About Predicting Next Year's Record

jameskalina

Well-Known Member
When you post your prediction on Iowa's won loss record for 2011 will you be taking an optimistic, a realistic or a pessimistic approach?

I plan to use a realistic approach and then subtract one game to account for the negative unknowns that can happen before and during the season such as injuries, accademic ineligibility, referee calls, weather, etc.

No way am I ready to make a prediction for 2011. I want to see what happens through spring practice first.

I predicted a 10-2 record for 2010. Had I used the above approach I would have backed off one game for the negative unknowns and said 9-3.
 


My optomistic right now is 9-3, pessemistic is 5-7. I'm going to go with 7-5 right now I may readjust after the bowl game.
 




Next years schedule is a little more favorable I think, 8 wins isnt out of the question. There is enough talent returning on the offense to realistically expect at least 7 wins. And defensively although 2 defensive lineman 3 linebackers and one safety will be gone, there is still a lot left.
 






8-4, if they go 4-0 in the non-con........if not it will be struggle to get the ticket city bowl.
 


The rub here is that it's A LOT easier to speculate upon the best-case scenario based on the available data. Considering the worst-case scenario is a MUCH, MUCH harder thing to do. It's simply too difficult to know to what position units injuries will strike or to what extent we'll be hit by injuries. Furthermore, it's also difficult to gauge the consistency of the special teams play. With every new year, you see guys "move up" from special teams play to positional action ... however, you then never know how well the new guys will play on ST.

The best case is much easier because we know the strengths and weaknesses of our schemes, we can usually make pretty accurate guesses when it comes to speculating upon a depth chart, we know our future schedule, and we can do our homework on the personnel of our opponents.

I think that a standard problem for fans is that they make their predictions based on the best-case ... however, only RARELY do they revise their expectations/predictions.
 






That's your optimistic record?:eek::eek:

yes, I feel our offense could be very good but I don't think the coaches will not be willing to out score opponents and the youth on D will cost us a few games. Coaching decisions made me feel this way. The only way we are better then that next year, imo, is if our run game dominates and is very consistent on ypc. Of course the coaching seems to be at its best when expectations aren't too high.
 


I plan to use a realistic approach

Of course you do. Everyone who makes a prediction (me included) thinks they are a realist, anyone who picks fewer wins than they do is a pessimist and anyone who picks more wins than they do is an optimist ;)
 
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Of course you do. Everyone who makes a prediction thinks they are a realist, anyone who picks fewer wins than they do is a pessimist and anyone who picks more wins than they do is an optimist ;)

And regardless of how many I pick (although I typically give "probablistic" predictions), I always get dubbed as being relentlessly optimistic.
 


I am never predicting anything other than 8-4 ever again.

That is what we are going to be under KF. I am going to go into every year expecting this and if we happen to win 9 or 10 instead, great.

Life as a second tier Big 10 team. Embrace it.
 


This year taught me that no matter the talent we have, we will always be a second tier program. I am going 8-4 as a prediction at least until the next ice age. Anything below that is understandable because it happens to our tier of teams and anything above that is outside the norm. Hopefully the lesson I learned from this year will keep them from breaking my heart again.:eek:
 
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This year taught me that no matter the talent we have, we will always be a second tier program.

Again, I just don't understand this line of thinking. I suspect that once we get to January or February, and people have time to let these raw emotions pass, they'll come around to looking at the big picture of this program and realize that comments like this were made in the emotion of disappointment, because the data just doesn't bear it out.
 


This is just outright silly and wholly untrue.

Since 2001, only Ohio State has won more Big Ten games than Iowa. Did you mean life as the second best Big Ten team?



2001: 6-5
2002: 11-1
2003: 9-3
2004: 9-2
2005: 7-4
2006: 6-6
2007: 6-6
2008: 8-4
2009: 10-2
2010: 8-4 (I'll give the team the benefit of the doubt)

So over ten years we have 79 wins and 37 losses.

Round it up 8-4 is the average Jon.
 


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So over ten years we have 79 wins and 37 losses.

Round it up 8-4 is the average Jon.

You said second tier Big Ten team, which is bogus. As for the 8-4 average since 2001, Ohio State has a better winning percentage, and Wisconsin now just barely has a better winning percentage than Iowa...that's it from the Big Ten.

To be a 9-3 team on the average is a winning percentage of 75%. Since 2001, just nine teams in all of FBS have done that, with two of them being Boise and TCU who don't play weekly competition.

Just 21 teams in all of FBS have averaged 8 wins since 2001.

I get being upset at this year's results, but you are exaggerating things in the extreme here.
 
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