IAKOW: By the Numbers With Dustin Smith | Season Forecast & Miami Game Prediction

today on the in all kinds of weather forecast for those of you who like numbers a special treat introducing in all kinds of weather by the numbers with our numbers guy Dustin Smith he's going to break down his an all kinds of weather forecaster model he's going to give National power rankings for the Gators he'll go game by game and give a percentage chance the Gators have to win them each and he'll also give a record prediction for the Gators in 2024 and at the very end his model has simulated the Florida Miami game and will provide a numbers and stats based score prediction for the matchup between the canes of Miami and the Gators of Florida if you like numbers you're going to like this show Dustin it's all you man take it [Music] away and this is Dustin Smith from the in allans of weather forecast you can follow me on x at I akow Dustin and I'm here today to discuss the debut of the 2024 in all kinds of weather forecaster model and as Neil and Chris like to call me I am the numbers guy on the team and just a little bit about me I went to the University of Florida and got my degree in aerospace engineering in addition to that I played four years in high school as a quarterback and I I have always been a student of the game so combining my football knowledge my football experience and my skill set in numerical analysis and Engineering I came up with this power ranking system in simulator which attempts to simulate college football games this model was originally developed to simulate Florida football games and simulate the Florida football season and that is exactly what this model has done in fact you don't want to miss the end of the show when the when I will reveal what the model has simulated for the matchup between the Florida Gators and the Miami Hurricanes this matchup is obviously incredibly exciting for the Gator dation I know that there's people all over the country that are going to be watching this football game and you want to sit on the edge of your seat um as we go through the numbers for this year's college football season and as we finish the you are going to hear what the model has to say in regards to this epic matchup between the Florida Gators and the Miami Hurricanes but before we dive into that I want to answer a couple questions in regards to what this power ranking system is what the all kinds of weather forecaster does and maybe even a couple of the nuances that make this model so accurate and I don't have time to go through all the numbers and all of the all of the accolades of this model but it was incredibly successful last year uh maybe maybe Chris y will put on Twitter um some of the accolades from the previous season uh he definitely did an amazing job at compiling some of that certainly I will say this if you used this model to bet you would have earned a lot of money last year and so if that's something that you're into then maybe you would consider using this model if you won big because of this model definitely let me know if you didn't don't let me know uh use at your own risk but I'm very confident in this model this model uh uses proven uh techniques for success and one of the main things that it does is it looks at recruiting it looks at um the the coaching Accolade it looks at Talent um it looks at Advanced stats from previous Seasons as this season will go on it'll include more and more advanced stats from this season the model really makes a big shift week five when it goes from being more highly weighed on the previous season uh to being weighed exclusively on the results of this season uh generally speaking it takes about four games to get a good Baseline and average of a team's performance so that is some of the nuances that go into this model what really sets this model apart from other power ranking systems such as the fpi such as the SP the SP plus model model um and even some of the power ranking systems uh and predictive models that Vegas uses when when creating their lines is it has a highly Nuance system for home field advantage um it looks at the distance between two teams it looks at the difference in power ranking between two teams it also looks at the average expected outcome um based on how that team would be expected to perform on a neutral field versus how the actual result in game took place for example if a team is expected to win by seven on a neutral field um against a certain team on average they win those games by 10 uh then you would expect the point differential in terms of HomeField advantage to be three points so that would be that would mean that that team would be a three-point favorite on a neutral field and there there's a lot of nuances that go into that that's one of the um that's one of the elements that that I can really hang my hat on when it comes to this model and I really want to emphasize that now a lot of people will ask me questions and it'll it may be framed in terms of a complaint like how in the world are you power ranking that team so high they have literally lost five games it makes no sense well actually it does because a lot of times you might have a team that plays an incredibly tough schedule you know if you have the number five power ranked team in the country on a neutral field they would be expected to lose versus the one two three and four team okay if the number five team played the top four teams and they lost the top four teams maybe that team wouldn't even be in the top uh 20 nationally but in terms of the power ranking that team being ranked five would make perfect sense a team rank five on a neutral field and ideal circumstances should lose two for three2 and one um but should beat every other team uh in college football keyword is should okay football is not a game that is run inside a computer it is a game that is run on a football field you have college students that are playing the game um weather changes the ball is incredibly funny shaped a lot of things Canen happen um it's a game of inches uh referees can play a role in