This Week in College Football: Week 11

Introducing “This Week in College Football”. With the proliferation of conferences desperate for ESPN’s money and exposure, we now have college ball on practically every day of the week. So each week, I’ll write up a short post about this week’s weekday games in the same vein as my weekend column.
As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Tuesday
7:00: Ohio @ Buffalo (ESPN2): Lots of games this week, so let’s kick it off with some MAC-tion. Buffalo no doubt wishes it were last year again, but at 3-6 overall and 1-4 in the MAC, well, it’s not looking good against MAC East front-runner Ohio, who look like they have the best chance to knock off Temple’s lead.

Wednesday
8:00: Toledo @ Central Michigan (ESPN2): Toledo has the 96th ranked pass defense in the country, so I would expect a big day from everyone’s favorite MAC QB, Dan LeFevour.

Thursday
6:00: Ball State @ Northern Illinois (ESPNU): Ball State is terrible, NIU less so.

7:30: South Florida @ Rutgers (ESPN): USF is coming off that huge win against WVU, while Rutgers has been plodding along with winning the games they’re supposed to. New USF B.J. Daniels has played well for a freshman so far, and overall it looks as though these two teams are about even. I think USF’s offense is a little more dynamic, though, and should be able to outscore Rutgers in the end.

Friday
8:00: West Virginia @ Cincinnati (ESPN2): Even with the upset last week, WVU has a big chance to influence the Big East race as well as the national title picture. That said, I’ll take the team that isn’t coached by Bill Stewart.

8:30: Temple @ Akron (ESPNU): Akron was zipping along (pun intended) to a 1-11 season until they sprung (also intended) a huge upset over Kent State last weekend. The Owls, meanwhile, needed a last minute field goal to keep their own streak alive and beat one of the worst teams in the country in Miami (OH). So, Temple should win, but I expect it to be close again.

Bowl Predictions 2009: Week 4

As usual, you can find the predictions here. I’ll eschew the conference breakdowns and just hit the high points this week.

  • First, let’s start with the BCS. Despite the debacle again Stanford, Oregon should still win the Pac-10 (despite the delusions of the pollsters). Meanwhile, Iowa and Penn State combined to really hurt the Big Ten’s chances of being a two bid league. (Last time the Big Ten didn’t send two? 2004-2005.) Now, of course, they still have a shot, especially for lack of other BCS-desirable options. But I came up with an alternate scenario. Alabama beats Florida, Florida gets taken by the Sugar. The Fiesta takes USC, and the Orange takes Cincy to face the ACC winner. With the Fiesta and Sugar remaining, the Sugar does whatever it needs to do get their Florida dream opponent: Miami. Yes, don’t look, but Miami is ranked 14th in the latest standings and, provided they don’t lose again, should be eligible.
  • I still don’t think it’s very likely that both TCU and Boise will be BCS teams unless they are ranked 3 and 4 in the final standings (which would make both of them auto-qualifiers).
  • I still hate projecting GT to win the rest of their games.
  • I’ve finally read in enough places that Duke’s win against NC Central will not count towards bowl eligibility, which I still wasn’t sure about when I did the predictions Sunday night.
  • That said, that’s less of a big deal with this week, with the MAC breaking the right way so that it’s possible we’ll have some extra teams. Also, the Big East and Big 12 may have enough provided Missouri can get to 6-6. Crisis averted, for now.
  • Oh, as usual Navy is the first confirmed team, as their win over Notre Dame makes them eligible and thus they go to their partner for this year, the Texas Bowl, nominally to face a Big 12 opponent. The odds of this occurring right now are somewhat decent, since I’m currently not projecting Oklahoma State to make it to the BCS.
  • Outside of Alabama, Florida, and LSU is the SEC is exceedingly mediocre this year. When I was doing the individual teams this weekend it was a lot harder than it usually is this time of year, as no one in the SEC actually played each other this past weekend. So outside of the best and worst teams, I had no idea where to put anyone, which is how you get Auburn in the Cotton and Tennessee in the Outback, and Ole Miss still in the Chick-fil-a. It’s entirely possible none of those teams will have 9 wins.
  • Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: Central vs. South Florida, I guess.

This Weekend in College Football: Week 10

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Saturday
Noon:

  • Northwestern @ Iowa (ESPN): Can Northwestern end our long, national nightmare championship game scenario? Probably not! Iowa wins 15-11.
  • Central Florida @ Texas (FSN): This is the Priceline of football games. Congratulations Colt McCoy, you can name your own score!
  • Syracuse @ Pittsburgh (ESPNU): Should I even bother waking up at 9 for these games? I mean, I usually sleep through the first half anyway, but this is ridiculous.
  • Purdue @ Michigan (BTN): I’m willing to chalk up the loss UIUC as a fluke. If Michigan loses to Purdue they’ve got problems.
  • Virginia @ University of Miami (Raycom/Gameplan): You know, I almost want UVA to win this game, because it would make it that much more difficult to fire Al Groh. (Now that GT has the UVA monkey off it’s back, I can go back to treating UVA as the terrible team they are.)
  • South Carolina @ Arkansas (SEC/Gameplan): I bet the Visor is playing lots of golf these days. Hitting drives, chipping on to greens, making putts. Trying to figure out exactly what he did to deserve this. Sure, South Carolina is 6-3, but they have no offense. How does a man, know for such a thing, deal with that? Whatever the case, they can still beat Arkansas.

