Viewing Your Sports Predictions, Historically

You will now notice in your My Yard page at FanYard, that there is now a new section titled: Pick History. This page breaks all your picks into the various sports very nicely. It defaults to NFL, but you will see the tabs for NCAAF, NBA and NCAAB. Your picks in whichever sport you want to look at will be listed by date, starting with the latest date of any pick you have made in that sport. As you look down the page, your picks will be listed as they go further back in time.

Each game is linked to its Game Yard, so you can go back and see what was said about this game, or to see the Yardstick visually. For games that have finished, you will be able to see not only what you predicted the outcome to be, but also what the actual margin of victory (Score Margin) was and for which team. You will see whether or not you were credited for a win or a loss and how many points you were awarded for your win, if any. (Remember, you must be within ten points of the actual winning margin, and have picked the winning team, in order to receive points for your pick.)

The one other change in this regard is that only your most recent 20 picks are now shown in your Yard. To see the rest, click “View All Picks,” and you’ll be taken to the page described herein.

Happy New Year, all!

Alamo Bowl Predictions

 

This year’s Alamo Bowl features Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nittany Lions going up against the Texas A&M Aggies in Paterno’s 500th game as the head coach of the Lions. Penn State matches up well against the running game of the Aggies and has enough good players in their secondary to be able to cover one-on-one against the passing game.

The Yardstick for the Alamo Bowl favors the Lions by four points at time of writing, and the game will likely be decided by whether or not Lions QB Anthony Morelli gets into a rhythm and avoids making some of the costly mental errors that have become too much of an issue for him.

Texas Bowl Predictions

Tonight’s Texas Bowl features the TCU Horned Frogs against the Houston Cougars in Houston, Texas. Both teams have deep receiving corps and quarterbacks who can get the ball deep. The Cougars will have to play better pass protection than they have most of the season, while TCU quarterback Andy Dalton will have to do a better job at protecting the ball than he has through some of this season; he has thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns this season, although four of his INTs did come in just one game.

Dalton’s job will be made all the easier by the relative lack of a pass rush possessed by the Cougars, not to mention that his sophomore running back Joseph Turner has come into his own this year. In his last game, Turner garnered 226 yards and four scores on 33 carries.

The Yardstick for the Texas Bowl predicts a four-point win for the Horned Frogs.

Holiday Bowl Prediction

This year’s Holiday Bowl pits Colt McCoy and his Texas Longhorns against Rudy Carpenter and his Arizona State Sun Devils at Qualcomm Stadium in sunny San Diego. Both terams expected their passing game to be more involved in the offense this season, but both quarterbacks have had their issues which have limited their passing plays as the season wore on.

McCoy, for his part, has made far too many bad decisions which have led to 18 INTs on the year. Of course, there were many tipped balls that ended up being intercepted – eight, to be exact – and he actually had only one INT throwing out of the pocket. So, perhaps the O-line and his receivers should handle at least a significant portion of the blame.

Carpenter has simply hung onto the ball too long, leading to the Sun Devils 51 sacks allowed; more than all but two other teams in the nation.

The Yardstick for the Holiday Bowl favors ASU by just one point, and this should be a close game that could very well depend on Carpenter’s ability to avoid the sack and find his receivers against a relatively weak Texas secondary.

Bowl Predictions – Motor City Bowl

Barely seconds into the second half of the Motor City bowl in Detroit, which is pitting Purdue vs. Central Michigan, the Boilermakers saw their 34-13 lead shrink as Central Michigan just whipped off a 77-yard passing score to bring them with two scores. While trying to tell you about that, however, the Boilermakers just drove down the field and scored again, making the score now 41-20.

Purdue quarterback Curtis Painter already has 399 passing yards and three scores and we are barelytwo minutes into the second half. It looks pretty good that the Yardstick for the Motor City Bowl could easily have been higher that the eight points victory it was predicting for Purdue at kickoff.

Game Yards Now Show Your Scores!

Our development team at TheFanYard.com has been extremely busy as of late. Already in the past week or so, you might have noticed a change to the scoring system that better reflects accuracy in picking the outcomes of games, and the very successful introduction of the new and faster slider method of making your picks to the user interface.

Now, you will notice that you can now go back to past games’ Game Yards and see not only what you use to see, which was the Yardstick for the game, the outcome you predicted, and the actual outcome, but you will now also see whether or not you were credited with a win or a loss for that game and also whether or not you received points for your pick if it was a win.

These steps were some of the things our FanYard Community had asked for the most so far into this venture and we are extremely pleased to now have them live for everyone.

Here’s wishing everyone a very happy holiday season!