certain games so there's there's a lot of variance and so one of the most important elements that I like to communicate uh with this model is it is a predictive model but it's also probability based so I'm not telling you that a team is definitely going to win I'm not saying a team is definitely going to lose upsets happen all I'm saying if I'm predicting a team to win all I'm saying is that team is a greater than 50% chance of winning winning that game and as the confidence increases so does that percentage so there's some games where Florida's expected to win um 80% of the time or 60% of time there's even a few games where Florida's projected to win a little above 50% now that's essentially a coin flip game so just like I flip a coin head heads or tails sometimes it lands head sometimes it lands Tails it's a hit or miss so I think it's real important to recognize that so the last question I'm going to answer before we dive into the top 25 and we're also going to look at the inaugural SEC top 16 this is uh the first time this the SEC has had 16 teams of course this is the inaugural year of adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC so we're certainly going to see uh how highly ranked those two teams are and uh spoiler alert they're both pretty good teams they're both going to be pretty highly ranked in the SEC so real quick the difference between a power ranking index and a standard ranking system like the AP pool like the college football playoff ranking uh a power ranking Index this is a more datadriven and analytical approach it uses mathematical models statistics and sometimes computer algorithms of course the all kinds of weather forecaster being one of those to evaluate and rate teams this is widely used by Vegas by odds makers um you can even find one on ESPN with the ESPN fpi it's used as a predictive model um and it considers more than just wins or losses a lot of times from a general standpoint that model is more so looking at a trend line than looking at any individual outcome so so for the most part it is fairly agnostic when it comes to wins and losses now certainly when an upset takes place for example Florida State we ran the model before their game we didn't share anything about it but we also ran it after and Florida State did drop a little bit they dropped about three points and they dropped about six spots so with that said yeah the outcome in that in that game in in Dublin Ireland it did impact their power ranking but it didn't impact it as much as you would anticipate if that was a standard ranking system it's really designed to measure the quality of the team regardless of the outcome on the field again it is supposed to be a predictive and a probabilistic model in the sense that it's attempting to come up with a probability from game to game from week to week of what the outcome will be a standard ranking syst system also known as a resume based ranking system not only looks at some of the factors that a power ranking system would but it primarily looks at how deserving a team is of a certain ranking generally speaking undefeated teams are ranked a lot higher than teams with the loss and certainly if you are a highly if you're a team that has played a lot of tough opponents and you're undefeated that'll that'll really show up in that standard ranking system um but generally speaking it's based on the opinions of sports Riders coaches experts who vote after watching the games certainly the more games you win the more likely it is that you're going to be highly ranked in a ranking system now keep in mind that just because I reveal that a certain team is ranked in a certain spot that does not mean that if Neil myself and Chris got together and we created a resumé based ranking system that our ranking would be identical to the power rankings they would not even be close now maybe the top five would be similar maybe there would be some teams that would overlap but certainly there's not a onetoone connection between the power ranking system and how we would rank teams if we're going off their resume alone certainly the the point of this model is to predict the outcome of football games now right before we go into it I just want to give this final primer the way that the model works is the computer algorithm as I refer to just a few minutes ago the computer algorithm produces an index so it compiles all this data and normalizes different data points and it different data points are weighed even uh depending on where we are in the season certainly the statistics during the season are less important right now um and they will increasingly become important as the season goes on the reason for that is certainly a team like Arkansas who beats their cupcake opponent by 70 points in an opening game that is probably not um it's probably not a number that is going to be reflective of how Arkansas will play the rest of the season certainly as Arkansas plays the meat of the schedule I do not anticipate them to be beating opponents like that but certainly if Arkansas was to play Auburn for example and beat Auburn by 70 points then that is certainly a data point to look at just as an example so it's going to spit out an index and what is that index that is a score above average for that expected team what what what do I mean by that so the power ranking index for the average team in college football the normalized uh median team in college football that team would be on a neutral field that would be their index would be zero the number one ranked team in the in all kinds of weather forecaster has an overall rating of just under 28 uh points meaning on a neutral field against the average team in college football uh that number one team would be expected to win by four touchdowns that's how the rating system works so as we go through the numbers that's actually what we use in order to predict the score there's a lot that goes into a lot of numbers if you have any questions feel free to write me on X feel free to whenever we get the chance to have the space um I'm pretty sure throughout the season um