Cracker Barrel Country: TWTW's Orange Bowl Preview

Danville, Kentucky -- Michigan football's renaissance can be chalked up to one man: Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh is America's coach, a coach of the people. No man in college football has better intuition than Jim. At a time when it would've been politically expedient for a man teaching in a liberal snowflake bubble town like Ann Arbor to be seen eating kale or driving a hybrid car, Jim took a stand for American family values and fine dining.

Jim felt the winds of change in the air. He correctly intuited that America is no longer a Chipotle country, or a Panera country. America is now a Cracker Barrel country. Jim knew this: just as the Crack Barrel ethos propelled Donald Trump to the presidency, it is now poised to make the Michigan Wolverines winners of back-to-back bowl games. 

[source]

Cracker Barrel is a restaurant (and old country store) where deep familial bonds of love are formed over hot plates of meatloaf and country fried steak. As a man who has dragged his children kicking and screaming to numerous Cracker Barrel establishments across our fine nation during family road trips, I can vouch for the restaurant's ability to nurture relationships. Kids love the gift shop, and the plump blueberries snugged tenderly into each buttery pancake. Adults like myself love the rustic, cozy atmosphere and great decorations, which are a throwback to simpler times. 

The best part about Cracker Barrel is that they don't try to shove robots down your throat. You won't find any of those annoying, gimmicky touch-screen tablet devices that are now all the rage at Chilis and Applebee's. Chilis and Applebee's love to plant these things on your table in hopes that your child will steal your credit card and pay $20 to play Angry Birds while you aren't looking. 

Not only are these tablets prone to abuse by unruly children, they also put perfectly suitable human employees out of a job. These tablets detach restaurant-goers from their fellow man by making face-to-face interaction with other flesh-and-blood human beings unnecessary. 

@Applebees @TWTWsports promise to get rid of those iPad things at the table! They are confusing and disrespectful to the waitstaff

— amac (@amacthursday) December 24, 2016

@Applebees @TWTWsports golden age of Applebees was 1994. My family went every Sunday, and enjoyed a meal just fine sans some table machine

— amac (@amacthursday) December 24, 2016

Cracker Barrel has resisted this technological onslaught. Cracker Barrel values old-fashioned human interaction. If you want to entertain yourself at Cracker Barrel, you have to play a simple, non-electronic game like the pioneers of old. It's not as flashy as Angry Birds, but the pegs game teaches kids the value of concentration, perseverance, and mental stamina. 

Mr. Harbaugh, a brilliant tactician on the football field, coaches like a guy who has completed the pegs game a few times. Yet Harbaugh's most shrewd tactical decision may have happened off the field when he decided to take his team to Cracker Barrel. The family that eats together, stays together. The family that eats Cracker Barrel's famous "Sunrise Sampler" together, triumphs together. It's no coincidence that Michigan football began to win again after hiring a coach who understands the restorative power of a hearty helping of hickory smoked country ham. 

Contrast Mr. Harbaugh to his counterpart from Florida State. Folks, Jimbo Fisher cannot win. Jimbo's wife left him after cheating on him with one of Jimbo's own wide receivers, landing a hefty divorce settlement in the process. Like Jimbo, I am also a coach (of my nephew's little league team) who has been through divorce. However, if my wife cheated on me with one of the kids from the team I coach, you can bet I'd have the decency to retreat from the public eye. Jimbo should have the good sense to get out of college football while he can.

Harbaugh and the Wolverines made quick work of the Florida Gators last year in the Citrus Bowl; I predict a similarly decisive victory over the Florida State Seminoles. When Jim faces Jimbo, don't bet against Harbaugh. Don't bet against the man who has Cracker Barrel on his side.

Harbaugh vs. Urban Meyer Part II: Head-to-Head Wins Matter

Danville, Kentucky -- Once upon a time, when a man beat a man, he beat a man. Achieving victory --- whether it took place in the bowling alley, the ballot box, the football field, or the baseball diamond --- used to designate the superiority of one competitor over the other.

Once upon a time, I used to regularly whoop my brother-in-law at golf. I'm not much of a golfer; I've never been the type to hang around country clubs or obsess over the PGA championship. Yet, when I would play golf with my accursed brother-in-law as a gesture of goodwill towards my sister, my golf skills felt transcendent. Maybe it was the burning resentment; maybe it was my boiling blood; maybe it was the Fireball I'd pregame with. My putts were immaculate and I would drive the ball across the field with majestic precision. The defeats were so humiliating for my poor brother-in-law that he became too embarrassed to show his face around the greens. With each consecutive loss that I handed him, my dominance over him became clearer and clearer. 

