Just pick the winners. That’s the overarching strategy of the Outback Bowl. While seemingly simple, the Outbackers take drastically different paths to arrive at their picks. Until a court or the Grim Reaper cajole me, my proprietary algorithms (with a mixed record of results) will remain a secret. So the sauces will stay secret, but we can decompose the recent batch of picks using several heuristics.

• Pick the Home Team: Home teams win ~55% of NFL games (although home field advantage has generally declined in recent years)
• Fade the Losers: Assume the worst teams really suck
• Load up on Winners: Assume the best teams are really good
• Live (or Die) by the Islands: The island boi life is not for everyone

Pick the Home Team

Historically, Bryant loves the home team, and it’s no different this year. But Bryant is also (narrowly) the worst when picking the home team.

Oubacker	Hist. Home Picks	Hist. Home Win Rate	2024 Home Picks
DBB	75.8%	58.9%	71.3%
GLG	62.0%	59.7%	63.2%
TPP	61.6%	61.8%	57.0%
RAS	57.9%	60.1%	55.9%

Maybe Bryant should keep an open mind to road teams, as he has the highest road hit rate and is the only player to have a better road win rate than home win rate. I’m no road dog, with the worst hit rate on road picks.

Oubacker	Hist. Road Picks	Hist. Road Win Rate	2024 Road Picks
DBB	24.2%	60.9%	28.7%
GLG	38.0%	55.1%	36.8%
TPP	36.4%	58.1%	43.0%
RAS	42.1%	53.8%	44.1%

Fade the Losers

Using ESPN’s latest power rankings, we’ll see who faded the losers the most:

Team	Power Rank	GLG	TPP	DBB	RAS	Vegas
CAR	32	1	0	3	0	5.5
DEN	31	2	4	4	2	5.5
NE	30	0	0	2	1	4.5
ARI	29	1	3	9	4	7.5
WAS	28	3	5	4	1	6.5
TOTAL WINS		7	12	22	8	29.5

Load up on the Winners

And now the top 5 teams from the power rankings:

Team	Power Rank	GLG	TPP	DBB	RAS	Vegas
KC	1	16	16	15	17	11.5
BAL	2	14	15	11	15	10.5
SF	3	16	17	11	16	11.5
DET	4	14	15	13	14	10.5
PHI	5	15	13	13	10	10.5
TOTAL WINS		75	76	63	72	54.5
2024 (current)

Live (or Die) by the Islands

In Outback history, it’s generally been die, as the player with the most islands has come in (or tied for) last every year. Tom rarely finds himself on an island and is the only player with a lifetime positive net on islands.

Oubacker	Hist. Island Win Rate	Hist. Island % of Games	2024 Island Picks
TPP	54.7%	5.4%	18 (6.6%)
DBB	50%	7.3%	39 (14.3%)
RAS	44.9%	17.3%	18 (6.6%)
GLG	37.6%	7.4%	7 (2.9%)

The inverse of the islands – the mainland lifestyle – had become more prevalent. We’ve conformed (all pick the same team) more in recent years, as ~70% of all games have the same pick. But this year is the second lowest rate, with 2018 as only lower season.

Season	Games with All Same Pick
2018	53.2%
2019	60.2%
2020	64.5%
2021	69.9% (nice)
2022	72.4%
2023	70.2%
2024 (current)	55.5%

Here are the pairwise games different for this year.

Outbackers	GLG	TPP	DBB	RAS
GLG	0	49	70	56
TPP	49	0	87	59
DBB	70	87	0	80
RAS	56	59	80	0

Wins by Team

Finally, here are the picks for every team compared to their Vegas win totals.