myself along with the an all kinds of weather team uh we're going to do uh spaces on X and we're going to uh have discussion about what this power ranking system looks like without further Ado let's dive into the all kinds of weather forecaster top 25 we're going to start from the bottom and we're going to work our way up top we're going to start at number 25 in the country we have in this power ranking system again keep in mind this is a power ranking system not a resume based system we have the Arizona wild cats at number 25 at 24 we have Louisville at 23 we have Kansas State 22 North Carolina 21 Utah now it's time to get into the top 20 at number 20 we have Auburn and at number 19 we have the Florida Gators just above Florida is the Miami Hurricanes at number 18 in other words if the Florida and Miami game was played on a neutral field I would expect that game on in an average environment average circumstance average outcome I would expect on a neutral field that game to end up in overtime because Miami is just 0.2 points better than Florida on a neutral field football is a game that is that is played in in uh most of the time it's either in sevens or threes sometimes two sometimes six most of the time sevens and threes so obviously you can't score point2 points in a football game so that's pretty much an even matchup between Miami and Florida now the swamp is going to play a big deal it's going to play a big role in the matchup between Florida and Miami as we'll see when we revealed the score prediction at the end of this podcast so that is something that you're certainly going to want to look out for it's something that you're certainly going to want to going to take into account when we when we bring out that that score so Miami at 18 17 we have Florida State now keep in mind Florida state was actually ranked quite a bit higher than that um but after losing to Tech in Dublin their rankings was brought down quite a bit again this is not a res based system this is a a power ranking index uh so certainly that drop had more to do with how that game changed their Advanced stats and and changed some of the um efficiencies uh with the team rather than just the fact they lost the game um still Florida state is a solid team there're certainly expected to still compete for the ACC Championship and therefore 17 is a pretty good spot for them and number 16 we have the univers the University of Southern Cal which is actually playing LSU um this week at number 15 we have Texas A&M 14 Old Miss Old Miss is actually ranked a lot higher and some other ranking systems but in terms of this particular power ranking system 14 is a good spot for them that is actually just 1.5 spots uh or 1.5 points higher than Florida which is actually pretty impressive for Florida that they're a little under old miss a lot of a lot of people would consider Miss to be a college football playoff Contender so the fact that Florida's so close to miss in terms of this power ranking system I think it I think it would give you a good indication of how this system um anticipates the season to go at number 13 we have Missouri another team that is expected to do fairly well in the SEC even possibly a college football playoff Contender especially considering their schedule I don't think uh I think 10 and two is certainly um within reason for Missouri considering the schedule they have uh certainly that schedule is significantly easier than the Florida Gator schedule at 12 we have Tennessee at 11 we have Clemson and then getting into the top 10 at number 10 we have Michigan at nine we have Notre Dame eight LSU seven is Oklahoma a a team that is making their debut in the SEC Six Penn State five Alabama certainly a perennial power in the SEC Alabama certainly Alabama does have a new coach um Nick sabbin has retired however Alabama is still a juggernaut when it comes to Talent on the field they have one of the most talented rosters in the country in fact according to the 247 Sports Talent composite they are the most talented team in the country so that's why they're number five now if Nick Sabin was still the coach I would guess that Alabama would be number one right now certainly not having Nick sabbin as the coach plays a role in why they're five and not one but could Alabama win at all this year it's very possible they're incredibly talented they're certainly going to be a force within the SEC speaking of SEC another team that is just joined the SEC you add number four we have the Texas Longhorns at number three we have the Oregon Ducks which is actually the team that personally I am picking to win the national championship the Oregon Ducks they look to be unstoppable this year you know maybe an SEC team will stop them in the playoffs but they look incredibly formidable this year Ohio state is the number two team in the country and at number one we of course have the arch nemesis of the Florida Gators the Georgia Bulldogs this is that team that I mentioned earlier that on a neutral field would defeat the average college football team by a little under 28 points which is incredibly impressive that is one of the highest uh preseason power ranking indexes that I've ever seen for a team Georgia looks absolutely Unstoppable this year we'll see what happens anyway uh speaking of Georgia let's get into our SEC top 16 again I'm going to Rapid Fire this for the sake of time at number 16 we have Vanderbilt 15 Mississippi State 14 South Carolina 13 Arkansas 12 Kentucky 11 Auburn 10 getting into the top 10 Florida Texas sanm at 9 Old Miss at 8 Missouri at seven six is Tennessee five is elu four is Oklahoma Three is Alabama two is Texas one is Georgia any of those top three teams Georgia Texas Alabama each of those teams are in my mind contenders for the national championship alongside the likes of Ohio State Oregon of course um I'll also throw in Penn State into that list of being contenders for the national championship certainly uh seeing Florida at number 10 in the SEC is difficult certainly uh Gator fans we want Florida to be at minimum a top five SEC team the SEC is really