These days, winning is not considered winning. Though Donald Trump prevailed over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, Clinton's supporters refuse to concede and instead demand that the election be audited. NCAA football rankings are similarly indecisive, failing to reward victories and punish defeats. If only the NCAA football rankings appreciated the unambiguous glory of a head-to-head win. College football is broken. Most polls and rankings are too reliant on murky metrics like "strength of schedule" and "quality wins and losses," downplaying the importance of mano-e-mano triumphs over rivals.

Luckily there is one game this rivalry weekend where winning the head-to-head match-up will mean something. That game is perhaps the greatest rivalry of all: Michigan vs. Ohio State, the second confrontation between Jim Harbaugh and Urban Meyer. Folks, there is so much on the line. Harbaugh is fighting to prove Michigan's renaissance is real, and that his Wolverines can hang with the big boys. The milk-drinking, steak-eating Harbaugh is a throwback to the classy days of Bo Schembechler. Urban Meyer is a throwback to mercenaries like King George III's Hessian hired guns. The stakes could not be higher.

The Wolverines-Buckeyes showdown will not only be fought for vengeance over the Toledo Border War of 1935: it will determine the competitors in the Big 10 title game. If Ohio State beats Michigan and Pennsylvania State beats Michigan State, OSU and Penn State will vie for Big 10 supremacy and a playoff berth.

Yet, if Michigan beats Ohio State, there is no guarantee Pennsylvania State will get to vie for the Big 10 title and a playoff spot, in spite of Penn State's stunning 24-21 victory over the #2 ranked Buckeyes earlier this year. Folks, that's a grotesque miscarriage of justice. Does Penn State's head-to-head victory over the Buckeyes mean nothing?

Unfortunately, this injustice is all too common in college football. Look at the travesty that befell the Baylor Bears in 2014: in their head-to-head regular season match-up, Baylor beat TCU 61-58. And what a victory it was, folks. Baylor was down 21 with 9:30 left. Baylor, through sheer force of will, scored 24 points in those last 9 minutes and thirty seconds to pull a stunning victory from the jaws of defeat. Both Baylor and TCU finished 11-1. TCU's only loss was to Baylor. Some nerds said TCU should be ranked higher than Baylor despite losing the head-to-head match-up. These folks could not be more wrong. 

Look, nerds. I have no horse in this race, even though I'm from Kentucky, where people race horses a lot. I don't have a college degree and thus have no strong affiliations to any particular college team. I just want to see the right champion crowned. Advanced stats don't crown our champions. Winning does. In any sport, it is exceedingly rare that the consensus best team becomes the eventual champion. Winning is the only metric we care about: that's why we have a playoff instead of declaring the team with the best adjusted efficiency margin the winner beforehand.

A few pieces of advice for all college football rankers, voters, and pollsters: stop sleeping on Western Michigan, an undefeated team with a compelling case to be the #2 team behind Alabama. 

the one true #1 seed is on ESPN 2 right now. Liberal media sleeping on undefeated #WesternMichigan like they slept on '13-'14 Shocker bball. pic.twitter.com/BFRVVKQlbE

— The Will To Win (@TWTWsports) November 25, 2016

Here's some more advice: if two teams are directly vying for a playoff spot, the head-to-head win should be the tiebreaker, not some nebulous and arbitrary standard like "strength of schedule." It's time to go back to that "once upon a time" where winning mano-e-mano meant something. It's time to make wins matter again.

The TWTW Election Model: Trump's Path to 270

Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, I know a winner when I see one. Since I started this little old blog a few years ago, I've demonstrated my prowess at predicting the outcomes of political and sporting events alike. Here's a quick recap of correct predictions I've made:

• I correctly predicted the Kansas City Royals would make the playoffs in 2015
• I correctly predicted that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president
• I correctly predicted the Toronto Blue Jays would win the American League East division in 2015
• I correctly predicted that the Kansas City Royals would win the 2015 American League Championship Series in 6 games
• I correctly predicted that the Kansas City Royals would win the 2015 World Series in 5 games
• I correctly predicted TPP would destroy jobs
• I corrected predicted that the Denver Broncos would win the 2016 Super Bowl
• I correctly predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 New Hampshire primary 
• I correctly predicted that the 2016 Chicago White Sox would suck
• I correctly predicted that Steph Curry would choke and cost the Golden State Warriors

Folks, that's a better track record of successful predictions than any nerd like Nate Silver, and I did it all without putting you to sleep with graphs, forecasts, and disclaimers about the "margin of error." I don't have a crystal ball, just impeccable intuition.

