Being a Jinx: Why My Predictions Are Bad Luck

Posted by Iroquois Plisken

It is doubtless that faithful readers of the blog noted that the one week we failed to mention Iowa, they go down to a scrappy Northwestern team. I also summarily wrecked any Josh Nesbitt H---man chances, a mere day after I wrote:

Crouch: 1,500 yards passing with 7 TD's and a 134 rating while rushing for 1,100 yards with 18 TD's.
Nesbitt (current): 1,172 yards passing with 6 TD's and a 158 rating while rushing for 763 yards with 13 TD's.
Nesbitt (projected): 1,563 yards passing with 8 TDs and a 158 rating while rushing for 1,018 yards with 18 TD's.

In a year with no runaway candidate, why not Nesbitt, especially if Ga Tech wins the ACC?

Sure enough, he goes out and stinks up the joint against Wake Forest, though he was incredibly clutch when he needed to be. Further on the point, regular readers surely know that I crushed the playoff hopes of the Braves (and likely the rest of the teams that I predicted would do well), in addition to my misguided call of Dodgers in 6.

So, why does it seem like most calls that I (or perhaps you) make end up being wrong? Perhaps we just exist so that Vegas can make money, though most might call things differently with money on the line. There's some fairly accurate predictor of presidential elections (I forget where I saw it; I'm sure some Google expert can find it) that has people guess who will win the presidency on two levels. First, the pollees are asked who they want to win. Next, they ask if, they were to put money on the line, who they think will win. More often than not, people's money-line predictions tend to be truer to form than their gut instinct. Of course, I realize elections and sports don't parallel and has a much smaller sample size, but I find it interesting at the very least.

Perhaps I'm just not good at this prognostication thing. This is probably true. It makes the so-called expert/analyst predictions all the better when they hit a high clip of their predictions. Most likely, though, it just speaks to the thrill of the sport and to the nature of humans to try and rationalize their problems basing themselves as the root cause. We all want to believe we're great on some level, and for some, their sports prediction knowledge is what they metaphorically hang their hat on. Failure at this equivocates to failure at life.

I don't pride myself on knowing everything about sports. Like most, I have opinions about sports, some more correct than others, and I have my predispositions to teams/events/coaches. But, mostly...

I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHY I CAN'T WIN $1M FOR FAILING TO PICK 30 IN A ROW CORRECT ON ESPN'S STREAK FOR THE CASH. IT'S JUST AS HARD TO BE WRONG 30 TIMES IN A ROW AS IT IS TO BE RIGHT 30 TIMES IN A ROW!