2014 Bowl-O-Rama, Day 8

Independence Bowl:  Arizona -7 v. Boston College
Sun:  UCLA -7 v. Virginia Tech
Liberty:  Mississippi State -7 v. Rice
Peach:  Texas A&M -12 v. Duke

Bowl season:  10-8

2014 Bowl-O-Rama, Day 7

Armed Forces:  Navy -7 v. Middle Tennessee State
Music City:  Mississippi -3 v. Georgia Tech
Alamo:  Oregon -14.5 v. Texas
Holiday:  Arizona State -14 v. Texas Tech

Not digging those big spreads at all.

Bowl Season:  8-7

2014 Bowl-O-Rama, Day 6

Pinstripe:  Notre Dame -14.5 v. Rutgers
Belk:  North Carolina -2.5 v. Cincinnati
Russell Athletic:  Louisville -4.5 v. Miami (FL)
BWW:  Kansas State -6 v. Michigan

Bowl season:  6-5

2014 Bowl-O-Rama, Day 5

Military:  Marshall -2.5 v. Maryland

Texas:  Minnesota -4.5 v. Syracuse
Fight Hunger:  Washington -3 v. BYU

2014 Bowl-O-Rama, Day 4

Pizza:  Bowling Green -6 v.  Pittsburgh
Pointsettia:  Utah State -1 v. Northern Illinois

Bowl Season:  2-4

2014 Bowl-o-rama, Day 3

Despite ECU's best efforts, we got one yesterday.  Let's try again with a pick I have no confidence in!

Hawaii:  Oregon State -3 v. Boise State

Bowl Season:  1-4

2014 Bowl-o-rama, Day 2

Wow.  I apologize for the 0-4 turd I gave you yesterday.

Beef O'Brady's Bowl:  East Carolina -14 v. Ohio

Bowl Season:  0-4

2014 Bowl-o-rama, Day 1

You may poo-poo the lesser bowl games, but in six weeks, you'll be desperate for college football of any kind.  Let's get to it:

New Mexico:  Washington State -6 v. Colorado State
Las Vegas:  USC -6 v. Fresno State
Potato:  Buffalo -2 v. San Diego State
New Orleans Tulane - 2 v. ULLAF

2013 Bowl Season:  17-17-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 15

The last one of the season.  In a vain and probably foolish attempt to finish as close to the black this season, I have three selections this week.

Oklahoma State -10 v. Oklahoma

Ohio State -6 v. Michigan State

Auburn v. Missouri Total Points 58 Under

Last week:  North Carolina -6.5 v. Duke

Season: 5-8-1

2013 Week 14 Ratings

Not much to add to a crazy weekend.  Not much changed in the ratings either.

The final ratings will be coming out after the Army-Navy game, with some added comparisons.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 14

North Carolina -6.5 v. Duke 

UNC has been playing very well after a 1-5 start, and are an unranked favorite at home over a ranked team.  That's always a good sign.

Last week:  Kansas State -4.5 v. Oklahoma (incorrect)

Season: 5-7-1

2013 Week 13 Ratings

While the correlation between rating and SOS continues to worsen, I was shocked by Alabama's precipitous fall this week, even with the knowledge that I make an FCS opponent as punitive as possible in the formula, win or lose.  A win against Auburn will be a big rebound, even with their woeful schedule strength.

MSU has made a huge climb, almost 50 spots since week 7.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 13

Better late than never.

It's been a real struggle this year, but wins these next three weeks will still lead to a money making season.

Kansas State -4.5 v. Oklahoma

I believe this line is low, and therefore great value, due to the usual mistakes of underrating Kansas State and overrating of Oklahoma, particularly on the heels of a less-impressive-than-it-looked victory over Iowa State last week.  Oklahoma is missing a ton on offense due to injury and suspension, and their play calling has been pedestrian and uninspired this season.   

Last week:  South Carolina -12.5 v. Florida (incorrect)

Season:  5-6-1

2013 Week 12 Ratings

A couple of quick notes:

-This is one of the most static top 15 or so on a week-to-week basis that I can recall.