Now, I'm ready to make a new prediction. Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. It took digging into the data, some un-skewing, and a hard look at the fundamentals of this volatile race, but my conclusions are iron-clad, as iron-clad as the industrial metal factories that once littered the Rust Belt before the dark days of NAFTA and Hillarycare.

Pictured below is how the electoral map will more or less shake out. The key "tipping point" states: Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Trump will lose some electoral votes out on the amoral secular East and West coasts of our country, but perform solidly in the states that Hillary's corporate donors condescendingly refer to as "fly-over country." The Rust Belt states that have been left behind by globalization and the continued atrophy of Blockbuster Video jobs will propel Trump to a decisive victory.

In what follows, I will break the map down state-by-state to show you how Trump will pull off the greatest upset in political history.

Nevada (6) -- Hillary

My projection system is willing to concede Nevada to Hillary while still confidently predicting an overall Trump win. Why? Nevada is populated mostly by godless heathens who enjoy gambling, prostitution, and illicit drug use. Nevada is a state full of two kinds of people: voyeuristic thrill-seekers with addiction-prone personalities, and hard-working folks employed at casinos and brothels so that these thrills are possible in the first place. The latter category of people will overwhelmingly vote for Trump but won't be able to make it to the polls, as they will be too busy cleaning up the messes and bodily fluids of Hillary's supporters in Nevada. Because of this, I anticipate low turnout from the Trump crowd, flipping Nevada to Clinton.

Colorado (9) -- Hillary

Colorado will go to Clinton for similar reasons. It is hard to see a state that legalized marijuana voting for Trump, a man that has promised to bring work-ethic back to America after 8 years of democratic malaise and indolence. Meanwhile, a recent poll of registered voters shows 61% of Colorado residents believe pot legalization has had a positive impact on their state. There's no hope for these people, folks.

Arizona (11) -- Trump

Trump is a lock in Arizona. The folks of Arizona witness the chaos of America's broken borders firsthand on a day-to-day basis. They know we need the wall, and they want Trump on that wall. They know about the massive Keynesian economic stimulus that building the wall will bring to their state. Arizona is tired of politically-correct losers like John McCain who can't get Obamacare repealed and are afraid of launching a full Congressional investigation into Hillary's body double. They're ready for Trump.

Iowa (6) -- Trump

Expect Trump to eke out Iowa in a nail-biter. Expect Crooked Hillary to perform well with the spoiled college students of Iowa City and Ames. Expect Donald to perform better with the beautiful state's forgotten rural areas, where the hard-working folks who farm our nation's corn, soybeans and pork make their living off the land. Iowa's humble farmers want to bring agriculture jobs back to their home state, and they know Trump is the man to do it. The polls show it. A completely representative and not cherry-picked poll from Dubuque, Iowa's Loras College found that:

A clear majority (57 percent) of likely voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, with less than a third of respondents (28 percent) indicating they believe the country is on the right track.[source]

Iowans who hail from quiet towns like Aplington, Malvern, and Mount Sterling are furious. They're pessimistic about the direction of the country under President Obama and his cronies Clinton and Kaine. Why? Because the continued automation of agriculture jobs is hurting their pocketbooks and their job prospects. Iowans have no love for robots, or for robot-loving politicians like Hillary Clinton. Iowan farmhands who fear losing their jobs to automation will never trust a woman who used computers to email on the job and supported Obama's unconstitutional drone war. Put your money on Trump to come up big in the Hawkeye State.

Wisconsin (10) -- Trump

Wisconsin is a perfect fit for Trump. I've written about that here. Wisconsin is overwhelmingly preoccupied on a single issue: the future of their public educational system, with polls showing that education is at the forefront of every Wisconsin voter's mind [source].

