Category Archives: bowl predictions

Bowl Predictions 2013: Week 3

They’re up at the usual place. Some quick hits:

  • I’m predicting a 3-way tie at the top of the AAC, so that’s why I have Louisville as that conference’s team in the BCS.
  • It looks pretty likely right now a non-AQ team will finish in the top 16 and ahead of the champion of the AAC. Fresno State is currently ranked higher, but I think Northern Illinois is a better team. (At the very least, they have a better “marquee” win in Iowa.) I think Fresno has a better chance to lose at some point. NIU’s better schedule may allow them to pass Fresno anyway.
  • Some folks have Notre Dame in the BCS, but I can’t see that happening unless they somehow beat Stanford. Also, I think BYU will give the Irish a hard time. But a 2-loss Notre Dame would probably knock Clemson out of the BCS.
  • As we barrel toward the end of the year, the remaining important matchups start to come to the fore, beginning this week. On Thursday alone we’ll have Oregon vs. Stanford and Oklahoma vs. Baylor, and then LSU vs. Alabama on Saturday.

So, stay tuned. I may even start looking for news next week!

Bowl Predictions 2013: Week 2

This one’s going to be quick. As usual, you can find them here.

  • I had to relent and put Fresno in. I give them a slight edge over NIU because the MWC is probably perceived to be a better conference than the MAC. 
  • Yes, this whole exercise was obvious to get Northern Illinois and Illinois to play each other in Detroit.
  • Avoiding some repeat destinations for bowl teams right now is difficult. For instance, I had a hard time not sending Georgia Tech to the Sun Bowl for the third year in a row. I also have South Carolina making a repeat trip to the Outback Bowl. There’s probably more at this point, but I’ll start worrying about them in the coming weeks.

That’s all I have time for, so tune in next week to see how things shake out.

Bowl Predictions 2013: Week 1

And… we’re back! I’ll start out with a description of my process, and then we’ll do the overview. As usual, you can get the predictions here.

Background

Even though I wait until the BCS Standings come out to do my initial round of predictions, the first several weeks still involve a lot of guesswork. I start by basically looking at every team with a shot at bowl eligibility and then trying to figure out if which of the rest of their games they will win. For those who read my weekend previews, you probably know I’m not very good at the predicting part, so the predictions can change pretty wildly in the first couple weeks as teams pull off unexpected upsets, get upset themselves, etc. By the nature of having this many bowl games, most teams will have 6 to 8 wins, which means that their seasons can change quickly, or maybe a team that I thought will have five wins ends up pulling off an upset that propels them to 6 or 7 wins. There’s also the undercurrent of BCS busters, which I’ll get to below.

As we get closer to the end, there’s a) less guessing and b) some reporting. Around Thanksgiving, team beat writers start writing about possible bowl destinations for their teams. Doing this research helps me refine the predictions greatly, as they’re usually talking to bowl officials and athletic directors, allowing them to get wind of any shenanigans that may go down (and trust me, they have gone down in the past). Since this requires access, team bloggers are usually not a great source for this. (And don’t even get me started on the Bleacher Report, which wrecks my Google search results unless I exclude them.)

So that’s that. I’ll start where I usually do, but this year it’ll be for the last time: the BCS.

BCS

I have Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State running the table. As with most other experts I’ve seen, I think Oregon’s backloaded strength of schedule will allow them to pass Florida State in the computers. So let’s pencil in Alabama and Oregon to go to Pasadena. The other automatic slots are filled out thusly: Ohio State to the Rose, Oklahoma to the Fiesta, and Florida State to the Orange.

From there, first, the Sugar and Rose bowls get the first pick of the remaining eligible BCS teams. I have them going with Auburn. If Auburn’s only other loss this season is to Alabama, then they will probably be in a better position to get a BCS berth than Missouri, though I’ve been wrong about that sort of thing in the past. I also like Stanford to get a BCS at-large bid with two losses, and take Oregon’s place in the Rose Bowl.

Then we go Orange, Sugar, Fiesta for the remaining spots. The Big Ten looks two weak this year to get 2 BCS bids, so the other conferences will have to pick up the lack. For that reason, I have a 1-loss Baylor getting an invite to the Orange Bowl (that loss is to Oklahoma). I then put Clemson in the Sugar bowl, who could very well finish the season with just one loss. And finally, the American champion will go to the Fiesta. I currently have Louisville recovering to win the conference anyway.

