Category Archives: bowl predictions

Bowl Predictions 2012: Week 1

It’s that time of year again, folks! This is where I try to predict the future. For the next month-and-a-half I will attempt to tell you where your team will go. After that, I then try to predict all the games. It’s difficult, but this is my 14th crack at this, so I like to think I know what I’m talking about.

Through the remainder of the fall, the predictions will always be available right here.

Anyway, let’s start by looking at the BCS picture.

BCS
Figuring this out is always the tough part. It requires weighing a multitude of factors and attempting to predict the mindset two disparate groups of people and a set of formulas. What I usually do is I sit down late Saturday or Sunday and try to basically predict what every team is going to do for the rest of the season. For the non-BCS leagues, this usually doesn’t impact anything unless there’s a BCS buster, which it doesn’t look like there will be (unless Boise State wins out, but I don’t seem them doing that). For the six “AQ” conferences, this means figuring out their champion and runners-up to see if they will end up with two losses or less.

This year that proved to be difficult. From where I sit right now, I don’t see any 1-loss major conference teams, other than Florida. I have Alabama and Oregon running the table, and thus, in the National Championship game. This means the Sugar and Rose bowls get first cracks at replacements from the pool of eligible teams. Notre Dame is the big prize, as they will likely be eligible as a BCS at-large for the first time in awhile as long as they have two losses or less. (I have them losing to Southern Cal and Oklahoma.) I would think the Sugar would jump at the chance to snag Notre Dame. The Rose will probably be able to pick from USC or Oregon State. Even though USC is local I have them going there for now. As the Big 12 champion, Oklahoma will go to the Fiesta Bowl, which has the first at-large team pick this year. I have Florida going there. The matchup for the Sugar is problematic. They will have to pick a team from the Big 12 since the ACC likely will not qualify two teams (and I doubt they would take them anyway) and the Big East is the Big East. For now, I have them taking my top 2-loss Big 12 team, West Virginia. From there, the Orange gets the ACC champ versus Big East champ yet again. Right now I have Florida State and Cincinnati penciled in.

ACC
With FSU winning the conference, that leaves Clemson as the clear second choice. It’s been a year since the Tigers were in Atlanta, so I’ll send them to the Chick-fil-a. (Also, the ACC bowl rules don’t leave much of a choice.) From there, things drop off rapidly. I have NC State going 8-4 and heading to the Russell Athletic (formerly Champ Sports) Bowl, and then a pair if 7-5 teams in VPI and Miami going to the Sun and Belk Bowls. Right now I have GT squeaking in at 6-6 and going to the Music City. Maryland falls just sort at 5-7 and UNC is ineligible even though I have them at 10-2. But, wait, what’s that? Yes, Duke is on the page. I have them going 5-7 and there’s a new set of eligibility rules. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Big East
I have Cincinnati winning the whole thing, followed by Louisville going to the Russell Athletic, and Rutgers going to the Belk. I bent over backwards to get UConn to 6-6 and put them in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Big Ten
As we all already know at this point, the Big Ten is a disaster this year. I have Ohio State winning out, but of course they’re not eligible, so they’re out. I also have Penn State going 6-6 but they’re also ineligible. So I have Michigan coming out on top and heading to Pasadena, with the usual assortment of teams behind them.

Big 12
Thanks to generous out-of-conference scheduling, 8 of the Big 12’s 10 teams will go bowling this year. I have Oklahoma going to the Fiesta and West Virginia going to the Sugar despite a late loss to Oklahoma. I know it seems unlikely right now but I still have Texas doing well over the rest of the season and going to the Cotton, while I’m not sure Kansas State is for real so I have them going to the Alamo.

Pac-12
Oregon and USC are probably BCS-bound, so that leaves out-of-nowhere 10-win Oregon State going to the Alamo. The most interesting matchup is probably Stanford-Baylor in the Holiday Bowl, which will be the “A Year Too Late Bowl” if that actually comes to pass.

SEC
I have Alabama and Florida going to the BCS. I think it’s probably unlikely, but it was too hard to resist putting Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl against Texas. (If it’s possible, I can’t imagine them not doing it though.) I have both South Carolina and Georgia at 10-2 and currently in the Capital One and Outback Bowls. Since that’s where they went last year, that could easily be flipped. I have Tennessee going 7-5, as well as Ole Miss and Vanderbilt going 6-6 to squeak in.