-I'm really surprised at not only the lack of correlation between strength of schedule and rating, and the steady worsening of that correlation.  This season, for whatever reason the teams with the hardest schedules are also some of the worst teams, with a couple of exceptions.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 12

South Carolina -12.5 v. Florida

This seems to be a pretty easy call.  South Carolina will gradually cover against a team with no offense.

Last week:  Michigan -6.5 v. Nebraska (incorrect)

Season:  5-5-1

2013 Week 11 Ratings

I continue to be pleased with these ratings.  Very curious to see what a victory at Auburn will do for Alabama, and how Ohio State's resume looks going forward.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 11

Michigan -6.5 v. Nebraska

Nebraska's three conference wins are against teams a combined 0-13 in conference play.  The defense is a shambles, almost losing to a team that had net 43 yards passing last week because they are unable to stop the run.  In the Disappointment Bowl, I look for the home team to answer the call after last week's pitiful display.

Last week:  Auburn -7.5 @ Arkansas (correct)

Season:  5-4-1

2013 PRI Ratings, Week 10

A pretty bland weekend unsurprisingly meant very little change to the ratings after week 10.  Wisconsin surged after that big road win over Iowa.

Cincinnati's SOS somehow got even worse.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 10

Back on the attack in a big way last week.  Slim choices this week.

Auburn -7.5 @ Arkansas

This line has dropped all week, which I'll gladly take.  I'm guessing that it's due to concerns over the health of Nick Marshall and that some people think that giving MASTER STRATEGIST Bret Bielema an extra week to prepare will make a difference.  Auburn's defense is actually above average and Arkansas is terrible.  I like Gus to run up the score here.

Last week:  Ohio State -15 v. Penn State (correct)

Season:  4-4-1

2013 PRI Ratings, Week 9

Very surprised to see that the correlation between rating and schedule strength actually get worse instead of better as the season moves forward.

All correlations between the three ratings systems improved this week.

Cincinnati's SOS is the lowest I've ever seen.

Duke's big win at Virginia Tech moved them up 33 places, the largest gain of the week.  Adding Abilene Christian to the schedule dropped New Mexico State 47 places.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 9

This season is tanking faster than Louisville in the second quarter.

Ohio State -15 v. Penn State

Ohio State is a flawed team, particularly when they don't have the ball, but I like Penn State's defense on the road even less.

Last week:  LSU -10 @ Mississippi (incorrect)

Season:  3-4-1

2013 PRI Ratings, Week 8

Central Florida predictably remains number 1 this week.  Displaying a willingness to go on the road and playing a half decent schedule should be rewarded.  Radical concept, I know.  Otherwise, you end up like Wisconsin.

All correlations involving the PRI remained essentially the same.  S&P and Colley disagree more this week.

Biggest gain from Week 7:  Iowa State, which despite getting crushed by Baylor, gained 36 places.
Biggest loss from Week 7:  ULM, 52 places

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 8

LSU -10 @ Mississippi.

Mississippi's season is cratering like my lock of the week has the last few weeks, and they are just decimated by injuries.  I like LSU to score enough to cover here, even if the line has skyrocketed since it opened.

Last week:  Northern Illinois -23 v. Akron (incorrect)

Season:  3-3-1

2013 PRI Ratings, Week 7

The first official ratings of the season.  Central Florida #1?  That's a weird one...

A new feature this year will be including correlations as a way to better explain the results.

1.  Rankings-to-Schedule Strength
2.  Rankings-to-Road Win total (check back tomorrow)
3.  Rankings-to-S&P comparison (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa)
4.  Rankings-to-Colley Matrix comparison (http://www.colleyrankings.com/)
5.  S&P-to-Colley

The former two can be found on the PRI Sheet, the latter 3 on the Comparsion Sheet

Overall, I'm pleased that there is a general positive correlation with both the S&P and Colley formulas, and it will be interesting to see if there's improvement as the season continues.

For Entertainment Purposes Only Stone Cold Lock Of The Week, Week 7

Yes, it's already week 7.

Northern Illinois -23 v. Terry Bowden's Akron

This is a large spread, but NIU has outscored Akron 38-10 in their last three meetings.  You also don't just walk into DeKalb and expect to keep it close if you're Akron.

