Pax

You are right. Not much I can do about the sample size.

It would take me a really long time to come up with each team's 3 top opponents using my "swing" method because that would be hundreds of games to analyze. It's also hard to quantify, but I use Pigskin a lot - and they have their own rating system which I tend to agree with most of the time (not that my agreeing with it makes it valid - it's just something I can use to quantify "top three opponents"). They have a rating system that assigns an arbitrary number to their "rating", but in theory - you can pit any two teams together and the difference between their rating would be Pigskin's spread for that game. For example, their rating for Timspon is a 164.91. Ganado's rating is a 153.67 - a difference of 11.24, and Pigskin has Timpson favored by 11 in this game. Also, Pigskin's rating system is classification independent, so in theory you can pit any two teams in the state and come up with a spread if those two teams actually played. Even a 2A team vs a 6A team. Not sure how accurate it would actually be, but in theory, that's how their rating system seems to work. So each three top opponents in Pigskin rating would be : Timpson : Daingerfield - 161.68, Garrison - 153.50, Beckville, 146.25 - AVERAGE : 153.7 Ganado : Refugio - 150.71, East Bernard - 146.03, Mason - 136.67 - AVERAGE : 146.0 There is a bit of a kicker here in that each team played one of their top three opponents twice. Timpson played Garrison twice, and both games were almost identical. A 35-23 win in district, and a 35-26 win in the playoffs. Pretty consistent. On the flip side, Ganado played Refugio twice, and I've already mentioned this one. Ganado lost 7-30 in district and won 41-12 in the playoffs. This really boggles me a bit. If all else is the same (no major injuries or something), it just looks like inconsistent play. So, what I did was take the average of the 4 games for Timpson and Ganado against their 3 best opponents according to rating (3 teams each - plus the one team they each played twice). The average scores against these opponents are : 38-22 for Timpson 28-22 for Ganado So Timpson's average margin of victory is 10 points higher than Ganado's. And Timpon's larger wins are against opponents with a higher rating as well (by about 7 points higher in rating). Based on this, I'd favor Timpson by about 17 points based on these games. They are beating opponents that are on average 7 points better......by 10 more points - - if that makes sense. So, based on this, I'd favor Timpson over Ganado by 17 points.

These are last year's attendance numbers from the UIL / ATT Stadium : 1AD2 - 4,703 1AD1 - 4,232 2AD2 - 6,504 2AD1 - 7,972 3AD2 - 11,700 3AD1 - 13,721 Capacity at The Star is 12,000 I believe. There's also the issue that it's not just about having enough room for seating for the game, but enough seating (and parking) to allow for the "exchange" of fans from one game to the next. Never mind the capacity for the game; it's the capacity for the transition from one set of fans to the next that would cause the problems. I think attendance above was a bit down from the norm as well. I don't see The Star being able to accommodate the crowds. I'm not sure how they count attendance either. I know the group I go with generally go the day of the game we want to see (3AD2) early enough to watch all three games. Obviously, they aren't sending people in the crowds counting heads, so I don't know how they factor in people who go and stay all day. The numbers above might be just "people through the gate" between this time and that time; it doesn't necessarily account for the people who don't leave between games, so under that assumption, I'd say the above numbers are lower than the actual number of people in the seats. I could be wrong, but even so - certainly the 3A games couldn't be held at The Star at those recorded attendances - at least not conveniently and comfortably. Then you have the parking issue. AT&T is designed to accommodate a lot of cars wanting to park for an event at the stadium. At The Star, it's not so much. It's kind of squashed in a pretty popular area already - even with no events going on at The Star. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding or misinformed, but I didn't think they were adding 7A D1 and D2....just 7A. I thought there was also talk of adding a third division to 6A and decided to just call it 7A. In other words, it's just one extra game. I could be very wrong about that, but if it's just one extra game, I don't see a big problem. The games are already Wed-Sat. When they first started having the games at AT&T, they were trying to fit in 4 a day, and that became a problem. BUT, perhaps you could play 4 games on Wed and only on Wed. Or someone could give Jerry a call and tell him not to schedule a home game on that Sunday, and just move some games to that Sunday. Short of that, and assuming 7A will only have 1 Division, it could look something like this : Wed - 1AD2, 1AD1, 2AD2, 2AD1 Thur - 3AD2, 3AD1, 4AD2 Fri - 4AD1, 5AD2, 5AD1 Sat - 6AD2, 6AD1, 7A Or this is a stupid idea and I don't know what I'm talking about.