Everyone Else
I have Ohio running the table in the MAC, but unfortunately that won’t be enough to get them into the BCS picture. Conference USA is just brutal this year. What is usually a plentiful source of teams may only have four teams make it to six wins, though UCF and Tulsa could both win 10 games. If you look at the table, you may notice “UTSA??” and “Duke??”. What the double question marks mean is that they qualify under the new set of eligibility rules that area also detailed on the bowls page. Texas-San Antonio qualifies as a 6-6 or better team that is a transitional team, and Duke qualifies as a 5-7 team that finished in the top 5 of last year’s APR. Otherwise, I will be two teams short.

So far the past couple years, everything has worked itself out such that I am not short of teams. Right now, however, it’s hard to see how there will be enough teams without invoking the new rule.

As usual, everything will be different next week. The biggest game of the weekend, by far, is South Carolina-Florida. This will likely determine the SEC Champ and thus the SEC’s second BCS team this year.

Bowl Games 2011: Epilogue

Wherein this post has had more advance planning than LSU’s offense apparently did last night.

The final tally is up over in the usual place. This year I managed to predict 24 games correctly. I honestly didn’t think I was doing that well until I looked back over the index. I’ve been doing this since the 1999 season, and this is the best I’ve ever done by a pretty decent margin. With 24 games correct and 11 wrong, I had a winning percentage of 68.57%. The last time I broke 60% was in 2006, and before this year my previous best percentage was in 2004, with 64.29%.

So, yeah, go me! Too bad I didn’t allocate my confidence points correctly on ESPN, but alas.

As we prepare to enter what will for sure be another turbulent offseason, I have to say this has been one of the strangest seasons I can remember. Unfortunately, this isn’t due to anything that happened on the field (2007 still holds that title), but more because it felt like each scandal that broke this year was trying to top the next. First Ohio State surprised us, then Miami shocked us (well, that was more the extent; I doubt anyone was surprised that there was a scandal at Miami), but then Penn State did both and then some.

As per usual, this site will be more dormant over the next eight months, with occasional posts on soccer and baseball. But at some point the dust from various lawsuits will settle and everyone’s out-of-conference schedules will be known. Then I will rank them and tell you about them, and then try to get a post up once a week detailing that weekend’s games.

So, until then.

Quick addendum: apparently this is my 400th post on this website. Thanks for reading!

Bowl Predictions 2011: Final

This is it. I’m going and writing this up now. We’ll see what’s still true later today.

I have come up eight possible scenarios based on the outcome of the BCS today. Basically, these are the three most important variables:

  • Whether Oklahoma State moves ahead of Alabama to #2 in the BCS
  • Whether Michigan moves from #16 to #14 or better in the BCS
  • Whether TCU moves from #18 to #16 or better in the BCS

This means that it is currently very difficult to nail down exactly what will happen with the Big Ten, Big 12, or Mountain West. (The SEC is unaffected because Alabama will go to a BCS game if it falls out of the top two.)

For each set of scenarios, there are constants. You can see those constants here. Also common in most of these scenarios is that I do not think Boise State will get a BCS at-large bid. If TCU does not make it, then I think that’s that for the mid-majors this year – unless Michigan also does not make it, thus limiting the available/attractive at-large bids.

Which do I think is most likely? What I call “Scenario 1”: a LSU-Alabama rematch with Michigan in and TCU out. This is currently what is available on the main page. Each scenario is also available in its entirety:

Why do I think the first is the most likely? I don’t think enough voters will suddenly decide to put Oklahoma State ahead of Alabama and Stanford to pass them in the standings. Also, while many thought the Cowboys would pass Alabama in all the computers, the first poll out of the gate is the Sagarin ratings, which puts Alabama 2nd and Oklahoma State 3rd. While the highest and lowest positions for each team are thrown out, if any of the other five polls break that way then we will not have agreement among them. Also, all these teams in front of Michigan lost yesterday: Virginia Tech, Houston, Oklahoma, and Michigan State. The last two, specifically, are likely to fall behind Michigan in the new poll. The questions is: will they also fall behind TCU? The closest loss in the rankings to TCU was Georgia, which will fall behind them, but around them in the rankings are Baylor (which just beat Texas) and Clemson (which just demolished Virginia Tech). Also, I think many of the newly-minted two-loss teams today could settle in ahead of TCU. So in other words, it doesn’t look good for the Horned Frogs. And given the general leanings of the folks who control the BCS, I don’t think they’ll give out a bone to Boise State, even though they could be as high as 5th in the new poll.

