Since we started running the predictions for every high school football game played between two Illinois teams, we have noticed that by week 7, when a team starts to find its underlying rhythm, the predictions become a little more reliable.
Sure, there were a few upsets last weekend, as there always are. But let’s look at the big ones, where the team our computer predicted would lose the game dominated:
On top of that list, Immaculate Conception from Elmhurst blew out Aurora Christian Saturday, 48-6. Our predictions gave Aurora Christian more than a 90 percent chance of winning the game, based on the average performance of the two teams this season, but in week 7, Aurora Christian had a very different team on the field from the one that started the season.
“Down 11 starters, including quarterback Austin Bray, the Eagles had to throw together makeshift units on both sides of the ball while preparing for fellow 3A rival IC Catholic,” the Kane County Chronicle reported.
Then there was the upset that even newspapers like the Chicago Sun-Times used words like ‘stun’ to describe: Nazareth Academy in LaGrange beat Benet Academy from Lisle, 28-18. This was a case of Nazareth’s defense stepping up their game against an opponent they knew would require a concerted effort.
“Against a team like that, any kind of win is a good win,” the Chicago Tribune quoted Nazareth coach Tim Racki as saying. “That’s a very well-coached team … Ever since the (Joliet Catholic) game, I’ve noticed the kids have no quit in them.” Much credit was given to a blocked field goal, a blocked punt, and two turnovers deep in Benet territory for the win.
The third and final major upset for this week comes in the Southland Conference. Unlike the other two upsets, nobody really took note of this one, perhaps because it was between two teams that won’t make the playoffs: Rich East in Park Forest, which went into the game winless after six games, defeated Kankakee, which only has two wins on the season, by a score of 32-12.
Rich East beat Kankakee last year and in 2011 as well, but this one, we can’t explain, because there aren’t any reports of the game. Well, our computer clearly isn’t perfect.
Over all, we predicted 285 games in week 7, missing on 47 of them and getting 238 of them right. So we picked the winner in about 83 percent of the games, which isn’t bad. Of the 47 we missed, 21 had an α (alpha) absolute value higher than 10. (Games where the absolute value of α is less than 10 are “too close to call” based on the model.) If we subtract the remaining games, our predictions were about 93 percent within the margin of error.