Last week:  Oklahoma -9 v. TCU (incorrect, back door cover)

Season:  3-2-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Lock Of The Week, Week 6

I am making this pick on the road this week. I pick the games involving top 25 teams just for fun and this week, boy, am I taking a lot of chalk.

Oklahoma -9 v. Texas Christian

A couple of stout defenses will be on the field in Norman, but having seen a lot of Treyvone Boykin, I wonder how TCU is going to score 10 points in any game. Ponderous and inefficient don't mix well together.

Last week: Miami (FL) -18.5 v. South Florida (correct)

Season: 4-1-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Lock Of The Week, Week 5

Miami (FL) -18.5 @ South Florida

Double digit road favorites aren't always a wise play, but I'm having trouble seeing how an awful South Florida team can keep it within 3 scores here.

Last week:  Stanford -7.5 v. Arizona State (correct)

Season:  2-1-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Lock Of The Week, Week 4

The choices were pretty thin this week.  Lots of big spreads out there.

Stanford -7.5 v. Arizona State.

Arizona State wasn't particularly efficient or explosive against Wisconsin last week, poor qualities to have against Stanford's defense.

Last week:  Louisville -14 v. Kentucky.  That was a push.

Season:  1-1-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Lock Of The Week, Week 3

We'll stay away from the huge spreads this week.

Louisville -14 v. Kentucky.

Overrated as Louisville may be, Kentucky is neither at their level or a good football team, period.

Last week:  Baylor -27 v. Buffalo (correct)

Season:  1-1

For Entertainment Purposes Lock Of The Week, Week 2

It's an ominous sign when you consider four bets (Alabama -21, Western Michigan +28, Florida State -10.5 were the considerations) and the one you pick is the wrong one.  We soldier on.

Baylor -27 v. Buffalo.

Buffalo's Khalil Mack is awesome, but two straight road games for Buffalo is tough.  Plus, Baylor's offense is more potent and its going to be 100 degrees in Waco Saturday.  27 is a lot to lay but that's nothing for Baylor.

Baylor a 4 TD favorite, welcome to college football in 2013.

Last week:  LSU v. TCU Total points:  under 50 (incorrect)

Season:  0-1

For Entertainment Purposes Only Lock Of The Week, Week 1

Back again for another season of prognostication excellence as we strive for a fourth straight season of 10 wins.

LSU v. TCU Total Points = 50.  Under

Last season:  10-4

2013 Projected Ratings

Well, if everything happens as I predict in the regular season (fat chance), here's what the ratings will look like.  Enjoy the season!





Strength Of Schedule

2013 Bowl Projections

Bowl projections are a crapshoot made public for page views.  Especially this year.  I had a hard time figuring out the at-large BCS teams, mainly because (fortunately) I can't think like the BCS selectors.

With that said, enjoy these bowl projections!

2013 Predictions - The SEC

12 bowl eligible teams is no easy feat, no matter how you slice it.



Florida defeats Georgia in the Cocktail Party which gives them the tiebreaker for the trip to Atlanta.  The thing with Florida, can the defense carry the load again.  It's a slim margin between division winners and 6-6 when the offense is inert.

The West will be won in College Station this year.  A lot has been made of the fact Alabama has to replace most of its offensive line.  I think they'll be fine, as A&M's defense is also replacing quite a bit.  It's pretty straight-forward for the Tide from there.  Maybe the game at Auburn is difficult if Malzahn works a whole lot of magic.  Maybe.

I don't sense this is a vintage year for the conference, where the three or four top teams in the conference were elite.  Alabama is, LSU will be the best 3-loss team in the country, but the three top teams in the East have lost a great deal of talent that needs to be replaced.  The Vandy @ Florida game could be interesting, and could lead to Vandy being in the mix.

2013 Predictions - The Pac-12

2-team league again.  The real conference championship game will be Oregon @ Stanford on November 7th.



Stanford over UCLA in the official championship game.  UCLA is becoming the Buffalo Bills of the Pac-12 South.

Probably low on both Washington school, especially Wazoo.  Maybe Cal too.  The rest of the predictions feel right to me.

