Category Archives: college football

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Big Ten

The Big Ten has a reputation as a conference of beefy linemen, and many of their schools also provide the beef in their non-conference scheduling, though after the top few it proves to be a bit lean.

  1. Nebraska (1.5 legit, 0 FCS): Brigham Young, South Alabama, @Miami, Southern Mississippi. Yes, that is the Miami in Florida, providing the Huskers with an intriguing road-trip that I am obligated to mention reminds one of the 90’s. There’s also a visit from the Stormin’ Mormons for good measure.
  2. Northwestern (1.25, 1): Stanford, Eastern Illinois, @Duke, Ball State. Stanford should provide an opening weekend barometer for both these teams. For Northwestern, it may be an early indicator if they can be a threat in the middle ranks of the Big Ten. A visit to Wallace Wade Stadium should also provide some intrigue for both sides.
  3. Michigan State (1, 0): @Western Michigan, Oregon, Air Force, Central Michigan. Michigan State isn’t the only Big Ten to have a weird away game, but considering WMU’s head coach it’s probably the more interesting of the two contests. Even though they don’t get credit for it, I also like the Air Force appearance here.
  4. Michigan (1, 0): @Utah, Oregon State, Nevada-Las Vegas, Brigham Young. If Michigan gets through this slate 4-0 in Jim Harbaugh’s initial campaign, then the Michigan hype machine will be in full force come October.
  5. Wisconsin (1, 0): N-Alabama, Miami, Troy, Hawaii. Wisconsin-Alabama is, of course, the headlining out-of-conference game of the season. Unfortunately, the rest of the schedule is nothing special (that’s the Miami in Ohio), which is why it’s only ranked fifth.
  6. Minnesota (1, 0): Texas Christian, @Colorado State, Kent State, Ohio. Indeed, it was tough to even put this schedule behind Wisconsin, as TCU+Colorado State is arguably better than just Alabama. Nonetheless, this ranking also takes into account the relative prestige of Minnesota and Wisconsin at this point.
  7. Ohio State (0.75, 0): @Virginia Tech, Hawaii, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan. Urban Meyer will seek to revenge himself in Blacksburg. I am not predicting good things for the Hokies. Otherwise, this schedule is pretty thin, but Ohio State did skate into the playoff with that VPI loss and, well, it pays to be in the Big Ten sometimes. (Where “sometimes” is “most of the time”.)
  8. Purdue (0.75, 1): @Marshall, Indiana State, Virginia Tech, Bowling Green State. Purdue could be in some real trouble in the hills of West Virginia, and if that doesn’t go well for them then the rest of this schedule might not either.
  9. Maryland (0.5, 1): Richmond, Bowling Green State, South Florida, @West Virginia. Even if it’s not WVU-Pitt, I still approve of this Maryland-West Virginia game that’s been happening the pats few years.
  10. Illinois (0.5, 1): Kent State, Western Illinois, @North Carolina, Middle Tennessee State. So, remember that time Illinois fired their head coach last week? Yeah, this should be fun.
  11. Rutgers (0.25, 1): Norfolk State, Washington State, Kansas, N-Army. Rutgers just barely gets some points from Wazzou, but otherwise there’s not much here.
  12. Iowa (0.25, 1): Illinois State, @Iowa State, Pittsburgh, North Texas. Believe it or not, more milquetoast schedules exist!
  13. Pennsylvania State (0, 0): @Temple, Buffalo, San Diego State, Army. Like this one! Also, while it’s an interesting way to rekindle that rivalry, one wonders if a visit by Penn State to Temple really is more about playing in a large NFL stadium on opening weekend.
  14. Indiana (0, 1): Southern Illinois, Florida International, Western Kentucky, @Wake Forest. Given Indiana’s luck, they’ll beat Wake but lose to Western Kentucky.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

As always, the first to go with the Atlantic Coast Conference. Let’s do this. (Note: FCS teams are marked in italics.)