I’ll start with the conferences that are well-defined in my template. Again, regardless of what happens at the top of the polls, that will likely not have any effect on these, and are constant across all scenarios.

ACC
With Clemson back to its old ways in the ACC title game, this makes the Chick-fil-a a very good bet to grab Virginia Tech, which means the FSU-Notre Dame matchup is back in play for the Champs. There’s still some room for FSU to go to Atlanta, but I don’t think VPI will fall past the Champs even though they got blown out. The rest of the conference looks pretty straightforward: Tech to the Sun, NC State to the Belk, Virginia to the Music City, Wake Forest to the Independence, and North Carolina to the Military.

Big East
The Champs Sports Bowl will almost certainly use its option to take Notre Dame this year. After that, only news searches revealed my least favorite bowl scenario is going to happen. Read the article if you want the gory details. The upshot is that other online search put Louisville as a solid lock of the Belk, Rutgers in the Pinstripe, and Pitt to the Compass, which leaves Cincy to the Liberty.

Conference USA
Houston losing was really bad for the conference. Due to the wacky Big East/SEC Liberty Bowl thing it also looks like Southern Miss won’t be going there. While there supposedly is an “order” for the C-USA bowls that I found today, it still doesn’t make much sense to me. Either way, they will fall a team short, most likely in the New Orleans Bowl. I put Southern Miss in the Compass Bowl and Houston in the TicketCity. I put SMU in the other Dallas bowl game, Marshall in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, and shipped Tulsa out to Hawaii. But of all my picks, short of guessing at-large teams, I generally always feel the least confident about C-USA. Well, and the Big East.

Mid-American
With their win in the title game, NIU should be bound for the godaddy.com Bowl in Mobile. I saw a rumor say that Western Michigan would get the nod for Pizza Bowl, so I put conference runner-up Ohio out in Boise, with Toledo and Ball State waiting nervously by the phone.

Pacific-12
I think Stanford is a lock for a BCS at-large berth, which leaves the Pac-12 short a team or two, even with UCLA’s waiver. As the best remaining team on the board at this point, I put Washington in the Alamo and Cal in the Holiday. Utah is the only other team with a winning record, so I stuck them in the Sun, and figured that left Arizona State for the Las Vegas Bowl. This leaves, of course, UCLA, which a trip to the Fight Hunger Bowl.

Southeastern
Since LSU and Alabama will both be in the BCS in any scenario, we can go ahead and figure the rest of the BCS. I like Arkansas to get the nod for the Capital One, which also lets the SEC bowls switch things up. Georgia and South Carolina, then will end up in the Outback and Cotton bowls, and maybe even in that order. Auburn is pretty solidly next on the plate, and with the worry of an Auburn-Clemson rematch gone, they’ll get a trip to Atlanta. I think the Gator, regardless of scenario, will try to set up the Urban Meyer thing, so they’ll probably take Florida. At this point, what’s left is Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. I like both to stay home, relatively speaking, with Vandy going to the Music City and Miss State to the de facto capital of Mississippi, Memphis.

Sun Belt
Arkansas State, Florida International, and UL-Lafayette are all set. It’s not looking good for Western Kentucky to get their first every bowl bid, though.

Western
Hawaii lost to BYU, so unlike UCLA, they will not be bowling at 6-7. Utah State and Louisiana Tech are set with bids already. There are some rumblings Nevada may work out an arrangement to play closer to home (say, the Fight Hunger), but without anything more concrete I’m sticking with putting them in the Hawaii Bowl.

Okay, cool, so what about the conferences that are affected by the BCS? Well, let’s start with the Big 12.

Big 12
Whether Oklahoma State gets into the title game doesn’t matter here, as they will be in the BCS either way. The question is whether Kansas State will get an at-large berth. Oklahoma, Houston, and Virginia Tech all lost in front of them and will probably fall behind K-State, which may make them an attractive candidate generally for lack of better options. The only team that threatens K-State in this regard is Boise State. I am perhaps not giving Boise enough credit for the BCS folks here, but I think the Wildcats would be an attractive option for the Fiesta or Sugar, while Boise is probably more attractive to the Fiesta. So in all scenarios where either Michigan or TCU do not make it, or both, I have Kansas State in over Boise. The BCS bowl committees may surprise me, though! It’s happened before.

Outside of that, I think Oklahoma is a pretty safe bet for the Cotton in any scenario where K-State is in the BCS, but if K-State is not in the BCS I think they are bound for Arlington. From there, things pretty much just go in this order for me: Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Iowa State. Just push them up or down a slot depending on who gets into the BCS, basically.

