The Football Analytics Show by The Power Rank and Ed Feng

Host Ed Feng digs into his research on how to win your bowl pool and offers his 3 best tips. To explain the first tip, he uses Steph Curry as an example. The second tip relates to whether you want to enter a pool with confidence points or not. The third tip asks you to think contrarian and uses Virginia Tech vs Cincinnati as an example.

Data is a powerful tool for making sports predictions. However, it can also get you in trouble. In this special story telling episode, you'll see how small sample size affects Redskins fans, a Nebraska fan down on his team and a sports bettor. We'll also discuss the factor that makes the curse so much worse.

Bud Elliott, college football writer at SB Nation, joins me for a wide ranging conversation. We discuss how context can make football analytics even better. Then he talks about his process for picking college football games for his weekly betting column. Finally, we discuss the college football playoff, and how we could have narrowed the field of contenders 3 months ago.

Host Ed Feng talks about the great Michigan vs Alabama debate, and why it's not much of a debate. He previews Michigan at Ohio State, and then finds humor in the numbers for Oklahoma at West Virginia.

Jake Williams, Head of Legal at Sportradar and host of the Business of Betting podcast, joins me to talk sports data and betting. He highlights new opportunities that the legalization of betting in the United States will bring. With his work at Sportradar, Jake gives his perspective on sports data for both media and sports books. Finally, he ends with lesson from hosting his Business of Betting podcast.

Michael Lombardi joins the show to discuss his new book Gridiron Genius. He starts with lessons learned from working with Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick on building a culture. This leads into a discussion of the NFL teams with the best culture and Jim Harbaugh at Michigan. Then we talk about how information and analytics inform decision making across an NFL franchise. As a part of this discussion, Michael reveals the overlooked traits of successful offensive linemen and cornerbacks. We end with his NFL insider perspective for bettors.

With the release of the first playoff committee rankings, host Ed Feng looks at the probability that a team makes the playoff. In particular, he focuses on Michigan and Oklahoma, two teams outside the top 4 that have a solid chance to qualify. In addition, he highlights the top 10 team with almost no chance.

Josh ADHD, a data scientist who visualizes NFL data for Fantasy Insiders, joins the show to talk football data. His visualizations show how offenses attack the Cleveland defense and the drastic changes in Baltimore's offense this season. He also gives a wide receiver to pick up for your DFS lineup this weekend. We end by discussing an NFL team to fade the remainder of the season.

Host Ed Feng scours the numbers to bring you 3 midseason football predictions. This includes the struggling college football juggernaut, the NFL team whose pass offense might not suck, and the undefeated college football team that won't make the playoff.

Ben Baldwin, an Economics Ph.D. who covers the Seattle Seahawks for The Athletic, joins the show to talk NFL analytics. He discusses his research into the relationship between rushing and play action passing. The results might surprise you. He has also used success rate to evaluate the impact of Earl Thomas and running backs. We end by discussing the Seahawks and another surprise NFL team.