Yearly Archives: 2009

My ACC Championship Game Adventure

Well, someone has to liveblog the ACC title game, right? While all the cool kids are off with their “undefeated teams” and “national title implications” I’ll be at the throbbing, vibrant heart of ACC football: Tampa, Florida.

Okay, perhaps not so much. But still, I’ll be there and updating – not this blog directly, but on those newfangled Twitter and Facebook things. If you already read this on FB, well, you’re good to go. If not, or you really like Twitter, you can follow me at asimsports.

Edit: Twitter updates will now also appear on the sidebar to the right.

Bowl Predictions: Week 7 Update (In Which Bobby Bowden Screws Half the ACC Over)

With a flurry of “unconfirmed” reports throughout the week, we have a semi-complete picture of the bowls heading into the weekend. As such, I’ve updated the predictions with any reports I felt were reasonably reliable. Note I have not otherwise changed anything that didn’t relate to a confirmation (for instance, with Auburn’s surprise Outback bid, I was able to put Tennessee in their likely destination, the Chick-fil-a, but I haven’t taken Notre Dame off the board despite most reports saying they’re not going bowling).

Let’s hit the high points of the changes, though you’ll have to do without links (for the most part):

  • As the headline might indicate, I’m as unhappy as everyone else in the ACC outside of Tallahassee about the Gator Bowl’s proposal to take 6-6 (4-4 in the ACC) FSU over basically anyone else. As you might recall from my post about the ACC’s bowl situation next year, one of the reasons for the Gator dropping the ACC was the conference’s bowl order selection rules, and apparently they’ve decided to stick it to the rest of the conference a year early. Articles over the past week have introduced a hitherto unknown rule that the bowls can opt out of the championship game loser 3 out of every 4 years, but I have yet to see any confirmation that this supersedes the conference’s one-loss rule. The Gator is arguing that it does, and thus they would probably banish the GT-Clemson loser to Nashville (perhaps “banish” is too strong, if there weren’t bowl “prestige” involved I’d rather go to Nashville over Jacksonville any day) as the Champs Sports will also take Miami using the same rule. I guess the Gator figures they’ll sell a lot of tickets, but if they do get their FSU-West Virginia matchup, any TV audience will be gone by the half. At any rate, I figured that next year’s mediocre SEC versus mediocre Big Ten matchup would make the Gator irrelevant, but it appears they want to get a head start on that.
  • Because of the chaos surrounding the Gator situation, very little is known about the rest of the ACC’s bowl situation, except that everyone still has the potential to get screwed. If Clemson loses the ACC title game, there is an outside chance the Chick-fil-a will grab them to set up a Clemson-Georgia matchup (as that is a minor rivalry game for both school that hasn’t been played since 2003), otherwise, we’ll probably get Virginia Tech and Tennessee. If the ACC title game loser doesn’t go to the Chick-fil-a (which, if Tech loses, they almost certainly won’t), they will fall all the way to the Music City, as described above. UNC is probably sitting the prettiest in this situation with a virtual lock on their customary Car Care Bowl bid (though I read at least one article that said they wanted to go to Florida this year, but thanks to FSU they probably won’t). The most screwed of all is perennial ACC bowl matchup loser Boston College, whose pretty good season will be rewarded with a trip to the Emerald Bowl. (I still don’t understand why, with no fewer than five actual football stadiums in the Bay Area they need to have a game in a baseball stadium, but that shows what I know.)
  • The Big 12 has no truly confirmed bids so far except Oklahoma State going to the Cotton. As a result, I’ve slotted Nebraska in the Holiday. Everything else is still up in the air, or at least I haven’t seen anything terribly reliable.
  • The Big East is also waiting for the results of its games Saturday, most of the guesses seem to be as good as mine.
  • The Big Ten also isn’t set, as they need to wait to make sure either Iowa or Penn State gets into the BCS. This also affects the Little Ceasars Bowl, because if neither get in (somehow) then they will pick up a Big Ten team. The only thing I know for sure is that Michigan State will not be going to Orlando.
  • The Pac-10’s bowls are waiting to see what happens this weekend, with most of the conference playing. It looks pretty likely the USC-Arizona winner will go to the Holiday, though.
  • The SEC, assured of two BCS bids, is pretty well set at this point. The Outback stunned everyone by taking Auburn, which caused a shakeup among the other teams in the middle of the SEC. I know for sure that Ole Miss will return to the Cotton, LSU will go to the Capital One. Less sure, but still pretty sure is that Arkansas will head to the Liberty Bowl and South Carolina will head to the papajohns.com Bowl. This leaves Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. They will probably head to the Independence, Chick-fil-a, and Music City bowls, respectively, but I haven’t seen anything firm enough to really call it.
  • As for everyone else, well, the MWC and WAC will probably the break they way I see it, though Utah and BYU could possibly switch places. I haven’t really seen anything regarding the destination of the various Sun Belt and MAC teams, as their fates will probably be determined which bowls end up needing at-large teams.

