American Idol Season 11 Contestant Rankings - Week 3



With football season light years away and NCAA Basketball already down to the Final Four, I got a little bored and decided that it’s time to apply some math to something a bit different. Something non-sports related. I’ve always loved music and singing, although I’m not much of a singer myself. So I figured, “Why not give American Idol a try?” No, I’m not talking about trying out for the show. I’m too old for that. But I am going to take a stab at ranking the American Idol contestants this year. I’ve been messing around with an algorithm for a few weeks and when it rightly predicted two of the first three to be sent home, I thought I might as well share it with the general public. So here goes. I’m only going to post these rankings in my blog each week, not on the website. So keep checking back each week!

Below are the Season 11 American Idol Contestant Rankings for Week 3. As of right now, it looks like Hollie and Jessica are the most probable pair to compete against each other in this year's finale. I'm predicting the "Bottom 3" this week to be Elise, DeAndre, and Heejun. Most likely to exit the program during Week 4 is Heejun.

Don’t forget to hit me up on Facebook and leave some comments if you’ve got something to say!


Rank	Contestant	Rating	Status
1	Hollie Cavanagh	100.000	Alive
2	Jessica Sanchez	99.989	Alive
3	Skylar Laine	96.171	Alive
4	Joshua Ledet	96.168	Alive
5	Phillip Phillips	94.362	Alive
6	Colton Dixon	90.962	Alive
7	Elise Testone	90.915	Alive
8	DeAndre Brackensick	90.839	Alive
9	Erika Van Pelt	87.727	Eliminated
10	Heejun Han	87.652	Alive
11	Shannon Magrane	72.824	Eliminated
12	Jeremy Rosado	62.004	Eliminated
13	Jermaine Jones	60.000	Eliminated

Interview on TribLIVE SportsTalk Radio

Below I've posted the recorded audio from my interview on Michael Grau's show on TribLIVE SportsTalk Radio Pittsburgh (recorded 12/9/2011):

CompughterRatings.com Named Most Accurate Preseason College Football Publication

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CompughterRatings.com was named the #1 most accurate preseason college football publication for the second time in three years. Stassen.com, a renowned online publication specializing in the measurement of preseason publications since 1993, awarded top place honors to CompughterRatings.com ahead of GamePlan, Phil Steele, Lindy's, Athlon Sports, USA Today, ESPN, and several other well known publications.

CompughterRatings.com is also the reigning 3-year accuracy winner, followed by Game Plan, USA Today, Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, and Lindy’s: Preseason Prediction Accuracy (2009-2011) - Stassen.com.

Steve Pugh with Virginia Tech Head Coach Frank Beamer

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West Virginia Up Against Big 12 Competition

I've been impressed with West Virginia football for a long time.  I think there have been years that the Mountaineers would have performed quite well in the Big 12.  But this year is not one of them.  The competition in the Big 12 is absolutely fierce in 2011-2012.  All of the computer ratings systems favor the Big 12 as the #1 conference this year.  Now granted, each college football season is vastly different.  But this is how my algorithms predict that WVU would perform against the Big 12 right now, if we assume all games were played on neutral turf:

Conference Simulation: West Virginia vs Big 12

Anyone agree?  Disagree?  Post your comments

Conference Expansion Online Simulator

Ever wonder how your favorite college football team would perform against the teams in another conference? For instance, how would a D2 team perform if moved up to an FCS conference? Or an FCS team in one of the FBS conferences? How about an FBS team moving to a different FBS conference? With all the talk of conference expansions and "Power" conferences, that seems to be the hot topic of the 2011-2012 season.

I’ve developed a tool which I think is useful in determining just how well a team could show up at the next level, or against a tougher conference in the same division. Let’s take a couple of examples.