2013 Predictions - The Big 12

I was looking at my bowl predictions last year and they were worth a chuckle.  I've decided to share them here:  http://pittsfieldindex.blogspot.com/2013/01/2012-predictions-revisited.html   Just click on the bowl tab.

The Big 12 is my favorite conference, and not just because I live in Big 12 country.  You definitely get your money's worth throughout the season.




It's a low confidence pick.  When you have a league where the 8th and 9th-place teams are dangerous at home, it makes things really difficult.  I'm probably low on K-State and Iowa State.  Oklahoma seems low, but their defense is a wreck on paper and they have the second-toughest schedule in the country according to my projections.

Success in this conference has a lot to do with your schedule, which is why I don't have Texas winning things.  They will be a more complete team this year, but with trips to TCU, Iowa State, West Virginia and Baylor, and an early season trip to BYU, there are a ton of landmines there and I'm not sure their better performance will equal a better record.

Picking Baylor to win 10 games...it will happen if the defense can get out of the offense's way.  Oklahoma State's defense is already there, and that gives them the edge for the conference crown.

2013 Predictions - The Big 10

One last go around with Legends and Leaders.  If you need to wipe your eyes, I'll wait.

Ah yes, the Big Ten.  The land where no offense dares to tread.  A conference where wide-open spread offenses perform at 2/3 the pace of Woody Hayes' 1969 team (in fairness, that team ran a ludicrous 92.1 plays per game).  Before the move to geographic divisions, a cynical play to preserve sanctity of The Game and re-establish intra-conference hegemony (you can read more here:  http://pittsfieldindex.blogspot.com/2013/04/delany-and-competition.html), will we all have to live through the gushing about not one, but two Michigan-Ohio State games in 7 days?




No, we won't.  Michigan loses a crazy game in Evanston to lose the tiebreaker.  Ohio State wins with ease in the title game.

I think this conference will be poor again this season and the teams with superb records will flatter to deceive.  I have Ohio State losing to a not-very-good Cal team (OSU secondary v. Bear Raid?  Advantage:  Cal) and then waltzing through the conference.  Michigan wouldn't get to double-digit regular season wins if they played a QB other than Tommy Rees in week 2.  Michigan State is going to win games like Florida did last year without any sort of offense, bludgeoning teams (and viewers) to death.  Gary Andersen strikes me as an 8-win coach in the Big Ten.  I see a lot of the bottom-feeders losing to the MAC teams they play, which is Northern Illinois and Ball State in a few cases.

7 bowl-eligible teams, and one of them is Indiana.  Sums it up, I think.

2013 Predictions - The Non-Power 5

Let's not pretend that the American is equal to the rest of the BCS in 2013 when C-USA and MWC wasn't equal to the BCS in 2012.  If you're curious about MACtion and the have-nots of the college football world, read on.



I'm lower on Louisville than most.


Middle Tennessee State ensures they get to a bowl game this year defeating Tulsa in the title game.



Only in the MAC can a 9-3 team make the conference title game ahead of two 11-1 teams, but that's how the tiebreakers work out. That team, Toledo, will win the conference over Ohio.


Boise won't be the darlings of the world like most of the last decade, but they will win the conference over San Jose State.


Bobby Petrino is the David Shaw of the Sun Belt.


I normally automatically pick 1-A teams over 1-AA teams but this was the first year I didn't do that. Idaho and Georgia State are indeed that bad.

2013 Predictions - ACC

Hey, it's that time of the year again.  With two weeks to go until kickoff, today is an ideal time to begin posting prognostications for the upcoming 2013 season.  Let's see if these go better than last year.  I actually like how everything played out.




If I interpreted the tiebreaker rules right, I have Miami winning the division and likely the conference over Clemson since I still can't bet on Clemson, although I do think they beat Georgia.

This is always a tough conference to predict due to the mediocre parity it exudes.  I'm probably too high on the Tobacco Road schools and Miami and too low on my projected cellar-dwellers in the Coastal.

Delany And Competition

Hello.  How was your spring?  I bet it was cold.  You know what would warm you up?  Laughing at James E. "Jim" Delany!