Big Ten
Wisconsin is in and Michigan State is out, in all scenarios. The question is Michigan. If Michigan is in, and I think they will be, I think the Capital One jumps at the chance to grab Nebraska for the second time ever and the first since 1990. If Michigan is not in the BCS, however, then I think they will go to the Capital One. Either way, I think Michigan State is a good bet for the Outback Bowl, followed by Iowa if Michigan is in or Nebraska if Michigan is out. (If Michigan is out, some of my scenarios have Texas-Nebraska in the Insight Bowl. That’d be a fun one, I’d wager, but probably not likely.) I have Ohio State in the Gator regardless of scenario as well.

Then things start to get interesting. The Big Ten has too many teams for its bids, the questions is if this will be one or two extra teams. If Michigan is in, I think that will put Penn State in the Car Care Bowl, Purdue in the TicketCity, and Northwester in the Pizza with Illinois waiting anxiously. If Michigan is out, then I like Iowa to the Car Care, Penn State to the TicketCity, and Purdue in the Pizza, with Northwestern and Illinois waiting.

Mountain West
If Boise is not in, then all indications are they will go to the Las Vegas Bowl. If TCU is not in then they will go to the Poinsettia. The only way TCU goes to the Vegas, it appears, is if Boise gets into the BCS. If TCU is in the BCS, then it looks like (as of the wee hours of Sunday) that the Poinsettia will not take the hometown San Diego State Aztecs and instead take Wyoming. All scenarios put Air Force in the Independence again, while Wyoming goes to the New Mexico if they’re still available, and San Diego State if they’re not. With the former scenario, SDSU will need an at-large berth.

The leftovers
In no scenario do I have Ball State or Western Kentucky making a bowl game. (Sorry Hilltoppers.) Basically, all these scenarios have an affect on how many teams need at-large bids. In cases where the Big 12 gets two teams in, I have Temple in the Military Bowl and Iowa State if not. I also have Illinois going out west to the Fight Hunger Bowl in all scenarios. That leaves the New Orleans Bowl and New Mexico Bowl needing teams, which depends heavily on if Boise/TCU and/or Michigan got BCS bids. If both do, then I have Toledo and Temple in those games. If the former but not the latter then I have Northwestern and Temple, with Toledo out completely. If the Michigan gets in and Boise/TCU do not, then  I have Toledo and San Diego State occupying those slots. If neither get in, then I have Northwestern and Toledo in those slots.

Note that when it comes to the at-larges, the situation tends to be extremely fluid and there can also be horsetrading (like I alluded to with Nevada).

I will update all 8 scenarios throughout the day as the bids come in, so stay tuned. If you really care about how I determine whether I predicted the matchups correctly, I will probably go with the scenario that most closely matches out the BCS actually turns out. I’ll be keeping track of the final destinations here in a separate directory, even.

Bowl Predictions 2011: Week 7

Almost everything went as expected this last weekend, which means while there were a few changes in the predictions there wasn’t a major upheaval like there was last weekend. Let’s start with the BCS this time.

Note that most bids will be announced very closely after Saturday’s games. The last major hurdle is the final BCS standings, everyone should know where they’re going for the holidays by the end of the day Sunday. And, as per usual, the predictions are available here.

BCS
I’m left with no other choice but to call LSU-Alabama. The only way I could see a change is a major uprising by poll voters to put Oklahoma State ahead of Alabama with a victory over Oklahoma on Saturday. In the other games, the major change is Michigan appearing in the Sugar Bowl. Wolverine fans should be pretty jazzed about beating Ohio State, but there is a slight problem: they are currently 16th in the BCS. However, Georgia and the loser of the Big Ten title game should fall behind them, allowing them to rise up to 14th by next weekend. If Michigan doesn’t make it, then the Sugar may take Kansas State. Otherwise, there’s nothing shocking about the rest of the BCS bowls.

ACC
The winner of the ACC title game will go to the Orange Bowl. Virginia Tech has a very outside shot at a BCS at-large even if they lose. With Clemson now having lost 2 of their last 3 games (and the 3rd was a last-second field goal over Wake Forest), a loss in the ACC title game may push them out of the Chick-fil-a now. For that reason, I’ve put Florida State above them in the pecking order, putting FSU in Atlanta and Clemson in the Champs Sports. (Also, I have Auburn in the Chick-fil-a game and though I’ve seen some things to the contrary I really don’t think they want a rematch.) The Sun Bowl has said they will take Georgia Tech if available, so that’s pretty easy. (A GT win against Georgia was necessary to raise our draft stock any higher.) With NC State’s strong finish, they are a good candidate for the in-state Belk Bowl, which leaves Virginia for the Music City. This will stick the Independence Bowl with Wake Forest, relegating 3-5 North Carolina to the Military Bowl.

