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.