tough this year y'all in fact alurn is the 11th best team in the SEC they're also 20th in the country in this power ranking system let that right off the bat tell you how tough the SEC is going to be the fact that there's 11 teams in the top 25 in fact there's 13 teams in the top 30 31 teams in the top 14 incredible 15 teams in the top 40 incredible the SEC from top to bottom is by far the best conference and that includes whatever happened to the Big 10 in fact the only team that is below average in the SEC is Vanderbilt at uh with their power index of being Nega 2.1 but even still on a neutral field they would be in a dog fight with the average college football team Vanderbuilt they're not awful they're they're pretty much average so the fact that all the one team in the SEC is above average and just that one team that's not above average they're pretty close to average if not a little below average incredibly impressive League that we have this year in the SEC it's certainly going to be an exciting uh year of college football to watch Florida has an insanely tough schedule playing some of the best teams in the country including having Texas Georgia LSU Tennessee amongst other teams on that schedule it's going to be a tough Gauntlet of games it's going to be exciting not to mention the matchup that Florida has with the Miami Hurricane speaking of that Gauntlet let's dive right into the season simulation for the florig Gators now each week I'm going to come forward and give my score prediction based on the model so we're going to start off with Florida and Miami of course this is a big match up in the swamp Florida has a 65% chance of winning this game um the model is calling it a dub for the Florida Gators um after that of course you have Florida in Samford uh another home game in the swamp Florida has a 99% chance of winning this game again another dub for the Florida Gators of course the model has the Gators starting 2 and0 right after that you have another big time matchup in the swamp Florida and Texas A&M this is going to be another incredible game you have Florida with a 66% chance of defeating Texas A&M it's going to be an EXC exciting game all these games are going to be exciting in fact Florida and Mississippi State the the irony of Mississippi State being the number 15th team in the SEC Florida's playing at their place home field advantage matters and it actually Florida is going to be in a dog fight with Mississippi State uh in Starkville uh Florida has a 52% chance of defeating Mississippi State essentially a coin flip I would not be surprised that all if Mississippi pulls out the narrow upset at home against the Florida Gators Florida then comes in and plays the University of Central Florida UCF uh the knights um in the swamp uh Florida looks to avenge their previous matchup with UCF and get the dub and the model does like Florida to get the dub the model does like Florida to start off the season five and0 and the the model gives Florida a 73.5% chance of beating the University of Central Florida moving on to Florida's Big Time road test with Tennessee and Dand Stadium the model likes Tennessee in this matchup the model likes Tennessee by 10 points and that gives Florida a 30 1% chance to win leaving Tennessee with a 69% chance to win um this would be according to the model Florida's first loss of the season after that Florida looks to bounce back against the Kentucky Wildcats the model has Florida winning by a sizable 12-point win 73% chance of winning next up we have Florida and Georgia uh this is going to be a tough matchup for the Florida Gators the model likes Florida to keep it close for a little bit but certainly Georgia is considered to be the better team Georgia has a 79% chance of winning the game uh certainly the model looks at Georgia as being the best team in the country from a power ranking standpoint and the expectation is Florida will lose that game so at this point Florida has two losses um the next matchup that we see on the schedule is Florida and Texas soor Florida at Texas again another matchup where Texas looks to be one of the best teams in the country it's on the road no surprise the model likes Texas uh with a 78% chance of defeating the Florida Gators um following that Florida looks to bounce back against LSU in the swamp the model gives Florida a 52.3% chance of defeating the Tigers in the swamp that's literally a one-point victory for the Florida Gators after that another big time matchup in the swamp senior night Florida Old Miss big time Big Time big time the model likes Florida to really show out in this game um winning by about eight points the model gives Florida a 65% chance to win last but not least let's look at this Monumental matchup Florida and Florida State at Florida State again a home field advantage plays a big role Florida state is looking to really bounce back from that loss against Georgia Tech uh in game one in Dublin the model currently likes Florida State to come out on top by 10 points Florida state has a 69% chance to defeat the Florida Gators so if you go up and down Florida is expected to win eight games and lose four games going game by game giving Florida an LW based on the outcome now as I mentioned before there's a few of those tossup games the Mississippi State game Florida's projected to win by around 51% against Stella shoes Florida is projected to win by about 52% % so the model does consider that to be a win but in terms of the probabalistic outcome both those games are coin flip so it's very possible that Florida wins one of those games and loses the other one very possible and that's how you kind of work out to getting the 6.5 seven wins five losses so on and so forth so if you had to hold my feet to the fire I would anticipate Florida going seven and five would I be surprised if they go 6 and six no would I be surprised if they go 8 and four no uh the ceiling is probably 10 and two is that very likely probably not uh nine and three would certainly be an incredibly successful season considering this schedule I think 9 and3 Florida will