My dad, Bob, is an engineer, but, somehow, the math gene never came forward in my DNA (it may have if he didn’t have a box full of sports books in the basement waiting for me to read at an impressionable age).
I taught journalism as a fill-in professor at Wilmington College for one year, but the closest I get to an actual math wizard is watching Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory.”
I can do enough math to compile game stats and box scores, but that’s about it. I’m certainly no Will Hunting.
On Tuesday, however, I couldn’t have been more giddy to talk to Drew Pasteur, a mathematics professor at The College of Wooster.
Each week on his website, fantastic50.net, the professor uses mathematical formulas to rank the top teams in the state, regardless of division, called Drew Pasteur’s Fantastic 50.
He also predicts winners, as well as playoff predictions, state championship odds and other morsels of football goodness.
Ever since its release four years ago, I’ve become an ardent follower, combing the numbers each week to see playoff odds and game predictions.
This season, he’s been right with his game predictions 79.5 percent (1,930-498) of the time. I’ll be the first to say “That’s why we play the game” when an underdog wins a game, but Pasteur’s track record is remarkable.
He worked as a math teacher and athletic trainer in North Carolina 10 years ago when he started using math to see if the smaller schools in the state could match up with the bigger schools. It garnered a lot of interest and led to his own website and newspaper before he moved to Ohio, where he found out the high school playoffs were determined by a Harbin computer ratings system.
“It made it ideal for doing the same kind of thing I did in North Carolina, ranking teams and running simulations,” Pasteur said.
In basic terms, Pasteur begins with the scores and schedules from prior years, then uses this season’s schedules and results to run different formulas to rank the teams. He then predicts what could happen by running simulations 10,000 times — which he said coaches use as a resource to find out who they should scout before the postseason begins.
“The things I’ve got either 100 percent or 0 percent (of happening), barring some kind of error in the data or a forfeit, I’m pretty confident,” Pasteur said. “In between, I can’t say the probabilities are exact, but overall, the system works reasonably well.”
Here’s an example of some of the things his site said this week:
• Shawnee (7-0) has a 92 percent chance of hosting a first-round playoff game. The Braves’ most likely first-round opponent is Jackson (18%) or Alter (17%).
• Urbana, on the playoff bubble in Division III, Region 10, has an 80 percent chance to reach the playoffs, but a 3 percent chance of hosting.
• In Region 20, he projects West Liberty-Salem (7-0) will finish third in the rankings, and face a rematch with West Jefferson. The Tigers beat the Roughriders 3-0 in 2009.
• The rankings also take strength of schedule into consideration. The numbers rank Youngstown Ursuline (1-6) as the best team in D-V, Region 17. They’ve played the sixth-toughest schedule in the state, including two out of state programs.
• He also projects state championship odds, where Delphos St. John’s is a 1-to-1 favorite in D-VI. In D-II, Trotwood-Madison is a 2-1 favorite.
As a stats nerd, I could go on forever. The site, in “Seinfeld” term’s is “Gold, Jerry, gold.”
Of course, Pasteur’s predictions are just that — predictions. He enjoys watching high school football as much as anyone, walking to the nearby games from his home in Wooster with his two young boys.
“I’ve certainly had times I’ve seen a four touchdown underdog win a game,” Pasteur said. “That’s what’s great about the sport. It wouldn’t be very exciting if we knew what was going to happen. All I can say is what’s likely.”
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