I usually have one run in there where I ignore predistrict games. That would have probably omitted the games the player you mentioned was out (unless you mean he was out the first 4 district games) I got 39-21 Timpson when ignoring predistrict.

Considering the entire season : Timpson comes in averaging 54.9 per game against teams that allow 26.2 per game on average (28.7 more). They are holding teams scoring 39.0 on average to 12.6 ppg (26.3 fewer) for a total swing of +55.0. Ganado is averaging 41.0 per game vs teams that allow 26.0 per game on average (15.0 more), and they hold teams scoring 30.5 per game on average to 13.2 per game (17.2 fewer) for a total swing of +32.2. Based on the whole season, I get a 40-22 Timpson win. I'll break it down in a few ways. I usually like to take each teams worst three games (by my "swing" stat) and best three and compare them to each other to get a sort of "possibility range" for lack of a better name. If Timpson matches one of their worst performances against one of Ganado's best performances, I get a Ganado win, 37-22. If the opposite happens (one of Timpson's best performances vs one of Ganado's worst), I get a Timpson win, 60-4 (it's just math - not two safeties!! - - basically call it 63-0 - an absolute blowout). So, those are the "range of possibilities" based on performances of each team throughout the entire season. Obviously, this favors Timpson. Based only on district and playoff games, I get Timpson, 39-21. Based only on playoff games, I still get Timpson, but a much closer 40-32 game. There's a couple of things that bug me here - and not that anyone cares, but I thought I'd bring it up. On the Ganado side, they played Refugio twice. Once during district play and once in the playoffs. I get that teams can get up for the playoffs and things like that, but the difference in the game tells me there is more to it. Maybe not, but could someone explain if there is anything significant about the two games against Refugio? The first matchup (the regular season district game), Ganado lost 7-30. The playoff game, they won 41-12. Something tells me there is more to it than just game-planning and playoff atmosphere. This is a 50+ point swing against the same team. Was Ganado missing key players in the first game - - or was Refugio missing key players in the playoff game? Anything like that? Not really a big deal, I'm just curious about how the two games came out so differently. On the other side, and this one doesn't really bug me as much as it just makes me curious, but it's certainly an anomaly. The Timpson 68-7 win over Honey Grove is impressive. Honey Grove is a good team whose defense was making some waves (for me anyway - doing all these games, I come across a lot of teams, and I'd noticed Honey Grove). I have this stat I call "swing" which is basically how far you take a team out of their "normal" game. To give you an example, on the whole season, Timpson's average swing is a +55.0. Ganado's is a +32.2 (I hit on this at the beginning of this post). In the Honey Grove game, Timpson's swing was a whopping +101.5. This is insane. I've done hundreds of games, and that's probably the single largest swing number for a game I've seen. In other words, Timpson swung Honey Grove out of their average game by OVER A HUNDRED POINTS. (Honey Grove wins on average by 40.5 points; Timpson beat them by 61). I think it's Timpson's most impressive win. Like the Refugio game for Ganado, is there an explanation for this like missing players or something along those lines - or did you just line up and beat the crap out of 'em? In almost every scenario I run, I get a relatively convincing Timpson win. The only scenario where I get a Ganado win is when I run Timpson's worst numbers against Ganado's best numbers - - - - - - OR - - - - - if I remove what I perceive as anomalies. That Honey Grove game really skews the numbers in Timpson's favor. For example, if I remove that game from Timpson's stats, and only run the numbers for playoff games, I get a 36-34 Ganado win in this one. But - - that's clearly cherry-picking, so I don't normally do that - it's just a REALLY standout game. I was wondering if there was something that happened in that game (like I said, like missing players, etc.). Anyway, this one is getting too long, so my final prediction - anomalies and all - is going to be Timpson, 42-21. Good luck to both teams.