So what about BCS busters? Northern Illinois and Fresno State are both likely candidates, and they are currently 17th and 18th in the standings. Louisville is currently 20th. However, Louisville could probably pass them and maybe get into the top 12 if they don’t lose again, which would block the BCS busters. However, if Louisville loses again, it is game on to see if any mid-major can finish in the top 16.

ACC

It looks to be a strong year for the ACC in terms of sending teams to bowl bids. They may only come up short if the conference places two teams in the BCS, which it still has never done.

  • Miami could well finish with two losses to Florida State, which I think will knock them out of contention for a BCS bid. They go to the Chick-fil-a Bowl.
  • They way their defense is playing, VPI could still win the ACC Coastal, but I currently have Miami beating them. This puts them in the Russell Athletic Bowl.
  • Finally given the opportunity to do so, the conference sends someone other than Georgia Tech to the Sun Bowl. In this scenario, that’s Boston College.
  • Thanks to an awful out-of-conference schedule, Maryland could very well make a bowl game while going 2-6 in conference. In fact, I have them doing exactly that. I was thinking they’d get the shaft in terms of a bowl destination, what with leaving the conference and all, but as it turns out they slot right into the Military Bowl, due to be played in Annapolis, Maryland this year. Dang.

American

I barely consider the AAC worth talking about, but they do still have a BCS auto-bid. Anyway, I think UCF is going to drop a couple games and that Louisville is going to win the conference anyway. As outlined above, the most interesting question is whether the champion of the American will finish high enough to prevent any BCS busters.

Big 12

Baylor’s next two games are against Oklahoma and Texas Tech, so we’re going to know a lot more about those three teams two weeks from now. For now, I have Baylor and Texas Tech losing some games and Oklahoma recovering to win the conference. I have TCU just missing out, so that’s a team to watch to see if they can score that 6th win.

Big Ten

As with last year, the Leaders division is Ohio State, Wisconsin, and then everyone else. At least Ohio State can go to a bowl this year. I have Nebraska as the champ from the Legends, which implies that I think they’ll beat Michigan. I do currently have Nebraska as making a return trip to the Capital One Bowl, so that could very easily be Wisconsin or Michigan there, depending on how things goes.

Pac-12

I actually have an extra Pac-12 team, even with Oregon and Stanford both going to the BCS: Utah. Of course, I may have been somewhat optimistic putting USC in a bowl game at all, and even that optimistic prediction has them at 6-6. And haters take note: despite playing nine conference games, 9 of the 12 teams could be bowl eligible (possibly 10, even, if Wazzou can eke out two more wins).

SEC

So I have Missouri winning the SEC East, and I don’t feel good about it at all. But everyone else in the SEC East has managed to face plant so far, so what other course am I left with? I even have them suffering at least one loss (probably to South Carolina) just because I can’t really fathom them going undefeated. And Auburn in a BCS game? Madness. Last year the SEC was easy: you had Alabama, TAMU, and Georgia at the top, a bunch of medicore teams, and then Ole Miss, Auburn, and Mizzou (oh, and yeah, Kentucky). This year it’s more like Alabama, everyone else, and then Kentucky.

Everyone else

From the independents, I don’t see Notre Dame making a BCS game at 9-3 (and they’re not even ranked right now), so I currently can only slot them in the Pinstripe Bowl? I’ll have to check in on that. I see BYU and Navy (the latter barely) making it.

From the mid-major conferences, I talked about the BCS busters at length above. It looks like we probably won’t have a shortage of teams this year, as the Sun Belt and MAC look like they’ll have plenty of extra teams to spare. The MAC especially is looking like it’ll be a good fight. MACtion Tuesdays can’t get here fast enough.

So that’s all until next week, when everything will surely be different.

Bowl Games 2012: Aftermath

I’ve uploaded the final iteration of the predictions. I went 20-15 this bowl season, which isn’t great but it’s not terrible either. Unfortunately for us all, I was almost entirely wrong about the BCS title game, but those are the breaks I guess.