12:30: Kansas @ Kansas State (Versus): Both of these teams are so bad, but I’ll go with the team that managed to beat Colorado.

2:30: Navy @ Notre Dame (NBC): Notre Dame isn’t great, but has begun an unfortunate rise in the polls. Hopefully Navy keeps it close.

3:30:

  • Louisiana State @ Alabama (CBS): I’m actually willing to accept that Alabama is a good football team at this point. In fact, they’re damn good, and I’m willing to downgrade my hatred to “loathing” to set up a match against Florida in the Georgia Dome next month. Okay, I still hat them, but I want to see that game.
  • Ohio State @ Pennsylvania State (ABC/ESPN2):I’ve already heard several times this week that this game will “decide the Big Ten”. That should tell you how much everyone hates Iowa. At any rate, if Ohio State calls this game like they did their other big game this season (against USC) they will lose. Of course, we still don’t really know anything about Penn State. I still like them to win, though.
  • Oklahoma State @ Iowa State (ABC/Gameplan): Somehow, I don’t see Iowa State holding OSU to 14 points.
  • Wake Forest @ Georgia Tech (ESPN2/ABC/Gameplan): Having expectations placed on your team is weird.
    At any rate, last week we did exactly what I said we couldn’t do (allow Vandy to stay in the game) but then Vandy started to play like, well, Vandy and we pulled away to a 56-31 win. Wake, however, will not rollover so easily. While Vandy isn’t incompetent, Wake probably does have slightly better players and are led by 50th year senior Riley Skinner. (Despite suffering a concussion last week against Miami, he will be starting.) Wake is always a tough assignment for Tech – our last meeting was in the 2006 ACC title game, which Wake won 9-6. (Though it did get Patrick Nix fired and then hired (for some reason) by Miami, which worked out great for us over the next two years.) And with the way the defense is playing, no doubt older Tech fans (and by “older”, I mean “a few years older than me”) are having PTSD-flashbacks to 1999, where the offense scored 38 points a game and still lost 4 time. The 3rd loss was to Wake Forest, dropping Tech to 7-3 and likely ruining any chances Joe Hamilton had of winning the Heisman.
    So, suffice it to say, Tech will need to do all it can to avoid a repeat of history.
    By the way, the other three losses that year? @FSU, @UVA, and to Miami in the Gator Bowl.
  • Oregon @ Stanford (FSN): Well, Stanford, you’ve had a good year so far. 5-3 overall, 4-2 in the Pac-10. Not bad, especially by Stanford standards. The problem with this rosy outlook? This game, @USC, vs. Cal, vs. Notre Dame. That 6th win may prove to be elusive, and they probably won’t find it here.
  • Duke @ North Carolina (ESPNU): Fun fact: even if Duke loses, they can still beat Tech next week and have a shot at the ACC title. That’s said, there’s little about this UNC team on defense or offense that has particularly impresses me. They still allowed nearly 400 yards passing to FSU. If Duke puts up similar numbers – and they should – they have a pretty good shot to win here.
  • Army @ Air Force (CBSCS): The battle for the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy continues in Colorado. Unfortunately, it’s hard to pick an Army team that was outscored 56-23 by Temple and Rutgers to win here.
  • Washington State @ Arizona (FCS Central): Why did I list this? I have no idea. Arizona.
  • Washington @ California-Los Angeles (FCS Pacific): (see above) U-dub.

4:00: Texas Christian @ San Diego State (Versus): SDSU is on a roll, by their standards, but TCU should still be able to take care of business here.

7:00:

  • Oregon State @ California (FSN): Cal’s rolled off 3 straight against the worst of the Pac-10, while Oregon State has pretty much lost when they were supposed to and win when they were supposed. That said, Cal is still having issues getting the ball to its best player and needed a last minute FG to get past Arizona State. I actually kind of like the Beavers here.
  • Memphis @ Tennessee (ESPNU): Mmm, delicious cupcakes.

7:15: Vanderbilt @ Florida (ESPN2): Too detailed prediction: Vandy hangs tough through the first quarter to make everyone go, “Hey, Florida’s only leading Vandy by 3 points” but the Tebow gets on track and is out of the game by the end of the 3rd quarter.