It's not disguised. I have literally stated I want DF to win. If that was was supposed to be disguised, I suck at it.

You're conflating sensitivity and confusion. I predict a DF win. I WANT a DF win. I've said as much in these comments. And yes - we both have our own predictions. Notice how I have no comment on yours other than to acknowledge its existence. The irony in saying I'm the sensitive one is absolutely astonishing to me. Good luck. Hope Gunter makes it past Canadian and gets to face Daingerfield in the championship game. ******happily leaves the conversation

Which is why I predict DAINGERFIELD TO WIN!! This is weird, yall!

I think the opposite is true. Their defense is categorically not weak. They have the #3 defense in the state of Texas across all 11-man classifications 2A thru 6A from a standpoint of points allowed per game. You can blame SOME of that on a weak schedule; not all of it. You can't be ranked 3rd among almost 2,000 teams because your entire schedule was just that much weaker than the other 1,800 teams. After 2 games? Maybe. After 14, things start to even out a bit. In either case, my method takes strength of schedule into account in a sort of roundabout way. And I may be way off. I'd be totally fine with that. Everyone makes predictions. Some people are going to pick against you - and I didn't even do that which makes this an interesting conversation for me. In their first 11 games, 8 were shutouts and 3 they allowed just one score. The first game they have allowed more than one score was 2 weeks ago. I have Dangerfield matching the most points they've allowed all year. I think Daingerfield will be the best team they've faced - and I picked Daingerfield to win. The slight beratement over that *_from DAINGERFIELD fans_* is quite perplexing. Just doing my thing here. Just like everyone else.

I do in fact consider strength of schedule - in my own way - which works more often than not. Im not trying to offend people with my predictions. Just what i do for fun. I certainly don't get many people offended that I picked their team to win....but by not enough points! That's a new one. How I consider strength of schedule : Each game gets something I call "swing". If you beat a team by 40 points that loses by 40 points on average, your swing is zero. You don't get credit for doing to a team what every other team does to them on average. If you beat a team by 40 that on average loses by 10, you get a +30 for that game. If you beat a team by 20 that beats other teams by 20, you get a +40. It's how much you "swing" that team out of their average game. + is in hour favor, - in the other direction. For example, if you beat a team by 10 that LOSES on average by 20, you get a -10 for that game - even though you won. This is my way of taking into account strength of schedule, and it works well most of the time. If I'm way off, I'm way off, and ive certainly been way off before. I'm just punching numbers into a spreadsheet. I'm not praying to the gods.

Considering all games played : Daingerfield is scoring 39.1 per game against teams that give up 28.7 on average (about 10.3 more), and they are holding teams that average 35.6 per game to 13.2 (22.4 fewer). Overall swing for DF is a +32.7. Tidehaven is scoring 45.2 per game against teams allowing 22.1 on average (23.1 more), and they hold teams that average 26.9 per game to 5.3 (21.6 fewer). Using all these games, I get a Tidehaven win, 30-16. If I take each team's best 3 "swing" games, I get a result of Tidehaven, 28-24 - so much tighter game if both teams bring their A-game. Using the worst 3 swing games for each team, I get a Tidehaven 32-10 win. Tidehaven's best 3 swing games vs DF's worst three, and I get Tidehaven, 48-6. Daingerfield's best 3 vs Tidehaven's worst three, and I get Daingerfield, 31-12. These last two I consider the range of possibilities based on what each team has done so far through the entire season. Only considering district and playoff games, I get Tidehaven, 25-21. Only considering playoff games, I get a Daingerfield win, 32-31. I'm going to break it down even more here..... Only considering district and playoff opponents who hold teams to fewer than 20 points (in other words - how the teams perform against solid defenses), I get a Daingerfield win, 27-15. Only considering district and playoff opponents who score 35 or more points per game, I get Daingerfield in a 27-19 game. Tidehaven looks like the better team on paper when you consider the whole season, but the more you get into the season - and particularly in the playoffs, from a numbers perspective, I give Daingerfield the edge. It looks like they've bumped it up in nitty-gritty time on paper and perform better against better teams. Tidehaven is certainly one of those better teams Daingerfield will have played, and it's certainly nitty gritty time. I think Daingerfield takes it. I'm going to take Daingerfield in a tight, semi-low scoring, one-score game. Something like 28-21 or 27-20. I hope to see one of you in the state championship game the following week against Gunter. We've got our hands full of Canadians this week. If we make it, I hope to see Daingerfield. That would be a cool championship game I think.

