Monthly Archives: November 2014

This Weekend in College Football: Week 11

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

  • Georgia @ Kentucky (ESPN): I still have no idea what happened to Georgia last week, but suffice it to say, I don’t envy Kentucky right now.
  • Iowa @ Minnesota (ESPN2): Minnesota! You were having such a nice little season, and then you had to go lose to Illinois. Oof. Iowa, meanwhile, managed to score 48 (48!) points against Northwestern last weekend, surely making several Iowa fans dizzy in the process. I’m giving a slight edge to Iowa.
  • Wisconsin @ Purdue (ESPNU): This one might get ugly for the Boilermakers.
  • Baylor @ Oklahoma (FS1): I’m not entirely what’s going to happen in this one. Looking at the stats, these teams are pretty even, but Oklahoma has one more loss. I consider this a tossup, basically. I’m going with a minor upset for the Sooners.
  • Texas-San Antonio @ Rice (FSN): It’s hard to see how UTSA has much of a chance here, but the advanced stats say this is about even. I guess we’ll have to just wait to find out.
  • Southern Methodist @ Tulsa (CBSS): This is probably SMU’s best remaining chance to win a game this year, but I’m not seeing it.
  • Pennsylvania State @ Indiana (BTN): Penn State has now lost four straight, but I still have them as slight favorites over the Hooisers.

12:30:

  • Georgia Tech @ North Carolina State (ACC): NC State managed to reverse their four game slide finally with a touchdown win over Syracuse. Meanwhile, GT is coming off their most complete effort since the Miami game, dominating an inferior Virginia team from start to finish.
    The main worry for us is going to be NC State’s dynamic Jocaby Brissett, who could certainly do plenty to exploit our defense. The defense played better against Virginia last week, but they were arguably one of the worst offensive teams we’ve played all season. Watching the game, the UVA offense did very little to help itself.
    On paper, the NC State defense looks overmatched, sporting one of the worst run defenses in the country. The key for the Jackets will be to take advantage of this and, as usual, give the defense plenty of room.
  • Duke @ Syracuse (ACC/RSN): It’s hard to see how Syracuse will keep up with Duke.

3:30:

  • Notre Dame @ Arizona State (ABC): I’ve had Notre Dame losing this game in my bowl predictions for several weeks, so I’m not going to back down now.
  • Texas Agricultural and Mechanical @ Auburn (CBS): It’s hard to see how TAMU is going to win this one.
  • Michigan @ Northwestern (ESPN2): I wouldn’t expect a lot of points in this one. Michigan also needs this one pretty badly to get to a bowl, so I’m sort of thinking that means they probably won’t get it.
  • West Virginia @ Texas (FS1): It’s hard to see how Texas is going to score enough points to keep up with the Mountaineers.
  • Tulane @ Houston (ESPNU): Tulane just isn’t very good.
  • Iowa State @ Kansas (FSN): I wouldn’t recommend watching this one. Iowa State is slightly less awful, though.
  • Connecticut vs. Army (@New York, NY; CBSS): UConn had an out-of-nowhere upset of Central Florida last weekend. If they lose to Army, it won’t be out-of-nowhere, per se, but it would still be pretty surprising.

4:00: Washington State @ Oregon State (Pac12): I wouldn’t have had Wazzou has a favorite before one of their all-time best quarterbacks broke his leg last week, so…

6:30: Virginia @ Florida State (ESPN): Florida State will have to work pretty hard to inject any drama into this one.

7:00:

  • California-Los Angeles @ Washington (FS1): UCLA upset Arizona last weekend, but nonetheless they remain a solidly “good” team. I think UDub could give them some problems but I still have the Bruins in the end.
  • Hawaii @ Colorado State (ESPNU): Of the many teams hoping for a shot at the Group of Five slot for the big money bowls, Colorado State was definitely helped by East Carolina’s loss last weekend. Problem is, their loss to was to another team vying for that slot: Boise State. Either way, no big problems are anticipated for them against Hawaii.
  • Boise State @ New Mexico (CBSS): I’ll give Bob Davie credit for sticking his what he said when he was a commentator and indeed running a spread option offense at New Mexico. Other than that, I got nothing for this, Boise should win easily.

7:15: Louisville @ Boston College (ESPN2): Boston College may be the most surprising 6-3 team in college football, but I think they’ll probably drop to a slightly less surprising 6-4 after this.

7:30:

  • Kansas State @ Texas Christian (FOX): This is one is a tossup to me. I think these are both pretty good teams with good offenses. Kansas State has a better defense, but TCU’s offense is that much better than K-State’s. I’m basically guessing TCU.
  • Florida @ Vanderbilt (SEC): I figured Florida would win this one regardless, but boy howdy was that game against Georgia satisfying to watch.