This past weekend, as the Big Ten prepares to add two middling programs, the presidents of the conference voted on the proposed new divisions.  Naturally, as these votes tend to go, the measure was rubber stamped.  No longer can you snigger at divisions with pretentious names.  That crutch is gone as East and West now rule the day.

Lots of questions have been asked recently.  How equal are the new divisions?  How equal are the old ones.  Yes, one conference having Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State in one division sure seems like one division is stronger, but can we see that hypothesis demonstrated numerically?

We can.  Bill Connelly of Football Study Hall and Football Outsiders just released scads of information at the former site, including the totality of the F/+ rankings that exist, which would be from 2005-current.  All 14 current and future Big Ten teams are ranked as such:



So what do the current divisions look like:



Full marks to the conference brain trust;  they wanted even divisions and they got them.

How do the new conferences stack up.  Well....



To be fair, Penn State is probably going to have a lower ranking for a few years, and the alignments would be even more out of balance if Purdue was placed in the East.  Still, we've moved away from total balance, and if the media narrative of "Big 2/Little 12" actually does come true (which would require Meyer to be in Columbus for more than 5 seasons and Hoke to do better than his career record would indicate), then you moved to a pre-expansion Big XII model, which was pretty far from being egalitarian.

Can we do better?  Of course.  Taking the existing divisions and adding Maryland to the Legends and Rutgers to the Leaders gives us:



The opposite placement would give us similar averages to what we have currently.

I don't understand the desire to switch to a format that emphasizes geography when the previous arrangement seemed to be working properly.  The fear that Michigan and Ohio State could meet two straight weeks isn't backed up by any sort of historical trends since 1970 and is mainly a tall tale the media is spinning.  Travel costs?  Maryland is reportedly receiving a 20-30 million subsidy for travel for joining the conference.

Fixing what isn't broken, from where I sit. Then again, my brain wasn't susceptible to freezing this spring down here deepinthehartof, Texas.

2012 Predictions Revisited

Man, I hope no one made any bets on these.

I missed by an average of 2.3 games per team, my worst ever performance, and continuing a trend of worsening performances over the last four seasons.  As a comparison, I missed by 1.7 games per team when I started predicting everything back in 2009.

I way overrated Illinois, Houston, VaTech, and South Florida.  Didn't see Syracuse, Oregon State, Ball State, Kent State, Northern Illinois, San Jose State or Utah State coming at all.  Although in the case of the MAC, that conference is always difficult to predict whose turn it's going to be to be the hot team that year.

I will take credit for predicting Auburn would miss a bowl, however.

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 17

The finale.  A .500 record is assured.  Somehow it's fitting that this game is being sponsored by Discover.

Alabama -10 v. Notre Dame

I'm taking the points for what should be a turgid defensive slog.

Bowl Season:  17-16-1

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 15

We've made it to the top of Mount .500.  And just in time for the Departed Coach Bowl.

Arkansas State -3 v. Kent State

Bowl Season:  16-16-1

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 15

Today's line must be a late Christmas Gift.

BBVA Compass:  Mississippi -3.5 v. Pittsburgh

Bowl Season:  15-16-1

Bowl-o-rama, Day 14

Very quickly:

Cotton:  Texas A&M -3 v. Oklahoma

Bowl Season:  14-16-1

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 13

Quite the result last night, no?  Explain that one, Tony Barnhart.  Tonight's game is a difficult choice.

Fiesta:  Oregon -8 v. Kansas State

Bowl Season:  13-16-1

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 12

A banner New Year's Day.  4-1-1.  Now it's only 239 days until a day with multiple college football games.

Sugar:  Florida -14 v. Louisville

Bowl Season:  13-15-1.

2012 Bowl-o-rama, Day 11

Happy New Year!  Insert annual lament about how this day was a much bigger day many years ago.  At least the Orange Bowl is interesting for the first time in years.

Heart Of Dallas:  Oklahoma State -17 v. Purdue
Gator:  Northwestern Even v. Mississippi State
Outback:  South Carolina -5 v. Michigan
Citrus:  Georgia -9.5 v. Nebraska
Rose:  Stanford -5.5 v. Wisconsin
Orange:  Florida State -14.5 v. Northern Illinois

Bowl Season:  9-14