The SEC Championship game is in the books. And with Alabama's win to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff, the 4th Annual BSSR SEC Betting Challenge is officially over. The outcome of the SEC Championship locked in the leaderboard, as Ryne and Alex were competing for 2nd place. Here's how the Challenge shook out this season:
Micah absolutely dominated us this season for his first title since we started the SEC Betting Challenge, and we'll get into just how impressive his performance this season was a little later.
In today's article, I'm going to provide some brief analyses of our collective and individual performances this season, compared to past seasons. I've done similar analyses after each of the three previous seasons as well, but I expanded my dig this season to capture more data and provide more insight into how we fared as a team and as individuals. We'll talk about our collective performance data first, since our collective success is theoretically what should drive our internet popularity. (i.e. the better we do in picking as a group, the more following we should build from people looking to use our predictions to help themselves.) Just like in past seasons, I judged our success by the win percentage of bets that we all or mostly agreed upon. There are three types of bets:
There are three classifications of bet predictions:
For each type of bet, I figured out which classification it fell into based on how many of us picked it. Then, after every bet placed fell into one of the three classifications, I sorted them by type of bet to determine how many times we correctly picked a game right that we agreed upon versus how many times we were incorrect in those scenarios. Here are the results represented as win/loss records, and also compared to our results from 2020 and 2021: 
The cells shaded green mean we improved as a group from year to year, while the red cells mean we did worse this season than we did the season before. You'll notice two yellow shaded cells in the Over/Under category for 2023, meaning we had the same win percentage in those sections as in 2022.
Here are the results represented as win percentages, which is what I used to indicate the improvements/detriments: 
As you can see, we actually experienced an improvement in each of the overall categories from 2022 to 2023, which is a great sign. We were actually pretty exceptional in our over/under picks, which hit 60 percent of the time overall. The only area in which we fell below .500 was in our Majority 4 ATS picks, which is a decent step back from last season. However, our improvements in the Majority 3 and Unanimous ATS categories allowed us to finish right at .500 on all bets against the spread.
Let's drill down a little further into this season's data before looking at our cumulative performance across all four years of SEC Betting Challenge history. First, let's look at some of our best and worst weeks as a unit in 2023. We had four weeks where we combined for better than a 70 percent win percentage. Those were Weeks 4, 6, 9, and 12. Here is a breakdown of those four weeks in order of win percentage: 
These figures include all three categories of bets, which are Majority 3, Majority 4, and Unanimous.
Here are those same percentages presented by record. You'll notice Weeks 4 and 12 had a significantly higher total of picks, making those two weeks the most impressive of all of them to me. 
Conversely, we had two weeks where we finished below 50 percent collectively, which were Weeks 3 and 11. Those are broken down below, first by win percentage and then by record.
I think the poor performance in Week 3 is attributable to us still getting a feel for how good each team really was early in the season. For example, none of us knew Missouri was going to be as good as they were or that Arkansas was going to be as bad as they were either. We also expected Tennessee to get a win in Gainesville despite having not won there for two decades.
Week 11 was sort of a whacky week that contained pretty much nothing but blowouts, some more expected than others. I don't think there were a lot of people out there who expected Georgia and Missouri to demolish Ole Miss and Tennessee, respectively. While we didn't perform well at all in those two weeks, the positive side is that we bounced back in major ways both times these down weeks occurred, as shown by Weeks 4 and 12 in the Best Weeks table mentioned above. Next, let's look at how we fared when picking unanimously on each SEC team. 
The above records only include bets of all types that the five of us all picked for any given game involving each of the 14 teams in the SEC. It's worth noting that the majority of bets that fell into the unanimous category were money line picks, but there were still a few bets against the spread and point total that we all agreed upon as well.
When I tracked this last season, we performed at a 90-plus percent rate for three teams: Georgia, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss. We also fell below 50 percent for one team: Kentucky. We weren't perfect on any team last season. This year, as indicated by the table above, we were perfect when agreeing unanimously on games involving both South Carolina and Texas A&M. We fell below 75 percent on just two teams: Florida and Ole Miss. And even our worst performing team, Florida, was a not too shabby 67.7 percent. When I combine this year's per team stats to last year's (which was the first year I captured this data), we arrive at these cumulative figures: 
Interestingly, our top performance comes on games involving Tennessee. This makes sense, as we are all actually Tennessee fans and know the Vols better than any other team for the most part. It also proves that we are remaining unbiased in our projections involving Tennessee, which I knew was the case to begin with.