Georgia Southern is currently undefeated at 6-0 and is ranked #2 in my Week 7 FCS rankings. How well do you think Georgia Southern could perform in the ACC or Big East? I think you'd be surprised! Check out the following link:

Conference Simulations: Georgia Southern vs ACC

Now granted, a 3-9 record isn't too impressive on the surface, especially for a program that's used to winning at their level. But when you think about the possibility of adding scholarships and higher caliber players, it definitely makes you think!

Let's look at another. What about Texas A&M moving to the SEC? Well, all things held equal, this will give you a pretty good idea of how A&M's season might turn out:

Conference Simulations: Texas A&M vs SEC

Not a very high probability of taking out the SEC's top two teams (LSU and Bama), but A&M would certainly be a great addition to the SEC on paper.

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These simulations are based on advanced mathematical formulas. They do not take into account injuries, personnel changes, or number of scholarships. They are based on how teams are performing right now, and they’re updated every Monday throughout the football season.

I hope you will find this tool useful and, if nothing else, fun to tinker with. You can compare any FBS, FCS, D2, D3, or NAIA team against any conference. You can also play around with College Basketball and NFL moves. Other sports will be added later. Please feel free share the main link with your friends:

Conference Expansion Online Simulator

As always, I’m eager to hear your feedback and ideas for improvement. There are a number of ways to reach me, so choose a path. You can email me, post on my Facebook page, or Tweet at me (links below). So please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have something on your mind. I sincerely value the friendships and partnerships I’ve been able to develop over the years!

Enjoy the rest of the football season!


Website: http://www.compughterratings.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CompughterRatings

Twitter: http://twitter.com/steve__pugh

Week 1 NFL Power Rankings

Welcome back football season!!

In my inaugural year of publishing game predictions for NFL, the Week 1 results finished 11-5 against the Vegas line. And now that a full week of games have been played, I've released the Week 1 NFL Power Rankings here:

NFL Power Rankings

Of course, early in the season when there's not much game data to go on, I have to allow my preseason ratings to heavily weight the overall rating. This week, the preseason ratings accounted for about 2/3 of the overall rating while the actual game results counted only 1/3. Sometimes this produces rankings that look fishy to the skeptic, especially those who aren't especially close to the concepts behind computer generated ratings systems. Hence, I will try to answer a few questions that I expect to get in my inbox later this week.

1. Why the heck is Pittsburgh still ranked one spot above Baltimore after Sunday's shellacking?

Answer: The Ravens started out ranked 8th in the preseason. Despite the fact that the preseason ratings counted a whopping 2/3 of the overall rating, Baltimore still moved up 4 spots. Pittsburgh is still expected to be a strong team and only dropped one spot. Does this mean I think Pittsburgh would win a rematch under the same game conditions? No! Check out what my game simulator has to say about that:

Baltimore-vs-Pittsburgh Simulation Results

2. My Eagles win convincingly in Week 1 and then drop 6 spots to #12? What gives?

Answer: Philadelphia's 31-13 win over St Louis was indeed solid, but they were playing the team that was ranked dead last in the preseason. So the win doesn't really tell us much about what the Eagles might be able to accomplish this season. The Bears, Jets, and Chargers all notched more impressive wins, relatively speaking. I think Phillie is just the victim of a weak schedule in the first week of the season and if the Eagles keep winning I'm sure they'll move back up.

3. Miami and Dallas both lost and yet they both moved up in the power rankings? Why is that?

Answer: Simple. And you will hear this from me time and again. Schedule, schedule, and schedule. Simply by virtue of playing the #1 and #7 teams (and playing them close, I might add), Miami and Dallas improved the value of their stock relative to the other 30 NFL teams. Really no surprises here.


I'll be glad to answer any more questions readers might have on my Facebook fan page, so please don't hesitate to post something so everyone can see my response:

CompughterRatings.com Facebook Fan Page

Interview on John Steigerwald's Show

On August 26, 2011, I had the pleasure of appearing on John Steigerwald's show on TribLive SportsTalk Radio Pittsburgh. We talked about my 2011 preseason college football rankings. Below are parts 1 and 2 of that interview.

Part 1


Part 2