Where are my Razorbacks?

Where are my Razorbacks?

My name is Spencer Gauldin. I am a Math tutor at the University of Arkansas and I am a student teacher intern at a high school called Har-Ber in Springdale, Arkansas. I am sitting here at the Math Teaching Center in Champions Hall on the U of A campus and I am thinking, "Where are my Razorbacks?"

If you don't know, everyone who attends the University of Arkansas is considered a "Razorback." But at this time, I was thinking about the state of Arkansas Football. It is already Week 9 of the College Football season and the Razorback football team is at 2-5 overall and 0-4 in conference play. We just got destroyed by Auburn 51-10 at home, and now we play Alabama at Tuscaloosa and we are a for sure 31.5 point underdog to the Crimson Tide.

Where I got that number "31.5" is from ESPN.com about the match up between Arkansas and Alabama this week. ESPN uses a computer generated simulation called the FPI (Football Power Index) to simulate games before they happen to give as best accurate predictions about the outcome of the game. The picture below gives us a comparison using the FPI between Arkansas and Alabama.

As you can see, the FPI gives Alabama a 98.9% chance of winning the game, while Arkansas only has a tiny 1.1% chance of winning. From what I have researched about the FPI, it takes in all of the good and bad qualities of both teams and factors that make both teams game changers. They even include the recent history of each team to count into the match up. They even include who is at quarterback and who is the home and away team. Using all of these qualities, the computer does 10,000 simulations of the game. For this match up then, Alabama won 98.9% of the 10,000 simulations against Arkansas. To put more Germ-X onto the wound for Arkansas, that number "31.5" meant that Alabama won on average by that many points! What is more embarrassing is that Alabama is starting a back-up quarterback because potential Heisman winner Tua Tagovailoa is injured. This makes me think, "Where are my Razorbacks!?"

I say this because a past match-up between Arkansas and Alabama is what really made me an Arkansas football fan in the first place. But that is for another post that I will write up soon. Woo pig!