This Weekend in College Football: Week 14

As promised, this weekend’s guide. I’ll do another normal one for next weekend (for Army-Navy and the NCAA playoff games), and then we’ll get into our bowl coverage.

As usual, all times Eastern and predictions wrong.

Noon:

Rutgers @ West Virginia (ABC): Well, here’s one part of your Big East conference champion scenario. West Virginia should win, though, which eliminates Pitt from contention.
Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati (ESPN): As much as I make fun of the Big East (again, this is generally in the same way we made fun of Mississippi back in Alabama), they did provide us the thrilling Pitt-Cincy game last year for the conference crown. This year’s edition, though, will likely prove less exciting as Cincy was 4-7 on the year an a meager 2-4 in Big East play. That said, as mentioned above WVU victory eliminates Pitt from the Big East running, so that may dampen the Panthers’ spirits a bit. They should still win, though.
Southern Methodist @ Central Florida (Conference USA Championship; ESPN2): SMU has been inconsistent, but they did come out on top of the C-USA’s west division somehow. UCF had no such issues, though, with only a minor bump in the road against USM while they for the most part pounded their C-USA comrades. Of course, this logic didn’t do me any good for the MAC title game, but UCF does have home field advantage and should be able to take advantage of it.

2:00: Troy @ Florida Atlantic (ESPNU): Troy will actually not win the Sun Belt this year, due to their loss to eventual champion FIU. FAU has been less fortunate this year, though, as Schnelly’s lost 7 games and only boasts a now-inexplicable win over FIU. At any rate, I’m just going to keep trucking with Troy.

3:30: Oregon @ Oregon State (ABC): This game could potentially blow everything up, though really it probably won’t. The Ducks may struggle in the first half due to the crowd, but should be able to get the offense in gear in the second half and be able to put the Beavers away.

4:00: South Carolina vs. Auburn (SEC Championship @ Atlanta, GA; CBS): This game could really blow everything up. I tend to agree with the expert-types that say an Auburn loss would probably keep them in the BCS title game anyway, which I think would do more to rile folks up than Oregon losing (leading to a fairly direct TCU-Auburn matchup). That said, I don’t really see it happening.

7:00: Washington @ Washington State (Versus): It’s the Apple Cup. The Pac-10 has to be desperately be hoping Washington wins, which would give the Pac-10 a 4th bowl eligible team (assuming Oregon State doesn’t win). Fortunately for the conference, Wazzou is just dreadful enough that the desired result should be able to happen without any shenanigans. (Besides, I think the Cougars already used up their shenanigans quota when somehow beat Oregon State 3 weeks ago. Somehow, that’s also the last time they played. Perhaps their year would’ve gone a little more smoothly if they’d spread out their bye weeks a bit?)

7:45: Virginia Tech vs. Florida State (ACC Championship @ Charlotte, NC; ESPN): The ACCCG is finally where it should have been all along. While I thought last year’s game was reasonably well attended, this year’s edition will actually sell out! What a concept, having a title game somewhere most of the member schools can drive to in probably the only state that actually really cares about the ACC! Anyway, VPI has been an unstoppable juggernaut in ACC play, reeling off 10 straight wins (8 in conference) since the JMU debacle. Florida State’s had a fine year, but they really backed into this game. Sure, they did just score a big win over their in-state rival, but they still needed Maryland to upset NC State last weekend to even get in. I really like VPI here.

8:00:

Nebraska vs. Oklahoma (Big 12 Championship @ Arlington, TX; ABC): I can’t help but think that when the Big 12 divisions were first drawn up that the folks in both sides of this rivalry thought that this was how it was going to be every year, to make up for the loss of their classic Big 8 rivalry that was played every year from 1929 to 1997. Alas, these two sides have met in the Big 12 title game only once, in 2006 when OU won 21-7. (That said, boy am I pissed off if I’m a Texas A&M fan, since TAMU beat both of these teams this year.) Anyway, Nebraska’s had a few dicey encounters this season, with occasional offensive outages and a defense that doesn’t measure up to the standard set by last year’s. Oklahoma’s been more consistent on both sides of the ball and I think they’ve gotten their mojo back, so to speak. I think the Sooners will win the last Big 12 Championship Game.
Connecticut @ South Florida (ESPN2): For simplicity’s sake, UConn should win this game. A loss, along with losses by WVU and Pitt, could set up a potential 5-way tie atop the Big East. I think they’ll win as well, but if you really want chaos on this day and are disappointed by the results in Corvallis and Atlanta, this is your last shot.