Anyway, I’ll update again tomorrow if anything changes. Otherwise, I will try to post my last set of destination predictions before the final BCS standings are released Sunday night. As for my trip to Tampa? Well, hopefully Houston doesn’t get snowed on too badly.

This Weekend in College Football: Week 14

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Thursday
9:00: Oregon State @ Oregon (ESPN): The Civil War is back. On the line? A berth against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Cross-state rivalries don’t get much bigger than that. Add to the mix that this game is in Eugene, which is normally crazy but gets even crazier after dark. All year, I’ve felt that Oregon is one of the best teams in the Pac-10, with Oregon State in the echelon just slightly below the Ducks. I’ll stick to my guns here, but it could still be close. Worth watching, that’s for sure.

Friday
8:00: Central Michigan vs. Ohio (@Detroit, MI; ESPN2): (Author’s note: I just added the phrase “upset Temple” to my vocabulary so I can type the following sentence.) Ohio upset Temple Saturday to earn a berth in this game against everyone’s favorite mid-major Tebow, Dan LeFevour, as Central Michigan hopes to avoid being upset themselves a la Ball State in last year’s game. I don’t see that happening though.

Saturday
Noon:

  • Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh (ABC): It’s the de facto Big East title game featuring the guy Notre Dame should hire (Brian Kelly of Cincy) and the guy whoever Notre Dame hires is likely to resemble (Dave Wannstadt). Which is to say, I just don’t see how Cincy loses here, as has been foretold by numerous message board pundits. Cincy plays decent enough defense and is light-years ahead of Pitt offensively.
  • West Virginia @ Rutgers (ESPN): Despite Bill Stewart’s best efforts to the contrary, West Virginia will probably win this game.
  • Houston @ East Carolina (ESPN2): This (the Conference USA title game) may be the most exciting of the noon games, in all honestly. ECU is probably one of the more mature teams in C-USA, while we know Houston’s going to score a lot of points and not play a lot of defense. This one is hard to figure, though note that the game is at East Carolina. In the end, I’ll take the flashy Houston offense, and if I were a betting man (as you might guess from the quality of my predictions, I’m not) I’d take the over on this one, whatever it is.

12:30: Fresno State @ Illinois (BTN): Fresno should be able to put the Illni out of their misery.

3:30:

  • Arizona @ Southern California (ABC): Perhaps USC has its mojo back after Pete Carroll did everything but literally flip the bird to Rick Neuheisel last weekend? Can Arizona shake off the excitement from its own rivalry game (which they won on a last second FG)? I think USC will come out on top and salvage a Holiday Bowl bid in the process.
  • Carson-Newman @ Grand Valley State (ESPN): More playoffs (playoffs?!?), this time brought to you by Division II. If nothing else, they’ll give you something to watch until…

4:00: Florida vs. Alabama (@Atlanta, GA; CBS): And so it has come to pass. Florida versus Alabama. Atlanta. SEC title game. Is there anything that I can say about this game that hasn’t been said already? Those of you who’ve tracked my bowl predictions throughout the year have no doubt noted that I’ve projected Alabama to the title game in most of them. For most of the season, this made sense. My perception has been that Alabama has sort of cooly and professionally sailed through their SEC schedule while Florida has looked vulnerable several times and was willed to win by a stingy defense and Tebow-ian moxie. Of course, then rivalry weekend happened, and Alabama found itself trailing to Auburn most of the game while Florida took Bobby Bowden and FSU out behind the woodshed.
The funny thing about perceptions, though, is sometimes (read: most of the time) they’re not always accurate. In SEC play, Florida outscored its opponents by 15.625 points per game. Alabama outscored its opponents by 15.375 points per game. Both are in the top quarter of the conference in scoring and are, by far, the two stingiest defenses (10.625 pts/game for Alabama 12 pts/game for Florida) in the SEC.
So what does this mean? This means the game will probably live up to its billing: tight, low-scoring, yet exciting. And, somehow, writing this is making me renege on my bowl predictions. I’m picking the Gators.