Gotcha. Thanks.

Thanks. Do you mean cutoffs announced (so you know what classification you'll be in), but the district lineups won't be announced until Feb?

Yeah, the three towns I named (Celina, Prosper, and Frisco are all north up 289. Gunter is still it's own town. You can leave in any cardinal direction and know you've left town. 10 miles north to Celina. Another 10 or so to Prosper. Another 10 or so to Frisco. Right now, there's still nothing between Gunter and Celina for 5-6 miles. Once you get to Celina, you're in the city from there to Dallas. There's no empty space anymore once you hit Celina. Gunter still has the same single red light they added when I was in high school or maybe a little after, and you can still "leave town". Once you get to Celina, unless you're heading pretty far south of Dallas, you're not leaving the city for a while. There's still a nice few miles of country between Celina and Gunter to the north for now. I started this talk, but I didn't mean for it to get into that crap, so this is on me I guess. Gunter is growing - and the rate is gonna keep increasing because that's the direction of the growth. That's what I meant. Nobody is denying that. My only reason for even mentioning it was that the Gunter/Canadian matchup might not have many more chances to come to fruition; not bring the haters out of the woodwork. We are all well aware of the growth. Sorry I brought it up. Football. Not AT ALL directed at you, THEHARDAWAY.

Football. Gunter vs Canadian. State Semi Final.

Gunter's only gonna get bigger. They are right down the pipeline of growth. Frisco, Prosper, Celina, now Gunter. I believe Gunter turned in 364. The last cutoff was 359 (360 bumped you to D1). What I understand is the new cutoffs won't be announced until Feb, but the trend would put the new cutoff above Gunter's 364, so looks like we have one cycle left at D2 if that trend continues. Perhaps 3 more Gunter/Canadian semifinal games?

Ok, so just for the heck of it, I went back and looked at all my Gunter vs Canadian predictions. Not in depth, but just the overall prediction. It's pretty incredible we have built up quite a history in such a short amount of time - especially considering you have to make it to the state semi-final for this game to happen. YEAR PREDICTION ACTUAL 2016 24-21 Gunter 44-34 Gunter 2017 37-31 Gunter 56-27 Gunter 2018 35-33 Gunter 17-7 Canadian 2019 33-27 Canadian 27-20 Gunter 2020 43-28 Canadian 33-6 Canadian 2022 39-32 Gunter 21-20 Gunter I got the winner right 4 out of 6 times, so basically just a game over .500. A lot of those games could have gone either way, so let's just say I flip a coin and throw numbers out there and pretend to know what I'm doing. There have only really been two convincing wins I'd say. The 2017 56-27 Gunter win (I believe they got out to a 35-7 lead and sort of traded scores from there on out. The other convincing win was the 2020 33-6 Canadian win (the only Canadian/Gunter game I've missed - I watched a stream I'm pretty sure). Overall, Gunter has the slight edge in average points per matchup - - outscoring Canadian by an average of 25-23. After this week's game, Gunter and Canadian will have played 70% of a regular season's worth of state semifinal games in 8 years. We've only missed playing once in the semifinal game in that span. Anyway, in this one - considering all games played : Gunter is averaging 60.4 ppg against defenses that allow 30.5 on average (29.9 more). Gunter is holding teams that score 34.7 on average to 6.8 per game (27.9 fewer) for a total swing of +57.8. Canadian is averaging 60.6 ppg against defenses that allow 26.9 on average (33.8 more). Canadian is holding teams that score 29.4 on average to 14.2 per game (15.2 fewer) for a total swing of +49.0. Based on this, I get a 45-37 Gunter win. Taking Gunter's best 3 "swing" games vs Canadian's 3 best, I get a Gunter 59-40 win. Taking each teams worst swing games, I get a Canadian 35-32 win. Gunter's best 3 vs Canadian's worst 3, and I get 59-24 Gunter. Canadian's 3 best vs Gunter's 3 worst, and I get 51-32 Canadian. Considering only district and playoff games, I get Gunter in a 48-37 win. Considering only playoff games, I get Gunter in a 48-39 win. Only considering games by each team against opponents who allow fewer than 24 points per game, I get 49-33 Gunter. Only considering games by each team against opponents who score more than 35 per game, I get 47-26 Gunter. Overall average of all these arbitrary ways of looking at this game and cherry-picking this or that, and you end up in basically the same place as you would just considering the whole season for both teams. I'm going to take Gunter in this one, 45-35, but because I don't know if this matchup will ever happen again, I'm going 44-34. Perhaps ending it like we started it. There's a chance Canadian moves down and Gunter moves up. I guess it depends on where they draw the new lines, but this incredible run by both teams - all these state semifinal matchups - could be coming to an end. Though, I've heard Canadian might be staying up one more cycle. Can't remember who I heard that from. Or we might already know. I've been looking at so many different things, I've probably confused myself. Either way - good luck to both teams. I expect another good one. Side note, according to Pigskin, in all of 11-man football (2A-6A), Gunter is #1 in average margin of victory. Canadian is #3.