10:30: Southern California @ California-Los Angeles (FSN): Well, the football monopoly in LA hasn’t exactly been busted, but both the established monopoly and the pesky upstart have both had bad years this year. That said, UCLA’s offense has been AWOL since the 42-28 win back in October over Wazzou. I’ve got USC winning here.

Well, pay attention to the twitter feed and this site throughout the evening tomorrow night as I line up the final bowl predictions before the BCS and ESPN reveal all Sunday night. Until then, enjoy the last real weekend of the regular college football season!

Bowl Predictions 2010: Week 7

Late once again, but it did at least give a chance to absorb all the bowl announcements from this week. So let’s do this.

The BCS

As usual, we’ll start with the BCS. With Boise’s upset, there were a few changes, to say the last. The top of the pile stays the same, though Auburn did finally pick up enough votes to pass Oregon. With Arkansas upsetting LSU, that also set up the Razorbacks to get into the Sugar Bowl, which will still probably take Ohio State as an at-large. From there, things get tricky. Wisconsin and TCU slot into the Rose, the winner of the Big 12 title game will go to the Fiesta, and the winner of the ACC title game to the Orange. This leaves two slots, one in the Orange and one in the Fiesta. The Orange gets first crack at the remaining pool of teams. However, this pool, as things currently stand, is limited to two teams. Stanford is currently #4 in the BCS, and as such is guaranteed a BCS bid. The Big East winner is as well. Neither is a super attractive option for either bowl (and until Boise and LSU lost I thought Stanford was going to be shut out of the BCS). Conventional wisdom at the moment says that if UConn wins the Big East, then the Orange will take the most attractive TV match-up and get Stanford, leaving the Fiesta with UConn. However, if West Virginia emerges at the top of the Big East pile and Virginia Tech wins the ACC, then the Orange could set up the first meeting of VPI and WVU since 2005. Right now I think UConn will tomorrow so the latter scenario is a moot point.

ACC

The ACC is a jumbled mess right now. Well, not at the top: the winner of the title game will go to the Orange and the loser will go to the Chick-fil-a. From there, it’s an absolute mess. I’ll just go down the list of ACC bowls and say which teams I think are possibilities for each game:

Champs Sports Bowl: NC State, Maryland, Miami
Sun Bowl: Miami, Maryland, NC State
Car Care Bowl: NC State, Clemson, North Carolina, Maryland
Music City Bowl: Clemson, North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia Tech
Independence Bowl: Georgia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina
Military Bowl: Maryland, Clemson, North Carolina, Boston College
Fight Hunger Bowl: Boston College, Georgia Tech

The rumor mill isn’t much better. What you see on the page are my best guesses, but really almost anything could happen. NC State’s loss to Maryland combined with Miami’s loss and subsequent firing of Randy Shannon really wrecked the ACC bowl picture and it’s tough to say what will happen to those three schools. (Somewhat ironically, the fact that GT didn’t get blown out as most folks predicted may have actually helped them in light of the above and also Clemson’s blowout loss to South Carolina.)

Big East

Ugh. With Notre Dame’s win over USC last weekend I expect them to get an invite to the Champs Sports Bowl, which pushes everything else in the Big East down and even gives them an extra team in Louisville. Otherwise, I don’t really want to talk about this much because all the teams play tomorrow and everything could change.

Big 12

At this point, the Big 12 almost certainly won’t get two teams into the BCS, so the Cotton went ahead and grabbed Texas A&M. This means the Big 12 title game loser will probably end up in the Alamo Bowl. At issue now are the Insight and Holiday Bowls, which will likely be choosing between Oklahoma State and Missouri. From there, the Big 12 should shake out predictably, with K-State already in the Pinstripe Bowl and Baylor and Texas Tech remaining for the Texas and TicketCity Bowls. I like Baylor getting rewarded for their good season by getting the Texas Bow bid, leaving Texas Tech for the game in the Cotton Bowl that isn’t the Cotton Bowl.

Big Ten

The Big Ten is pretty straightforward. Wisconsin and Ohio State go to the Rose and Sugar, leaving the Capital One for Michigan State. I then like Penn State to the Outback Bowl, but they could swap places with Iowa and end up in the Gator Bowl. I then like Michigan for the Insight, Illinois to the Texas, and Northwestern left at the TicketCity. Easy. (Now watch me be totally wrong.)