8:00:

  • Nebraska vs. Texas (@Arlington, TX; ABC): I think we all know the expected result. Colt McCoy goes out there, completes 75% of his passes and runs for a bunch of yards. Yet while I’m fully aware of the disclaimers surrounding rivalry games (you might say I’m acutely aware of such things this year), Texas did struggle to put away Texas A&M and didn’t play that great of a defense. And, indeed, if there is any team in the Big 12 that can actually slow down Texas it would have to be Nebraska. The problem for Nebraska, of course, is that they themselves cannot score against Big 12 defense, which is pretty bad when you consider that they don’t get to play themselves. It’s hard to for me to go against the grain here.
  • Georgia Tech vs. Clemson (@Tampla, FL; ESPN): So, as you may or may not know, I am actually leaving SFO at 12:30 AM to go to Tampa for this game. I’ll try to update as I go along.
    At any rate, when Clemson lost to (and by “lost to”, I mean “got shellacked by”) South Carolina on Saturday I was ecstatic. With a victory over Georgia, Tech would have all the advantages going into the ACC title game and could be reasonably expected to win.
    Yeah, well, so much for that.
    So instead we have two teams coming off losses to bitter rivals (though at least Tech’s offense showed up, unlike Clemson’s) playing for a berth to the Orange Bowl. So you have to assume both teams are going to be ready to play. Tech won the first meeting, 30-27, by building up an early lead (24-7 at the half), squandering it, and then kicked a late field goal to win it in regulation. Since then, both teams have an appropriate number of all-conference players (Tech has the 1st team QB, RB, WR, and DE, Clemson has the ACC Player of the Year) and so there doesn’t figure to be a lack of offense for this game, especially given Tech’s major issues on defense.
    Speaking of said defense, so far the wisdom in Tech circles what used to be a decent rush defense (the pass defense has been a known liability all year, and indeed that was mechanism for Clemson’s rally in the first game) relates to mostly two things. The first is overpersuit by the linebackers, and the second is our defensive tackles just got manhandled. Suffice it to say, both have been known issues all year, but they really manifested themselves last weekend. So what can Tech do to counter Clemson’s weapons? Well, keep them off the field, for starters. Secondly, this means doing whatever South Carolina did to limit CJ Spiller to 18 yards on 9 carries (and 19 yards on 3 receptions). Tech was able to “contain” Spiller on the ground (87 yards on 20 carries), but got gashed through the air (4 receptions for 69 yards) the first time.
    At any rate, we’ll see how it goes. This weekend promises to be crazy, regardless of the result.
  • South Florida @ Connecticut (ESPN2): I’m as glad as anyone that UConn beat Notre Dame last weekend. (Indeed, if anyone deserved to get a win last weekend, it was UConn.) Unfortunately for them, they have to play USF this weekend, and I have to say I like the Bulls here.

8:30: California (PA) @ Northwest Missouri State (CBSCS): Just pushing more DII playoffs here, folks.

11:30: Wisconsin @ Hawaii (ESPN2): Hawaii could throw a spanner into the WAC bowl works by pulling off the upset here to get bowl eligible, but they probably won’t as long as Wisconsin takes their vacation at least somewhat seriously.

Like I said, I will be in Tampa this weekend! I may do a series of posts on my weekend, or maybe sign up on Twitter or something. We’ll see!

Bowl Predictions: Week 7

Well, this is the final week before the conference title games. I expect some bids to be announced this week, especially for bowls that more than likely know they’re going to need at-large teams.

With that said, let’s hit the last round of purely speculative predictions. You can find them in the usual place.

  • I could probably write a whole article on rivalry game upsets and my disappointment therein, but outside of our own blown chance the biggest loser from last weekend has to be Oklahoma State. Providing the best chance of the Big 12 getting two BCS bids this year (outside of a truly shocking upset Saturday), the Stillwater Cowboys fell flat on their face, losing 27-0 to the Sooners. With that upset, I had to relent and finally put Boise State into a BCS game, and I have a feeling the BCS may have to do the same.
  • Outside of that, the BCS selections are pretty standard. Alabama/Florida vs. Texas, the loser for the former going to the Sugar. The only really viable major at-large teams at this point are probably Iowa and Penn State, and though it pains me that either one will make it in, I have to go with the Team JoePa. I think the Fiesta will take one of those, the Orange will take Cincy, the Fieta picks up Boise and TCU is forced into the Sugar’s hands.
  • Thanks to Miss State’s upset of Ole Miss, I’ve put LSU back up at the Capital One slot. After that I really have no clue how the SEC shakes out, so what you see are reasonable guesses, I think.
  • The MAC will have two 7-5 teams, which will get slotted. MTSU is 9-3 and will have to grab an at-large spot as well. Notre Dame and UCLA are 6-6, so they will get whatver’s left, most likely.
  • I wonder if the Car Care bowl is cool with having the same matchup as last year? I don’t think any of the alternative are that palatable (i.e., FSU or BC from the ACC side or Rutgers instead of WVU).
  • Game I’d Rather See on the Hardwood: Connecticut versus Kentucky (papajohns.com Bowl).
  • Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: Well, there’s the UCF-USF game, but I also like USC-Oklahoma State. I’m not sure either are all that non-obvious, though.