Hey folks. I want to let everyone know about the computerized college football prediction system I run. You can track my progress over the season at http://tito.asimweb.org/cfp. Click on “Week 8” on the left of your screen to check out this week’s picks. (I start making predictions midway through the season, for reasons explained on the site.)

This week, the CFP (College Football Predictor) picked Vanderbilt to beat South Carolina, which would be a big win for the Commodores following their October 14 upset of Georgia. 4-3 Washington State has a slight edge on 6-1 Oregon, but only because of the home-field advantage. Also, undefeated Louisville is not very heavily favored on the road against Syracuse. LSU, Auburn, Northern Illinois, Ohio, and Ohio State essentially have bye-weeks; the CFP has never mispredicted a game with the ratings margin that these teams will enjoy on Saturday.

Obviously these predictions aren’t guaranteed, but you can find my rate of success within certain rating margin ranges on the left of the CFP site. Here’s hoping the 2006 system’s inaugural run is a success!

I’d like to welcome a Tech friend of mine, Will, to the site.

In light of the greatness that was the Auburn/Florida game, I left out my thoughts on the rest of college football in my Sunday post. Here are those thoughts.

Miami and Florida International got into a fisticuffs midfield on Saturday, which was pretty ridiculous from what I hear. In related news, ESPN.com ran a story about Lamar Thomas, a former Miami player and color commentary for CSS. Thomas was fired for his on-air comments about the fight. Here’s a sample:

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about…You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into the OB playing that stuff…You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You’ll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing…I say, why don’t they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don’t come into the OB, baby…We’ve had a down couple years but you don’t come in here talking smack. Not in our house.”

Later, Thomas tried to apologize:

“Anybody who knows me knows I played the game of football with my heart on my
sleeve…Unfortunately for me during the fight I got a little hyped up. In no way do I condone fighting.”

“In no way do I condone fighting”? The statement “why don’t they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more” doesn’t condone fighting? My dad used to tell me how much he disliked the Miami football program. He said they were arrogant and unsportsmanlike. This Saturday, the Hurricanes and Thomas sure proved my dad right.

But enough about the fight. Ohio State rolled over Michigan State (sorry Laura) on their way to the season-ending showdown on November 18. Speaking of Michigan, the Wolverines won a close one at Penn State, where my friends in State College showed up in full force. Up 17-10, the Michigan D stopped the Lions from turning their final drive into overtime. I still think the white out is the coolest student section collaboration I’ve ever seen, with Mississippi State’s cowbells a distant second.

USC scraped by another?! Pac-10 team with a fourth-quarter touchdown drive. ESPN still won’t accept that USC is not that good, emphasizing their undefeated status. They might be undefeated going into their three-week death march on November 11, but they won’t be that way by its end. Fun/disgusting fact: USC has scored 20 or more points in their last 58 games. Louisville didn’t look their best, either, even with the return of Brian Brohm. A game-ending deflection by the Cardinals D kept their win streak and (extremely slim) national championship hopes alive.

Georgia did this weekend what USC will do at the season’s end: finally lose a close game. The Bulldogs fell to the mighty Commodores of Vanderbilt on homecoming week. I guess I was overly optimistic when I predicted that Georgia would only lose four games this year. I wonder, will they earn a W against Mississippi State this weekend? West Virginia once again waited until halftime to start scoring, taking care of Syracuse 41-17. Hawaii stomped Fresno State 68-37. Seriously, that’s a lot of points.

The first BCS standings gave me hope that Auburn still has a good shot at a national championship berth. Obviously, Ohio State or Michigan will remain at the top at the end of the season, barring any unforeseen upsets. Like I said earlier, USC will also lose. It may be in Auburn’s favor for Arkansas to win the SEC West, though this looks doubtful with Tennessee and LSU in the Razorbacks’ future. Although it would prevent the winner of West Virginia/Louisville from leapfrogging into #2, I doubt Auburn could pull off another win against Florida.

This weekend, Georgia Tech and Clemson play a possible ACC Championship preview. Clemson would need help to win the Atlantic division if they lost, but Georgia Tech should win the Coastal division even if they lose on Saturday. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing Tennessee crush Alabama, but I’ll be watching Auburn take care of Tulane during that matchup. Hopefully the Tigers will come prepared and will take things one game at a time for the rest of the year. That course of action served them well in 2004. See you guys next Monday!