8:00

  • Ohio State @ Michigan State (ABC): This one projects to be close, but honestly, I like Sparty a lot here. Michigan State has just been more well-tested than the Buckeyes. Keep an eye on it, though.
  • Alabama @ Louisiana State (CBS): Game of the day, most likely. Did you know that Les Miles is the only current SEC coach to have beaten Nick Saban twice? Of course, that fact is somewhat tempered by the fact that a lot of SEC coaches haven’t been around long enough to try to beat Saban twice, but still, at night, in Baton Rogue, it’s all about the Les Miles Reality Distortion Field. What could happen? I have no idea. But I’m going with Alabama anyway.
  • Colorado @ Arizona (Pac12): The Buffs have zero conference wins so far, and with their remaining schedule being Arizona, Oregon, and Utah that doesn’t figure to change.

10:00: Oregon @ Utah (ESPN): Since their loss to Arizona over a month ago, Oregon has done a lot more to look like a top team than they did up to that point, culminating last week’s demolition of Stanford. Utah has certainly been game this season in the Pac-12, but it’s hard to see them keeping up with the Ducks.

10:30: San Jose State @ Fresno State (CBSS): Why should you stay up to watch two sub-.500 Moutain West teams play? I have no idea, but hey, this one should be close. Giving a slight edge to the Spartans.

Bowl Predictions 2014: Week 3

Okay, as announced previously the predictions are up. Since it’s so late in the week already I’m not going to go too deep into it this time, though there haven’t been any results that would change anything.

The Playoff
The one thing is that I don’t really care for waiting around until Tuesday for the CFP Poll to be released. Also, since I’m doing a predictive set of, well, predictions the poll doesn’t contain that much relevance to me.

What relevance I can try to glean, though, is perhaps how the committee thinks. Right now, the committee’s top 10 is:

  1. Mississippi State
  2. Florida State
  3. Auburn
  4. Oregon
  5. Alabama
  6. Texas Christian
  7. Kansas State
  8. Michigan State
  9. Arizona State
  10. Notre Dame

Which makes sense. The two undefeated teams are at the time, followed by a pretty defensible ranking of the 1-loss teams. I don’t think anyone is screaming bloody murder about this, except for maybe Notre Dame fans. (As the joke goes, though, Notre Dame’s best “win” might be their narrow loss to Florida State.)

So what can we tell, though? Well, most metrics have Mississippi State as a better team than Florida State. In fact, many advanced stats don’t think very highly of FSU at all. This definitely isn’t last year’s utterly dominant FSU team. Last year FSU had only one game decided by less than a touchdown: the win over Auburn in Pasadena.This year, they’ve had two, and Clemson took them to the brink. (If anything, Clemson probably should have won that game.) The main difference is the defense, which simply suffocated opposing offenses, while this year they have been slightly more porous.

That said, Miss State has been somewhat shaky since their dog became the top in college football. After a decisive win over Auburn in early October, the Bulldogs have since struggled a little with Kentucky and Arkansas.

But, again, these are major college football’s only two undefeated teams, and any poll conducted by humans is going to put them at the top. I can’t blame them for that.

And again, what I’m interested in is what will happen.

My prediction for the end-of-season top six is:

  1. Florida State, as the only undefeated team left
  2. Alabama, as SEC champions, having beaten Mississippi State and Auburn
  3. Mississippi State, with their only loss being to Alabama
  4. Oregon, Pac-12 champions and a win over Michigan State (and necessarily Arizona State)
  5. Michigan State, Big Ten champions (best predicted wins: Nebraska twice, Ohio State)
  6. Kansas State, Big 12 champions (best predicted wins: TCU and Baylor)

Obviously, a lot can change between then and now. But the conventional wisdom seems to be that the committee is valuing best wins over best losses, and if that holds, then I think my top six is reasonable.

Filling out the other “access bowls” remains difficult. I will probably switch out Clemson for Duke at some point. I still have East Carolina as the Group of Five representative, because I have no clue who to put there even though they lost to Temple.

I need to work on the weekend TV guide, so I will eschew the conference breakdowns this week.

The Hat Has a Great Want For You To Exercise Your Suffrage

The official transcription from Les Miles on our civic duty to vote. pic.twitter.com/C80CACKzIF
— Robert Stewart (@TigerRagRobert) November 3, 2014

We need to invent that Futurama head-in-a-jar technology for Les Miles, because I need him to coach football forever.

I keep trying to figure out how I would describe him to someone who doesn’t pay attention to college football. I think I would probably say, “he has a very interesting take on English vocabulary, syntax, and grammar”.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t link EDSBS’s take on this.

The bowl predictions are up, I’ll write about them in a bit.