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Author: HuskerGeek

Why Are We Here? (AN: RvB FTW)

Written By: HuskerGeek

I’ve given a lot of thought to how I wanted to start off this site, and I really only came up with one way.

What is HuskerGeek?

That’s really the question isn’t it.  What is this site for?  The simple answer is, “It’s where I’m going to post my NCAA computer ratings.”  However, the simple answer while often accurate, isn’t necessarily correct.  So, what is the honest answer.  I don’t know.  Right now I’m starting with computer ratings and a couple of Husker season previews.  I hope that in time it becomes more than that.

Seems like a lot of effort to create something when you don’t even know what it is.

That’s certainly accurate.  This site didn’t start off as much.  In fact, it didn’t even start off as a website.  It began as a c# application to simplify the process I used to create ratings.  I was spending several hours a week importing games and recalculating the computer ratings which in themselves only started with MOV.

MOV?

I’m sure most sports fans recognize that initialism(AN: Acronym if you prefer to pronounce it as mauve.) as standing for Margin of Victory.  It was the first computer rating I created.  Once I had done the math for that rating, I found that it didn’t provide enough weight to winning a game.  In a season that is only 12 games long, I believed that winning needed it’s own rating.  So, I modified Elo to suit my needs.

ELO?

Chess fans will of course recognize the algorithm used to calculate ratings for the best players in the world.  Originally, I just straight adopted Elo to college football.  That presented it’s own problem.  Elo rated winning too highly if possible.  It didn’t adequately take opponents into account.  I modified it in order to solve that problem.  In doing so, I created the first score I called Synthesis.

SYN? Really? Now you’re just making stuff up.

Exactly.  At that point, I was just having fun coming up with ways to rate teams using math.  I developed a number of different ratings that were shuffled in and out of the final ratings.  Eventually, I settled upon five distinct ratings which comprised the four parts of the current SYN score.  The first two were MOV and ELO.  The third was DOM or Dominance which caters to the idea that a final score of 10-0 is fundamentally different than a score of 50-40. Fourth and fifth were a pair of ratings abbreviated PTS and ALL or Points and Points Allowed.  Due to the symbiotic relationship of these ratings I combined them into a single rating called Efficiency or EFF.

You got a bit off track.

Indeed I did, and you will find that I often do that when writing.

And?

And what?  I got off track.  The site started as something else and became what it is.  I’m leaving out three hobbit walking scenes from the article.  The story grew in the telling.

I thought this site was about sports.

I already told you I don’t know what the site is about yet.  Nor do I really know where it’s going.  However, the site is named HuskerGeek for a reason.  I do consider myself a geek.  Most of my friends would probably agree.  As a geek, I enjoy all manner of media from movies, television, video games, books, and comic books to football, basketball, baseball and golf.  I expect that there will be occasions that I write about any or all of those.

So what should we expect?

Knowing myself as I do, I would expect to see a generous portion of Batman, Fast & Furious, science fiction, and sports.

You’ve just spent six hundred words having a conversation with yourself.

It isn’t the first time, and I highly doubt it will be the last.

This is HuskerGeek.

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