Thanks to Scott Walker and Paul Ryan's austerity agenda, Wisconsin's public schools have been devastated. Teacher strikes and protests are a constant fixture in Wisconsin these days, due to the failure of Walker and Ryan's brand of conservatism. Wisconsin wants a man with a strong background in education, who can turn the decline of the state's schools around. Fortunately, Trump is a man with strong credentials on education. Folks of Wisconsin will be aware of the wild success of Trump University. They know that an outsider's perspective is needed to Make Our Public Schools Great Again. Wisconsin leans firmly in Trump's favor.

Michigan (16) -- Trump

This prediction is going to make the nerds laugh out loud. As of writing this article, Nate Silver's math machine overwhelmingly predicts that Clinton will carry Michigan.

However, let's not forget the last time Nate Silver made a prediction about Michigan.

That's right: old Nate gave Hillary a 99% chance of winning the Michigan Democratic primary, which turned out to be an epic Bernie Sanders victory.

Folks, Nate Silver is about to be wrong about Michigan all over again. You couldn't build a state more favorable to Trump than Michigan. Folks want their auto jobs back. They have born witness to the dangers of illegal Canadian immigration and love Trump's hard-nosed deportation policies.

More importantly, two factors lead me to place Michigan comfortably in Trump's column.

First, Michigan is experiencing an influx of Chic-fil-A restaurants. That bodes well for Trump. Liberals despise Chic-fil-A for not adhering to the globalist, politically-correct, anti-Christian consensus of the modern left. The fact that this beloved chicken franchise is taking root in a formerly blue state shows that Hillary can't get overconfident here.

Second, Trump has received some key endorsements from important figures in Michigan culture. Tom Brady, Michigan Man and Wolverine legend, said "it would be great" if Trump became president. Jim Harbaugh, by far the most popular man in the entire state, praised Trump for not being afraid "to fight the establishment" [source]. Here's a chart that visualizes my own proprietary polling data on the favorability of Brady and Harbaugh relative to Hillary:

As you can see, Trump is poised to benefit from a huge polling bounce in Michigan thanks to his popular surrogates, Brady and Harbaugh. Take it to the bank: Trump will win the Mitten State.

Ohio (18) -- Trump

As a Danville native, I'm familiar with the cultural climate of neighboring Ohio. Now that Cleveland's Cavaliers and Indians have gotten a taste of winning, the state of Ohio is ready move on to the main course by hopping aboard the Trump Train. Yet, all is not well in the state of LeBron. Ohio-area Big Boy restaurants have taken a beating over the years since the departure of jobs from NAFTA. You can't even order a Swiss Miss without a tear falling onto the rye bun these days.

Fortunately for Ohioans, a centerpiece of Trump's economic plan is to revitalize our nation's family-friendly dining experience. Trump has proposed a wave of Trump tariffs to be imposed on foreign competitors like Mexico and China. This plan would ensure that Big Boy will once again be protected from cheap foreign competitors like Chipotle. Trump will ride this economic plan to a crucial victory in Ohio.

Pennsylvania (20) -- Trump

Multiple indicators point to a Trump win in Pennsylvania, a pivotal state that Clinton needs to win. Pennsylvania is a state that is down on it's luck: the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia 76ers were both bottom-dwelling last-place teams this season, with the Eagles and Flyers not giving much reason for optimism either. The city has hit rock bottom. The hard-working people of Philly know that America needs a new direction. They'll go for Trump.

Florida (29) -- Trump

For many years, the good folks in sunny Florida have been cursed with Rick Scott, a sickly looking RINO governor that resembles Michael Stipe. The last thing they want is a sickly and diseased President Hillary Clinton, who is very secretive about her numerous grave medical conditions. Florida wants a man who embodies vitality, vigor, energy, and dynamism. They want Trump.

CONCLUSION

The TWTW Election Model draws upon a robust selection of anecdotes spanning across a number of fields. The 538 model doesn't give you the whole picture, folks. Most mainstream election forecasts rely on telephone polls, which are notoriously unreliable insofar as they over-sample Americans who own government-subsidized Obamaphones. The TWTW model on the other hand, utilizes contextual factors unique to each state (like the favorability of athletes or the presence of certain fried chicken franchises). The broad array of indicators surveyed here lead me to predict a Trump victory with the utmost confidence. Come November, the TWTW model will be vindicated while Nate Silver's incompetence is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, once and for all.

Trump's groundgame isn't in a computer, it's in our hearts.

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 7, 2016

The TWTW Election Model is based on anecdotes and interviews with 0 or more randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the direction of Will Hart.  The survey includes results among roughly 3-6 likely voters from Danville, Kentucky.