Now we'll look at our cumulative betting performances over the four years we've done this challenge. This is an accumulation of the Majority 3, Majority 4, and Unanimous bets from all four years for each category.
First, here are our total records after four years of picking SEC games: 
And here are those same records represented as win percentages:
Our lone red spot is in the Majority 4 against the spread picks. It's strange that we've done so poorly in that one area, but very well in all the others. Judging by our cumulative records over four years, which is clearly a pretty good sample size, you would have been making consistent money by tailing our cumulative picks overall. And even following our Majority 4 O/U picks and Majority 3 ATS picks would be netting you solid returns as well.
To finish off this analysis article for the 2023 season, let's take a look at some of our individual statistics both for this year and over the last four seasons. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Micah had the best single season performance we've seen in this challenge. And that's backed up by the data. Here's a chart of our overall performance each season listed in alphabetical order, first as win percentages and then as records.: 
The green cells indicate a year over year improvement, while the red cells indicate the opposite. So not only did Micah jump from 57.0 percent to 66.4 percent from last season to this season, he also smashed the previous record of 63.3 percent that Jacob set in our inaugural season.
On a positive note, we all took a step forward this season from last season, except for me. But as people like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart know, it's hard to go anywhere but down when you're on the top of the mountain with your head in the clouds of success. And that is unfortunately what I experienced this season. To go just a bit further on our analysis with the 2023 season, let's see how we individually performed on games involving each team in the conference. I aggregated every pick each of us made this year by team to see if there were any teams we picked successfully or unsuccessfully over the course of the season. Here are the results: 
The person who had the best win percentage for each team got a green highlight in their column, while the person who had the worst win percentage for each team got a red highlight.
Here's a simple breakdown of who had the best ratio of greens to reds: 
You'll notice that there are some ties for some teams for both green and red values, which is why the chart totals to more than 28 (2 for each of the 14 teams). These specific stats don't really mean that much to be honest, but they are interesting pieces of information for the five of us to look at, if nothing else.
Referring back to the initial table, comically, we all individually performed best on one team: Vanderbilt. It makes sense because they were predictably bad all year. Our worst team to pick on an individual level was Auburn. And that also makes sense given the erratic nature of their season. I mean, it doesn't get much more Jekyll and Hyde than losing by three scores at home to New Mexico State, and then nearly beating the eventual SEC Champions, Alabama, the following week. Sorry to bring that up again if there are any Auburn fans reading this. Finally, we'll examine our cumulative individual records on all three bet types over all four seasons of the BSSR SEC Betting Challenge. Here are our win percentages, followed by records, ranked from top to bottom over the four years of data: 
The highest percentage for each category is highlighted green. As you can see, while Jacob has the best overall record over four years, Alex has performed the best on the money line and the over/under, while Micah has been the only one of us who has managed to stay above .500 against the spread. This data will be fun to track and analyze as we continue to pick SEC games in the years to come.
Speaking of next season, we'll be adding two new teams to the mix as Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC. The more the merrier, am I right? I have some exciting ideas in store for the Fifth Annual BSSR SEC Betting Challenge, and you're not going to want to miss it. So enjoy bowl season and the College Football Playoff for the month or so we still have left of college football, and keep the Bucket Squad Sports Reports in mind when college football kicks off in 2024. Because as I've proven here today, our expert consensus just might make you rich. Stay tuned for any picks, predictions, or analysis that are sure to come during postseason play, and be sure to follow me on Instagram @NickWatson12 so you don't miss the announcement for the Third Annual Bucket Squad Sports Reports (Your #1 Source for All Things Sports) Mega March Madness Matchup Monstrosity and your chance to earn $100 for absolutely free. Until then, I say another congratulations to Micah for enshrining his name in the BSSR SEC Betting Challenge Hall of Champions as I sign off on this season's SEC season. Until next year... Written by Nick Swatson Photo: "111123 LSU Tigers vs Florida State Gators 023 (53545041412)" by Tammy Anthony Baker from Louisianais licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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