Pac-10

Arizona State is 6-6, but played 2 DI-AA teams (despite the fact that Pac-10 teams only have 3 OOC games anyway) and is not eligible. This means there are currently 3 Pac-10 teams eligible: Oregon, Stanford, and Arizona. Washington and Oregon State can both get eligible with wins in their rivalry games, but I think it goes without saying that one of those teams is a lot more likely to win tomorrow than the other.

SEC

So the SEC will probably get its customary two BCS bids barring disaster in the SEC title game tomorrow. From there, Alabama will probably get the nod for the Capital One, leaving South Carolina for the Outback and LSU for the Cotton. I like Mississippi State to get the invitation to the Chick-fil-a, followed by the Gator reluctantly taking Florida. The rumor mill really likes Tennessee to the Music City, so that works for me, followed by UGA to the Liberty and, finally, Kentucky to the Compass.

Mid-majors

Many mid-major bids have gone out already. The problem is the rumored moves and moves that have already happened. For instance, UTEP (from Conference USA) is in the New Mexico Bowl, which means that there was likely a swap with the New Orleans Bowl which will probably send a WAC team there. (The details of the swap are not yet known for certain though. There could be other swaps as well, engineered by the conferences and the bowls owned by ESPN (which are many). Also, it looks like Boise will likely end up at the Fight Hunger Bowl, eschewing the home blue turf, which may send Nevada there. Miscellaneous MAC teams will probably fill the gaps left by the Pac-10 and Big Ten, though I don’t know which ones will go where. Fortunately for bowl directors, though, there will be enough teams, and I predict there will be one extra.

Look for the final predictions to go up late Saturday or early Sunday, as by the time ESPN goes on the air with their selection show most of the bids will probably already be known.

This Week in College Football: Week 14

The final actual week of the regular season is here!

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Thursday
8:00: Arizona State @ Arizona (ESPN): Even with a win, ASU won’t be granted an exception to count both of their wins against DI-AA teams, meaning they would finish with a 5-6 record for bowl purposes. So all that’s left to play for is pride. That’s a pretty good motivator, but the Bearcats should still take the Territorial Cup.

Friday
7:00: Northern Illinois vs. Miami (MAC Championship @ Detroit, MI; ESPN2): FRIDAY NIGHT MEGA-MACTION. Yes, that’s right kids, it’s some heavy duty MACtion up in the land of Michigan. Honestly, on paper this isn’t really even close. NIU rampaged through MAC competition, scoring 382 points while only allowing 127 on their way to an 8-0 MAC record. The only MAC team that even came within one score of beating the Huskies was Western Michigan, the second most prolific offense in the conference. Miami University, meanwhile, needed an inexplicable Ohio loss for them to even get into the title game, though their only conference loss was to that same Ohio team. Suffice it to say, though, I’ll take NIU here.

10:15: Illinois @ Fresno State (ESPN2): You’re 5-3 and 3-2 overall in the Big Ten after destroying the two Indiana teams, and you’re feeling pretty good. Okay, you just lost to Michigan in a barn burner triple overtime game. Fine, but life is still good. And then you go and lose to Minnesota, at home. Whoops. But then you recover by beating your rival in a baseball stadium and you don’t really know what to make of yourself. So you take a break to eat some turkey and prepare for a roadtrip to the nothingness of the Central Valley and Fresno, CA, home of the team that beat you in Champaign last year. All that said, this year hasn’t really gone that great for Fresno, with a major conference scalp (a first-week win over Cincy) but a lackluster WAC showing, with a loss to all the teams above you in the standings and barely speaking by teams like Louisiana Tech and Idaho. I guess what I’m getting at here is that this game could probably still go either way, mostly depending on which Illinois team shows up. If it’s the one that showed up at Wrigley Field, they’ll probably win. If it’s the one that lost to the Golden Gophers, they probably won’t. But that said, tradition says I have to make a pick here, so I’ll take the safe way out and take the Illini.

Stay tuned for bowl predictions and this weekend’s forecast…

THWG Thought of the Day: 11/27

Men, Georgie’s a fine football team, a very fine football team. Georgie’s bigger and faster than we are. Probably a little tougher, too.

That’s okay, because we’re smarter than they are.

Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen. That Georgie team’s going to come running out of the tunnel screaming and foaming at the mouth and smashing one another upside the head just to get warmed up.

We won’t do any of that. While they waste their energy, we’ll conserve ours. I’ve told you that they’re bigger, faster, and tougher than you. That’s true. But we do have that one big advantage.

We … are … smarter.

