College Football Week 2 Rankings

So, These rankings are still pretty meaningless after only 2 weeks but here are my computer rankings for this week. Obviously there is a big discrepancy between these rankings and the polls. It was a bad weekend for fans of any Georgia or ACC team. Except maybe Wake Forest - they won in overtime over Duke. Following the rankings are some computer predictions for week 3 games.

Rank	Prev	AP rank	W	L		Team	Total Rtg.
1	1	1	2	0		Alabama	99.670
2	3	4	2	0		Texas	98.767
3	2	7	2	0		UF	97.747
4	4	6	2	0		Oregon	92.019
5	6	9	2	0		Okla	86.082
6	5	2	2	0		OhioSt	83.575
7	7	3	1	0		Boise	76.061
8	15		2	0		USC	75.823
9	9	14	2	0		Utah	75.635
10	13	23	2	0		Houston	75.295
11	20	10	2	0		Iowa	73.891
12	21	8	2	0		Neb	73.573
13	31		2	0		af	73.188
14	16	25	2	0		Mizzou	73.134
15	32		1	0		fresno	71.679
16	18	19	2	0		Stan	71.634
17	10	12	2	0		LSU	71.336
18	33	16	2	0		SC	71.148
19	22	24	2	0		Cal	70.722
20	26	15	2	0		Auburn	70.595
21	27		1	1		Cinci	69.386
22	8		1	1		BYU	68.296
23	24	5	2	0		TCU	68.292
24	19		2	0		Clemson	67.834
25	34		2	0		OkSt	67.804

Georgia Tech 31, UNC 31

Georgia 28, Arkansas 27

Clemson 24, Auburn 23

Virginia Tech 33, East Carolina 28

BYU 37, FSU 32

Alabama 35, Duke 17

Texas 27, Texas Tech 20

Florida 29, Tennessee 21

Stanford 28, Wake Forest 18

West Virginia 22, Maryland 17

Teacher, Coach, Mentor

What’s the difference between a teacher, coach, and mentor? Are they all the same – just different terms are used for different tasks. Clearly, all three are people whose goal is to help someone else improve in some aspect of life. Are teacher and student (coach and athlete, or mentor and mentee) supposed to have a relationship that extends beyond the “classroom.” In other words, does a coach play with the athlete in whatever activity they are involved in? Does a teacher actively engage in said activity with student or a mentor with mentee?

Mentor – a trusted counselor or guide

Coach – one who instructs of trains in the fundamentals of a competitive sport.

Teacher – one whose occupation it is to instruct.

Here’s how I have grown up understanding these terms. Teachers only work with students in a classroom setting – in bridge, teaching general concepts, bidding, more theoretical things. In tennis I guess this would compare to watching videos, doing drills. Coaching would include some teaching but involve more observing and commenting on the student’s play when playing with someone else, giving constructive criticism as an observer. Coaching in tennis would be watching the athlete’s matches and then going over things the player could have done better, giving encouragement, and helping prepare for a match. Mentoring would include coaching but include actually playing together and then giving constructive criticism afterward.  Mentoring in tennis might be more along the lines of playing a set or match against the student (presumably with the coach playing at less than 100%), and then discussing things to work on later.

Do You Want You Marriage Counselor to Be Happily Married for 30 Years or Struggling Through His 4th Marriage?

There's an old saying that you learn from making mistakes and failuring more than from succeeding. I think we all basically agree with that but does it follow that you learn better from other people's failures than their successes? People who have advice columns and who are in the business of helping people are people with experience who have ultimately experience success but is their road to success generally more or less curvy than normal or ideal?
This morning on the radio, Kid Kraddick and company were talking about how big name celebrities who get in trouble with the law, mostly doing drugs, wind up eventually speaking to kids as a role model as part of restoring their image and supposedly getting back on the right track themselves. I think this discussion got started with TI being arrested yesterday and Paris Hilton last week on possession of marijuana and cocaine. They likely will end up being some sort of spokesperson for some anti-drug organization and be an example of what not to do.

Anyway, I'm not so much concerned with them in particular or people in drug rehab but for the more common person seeking guidance in relationships or careers, is it generally better for the counselor to be someone who found success right away or someone who stumbled and mis-stepped and had several setbacks before being successful. I have no idea who writes the dear Abby columns or whether marriage counselors are people with more or less relationship success than the average person, but I think that would be something interesting to find out. I kind of think someone who had been married a few times, has a few kids, and now finally is in a good marriage would make the best counselor because he's experienced more and can more likely identify with the patient. Likewise, are career counselors mostly people who made it through college on schedule and found jobs relatively easily or are they more likely to be people who changed majors several times, took 6 years to get a bachelor's degree, struggled to find a suitable job, possibly changed jobs a lot before finding their niche?
One part of me thinks publicity for wrong-doings should be minimized - that making a headline out of people being arrested for drug abuse gives other messed up people the idea that they can be famous if they do something dumb. We should publicize the people for doing things well - the 6:00 news should contain all positive stories rather than the way it is not with 90% of the news including someone getting arrested. Another part of me thinks that showing these people and their ensuing punishment might make an example of them and help people learn lessons without having to make the mistake themselves. At least, with some it will help improve the spectator's self-esteem by seeing someone who is even more screwed up. But people are hard-headed - they're still going to have to make some mistakes themselves, often several times, before getting on a good track.