7:30:

  • Houston @ Tulsa (CBSCS): This game was supposed to be for the C-USA West title, but Tulsa’s sort of fallen off the wagon and has lost 3 straight, including losses to completely schizophrenic UTEP and also to SMU. Since their inexplicable loss to UTEP, Houston has won 4 straight mostly via a way we’d entirely expect: offense. I expect a lot of points in this game (akin to Houston’s shootout last weekend with Southern Miss) but the Cougars to prevail in the end.
  • Northern Arizona @ Mississippi (SEC/Gameplan): Ole Miss. Next.

7:45: Florida State @ Clemson (ESPN): It’s the Bowden— oh, right. At any rate, FSU really needs this to make itself relevant in the ACC Atlantic race again, while Clemson controls its own destiny, and in terms of that destiny FSU represents the last major hurdle (Clemson’s remaining ACC games are @NCSU and at home against UVA). We could see a reenactment of the Clemson-Miami game (if it’s half as exciting as that game was, well, this will be a pretty exciting game), but I don’t see a different outcome.

8:00:

  • Southern California @ Arizona State (ABC/Gameplan): Okay, so our illusions have been shattered, USC is mortal, blah blah. But let’s face it, USC should still be favored to win all their remaining bids and get themselves to a BCS game, and that process starts here.
  • Connecticut @ Cincinnati (Gameplan/ABC):Although this will almost certainly doom them, I really do think Cincy is “that good”, at least against their Big East compatriots. And this is the home stretch for the Bearcats, a win here and next week against WVU sets up the de-facto Big East championship game December 5th at Pittsburgh.
  • Oklahoma @ Nebraska (Gameplan/ABC): I’m not sure why, but the Big 12 doesn’t have a fix-opponent system for its divisions, and it really hurts here. (Of course, this is probably the only major intra-divisional rivalry in the Big 12, so that’s probably why.) At any rate, while Oklahoma probably won’t put up 68 (that’s not an exaggeration) like they did in last year’s beatdown, they’ll probably still win handily.

10:30: Fresno State @ Idaho (ESPNU): Ah, the late WAC game. You know you love it. At any rate, Idaho is bowl eligible for the first time since 1999 (as well as guaranteed their first winning season since 1999) versus usual suspect Fresno State, which sits at 5-3. This is at least worth watching for a bit because it’s in THE KIBBIE DOME. That said, I like Fresno to win.

Sunday
8:30: Nevada @ San Jose State (ESPN): I wonder how cheap I could get tickets to what will most likely be the Colin Kaepernik show? Nevada should win easily.

This Week in College Football: Week 10

Introducing “This Week in College Football”. With the proliferation of conferences desperate for ESPN’s money and exposure, we now have college ball on practically every day of the week. So each week, I’ll write up a short post about this week’s weekday games in the same vein as my weekend column.
As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Tuesday
7:00: Bowling Green @ Buffalo (ESPN2): This is probably an elimination game for getting 6-6, in this battle of 3-5 MAC teams. Though both sport negative scoring margins in MAC play, Buffalo has allowed its collegues to outscore them by over a touchdown per game and has one less conference win. I’ll go with BGSU here.

Thursday
7:30:

  • Virginia Tech @ East Carolina (ESPN): This ECU team certainly isn’t terrible, but in their other BCS-conference matchups versus WVU and UNC, they lost by a combined 29 points. VPI should be able to take care of business here.
  • Eastern Michigan @ Northern Illinois (ESPNU): Northern Illinois sits at 5-3 and needs only a win against the second worst team in major college football to get it. And they should.

Friday
8:00: Boise State @ Louisiana Tech (ESPN2): Well, LaTech almost beat Idaho last weekend but fell a point short. Of course, they also fell two points short of Utah State, which provided the Aggie’s first win over a DI-A team this year. So, uh, I have to say I like Boise here.

Bowl Predictions 2009: Week 3

Predictions here! Get your predictions here!

Before I do my usual thing, let me just say that for starters, this is every bowl eligible team. Keep in mind that there will be 2 or 3 new games next year. (Though with some of the matchups that are currently scheduled, and the current state of the economy, I think a few games may fold after this year.) When I started doing this shindig back in 1999, there were “only” 23 games. Now there are 34, which well over half the teams in Division I-A today, and right now I see only 68 teams getting eligible. Think about that for a second. While, yes, I don’t slavishly predict the record of every 3-5 MAC team to see if they’ll make it (which I do for the Big Six teams) things could break such that there are 70 teams or just as easily break such that there are 65 teams. I haven’t seen anything about what could happen if we don’t get to 68 this. Would the NCAA let 5-7 teams compete? I don’t know.

Anyway, let’s hit the major talking points.