Think about what I teach you. Play field position. Play great defense. Make no mistakes on offense. Be great in the kicking game. Do that and we’ll keep it close.

As the game goes on, they’ll start to get tired because they wasted so much energy in the beginning. Because we’re smart, we’ll have plenty of energy left, and at some point in the fourth quarter they’ll make a mistake.

When they do make that mistake, we’ll get the football. And when that happens, I’ll think of something and we’ll win!

Coach Bobby Dodd, as told by Bill Curry

This Weekend in College Football: Week 13

Well, it’s the last full-fledged column of the year. Are you ready?

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

Michigan @ Ohio State (ABC): And the Big Ten’s biggest rivalry is renewed once again, this year a week later, however. Nonetheless, Ohio State should maintain the recent tradition of beating Michigan.
Boston College @ Syracuse (ESPN): Boston College has put together a nice little run for themselves over the last month of the season, whereas the ‘Cuse is scuffling a bit at the end. I think this’ll continue and that BC should win.
Michigan State @ Pennsylvania State (ESPN2): Well, I think JoePa should retire, but then again, who’s going to tell him that he should? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Meanwhile, Sparty’s looked awfully shaky over the last month or so, but how can you pick against them? Well, I can’t anyway.
South Florida @ Miami (ESPNU): It’s a quarterback controversy in Coral Gables! Either way, Miami should win.
Tulane @ Marshall (CBSCS): If you like watching 4-7 teams play each other, well have I got the matchup for you! Anyway, Marshall’s defense is something I would generously call “suspect” so I’ll take Tulane here.
Indiana @ Purdue (BTN): It’s the battle for the Old Oaken Bucket! While Purdue has been “scrappy” and “competitive” despite a boatload of injuries this season, Indiana has just been awful in conference play (two wins versus none, respectively). I’ll take the Boilermakers.
Kentucky @ Tennessee (SEC): Well, both these teams are sort of crawling toward the finish. Tennessee needs a win to get bowl eligible. I don’t think they’ll get it.
Virginia @ Virginia Tech (ACC): Well, it’s UVA and VPI again. I was going to ask aloud how this game ended up on Raycom but then I realied I don’t really care about it either. VPI has won every contest since 2003 and that shouldn’t change here.

12:30: Kansas vs. Missouri (@Kansas City, MO; FSN): Speaking of playing out the string, Mizzou should take care of Kansas in this neutral-site rivalry.

3:30:

Louisiana State @ Arkansas (@Little Rock, AR; CBS): It’s the War Memorial Stadium special of the year for Arkansas, which certainly would make this an attractive upset pick. I can’t really pull the trigger on that though.
Northwestern @ Wisconsin (ABC /ESPN): Well, the ride that was this year for Northwestern came to a screeching halt last week at Wrigley with that somewhat inexplicable loss to Illinois. Wisconsin should seal up a Rose Bowl bid here.
Florida @ Florida State (ABC/ESPN): This is tough. I’ve been pessimistic on FSU for a few weeks now and am actually picking Florida to win in my bowl predictions, so I’ll still with that. I think it will be close though.
North Carolina State @ Maryland (ESPN2): If NC State wins, they wrap up the ACC Atlantic and will appear in next week’s (almost sold out!) ACC Championship Game. Otherwise, FSU will get in. I think NCSU should be able to take care of UMD and get into the title game, though.
North Carolina @ Duke (ESPNU): Not quite as exciting as the basketball version, that’s for sure. UNC should win easily.
Iowa @ Minnesota (BTN): Speaking of winning easily, Iowa.

4:00: Texas Christian @ New Mexico (Versus): TCU should wrap up a perfect season here. Will it be enough to get an invite to a BCS bowl? We’ll see.

7:00:

South Carolina @ Clemson (ESPN2): Our second SEC-ACC matchup of the day, the Gamecocks travel to their upstate counterparts, and should come away with the win as long as they’re not getting to eager to face Auburn next week.
Mississippi State @ Mississippi (ESPNU): Egg Bowl! For the first time in awhile, Mississippi State is the obvious favorite here, as Ole Miss has simply had a trainwreck that not even the Right Reverend Houston Nutt can fix.

7:30: Oregon State @ Stanford (Versus): What in the hell happened to the Beavers? They’ve lost to UCLA and both Washington teams but somehow beat Arizona and USC. At 5-5 and Stanford and Oregon remaining on the schedule, this is one of the big reasons why the Pac-10 won’t have more than 4 teams go bowling.

7:45: Georgia Tech @ Georgia (ESPN): To Hell with Georgia.