for Buckner. Glad that's settled.

Keyshawn Johnson and Iron Mike Enter the Rankings with a "Boom!"

NFL Announcers, Welcome to the Party. This week, the Sunday guys flexed their muscle as Keyshawn Johnson and Mike Ditka opened the NFL season with perfect weeks. Pink ties and fuchsia sock aren't the only think Key can match-up. The rest of the ESPN Sunday Countdown crew, Tom Jackson, Cris Carter, and Chris Berman all had better than a 0.75 Accuracy Index. Boomer was the worst of the pros with a 6/8 week, missing his picks of the Browns and the Dolphins.

Of the college football guys, Desmond Howard continues the strong weekend for Michigan going 2/3 on his picks, for a total of 3/4 on the season. Desmond incorrectly picked Tennessee over UCLA, which everyone got wrong.

Although Lee Corso is only 10/19 for a 0.53 Accuracy Index, he made the pick of the week, Houston over Oklahoma State. Although this was his "Upset Alert", he made the pick so strongly that Fowler asked him if he was picking Houston to win, and Corso said, "Yeah!" While Upset Alerts would normally be excluded from the rankings, this pick was included due to Corso's conviction.

Chris Fowler, Mike Mulligan, and Brian Hanley bring up the rear. Fowler made one pick, FSU over Miami, and Mulligan and Hanley both picked Notre Dame over Michigan. However, Hanley did say that he "wouldn't bet a dollar on it", so he didn't feel that good about his pick.

Closer Than The Experts Think?

Mark May just said the LSU vs Vandy game tomorrow will be "closer than
the experts think.". Isn't he supposed to be the expert? Is this game
going to be closer than he thinks it is?

Laying Down the Ground Rules

Notsodamus has watched many different sports shows over the last two weeks. The variety of "predictions" made by announcers is staggering. When Lou Holtz says, "Oklahoma could win all their games without Sam Bradford", is this a prediction? Is an "Upset Alert" calling the upset, or just sounding a warning siren? This post will clarify the rules Notsodamus will use to determine whether a statement made by an announcer should be considered a prediction.

1) A prediction must be made with conviction. Announcers need to make statements such as "The Steelers will beat the Titans." If an announcer says "Florida should win the SEC", this is not a prediction.

2) A prediction must be measurable. Kurt Warner will be the 2009 NFL MVP is measurable. Warner will either win the MVP, or he will not. Kurt Warner will have a good year in 2009 is not a prediction, since it is difficult to determine what defines a "good year". How do you define a "good year" for a QB? TD passes? Yards? Wins?

3) An "Upset Alert" is not a prediction. Notsodamus believes that an "Upset Alert" is an announcer saying, "I'm not calling for the upset here, but if you made me pick an upset, this is the one I would pick." Upset Alerts are like a Tornado Watch , they indicate when conditions are favorable for an upset.

Michigan and Notre Dame at the top of the Rankings

Week one of the college football season was full of surprises, including the Wolverines and the Irish taking an early lead in the inaugural Prognostication Index. With his shrewed pick of Alabama over Virgina Tech, Desmond Howard jumps out in front with a perfect rating. Granted, he only made one pick, so Notsodamus needs a bigger sample to see if this holds up. Of announcers with at least four gradable picks, Lou Holtz is the leader with a 0.75 PI. Lou accurately predicted wins for the Irish, the OSU Cowboys, and the Tide. His only blemish was his pick of OU over BYU. Out of predictions recorded by Notsodamus, no-one picked that game correctly.

Salsa Boy Kirk Herbstreit got off to a rocky start, going 1-6 with a 0.58 PI. His only correct selection was Notre Dame over Nevada, which was picked correctly by all announcers except Mark May. Herbstreit was also negatively impacted by not picking the Alabama/Virginia Tech game as he called the game later that night. This game was picked correctly by everyone. Salsa lovers and Sooner fans hope that their horses can recover from a terrible opening weekend to be contenders.


There were no observed pick changes this week, but Notsodamus didn't expect there to be in the opening week. The talking heads just made their picks for the year, and with only one week of football in the books, most picks are still solid. Notsodamus wonders what Mel Kiper will do, as he picked Oklahoma for the BCS National Championship.

For detail on the picks recorded during the week, click here.

Click here to see those picks recorded by Notsodamus which do not have a result yet. Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Notre Dame have all been picked as BCS National Champions.

Thumbs Up to Bob Davie?

Another thing I've always wondered about sportscasters was which ones made really good points, and which ones made comments that made me scratch my head. Therefore, I'm going to be giving out a Thumbs Up when I think a sportscaster makes a good point, and a Thumbs Down when I think they said something completely ridiculous.

Surprisingly, my first Thumbs Up goes to Bob Davie. During the Boise State game last night, Davie called out "How 'bout this field goal formation?" and Boise State promptly faked it and ran it in for a 2 point conversion. Granted, the cameraman wasn't watching the play, so we missed it on TV, but Bob got the call right. Nice job, Bob.

Let me know your Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down. Add your comments to this post if you want to recognize some good or bad announcing this weekend.

Notsodamus Is Here

Picture this. You're watching the Texas/Oklahoma game this year on ABC. In the first quarter, Brent Musburger announces that for sure Sam Bradford will win the Heisman this year. Two drives later, after a 50 yard touchdown pass to Jordan Shipley, he claims that with 100% certainty, Colt McCoy will win the Heisman. This plays out three more times throughout the game, flipping his pick from Bradford to McCoy after each game changing play.

I'm on a mission to rank announcers based on how Accurate they are in their picks, and how much Conviction they have in their predictions. That's why I've created the Prognostication Index. The Prognostication Index is composed of the average of the Accuracy Index and the Conviction Index. The Accuracy Index is simply whether the announcer's latest pick was correct. It is either 1 or 0 based on whether the pick was correct. The Conviction Index is the number of times an announcer changes their pick. If Musburger says that Bradford is going to win the Heisman, then McCoy, then Bradford, then McCoy, and then Bradford again, his Conviction Index is .2 (1 category over 5 selections). Assuming McCoy wins the Heisman, his Prognostication Index would be .1 ((0 + .2)/2).

I'd like to rank all announcers based on this criteria, but I need your help. I can't capture all the data I need by myself. I need you to click on the "Submit Prognostication Now" link and fill out the form for any predictions you hear from any announcers. I'll need to know who submitted the link (just create a handle for yourself), the date, the time (so I can sort through multiple predictions during a game), the announcer, the network, the category, and the pick. I'll fill in the winner. A category is basically any type of pick, whether it be national champion, Heisman winner, conference champion, or who will play in the title game.

Thanks for all your help getting this up and running. I'll be making adjustments along the way as I see how the data comes in. We won't know the answers for some of these things until the end of the season, but I'll update statistics on "gradable" predictions throughout the year. I hope you come along for the ride.