Sagarin says

[NDSU1980]

Hey bootfitter, glad to see you taking over for Hammer. You and Hammer are the greatest, keep it up

[SamsRams]

So I find it interesting that NDSU is only 5-4 against the spread. But the more interesting thing to me is how the standard deviation is calculated. At plus or minus 14 points, our games have been within the standard deviation 6 out of the 9 times (which is what's supposed to happen). The rest of them are within 2 st. dev's (which is also supposed to happen), but they are all on the low side (meaning -14 to -28 of the mean). Do you think that is normal?? Is it simply a product of our average just being too high to be able to cover by 2+ TD's??

Has a lot to do with every team playing NDSU likes its their Super Bowl. Teams look ahead to NDSU, unless you are FBS and then you say you didnt look past them for a year only to switch to "players werent ready" or "we didnt take them seriously" approach like the classy KState staff

[tony]

So I find it interesting that NDSU is only 5-4 against the spread. But the more interesting thing to me is how the standard deviation is calculated. At plus or minus 14 points, our games have been within the standard deviation 6 out of the 9 times (which is what's supposed to happen). The rest of them are within 2 st. dev's (which is also supposed to happen), but they are all on the low side (meaning -14 to -28 of the mean). Do you think that is normal?? Is it simply a product of our average just being too high to be able to cover by 2+ TD's??

I won't pretend to understand gambling, but if NDSU is 5-4 against the spread that sounds like the spread was set correctly... shouldn't the winning team cover the spread 50% of the time?

[El_Chapo]

Bingo Ive been betting on NDSU for 5 years now.
NDSU when they started this run in 2011 was always missed by Offshore/Vegas and a lot of us cashed in on their inadequate line setting.
starting last year 2013, Offshore/vegas would OVER value NDSU and they have gone overboard to put NDSU at a ridiculous spread so (-23 and -28 etc etc)

yes 5-4 for them is amazing, whereas 2-3 years ago NDSU was like 10-1 for them

[bisonridge]

All this statistic shit makes my head hurt, glad you guys know what you're doing and you share it with the rest of us!

[TbonZach]

All this statistic shit makes my head hurt, glad you guys know what you're doing and you share it with the rest of us!

You and me, both.

[tjamz]

All this statistic shit makes my head hurt, glad you guys know what you're doing and you share it with the rest of us!

I've been following this thread forever and just now at 3:27am the numbers/method clicked with me.... which was frustrating to me as I have always been good at reverse engineering formulas

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[westnodak93bison]

Has a lot to do with every team playing NDSU likes its their Super Bowl. Teams look ahead to NDSU, unless you are FBS and then you say you didnt look past them for a year only to switch to "players werent ready" or "we didnt take them seriously" approach like the classy KState staff

Don't forget compassion and sportsmanship. How many times has NDSU ran the ball up the gut to grind out the clock instead of running up the score.

[bisonaudit]

Don't forget compassion and sportsmanship. How many times has NDSU ran the ball up the gut to grind out the clock instead of running up the score.

Lets not stray into St. Louis Cardinals territory.

[bisonboone11]

So I find it interesting that NDSU is only 5-4 against the spread. But the more interesting thing to me is how the standard deviation is calculated. At plus or minus 14 points, our games have been within the standard deviation 6 out of the 9 times (which is what's supposed to happen). The rest of them are within 2 st. dev's (which is also supposed to happen), but they are all on the low side (meaning -14 to -28 of the mean). Do you think that is normal?? Is it simply a product of our average just being too high to be able to cover by 2+ TD's??

A team being 5-4 against the spread is how it should work out. If NDSU was beating the spread every week, NDSU's rating would increase and it would become more and more difficult to beat the predicted spread. Also, keep in mind that the predicted spread for all games (including games already played) that Hammer has posted each week gets updated based on Sagarin's new ratings every week. So if NDSU was beating the spread consistently, the predicted spread for games already played would be adjusted accordingly, making it look like NDSU was not beating all of the spreads (although they may have beaten the predicted spread when that game actually occurred).

As far as the standard deviations, I would think a lot of that may have to do with NDSU being favored in every game, and being favored by a lot in some games. NDSU doesn't typically run up the score at the end of games, which makes it difficult to cover large spreads. I would guess that with more average teams, the games that are within 2 standard deviations are more evenly distributed, with about the same number on the low side as the high side.