1. Michigan State University – Lost again, therefore still on here. @ Northwestern this week, good chance for a W.
2. University of Iowa – Pretty sure I’ve ranted on this before, but Iowa is perennially overrated. People really like their coach for some reason, but I can never see it. They lost to Indiana this weekend…good job.
3. Florida International University – On here as a combo for the second week in a row, but this time with…
4. University of Miami – Woo! Da U be back for realz! If football isn’t violent enough for you, just start swinging your helmet around for extra fun.
5. University of Missouri – Lost their first game to TAMU this weekend, losing their status as the worst unbeaten team in the land.
6. University of Florida – They weren’t going to go unbeaten, so this loss to Auburn wasn’t terribly unexpected. The problem is that they just looked bad in the second half, and now all the UF fans are back to ripping into Chris Leak.
7. University [sic] of Georgia – You lost to Vanderbilt on homecoming weekend. THWG!
8. Clemson University – Probably the biggest game in the ACC this season. A loss for Clemson makes it much harder for them to win their division, and they’re about to face the steamroller that is the GT defense. Like Nick said, Clemson being 9 point favorites is absolute madness – I’d be shocked if this game isn’t decided by 4 or less points.

Hot off the presses!
A breakdown of what I do and some interesting matchups:

• The process: first, I had to go through and try and figure out the conference pecking orders. I use about three sources to try to guess at it. This is probably the most tedious part of the whole thing, but it essential if you want to be anywhere near correct.
• The selection numbers do not neccessarily tie-in to the conference standings. Though several conferences have implemented this, some do not. (For instance, before this year, the ACC did not do this, resulting in NC State going to the Car Care Bowl in Charlotte while both Boston College and Georgia Tech got sent to Boise and San Fransisco last year.) Generally, what happens isn’t nearly as bad as my example, but just be warned “Pac-10 #2” means “the first Pac-10 team not picked by the BCS” more than it means the Pac-10 runner-up.
• Also, this early in the year, things are still a crap shoot. There are several teams with 3 or 4 wins that may struggle to make 6 wins, and it’s difficult to tell until they’ve played more conference games.
• By my count, the Big Ten will be in the most trouble making its bids this year, unless Michigan State stops sucking. For now, I’ve got them going to the Motor City Bowl, but they’ve looked completely lost after that Notre Dame game and will be struggling to get to 6 wins.
• The SEC may also have problems – Kentucky or Vanderbilt will need to garner 3 more wins to fill out their allotments.
• As a Georgia Tech fan, I am somewhat scared to put us in the Orange Bowl, which is why I’ve put them in the Peach/Chick-fil-a. That said, the matchup against Alabama would be cool – another old SEC rivalry (we’re in their fight song, even).
• Assuming the SEC doesn’t continue to beat up on itself, they should put both Florida and Auburn in the BCS. The best situation will be if UF and AU don’t meet again in the SEC title game (i.e., Arkansas wins out), and UF wins the SEC title to go the Sugar. AU should remain plenty strong to garner an at-large berth, probably in the Orange. AU will probably play BC, Clemson, or GT there – the latter two being the most interesting matchups to me. (Tigers vs. Tigers, or AU tries to take revenge for 2003 and 2005. I like ’em both.)
• The ACC is a total mess right now. GT, Clemson, Wake, and BC are the top teams in the standings. The main question is: how far will the Florida schools and VPI fall? I have no idea honestly. I can’t really see Miami going to Boise, but I have no idea where else to put them.
• Though it will probably happen, for the time being I’m not putting Boise St. in the BCS. Mostly because I need another WAC team to act as an at-large in the Poinsettia Bowl.
• Yes, that’s right, SMU in a bowl. Will probably happen, or else C-USA won’t fill its bids.
• I’ve said that I’d like to attend the Birmingham Bowl or the Music City bowl this year, but they’re both turning out pretty crappy. UAB probably won’t make a bowl, so C-USA will have to send someone there. USF fails to excite me as well. And while I like cheering for Wake, USC-East vs. Wake probably isn’t very interesting.

That’s about all on the bowl predictions front. Standings will be updated every Sunday after the BCS standings for the week come out.

On another note, lemme talk about Vandy-UGA. I’ve been cheering for Vandy every since I can remember, mostly because I enjoy cheering for underdogs, and well, Vandy is almost always an underdog. Over the past few years, one of my best friends from HS is at Vandy, which gives me additional incentive to root for them. (In fact, Vandy’s stadium is the only other college stadium I’ve been to, where I witnessed GT’s overtime win in 2003.) On the other hand, as a student and fan of Georgia Tech, I loathe the so-called “University” of Georgia and just about everything it stands for.

Therefore, outside of GT beating them, nothing was sweater than watching Vandy put it to UGA last Saturday – during UGA’s homecoming, nonetheless. The most hilarious part is that the announcers and most delusional UGA fans seem to thing Matt Stafford is some sort of god, when their starter’s numbers looked mighty fine to me. I’ve watched Vandy fade so many times in the 4th quarter the past few years I thought it was over when UGA returned that interception for a TD. Vandy never gave up, though, and drove for the last second field goal that split the uprights.

Anyway, looking forward, GT plays Clemson Saturday. Don’t let Vegas’s 9 point line fool you: this is an extremely close rivalry. I’ll elaborate more on this later in the week. And make sure to read Tito’s AU-UF gameday post below.