Monday Night Football Predictions – Broncos at Chargers

The San Diego Chargers have more to play for in Week 17 of the 2007 NFL regular season than they would like. But, considering the fact that ten weeks ago it looked like they would fall prey to Norv Turner’s lack of coaching abilities, they should just be happy that they have a division crown and a chance to be in the playoffs at all. It will be a testament to the futility of having Marty Schottenheimer on the sidelines in a playoff game if the Chargers manage to win even one postseason matchup this year.

The biggest reason the Chargers have to win this game is to try to avoid having to meet the Jacksonville Jaguars in their first playoff game in January. They would much, much rather have the Titans – who are in the postseason, somehow, with a victory over the Indianapolis Colts backup squad next Sunday night – or the Browns, who are in the playoffs no matter what they do next week; the Browns need the Titans to lose to make the playoffs.

The Denver Broncos will finish the season in a disappointing fashion, but hardly unexpected. Quarterback Jay Cutler might have the goods and he might not, but it was obvious from last year’s pretty decent performances that he needs a bit more time to develop before we are to know for sure.

The Yardstick for this Monday Night Football game favors the Chargers by eight points, at the time of writing.

NCAA Football Bowl Predictions – Hawaii Bowl

As Colt Brennan and the Hawaii Warriors are preparing their first-ever BCS Bowl game against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, the Boise State Broncos and the East Carolina Pirates will fly to the sunny islands to battle it out in the Hawaii Bowl. Well, battle might not be the word, as Boise State actually turned down a better bowl in order to go the Hawaii to play at the scene of their last loss.

It will be one month to the day, on December 23rd, when the Broncos resume play after losing to Brennan’s Warriors 39-27 in their last game of the season. They must have enjoyed the sights and scenery and who can blame them, and the biggest question of the Hawaii Bowl will be whether or not Boise State will get up for the game, or treat it as an afterthought following what must be the disappointment of this past season. They most likely had higher hopes after their thrilling victory in the Fiesta Bowl last year made them household names for a while.

The Yardstick for the Hawaii Bowl favors the Broncos by just four points at the time of writing, just over 24 hours before kickoff. Join FanYard and make your prediction on this game, and every major football and basketball game in America. Leave a comment if you’d like to have a football or basketball schedule for your site or blog. Take a look at the schedules to the right here to see what they look like. If you’d like a widget instead, we have those as well.

College Bowl Predictions – Las Vegas Bowl

The Las Vegas Bowl tonight between the UCLA Bruins and the BYU Cougars is going to be a very different affair than when these two teams met earlier this year, when UCLA beat BYU by a score of 27-17. The Bruins have been a huge disappointment, due in large part to injuries they have suffered to the starting and backup quarterbacks, and their running back Kahlil Bell is out injured as well. This is not even to mention that their head coach, Karl Dorrell has been let go and their defensive coordinator has had to take on the head coaching duties in the interim.

In predicting the outcome of this game, FanYard users have made the call and the Yardstick for the Las Vegas Bowl favors BYU, led by quarterback Max Hall, by four points. If DeWayne Walker can get UCLA to play hard for him, it is possible he could become the head coach next year, just because not many other coaches around the country havebeen jumping at the chance to take over the reins for the Bruins. This could be an interesting game to watch.

Leave a comment if you’d like to have a football or basketball schedule for your site or blog. Take a look at the schedules to the right here to see what they look like. If you’d like a widget instead, we have those as well. Join FanYard and make your prediction on this game, and every major football and basketball game in America.

New Orleans – College Bowl Predictions

The New Orleans Bowl, which kicks off tonight at 8 PM EST, pits the Florida Atlantic Owls against the Memphis Tigers in what should be a high-scoring affair. It is likely that we’ll see lots of going-for-it on fourth downs, as neither team has what anyone would call a good kicking game. Between kickers Matt Reagan and Warley Leroy, they have connected on just 33 of 48 field goal attempts this season. Opposing offenses should also be helped in another way by the other team’s kicking game in that by the fact that between the two, they have recorded just 4 touchbacks on kickoffs – out of a combined 85 attempts. These two explosive offenses should benefit from great field position all night long.

The Tigers have a very good passing game and an alright running game, but their run defense is shoddy at best. The Owls, meanwhile, have a running back in Charles Pierre, who averages 4.6 yards per carry and should have a very good game against the weak Tigers front. The difference in this game will likely come down to turnovers, and the Owls lead the nation with a +19 turnover margin.

The Yardstick for the New Orleans Bowl, as of early today, favors the Tigers by three points. I think that is going to be a bad call. I am taking the Owls to win by six. This college football guy thinks they’ll do even better than that. Come join FanYard, man.