The Fallen Hero

So you think you've got the hang of Contrarian Bridgejumping (if not go back to the Vault for a refresher), but now we turn to another pervasive way of viewing a team's season to date history with this little theory. The 'Bridgejumping approach requires tracking a team's net against the line while the "Fallen Hero" involves looking merely at the net lines set on the team, which comes down to is the team typically a favorite or an underdog. Thus we may find the California Bears are on average a 2.3 point dog, while the Michigan Wolverines are favored by 8.4 point for the season (theses are of course made up numbers for this example). We then compare the numbers for our two adversaries in this particular week's slate and we'd say Michigan has been getting more respect from the public to the tune of 10.7 points. This in and of itself is relatively mundane and meaningless in a predictive sense...indeed, if you simply play the team who has been "brighter in the linemaker's eye" then you'd wind up with 50.8% overall record.

Ah, but Stan seldom is satisfied with "simply" and indeed postulated that what you really need to do is find an underdog who has been "giving" more points than its opponent on the year as what you will be getting here is most likely a "Fallen Hero" -- a once proud squad, accustomed to being the favorite on the line who now finds themselves as an underdog versus a lowlier foe. Legends and history are full of grand stories about these sorts -- Samson, Robert the Bruce, Indiana Jones... -- and most of the time the common thread is that the Hero will often be sparked in the desperate hour to produce brilliance beyond previous expectations. This is what we bank on.

Limiting yourself to underdogs who have a better than two point difference in their "net lines" (eg if one team is averaging being favored by 4.5 while the other team is avergaing 4.0 there's nothing doing since it's too small an issue) in week five and beyond (we do need some history before we jump out of the gates) and backing the "Hero in need of a Hollywood ending" you'd have managed a decent 56.3% over the previous five years in college ball. Going one step further though, adding in the qualifier that our heroes must be getting at least five points on the line this week, our record is a nifty 131-88 or 59.8%.

Using another reference to horse racing you'll find many horseplayers will note which horses have been "beaten favorites" in previous starts since to be favored there must be something going for you, and even though things may not have worked out that time you probably have a touch more ability than the agin veteran who's been 80-1 the last ten times on the track. Now, of course we are not necessarily wagering on beaten favorites nor even favorites since if team A has been a 4 point dog on average and team B is a 10 pt dog we would still play our less doggy friends "A" if we find a situation where Team A is getting five plus points.