I haven't looked into each quarter specifically yet, but I did look at first half scoring, but over the last 9 games (prior to and including last week's game - in other words, it didn't include Jacksboro, but the 9 prior to that. At that point, they were averaging a little over 60 a game I think. The average halftime score in those 9 games was 47-0. So most is scored in the first half. Jacksboro scored 27 in the first half which is the first time a team had scored on Gunter in the first half in 9 games. They have an impressive offense. Feizel is great at halftime adjustments. They managed 6 the rest of the way. It was a ballgame most of the way. 34-27 at half. 55-33 final. Probably the first 4-quarter game the starters have played all year. Certainly since district started. I'll see if I can find somewhere to break it down by quarter. The place I would normally use doesn't have all the games. I'll see what I can find. But for the most part, the majority of their points are in the first half and the majority of their opponents points are in the second half after subs have come in. Subs didn't come in against Jacksboro that I noticed. It was a ballgame most of the way. I didn't feel comfortable until there was under 3 or 4 minutes left.

No doubt, me too. I've said it before. If you're playing Canadian, you've had a hell of a season.

Pretty much nailed it. 34-27 lead for Gunter at the half. Gunter outscores JB 21-6 the rest of the way for the 55-33 victory. Our next game is against a team I believe we've played before in the state semifinal.

Isn't there a pick 6 on the goal line in there? I wasn't at the game, but maybe Bells' score was a pick 6? Could be wrong about which game. I'm also fairly sure Gunter hasn't allowed any points in the first half in 9 consecutive games. Average halftime score of 47-0 in the last 9 games.

Gunter is averaging 60.8 per game against teams that give up 31.0 on average while holding teams that score 33.8 on average to just 4.8 ppg. Only considering district and playoff games, Gunter is outscoring opponents 68-2. Over the last 9 games, Gunter's average halftime score is 47-0. That's not rounding; Gunter has not allowed a first half point in 9 games. The last time someone scored in the first half against Gunter was in game #3 against 3AD1 #1 ranked Brock in a game which Gunter led 35-6 at the break. Jacksboro comes in averaging 48.1 per game against teams that give up 27.4 per game, and they hold teams averaging 29.4 per game to 23.3. Jacksboro's average score only considering district and playoff games is 50-22. Gunter's swing on the year is a +58.8. Jacksboro is +26.8. I'll go with Gunter in this one, 56-21.

This is only considering district and playoff games : Gunter comes in averaging 70.9 per game against defenses that allow 32.3 per game (38.6 more), and they are allowing 1.7 to teams that average 33.4 per game (31.6 fewer). Comanche is scoring 37.3 per game against defenses that allow 29.3 per game (8.0 more), and they are allowing 18.0 per game to teams that average 31.2 per gm (13.2 fewer). Total swing for Gunter : +70.2 Total swing for Comanche : +21.2 I get a 56-7 Gunter win in this one.

Gunter - 83 City View - 6