BCS

  • The title game still looks to be Florida/Alabama versus Texas. With Florida’s stomping of Georgia on Saturday, it looks like they may have an edge over Alabama once again.
  • I’m slotting Alabama to the Sugar, and while I’m sure the Sugar will be glad to have them, they did go there last year and the BCS selection rules do allow for such situations.
  • I still have Iowa winning the Big Ten and Penn State getting an at-large bid. If Iowa does lose, that raises some interesting questions about the Big Ten’s ability to field two teams.
  • Despite the loss Saturday, USC will be favored in all their remaining games and should win out. Since they didn’t even fall out of the top 14 with their second loss, they’ll probably get into the Fiesta. Some folks I know believe Notre Dame may give the Fiesta pause if they’re eligible, though I doubt the ability of ND’s remaining schedule to catapult them far enough up the standings.
  • Right now, I only have one of TCU and Boise getting into the BCS. I think the only way both getting will happen is if one or two more undefeated teams lose. The only way both can ensure qualification is to finish at #3 and #4 in the final standings.
  • Though it pains to do so, I still put GT in the Orange. I am still extremely worried about picking us to win anything, of course.

ACC

  • With Virginia Tech’s loss last Thursday, any chance the ACC had of being a two-bid league were shot. The win does greatly help UNC’s ability to get bowl eligible, though.
  • Overall, I see 7 of the ACC’s 12 teams getting eligible, which is down from last year’s 10. This leaves the league two short, so it will not send a team to the Eaglebank or GMAC Bowls.
  • Yes, um, Carolina, that is Duke in a bowl game! Also note FSU getting to the Emerald, provided they can get to 6-6.

Big East

  • With an assist from Notre Dame going to the Gator, the Big East will fulfill its obligations.
  • I know USF went to the St. Petersburg last year, but I just don’t know where else to put them, and I would think that neither party particularly cares at this point, either.

Big XII

  • As per usual, the Big 12 North is a disaster. Kansas State is currently at the top of the table, but I don’t think there’s any way they’ll last there. In fact, I don’t even have them going to a bowl.
  • While Missouri is 1-3 in conference, they’ve pretty much played all the teams on their schedule they’re categorically worse than. I expect them to recover to 9-3 overall, losing the tiebreaker to Nebraska.
  • From the South, Texas will probably make the national title game, but at this point it doesn’t look good for Oklahoma State to get to a BCS game. The Cotton bowl isn’t a bad consolation prize, though.
  • With Texas A&M’s upset of Texas Tech two weeks ago, they’re actually 5-3 and need only to beat Baylor to get to 6-6.

Big Ten

  • I swear, Iowa is the worst undefeated team ever. Is there anyone who actually wants them to run the table? As I’ve pointed in the past, we have an irrational hatred of Kirk Ferenetz here, but their current “style” doesn’t help.
  • Ohio State is the wild card here, as they have yet to play Penn State and Iowa. I have them beating Iowa but losing to Penn State to slide into that old Big Ten standby, the Capital One Bowl.
  • Wisconsin should finish up 10-2 for a trip to Florida as well.
  • The rest of the Big Ten is extremely muddy. As awful as Michigan has been lately, they should still get to 6-6, though.

Pac-10

  • The King is dead; long live the King! As you no doubt know by now, USC lost! (Again.) With a 2 game lead and 4 games to go, Oregon has the conference pretty much clinched, along with a trip to Pasadena. The last time the USC didn’t go to the Rose Bowl was the 2004-5 season, when they went to the National Title game at the Orange Bowl instead.
  • Thanks to the magic of a full round-robin and a late ending conference season, the Pac-10 still has plenty of games to go. That said, with Oregon and USC going to the BCS I only see three other bowl eligible teams: Cal, Arizona, and Oregon State. I just don’t see two games on Stanford’s remaining schedule they should win, and Arizona State will come up just short.

SEC

  • Outside of a probable 10-2 LSU, the SEC’s bowl slate (again) looks pretty bleak. For starters, the SEC East looks terrible. With South Carolina’s loss to Tennessee, there is clear second place team anymore to send to the Outback. So be prepared for Lane Kiffin to say something dumb about whichever Big Ten team he faces and then lose by 20.
  • With LSU going to the Capital One, the representative for the Cotton is also equally debatable. I know Ole Miss went there last year, but I think the Peach will really want Auburn (travel time from Auburn to Atlanta: about 2 hours).
  • Provided they can make it, 6-6 Kentucky and Arkansas should round out the SEC’s field to full strength.

Somewhat Non-Obvious Matchup of the Week: BYU-Boise State. It could happen if Boise doesn’t make the BCS, which would give the WAC 4 bowl eligible teams. Since the Pac-10 won’t send a team to the Poinsettia in all likelihood, this will allow them once again to get one of the best mid-major matchups since the WAC has the backup slot. Personally, I’d prefer Utah-Boise in the Las Vegas Bowl, but I don’t think that’ll happen.