The Football Analytics Show by The Power Rank and Ed Feng

Kelly Stewart of Bleacher Report and the Kelly and Murray Show joins me for a wide ranging conversation on football betting. She starts with how she moved from Manhattan, Kansas to Las Vegas to start a sports betting career. Then Kelly describes how analytics informs her betting. Finally, we dig into the NFL and win totals.

In making sports predictions, we look for variables that are predictive. For example, we ask whether this variable has a strong correlation from season to season. Usually, this relates to an underlying skill. However, some variables, such as a player's 3 point shooting percentage, do not follow the usual rules. This episode explores predictability vs skill and provides a framework to study the latter.

Michael Caley, soccer analytics expert and co-host of the Double Pivot podcast, joins me to talk about the beautiful game. His writing has appeared in FiveThirtyEight, The Athletic and SB Nation. He explains expected goals (xG) and the arduous process the data companies go through to calculate this quantity. He compares the current and long term prospects of big clubs like Bayern Munich and Liverpool. He also tells us whether the US men's national team has any hope.

Paul Schulz of the University of Michigan joins me to take a data based approach to the likelihood of college football and the NFL in 2020. We discuss how COVID-19 has progressed in the United States, and how the heterogeneity of the disease will impact football. He tells us about the difficulties of modeling the likelihood of a second outbreak. Finally, we put some numbers behind the probability of college football and the NFL in 2020.

Host Ed Feng talks about using pictures to explain exponential growth and how it relates to COVID-19. To check out the video with this explanation, click here.

Evan Silva of Establish the Run joins me to talk about his most recent mock draft. We get into Tampa Bay's prospects with Tom Brady and who the Bucs might draft in the first round. In discussing this year's quarterback class, Evan tells us whether he likes Tua Tagovailoa or Justin Herbert. He gives us two surprise predictions for the draft before ending with his thoughts on Astroball after the uncovering of the cheating scandal.

Jonathan Bales, co-founder of Fantasy Labs and author of multiple books on fantasy sports, joins the show. He begins by telling the story of how he did 2400 push-ups in 12 hours. Then we get into Daily Fantasy Sports and the reason you should still start playing in 2020. Finally, we discuss his counter intuitive tips for starting a business, and how a world health pandemic can create opportunities.

Benjamin Robinson uses the wisdom of crowds and mock drafts to predict the NFL draft. He describes his methods and tells us whether the "experts" are better than others at predicting the draft. Then we discuss quarterbacks and Tua Tagovailoa might go despite his injury. Finally, Benjamin gives us a surprise prediction for the 2020 NFL draft.

Cliff Sargent helps you find a great book through his YouTube channel Better Than Food. He joins host Ed Feng to talk about his story and some great books. For those that like football and data, Cliff offers some recommendations from authors such as Leonard Gardner, Tom Kristensen and Yukio Mishima.

Suppose West Virginia is elite at offense rebounding but Iowa State is awful at defensive rebounding. Can we use this to make a more accurate prediction? Host Ed Feng digs in by first explaining the four factors of basketball. Then he describes the work of Jordan Sperber on matchups in college basketball.