Asbury Computer College Football Rankings: 2010 Preseason

So, in this third year of maintaining these rankings, I have added some code to come up with preseason rankings. this is in addition to last year having rankings during the season as well as score predicting code, which also I expect to be improved this year. In 2009, I picked the winner correctly on 76.4% of the games involving top 25 ranked teams, which is .5% higher than the official Vegas odds, but my program was on the winning side of the spread only 47.5% of the time.

By the end of 2009, my rankings were within +/- 2 places of the AP rankings for the top 16. The first exception was that my #17 team was Oklahoma, who did not appear in the final AP rankings.

Anyway, here are my computer's preseason rankings, based largely on last year's results, recruiting rankings, and some subjective adjustments for offseason activities and major personnel changes.

Rank	Team	Points	AP rank	AP-end 2009
1	Alabama	111.02	1	1
2	Florida	102.52	4	3
3	Texas	99.79	5	2
4	Oregon	96.30	11	11
5	Cincinnati	87.64	26	8
6	Virginia Tech	80.66	10	10
7	OhioState	77.53	2	5
8	Oklahoma	73.34	7	n/a
9	BYU	73.21	34	12
10	Wyoming	71.24	n/a	n/a
11	Houston	70.51	30	n/a
12	LSU	70.42	21	17
13	Georgia Tech	69.63	16	13
14	Boise State	69.37	3	4
15	Utah	69.04	28	18
16	Penn State	68.17	19	9
17	Miami	67.67	13	19
18	Stanford	67.17	27	n/a
19	Nebraska	65.30	8	14
20	Southern Cal	65.29	14	22
21	Iowa	64.99	9	7
22	Clemson	64.90	36	24
23	Central Michigan	64.86	44	23
24	Missouri	63.41	33	n/a
25	Auburn	63.34	22	n/a

Well, for the most part, I have the same teams in the rankings as the voters do, except Wyoming. How did they get in there? Apparently they have the 27th best 2010 recruiting class while the 2006 freshman class which is not basically gone ranked 99th. At this point that is weighted rather heavily. A few games into the seaon and that won't be part of teh equation any more.

Saving Money by Going to Bars

With so much available on line for free now days, including almost all of the TV shows that I watch – Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Castle, The Office – I’m thinking it might be a good idea to sell my televisions and cancel my cable tv service. That would save like $400 per year plus whatever I can get for my 2 TV’s. It just means I’ll have to go to WOW or Kipper’s or some sports bar to watch sporting events that I might care to see live. I mean, I have to eat some time, so it might as well be during the GT football game at a restaurant I don’t dislike.

 

And I’ll save more than $400 per year by drinking water instead of beer every time I go to a bar or pretty much any time I think about it. Yes, I’m gonna sit at a bar alone on a Saturday night watching college football while drinking water. I doubt that’ll happen but it’s a good idea in theory. Actually a few days ago I ordered a beer on tap and the bartender recommended that I don’t get beer because it wasn’t very good that particular day or the refrigeration wasn’t cooling adequately or something. So, I got a coke instead, which in many places costs about the same as a beer. That is if you get the really cheap beers, which I don’t do. The Purple Haze and Strong Bow and Killian’s that I like are significantly more than Coors and PBR and other similarly bad beers.

 

Really, would any of this actually affect my life much at all? No, not really. My TV rarely gets any use anyway. Even when I rent a DVD, I usually just watch it on my computer. I’m sure my guests might not like the no cable and no alcohol in my house, especially since I’ve been known to have a big screen TV and an ample supply of alcohol.

 

A side benefit of this is I might become a regular at one or more of the local bars and actually make a friend with someone who doesn’t work with me or play bridge. In all the time I have spent in bars over the past few years, there is only 1 person that I have met at a bar and actually made contact with again afterward. If you don’t know the story behind that, you really should.

Freshman 15 Myth?

Most of us Americans are well aware of the so-called freshman 15 - the idea that people gain 15 pounds during their first year if college. I guess it's mainly due to drinking beer and a the unlimited meals at the dining hall, but I think the reasons to lose weight during that first year outweigh the reasons to gain weight. A more appropriate phenomenon would be the post college 15.

Post college, many of us get office jobs where we sit around in front of a computer all day. That can't be good for the health and fitness. A less active social life might lead to a more sedentary lifestyle away from work as well. In college, many hours are spent in front of a computer as well, but i just think the walking that is generally required for getting to and from classes and residence halls in college more than makes up for the buffets and beer. Or maybe it was just my college experience and current work environment.

Bureaucracy at Work

I'm still waiting on those trips my boss said we were going to have this summer. Maybe they've been postponed. big surprise. I'm also really frustrated with the bureaucracy and various contracts at work. With all the levels of contractors and subcontractors, it's pretty ridiculous now. someone in Montreal or NYC or Washington, call me for an interview!