be right in the cusp of being in the college football playoff discussion I think 10-2 would squarely put them into that discussion I mean if you're if you're beating all the teams in your schedule with the exception of a loss to the number one team in the country in Georgia the number four team in the country in Texas I think you're an excellent shape Florida pulls out the upset against either of those teams Monumental big time that means Florida is exceeding every expectation Billy Napier is really showing himself in his uh what he's been able to put together with this program certainly this is a big year for him this is a a year where he it's a put up a shut up for for Billy Napier this is his opportunity to show the world what he's made of um there's no more excuses I know the season is tough there's no more excuses for the Florida Gators speaking of no more excuses it is time to get to our preview of the Miami Florida football game before getting to the model's output and expectation for what the score will be in the game as I already mentioned the model does like Florida to win it does give Florida it does give Florida a seven-point edge in the game we'll get to the score in just a few minutes you don't want to miss out what that prediction is certainly Florida has about a 65% chance to win but if Florida is going to win what would be the key so let me give you a key on offense a key on defense and also I'm going to give you the padlock stat as our buddy Josh Pate likes to call it so if you lock me in a room I miss the game but you tell me this one stat I will be able to tell you fairly confidently who wins the game real quick the key to the game on the offensive side is running the ball Florida has to run the ball they have to establish the Run game now certainly Florida has a really solid receiving core Graham Merz played exceptional last year throwing for 20 t touchdowns only two picks but a big reason why gr MZ was able to be so efficient through the air is because Florida was solid on the ground now it's certainly helpful that Montell is back in the F now will he be 100% that question Still Remains I hope that he's 100% I hope that that that's the the main reason why he's able to play he needs to be 100% he needs to play with full Effectiveness we're going to need him to play well the entire running running back uh group needs to play well in this game and if we're able to cement a a run game if we're able to get at least 3.5 yards per carry four yards per carry would be even better then I think this would be a really solid uh gain through the air for the Florida Gator why do I say that because if you look at Miami the strength and their defense is the front seven so if you're able to spread out if you're able spread out the the team and and and get the defense in a position where they have to defend the run then you're going to leave that secondary which I would consider to be the weakness in Miami's defense if you're able to spread out that secondary put some of these these inexperienced players on islands and then you give guys like Trey Wilson and Badger you give give them opportunities to get wide open if Florida's able to cement the running game early I think it's going to open up some big plays in the passing game on the defensive side for the Florida Gators it's going to be highly critical that Florida for forces turnovers absolutely imperative that Florida forces his turnovers that's really the biggest way that you're going to neutralize what Miami is going be able to do when it comes to uh running the ball and throwing the ball their quarterback is a dual threat quarterback came from Washington State excellent excellent player he's certainly a formidable opponent their running back is excellent they have talent all over the field their offensive line is something special Chris Ball has done an excellent job at recruiting at Miami if Florida's going to neutralize that Miami offense they're going to do it by forcing turnovers in fact I'm going to that brings me right to the padlock stat I expect Florida to win this game if what happens if they win the turnover battle if they force more turnovers than they produce they're going to win the game if it's neutral if it's zero toss up I think the tie goes to the runner in college football terms tie goes to the HomeField Advantage if Florida doesn't win the turnover battle it's going to be very very challenging for them to win this game even at home Florida can't turn over the ball and they got to force turnovers huge deal so without further Ado let's get to it the final prediction this the model simulation for the in all kinds of weather forecaster for this epic matchup between the Florida Gators and the Miami Hurricanes what does the model say the model likes Florida to come out on top by the score of 34 to 27 again let me say that again I know for those of you that are watching you see it on the screen 3427 Florida Gators this looks to be a relatively high-scoring game a shootout if you will Florida through the air looks to be exceptional launched by that running game it's going to be a great game for the Florida Gators the swamp is going to be absolutely electric if this prediction pans out incredibly exciting for the Florida Gators winning by a score of 34 to 27 that is the pick by this model I certainly hope the model is Right Vegas likes to Vegas likes to think the other way Vegas has uh Florida as a 2.5 Point Underdog um upon the recording of this podcast so we'll see what happens can Florida pull it out we'll see it's going to be an epic match up I know I'll be in the swamp I hope you're there too if you're not in the game I hope you're watching the game on television ABC 3:30 p.m. it's going to be absolutely electric from all of us at in all kinds of weather my name is Dustin Smith this has been an all kinds of weather by the numbers thank you so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel thank you so much for supporting thank you so much for taking the time to watch this enjoy this epic weekend of college football go Gators [Music]