So that’s that! As usual, what little activity there is here will decrease until next fall, but at this year we also have World Cup qualifying to keep us on our toes. Also, I have an idea of another research article along the same vein as this one. So until then…

Bowl Games 2012: The Last One

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Monday, January 7
8:30: Notre Dame vs. Alabama (BCS Championship Game @ Miami Gardens, FL; ESPN): Here we are, once again. I have Alabama winning 17-10, and for once, I feel pretty good about that. Why? Well, I’m not sure. Alabama’s offense is actually a little underrated if you ask me – this isn’t a team that scrapes out 10-7 games. The fewest points they’ve scored all year was in Baton Rouge against LSU, where they won 21-17. They’ve had only two other close games all year. The first was, of course, the 29-24 loss to Texas A&M. The second was the 32-28 win against Georgia in the SEC championship. Alabama basically won both those close games in the final minute, scoring the go-ahead touchdown against LSU with 51 seconds to go and not clinching the SEC title game until UGA’s receive fell down in the field of play with less than 10 seconds to go on first and goal. In the TAMU game, Bama got within six yards before throwing an interception on 4th and goal with less than two minutes to go. So, basically, to beat Alabama you need a mobile, Heisman winning quarterback and/or an elite defense.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, has no losses of course. However, their offense is lackluster, ranking 75th in the nation in scoring offense. However, when your opponents only score 10.3 points a game, it doesn’t take a lot outscore them. Notre Dame had three close games this season. The first was a 20-17 scare against Purdue on September 8. I’m willing to give that one a pass. The next was the overtime win against Stanford in October, which I think now is, safe to say, Notre Dame’s best win of the year. Stanford also sports a very good defense with a lackluster, workmanlike offense, and the game went into overtime 13-13. From there, the Irish defense, in one of the most controversial calls of the season, stopped Stanford on fourth and goal in the first overtime to seal the win. They had a small scare against BYU the next week, but the winning points were scored with over 12 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. The Irish’s second best win of the year was sealed the next week in Norman. The game was tied 13-13 with 9:10 to go, and then the Irish scored 17 straight points to stay unbeaten. The biggest scare of the season was, of course, the triple overtime win against Pitt. Notre Dame tied the game with 2:11 to go and held on through the first two overtimes until finally getting the winning touchdown. The USC game was close for a while, but ND never trailed after leading 3-0 less than 5 minutes into the game.
So what does this say? I’m not a SEC homer, but I don’t think it’s much of a reach to say that Alabama played a tougher schedule than Notre Dame did. The only other elite defense ND has really faced so far this year was Stanford’s. I think the Domers can give Alabama trouble with their defense, but the Alabama offense has just been that much better over the course against the season against tougher competition. While Everett Golson does provide some mobility to escape the pass rush, I also don’t think I’m going out on much of a limb to say he’s not Johnny Manziel. If this game really does come down to old-school, smash mouth football, well, that’s really playing right into Nick Saban and Alabama’s hands.
Previous meetings: Considering these are two of college football’s most storied teams, they have only met six times. The first meeting wasn’t actually until 1973 in the Sugar Bowl. Notre Dame won, 24-23. They had two more meetings in the 70’s. On New Year’s Day in 1975, they met again in the Orange Bowl and Notre Dame won again, 13-11. In 1976, they met in the regular season in South Bend, and the Tide lost again, 21-18. Four years later in Birmingham, the Tide still had no luck and lost 7-0. In 1986 and again in Birmingham, the Tide got their first and only win in the series so far, a solid 28-10 victory. Their last meeting was in 1987, when Alabama made the return trip to South Bend and lost in convincing fashion, 37-6. So, oddly, that also means all six previous meetings between these two happened in a span of 12 years. Again, odd.
Last bowl game: This is Alabama’s ninth straight bowl game, dating back to 2004 when they lost in the Music City Bowl to Minnesota, 20-16. As many will recall, they won last year’s BCS Championship Game against LSU, 21-0. This is the Irish’s third straight bowl game. They lost to Florida State in last year’s Champs Sports Bowl, 18-14.
Announcers: Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit
Fun facts: I was going to have the reason why they’re called the “Fighting Irish” here, but it turns out no one really knows for certain but that any of the interesting stories you’ve heard of probably aren’t true. Unfortunately, that’s not a terribly fun fact. Sorry.