Science

Sugar Bowl 2019 Predictions: Who Will Win Texas vs. Georgia?

A "swarm" of 31 college football experts have worked together as a hive mind to make their prediction.

by T.E. Andrews
Texas Football Instagram

Two of college football’s heavyweight programs converge on The Big Easy in tonight’s Sugar Bowl, which pits Texas against Georgia. Both of these teams enjoyed success against playoff participants Oklahoma and Alabama, respectively, but missed out on a trip to the postseason tournament.

In his second season in Austin, Texas head coach Tom Herman began showing the kind of promise that enticed the Longhorns to hire him in the first place, delivering a 9-4 season record including a regular-season win over hated rival Oklahoma and a trip to the Big XII title game, where Texas lost the rematch to the Sooners. If it weren’t for a pair of consecutive midseason losses to Oklahoma State and West Virginia, Texas would have been firmly in the playoff discussion before the loss to OU.

In the other corner, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and his pageboy haircut turned in another excellent season – but just can’t seem to find a way past Alabama. This is no knock on Smart or Georgia – other than Clemson, no one has come closer to dethroning Emperor Saban, who awaits would-be challengers to the throne like Bowser lurking on the final level of a Mario video game, with an army of five-star goombas.

The Bulldogs compiled an 11-1 record in the regular season before making it to Atlanta, where they once again lost to Alabama in the SEC title game, a year removed from a heartbreaking loss in an instant-classic title game against Alabama in the College Football Playoff.

Which brings us to tonight’s game. The Longhorns look like they are on the verge of Being Back. OK. Cool. Hook ‘em?. In the words of the immortal Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend.

Vegas likes the Bulldogs by two (!!) scores in this one, and we agree. Texas may be well on its way to Being Back, but the Longhorns still look a year away to our eyes. Meanwhile, Georgia may not have broken through against Alabama just yet, but looks like the only team outside of Clemson with the horses to potentially stem the rolling Tide.

At any rate, the Bulldogs will get a chance to back up their tweets with action after making noise on Twitter about the selection committee’s decision to exclude them from the playoff. Attack the day. Georgia 38, Texas 27, is my prediction, but how does a hive-mind of college football experts predict this one turning out?

To predict the result of this college bowl game match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence. A “swarm” of 31 college football enthusiasts worked together as a hive-mind to make their prediction, and as you can see in the animation below, each participant controlled a golden magnet and used it to drag the puck toward the result they thought was the most likely outcome. This is where it gets interesting: As a user sees the puck move toward a particular decision, it triggers a psychological response. They might readjust their thinking as the group builds toward a consensus. It’s an artificial intelligence, produced by human brains, working together as a swarm.

As the swarm replay above shows, the hive-mind of 31 college football experts has high confidence that Georgia will win against Texas in the 2019 Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day.

Texas plays Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl at 8:45 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. The game is at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, and will be broadcast on ESPN.

Here’s how Unanimous A.I. has predicted NFL games this season.

Unanimous A.I. has made some scarily accurate predictions in the past using swarm intelligence, as our this article explains. For instance, the swarm picked this year’s Oscar winners with 94 percent accuracy. Here’s Unanimous A.I. founder Louis Rosenberg explaining swarm intelligence at a recent TEDx Talk:

Want to join the hive mind that picks NFL matches every week? Sign up to participate in future predictions.

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