  1. Virginia (2.25 legit, 1 FCS): @California-Los Angeles, Notre Dame, William & Mary, Boise State. By far the strongest non-conference schedule in college football this year. Though it’s debatable whether Notre Dame is “non-conference” for ACC teams, but that’s something we’ll think about for next year. For now, every FBS non-conference team the Cavs play is rated. Ordinarily, we’d say this doesn’t bode well for Mike London’s job, but we’ve been saying that for what feels like two or three years at this point, so it’s not entirely clear now what would actually get him fired.
  2. Georgia Tech (2, 1): Alcorn State, Tulane, @Notre Dame, Georgia. This also rates as a tough schedule, but even then it feels like a bit of a cop-out because of Notre Dame’s arrangement with the ACC and because Georgia is a yearly rivalry game. That said, this is still one of the toughest GT schedules (overall) that I can recall since I started following them in 2003, so I’d say it deserves some recognition.
  3. Clemson (1.75, 1): Wofford, Appalachian State, Notre Dame, @South Carolina. Of course, the only reason we’re not tied with Clemson is because Georgia is a 1 and South Carolina is a 0.75. If it were tied, I probably would’ve broken the tie by saying Appalachian State is better than Tulane.
  4. Pittsburgh (1.25, 1): Youngstown State, @Akron, @Iowa, Notre Dame. This year it felt like there were a lot of road legs of 2-for-1’s or 3-for-1’s with lesser FBS teams, which hopefully I’ll remember not to harp on too often. I’ll save my other joke on this schedule for the Iowa blurb.
  5. Louisville (1, 1): N-Auburn, Houston, Samford, @Kentucky. First off, good on you folks in the Commonwealth of Kentucky for moving your premier rivalry game to Thanksgiving. As for the schedule, that Louisville-Auburn game could recalibrate a lot of pre-season speculation very, very quickly.
  6. Virginia Tech (1, 1): Ohio State, Furman, @Purdue, @East Carolina. VPI-Ohio State was, in retrospect, the most baffling result of 2014. I… would not expect that again.
  7. Miami (1, 1): Bethune-Cookman, @Florida Atlantic, Nebraska, @Cincinnati. Miami-Nebraska: a match up of two teams that badly wish it were the 80’s or 90’s again.
  8. Syracuse (1, 1): Rhode Island, Central Michigan, Louisiana State, @South Florida. I suggest Syracuse fans take what they can get and treat the game in Tampa as a bowl game, because that’s about as good as it’s probably going to get for them this year.
  9. Florida State (1, 1): Texas State, South Florida, Tennessee-Chattanooga, @Florida. This is usually the point in the rundown when I start running out of things to say, and this schedule is no exception. It is, however, good for a rebuilding reloading Seminole squad.
  10. Wake Forest (1, 1): Elon, @Army, Indiana, @Notre Dame. Deacons versus Priests: the ultimate showdown! (… probably not)
  11. Boston College (1, 2): Maine, Howard, Northern Illinois, Notre Dame. Two FCS teams, good job, Boston College: you now face an uphill road to bowl eligibility!
  12. North Carolina (0.75, 2): N-South Carolina, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical, Illinois, Delaware. This is the first year in a while where I can’t recall reading a swarm of article proclaiming that this will be, in fact, Carolina’s year. Which probably means they’re going to go 9-3 or something. Of course, playing two FCS teams and Illinois helps with that.
  13. Duke (0.25, 1): @Tulane, North Carolina Central, Northwestern, @Army. Army somehow got both Wake Forest and Duke at home this year, good on them! That said, I know Duke is… Duke but still, guys, you’re a Power 5 team, you can’t have two road games both against non-Power 5 teams.
  14. North Carolina State (0, 1): Troy, Eastern Kentucky, @Old Dominion, @South Alabama. Yep, ODU is full FBS this year (along with Georgia Southern and Appalachian State, which I should’ve mentioned earlier). See what I said re: two road games in the above Duke blurb.

Up next: the Big Ten.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

Better late than never, it’s time once again for our review of the non-conference schedules for all of the Power 5 teams.

First, a quick explanation. Every year, my brother and I rate the attractiveness of each team in the Power 5 conferences plus a select few others on a scale from 0 to 1. I then apply these ratings to each team’s non-coference schedule. The whole thing is a subjective exercise essentially designed to judge how excited one might be for a team’s schedule, but it’s a fun overview and provides an additional preview for the kind of games we usually get in September.

Cincinnati was unrated this year, which means the only teams outside of the Power 5 with ratings are Notre Dame (1), Brigham Young (0.5), and Boise State (0.5).

I usually close the first post with a quick snapshot of each conference’s average rating, so here’s that:

  1. Southeastern (0.643)
  2. Big 12 (0.611)
  3. Pac-12 (0.521)
  4. Atlantic Coast (0.482)
  5. Big Ten (0.464)

Compared to last year, the Big 12 has closed the gap with the SEC just slightly, while the other conferences remain unchanged. Of course, I now just noticed that last year I put the ACC behind the Big Ten despite their ratings being the same. Whoops!

Either way, first up, the ACC.

Bowl Games 2014: Final

And thus, the 2014-2015 college football season is concluded.

My final results are up, but if you don’t want to click the link, then I’ll put it here: I went 23-16 this year (which means I am now 274-220 overall). I got off to a pretty strong start, but other than going perfect on New Year’s Eve I pretty much faded down the stretch. In particular, New Year’s Day was a disaster for me, as I missed three out of the five games. Afterward, I failed to really recover, going 2-5 down the stretch.