Big East
Who knows? I’m assuming West Virginia wins at this point and going from there. Oh, and ESPN’s Big East blogger raised the scenario that I fear most, which that the Liberty will have a say in the Big East bowl picture. For the sake of my sanity, I’m assuming the Liberty will stick with Southern Miss whether they win or lose to Houston. Oh, and yeah, Notre Dame is almost certainly going to the Champs Sports instead of a Big East team.

Big Ten
The winner of the Big Ten will go to the Rose Bowl, and the loser of the title game will likely go to the Capital One Bowl (especially if Michigan gets a BCS at-large bid). From there, I have Nebraska breaking into their newfound ability to go to the Outback Bowl and then, as the last team that isn’t 7-5 or 6-6, Penn State will probably end up in the Insight Bowl. (And frankly, the Insight Bowl may be the most anonymous bowl that features two BCS confernece teams, likely due to their previous TV contract with the NFL network. They could probably use the press.) I had to adjust my preliminary bowl predictions because the Gator said they really want to match Ohio State and Florida. (Remember folks, the bowl games exist mainly for themselves, not for you. The Gator is just the most brazen about it.)

Big 12
The Oklahoma-Oklahoma State winner will go to the Fiesta. If OSU loses they may still get a BCS bid (this depends on Michigan and Houston), however if the Sooners lose they are out of the BCS picture. I’m picking OSU to win that game, so I have K-State in the Cotton and Oklahoma in the Alamo. That leaves the rest of the conference picking up the scraps, with Texas at the top of the heap for the Insight, Baylor getting a nice trip to San Diego, TAMU getting a slightly less nicer trip to Houston. Oh, and Mizzou ends up in New York.

Pac-12
The Pac-12 is a mess with USC ineligible for a bowl game. Oregon and Stanford are probably both in, meanwhile UCLA (barring the biggest upset of the year) will probably be 6-7 and ineligible. While there were some reports they could get waiver, I haven’t seen this confirmed yet. (If they do, they will almost certainly be in the Fight Hunger Bowl.) So with the two best teams in the BCS, that leaves everyone else to fight over the Alamo Bowl bid. Arizona State looked to be that team, but their epic collapse is complete and their coach fired, so Washington gets the nod. The Holiday will probably then take that chance to grab Cal, and so I’m left with Utah and Arizona State for the Sun. I figure the former’s fans are going to feel a little better about themselves because I don’t think anyone had them getting a winning record in Pac-12 play this year, so I’ll put them into the sun and the Sun Devils in the Las Vegas Bowl.

SEC
The SEC will have two teams in the BCS. (If Georgia beats LSU and LSU falls to #2 and Bama rises to #1, they could even have three teams in the BCS, since UGA would get the Sugar auto-bid.) Since Tennessee lost to Kentucky, they will not have enough bowl eligible teams this year. For now, I have Arkansas going to the Capital One Bowl, which leaves the Cotton in a predicament of having to pick a SEC East team. I have them getting Georgia and leaving South Carolina to the Outback, though that could go either way. (Or Arkansas could fall past the Cap One, but I don’t know if they would really want UGA, and it’s not like Arkansas isn’t going to have other chances to go the Cotton Bowl.) This leaves Auburn as a good choice for the Chick-fil-a (since they’ll have equally attractive options on the ACC side to avoid the Auburn-Clemson rematch). I then have Vandy staying close by to go the Music City and Miss State going against Southern Miss in the Liberty.

The Rest
Some bids have come in already (indicated by the asterisks), but otherwise this is pretty unclear. The WAC has completely fooled me so far and it’s not clear what the Hawaii Bowl will do if Hawaii loses to BYU this weekend. (I.e., they may decide to not take Nevada.) There’s lots of guesses for C-USA and the at-large bids indicated by the question marks, but we will have enough teams. (I have 71 on this table, 72 if UCLA gets a waiver.)

Anyway, bowl bids will continue to trickle in throughout the week most likely, with a furious wave Saturday night and Sunday. What I usually do is make one last set of predictions Saturday evening and then watch the carnage unfold. A final post like this will probably go up really early on Sunday (or Saturday night, depending on your perspective). So until then…