EA Sports Simulations Nearly Done

For those that have known me a while, one of the things people look forward to the most from my articles is the summary of EA Sports NCAA Football simulations.


For those that don't know, EA Sports puts out software every summer that contains data and images from the college football season ahead.  NCAA Football has been a huge hit among video gaming lovers for years.  That doesn't make for an article I would publish here.


What does make for an interesting read is what has proven to be an amazing track record.  In addition to gaming, the software can be simulated to produce game results and even season results.  The "season" is complete with rankings and statistics.  In 2002, I discovered, after the season, that if I simulated the season several times and compared the results, EA had exactly predicted Boise State's 2002 season.  After averaging the results, it had predicted a loss to Arkansas with wins over each other team.  What an interesting coincidence, I thought.


When the software was released in the summer of 2003, for fun I simulated Boise State's upcoming season, again with several results that were averaged.  When I looked at the summary, it predicted Boise State would lose on the road to Oregon State, but that would be their only loss.  Imagine my surprise when I followed the "predicted" results each week and found that Boise State actually did finish 12-1 with their only loss to Oregon State.


The software also exactly predicted the 2004, 2005 and 2006 seasons--five seasons in a row of perfect predicting.  In 2007, it all fell apart, as the software predicted a perfect season while, as we know, Boise State lost to Washington and Hawai'i.  I did notice that those overall results were fairly close and surmised that with results this close, one couldn't be reasonably sure about the results that were predicted.


In 2008, I found that the software did a terrible job of predicting the Oregon season--it said Oregon would lose seven games while they lost three.  For some reason, however, they continued to accurately forecast Boise State games with a perfect 12-for-12 as Boise State was a perfect 12-for-12.


This made the software 83-2 since 2002 in predicting Bronco football games.  But in 2009, another glitch as, even though the software accurately predicted the Boise State win over Oregon in Eugene in 2008, this time, it predicted an Oregon win in Boise.  Of course the Ducks didn't come close.  That, however, was the only blemish for the season, making E/A Sports' record a sparkling 95-3 as Boise State had another perfect season.  Last year, the software contained another loss as once again Boise State was forecast to have an unbeaten regular season and they infamously lost to Nevada.  At this point, you have to wonder if it is the software that is screwing up or if it is Boise State.  I think the latter.


In any case, EA is now 106-4 in forecasting Boise State results since 2002.


Now that I have your attention, I know you will look forward to the simulation results.  I should have them in about 10 days or so.