But hey, there’s a reason why I always say, “all predictions wrong”. Nonetheless, I do continue to get more than half of them right. Perhaps next year I’ll start comparing myself against the spread or use other metrics than just wins and losses, but that’ll be determined sometime next December I suspect.

Some closing thoughts on the season as a whole.

  • For starters, my Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets finished eight in the AP Poll, blissfully one spot ahead of Georgia and Tech’s best ranking since finishing ninth after the 1998 season. I never expected this sort of season, but neither did anyone else. Next year, it is unlikely we will surprise anyone. With Justin Thomas returning, I suspect we will start the season ranked in the top 15, and maybe even the top 10.
  • How about those Buckeyes? They committed four turnovers and won by 22, which really means that it wasn’t even that close.
  • Will we see a shift in the perception of the power five conferences after this? I believe that we’re back to some real parity in college football. The only way we can really tell, though, is if we get more power five teams playing each other during the season. We’ll see how that shakes out when we do our usual out-of-conference schedule rankings. Suffice it to say, though, reports of the Big Ten’s death were greatly exaggerated.

And with that, this site will be mostly dormant again through the spring and summer. That said, do look for some content relatively soon, as arguably my favorite part of the World Cup will start up again this spring: qualifying.

Until then.

Bowl Games 2014: The Big One

And here it is.

While I don’t think a four-team playoff is really ideal, this is the closet we’ve got for now in major college football. Let’s enjoy it for what it is.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Monday, January 12
8:30: Oregon vs. Ohio State (College Football Playoff National Championship @ Arlington, TX; ESPN): There are better, and more in-depth, previews than I can provide here. But I’ll high the highlights. For starters, let’s talk about the games that proceeded this one.
I think most of us expected Oregon to beat Florida State, but goodness I don’t think anyone expected the annihilation that occurred, largely of FSU’s own doing. It’s hard to survive five turnovers against anyone (where was that against us in the ACC title game?), but against the most efficient offense in the country? Forget about it.
Ohio State over Alabama will be the upset of the year, provided the Buckeyes lose this game. Like many others, I gave them no shot, what with their backup-backup quarterback against a Nick Saban defense. Forget about it, right? Well, not so much. Ohio State go off to a slow start, but they came out in the second half and dominated the game.
What’s at stake for these teams? For Oregon, it has to be a little validation, I would think. In their current run of success (with Pac-10/12 titles in 2009, 2010, 2011, and this season), the national title has eluded the Ducks. They made the title game in the 2010 season, only to be beat by Cam Newton and company, starting the narrative that they just weren’t tough enough to challenge the all-mighty SEC. Indeed, I can’t help but wonder if Duck partisans feel a bit cheated that their path to the national title won’t have Alabama or any other SEC school in it.
For Ohio State, in many ways, this is a team that is almost playing with house money, which feels a bit weird to say about a team with the sort of historical success they Buckeyes have had, but hear me out. This is the second season since the 2012 team that went 12-0 but was on sanctions. No one gave them any chance after they lost Braxton Miller, and then no one gave them any chance after the loss to Virginia Tech. (Indeed, the weirdest thing about reading recaps of that game are the bits about how it’s a solid victory for VPI and a way for them to get back in the national discussion. Uh, not so much, as it turns out!) No one gave them a chance to beat Alabama. Yet, here we are.
As for the game itself, I expect points. These two teams boast two of the most efficient offenses in the nation. Their defenses are also pretty similar, though the Big Ten still has enough plodding offenses to skew the numbers somewhat. Overall, I came in thinking this one was going to be hard to call, and the research I have done so far has only supported this. I guess this is true of most games, but this one is really going to come down which team plays better tonight. I think Oregon is still slightly better, so that’s going to be my guess.
Confidence: not applicable, as to win the group I’m in I have to pick strategically and go with Ohio State.
Previous meetings: Eight, actually, and Ohio State has won all of them. The first was all the way back in the 1957-58 Rose Bowl, which the Buckeyes won 10-7. Apparently they hit it off, as the two teams met in the regular season four time in the 60’s. Another home-and-home occurred in 1983 and 1987, but that was it until Ohio State’s 26-17 upset of Oregon in the 2009-2010 Rose Bowl.
Last bowl game: This is Oregon’s tenth straight bowl game, going back to a 17-14 loss to Oklahoma in the 2005 Holiday Bowl. They beat Texas 30-7 in last season’s Alamo Bowl. Thanks to their 2012 sanctions, Ohio State didn’t go to a bowl that year despite going 12-0. If they had, their bowl streak would stretch back all the way back to the 1989 season. Instead, their streak is now two, and last year they lost to Clemson in the Orange Bowl, 40-35.
Announcers: Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit