Prophecies, part two...

Here are the college football PROPHECIES for All Hallow’s Eve …

BIG GAMES in the FBS) There are five by our count:

Florida v Georgia (+2.5) – the World’s Largest Cocktail party is more important than usual, because it will have a HUGE impact on which team carries the olive at the end of the year! Florida’s 4-1, Georgia’s 3-2. Everyone else has three losses in conference. When Florida wins and covers, they’ll have a berth in the SEC title game all but wrapped up!

North Carolina @ Pitt (+3) – Two of the three undefeateds in conference play in the ACC Atlantic division, along with Duke. The winner here has a clear leg up, and we see Pitt pulling the upset, as three of our metrics (including our own Following Football tier system) agree.

Stanford @ Washington St (+13.5) – If Wazzu wins, they’re tied with the Cardinal and have the tiebreaker. WHEN Stanford wins by LESS than 13.5, they’ll have two games clear on the field and the Pac-12 North sewn up.

Notre Dame @ Temple (+9) – on a dare, we’ll take Temple to keep it closer than nine. Call it motivation. IF the Rockets should win, expect a vault up the rankings for not just them but all four AAC undefeateds.

Louisiana Tech @ Rice (+13) – for control of Conference USA West (along with Southern Miss, each has just one loss). The point spread is too close to call, but LaTech should indeed win by about two touchdowns.

BIG GAMES in the FCS) We see six of them that could possibly decide conference titles:

Dartmouth @ Harvard – This is the BIGGEST one! Both ranked top ten, Harvard’s been on top for years but Big Green’s been gaining…and now, the Dartmouth Defense thinks it can stop the high-powered Crimson offense. They’re wrong. Harvard by 10+ points. (Remember, there are no Vegas spreads in the FCS, so we create our own.)

Jacksonville @ Dayton – the two “least weak” teams in the Pioneer League pillow fight it out! If Dayton wins, they’ll stay unbeaten and have wins over their two biggest threats, J-ville and San Diego. If they lose, well, it’s a four-way tie at the top. At Dayton, we’ll take the Flyers to win, and that’s as much as we can ask. Gonna be a close game!

Colgate @ Fordham – very similar to its cousin in the Ivy League, the Patriot League also pairs its two remaining unbeaten this week in a showdown essentially for the title. Fordham’s been dominant all season long – we’ll call them 10+ point winners here, too.

Eastern KY @ Jacksonville St – Along with Eastern Illinois (whom JSU plays next week), two of the three unbeaten play their round-robin starting this week. If JSU can handle Auburn into a second overtime, they can sure handle EKU by a touchdown or more.

James Madison @ William & Mary – A week ago, this might have been a classic…now, with JMU’s QB out for the season, it’s the Cowboys all over again: William & Mary wins comfortably.

Coastal Carolina @ Charleston Southern – CSU’s won five in a row, and sits 3-0 in conference. Coastal is 7-0, ranked first in some polls, and obviously also unbeaten in conference. Saturday, they meet for the Big South title, for all intents and purposes. We’ll take the visitors, as tempting as it is to take the home crowd and all. Coastal’s got it all rolling this year.

OK…here are the other games of interest throughout the nation this weekend, and our picks on most of them:

Michigan @ Minnesota (+13.5) – With Jerry Kill’s retirement today, here’s betting the Gophers play their hearts out for him Saturday. Gophers cover.

Oklahoma St @ Texas Tech (+3) – OSU should be able to handle the Red Raiders fairly comfortably. Cowboys cover.

West Virginia @ TCU (-14) Thursday night – Something says this game will be closer than we think. All the metrics say 9-13 points, and the injuries are starting to catch up to both TCU and Baylor, and we think the title will head north into the state of OK somewhere…

USC @ Cal-Berkeley (+6) – They felt embarrassed at UCLA; they will NOT be embarrassed to the rich kids! Cal covers the six points.

Oregon @ Arizona St (-2) Thursday night – If you think the Sun Devils are going to win, might as well take the two points as well! Odds of a one point win are slim…

Ole Miss @ Auburn (+7) – Only interesting because it’s an SEC West battle, and all seven teams there are amazing. We like Auburn to keep it close.

South Florida @ Navy (-7.5) – there’s a LOT more than a touchdown between these teams. Navy by double that.

Florida International @ Florida Atlantic (+3.5) – bonus points if you can name what city either team is located in! (Neither can we.) FIU is decent; the Owls are not. FIU despite the points.

San Diego St @ Colorado St (+4.5) – We started the season saying that the entire Mountain division was better than the West, and that any of the best four teams (AF, CSU, USU, and Boise) could win the West easily. If that’s still true, the Rams win this game outright, even if the Aztecs are the class of the West (and they are!).

Idaho @ New Mexico St (+4.5) – Two rivalry games to finish this section: the Vandals and the Aggies had to roam the wastelands together when the WAC gave up football and no one else would take them. (Remember the season – 2010? – when the proposal was twelve games of Idaho v NMSU, six at each school?) What would you think about Idaho winning three in a row? (They hadn’t won two straight since 2011.) Take the Vandals to win by more than 5.

Louisiana Monroe @ Louisiana-Lafayette (-11.5) – The latter school tries to just call itself “Louisiana” now, but it seems a shame to kill the connection betwixt the schools. Like FIU changing to “The International” or something. But this line seems like it’s about right – no pick ATS from us; just confirmation that ULL should win by 11 or so.

AND, here are some of the interesting games in the FCS this weekend…

Indiana St @ Illinois St (no Vegas lines, of course) – Take Illinois St by at least 17 points.

Weber St @ Eastern Washington – EWU by 15+ “on the red”.

Montana @ Portland St – Sorry, Mr. Clixby and Grandpa Mike…Portland St by at least seven.

Maine @ Villanova – The Wildcats are better than everyone else except the top three in the Colonial… Villanova by 7+.

Monmouth @ Kennesaw St – The newcomers are 6-2, albeit against flimsy competition, but that’s fine for a team playing its first year of football EVER! However, we think Monmouth will win this one.

Western Carolina @ Chattanooga – almost put this in the BIG game section, but I don’t see WCU challenging Chattanooga, who should win by 13 or more.

Furman @ Samford – hate picking Southern Conference games! They always seem to go sideways on us! But we’ll try taking Samford by, say, at least five here…

Wofford @ VMI – …and Wofford by a TD or more over the team that won its first road conference game in three years last week!

Butler @ Marist – Close in every metric we use, but Marist comes out on top in every metric, too. Marist by 3.

Sacred Heart @ St. Francis-PA – St. Francis should hold on to this one at home.

Pennsylvania @ Brown – The undercard to Dartmouth/Harvard in the Ivy League this week should see Brown win a close one.

Alcorn St @ Southern – the two division champs from last year in the SWAC meet, and we’ll take a narrow Jaguar victory for Southern.

Alabama State v Alabama A&M meet in a neutral site game in Birmingham, and we’ll take State by three.

Norfolk St @ NC Central – two closely matched MEAC teams, with NCC destined to win by three.

Last but certainly least, Savannah St @ Howard, a matchup of two of the worst HBC teams of 2015 (or most any other year), and we’re of course obliged to pick against Savannah State, selecting Howard to win by six!

Do we need to give you our picks for ALL the other games? Sigh… All right… Hang on…

Take VT (-2.5) over BC, Clemson (-10) over NCState, Louisville (-12) over Wake, GT (-5.5) over UVA, Iowa (-17) over Maryland, Purdue (+10.5) covers over Nebraska, Wisc (-19) over Rutgers, Texas (-7) over Iowa St, Utah (-23.5 and still mad) over OSU, UCLA (-20.5) over Colorado, Tenn (-7.5) over KY, Tx A&M (-15) over SoCarolina, Arkansas by 25 over UT-Martin (no line), Houston (-13) over Vandy, UCF (+25) covers over Cincy, Tulsa (-3) over SMU, Marshall (-20) over Charlotte, WKU (-23) over ODU, NoTexas (+9.5) covers over UTSA, UTEP (+22.5) covers against USM, all the favorites in the MAC cover, Air Force (-7.5) covers against Hawaii, Boise (-20) covers at UNLV, USU (-24) over Wyoming, App St (-23) over Troy, and GASO (-21) over Texas St. Lots of favorites covering this week. If we didn’t name the game, we’re not picking a side against the spread, but we like the favorite to win.

In the FCS… winners in the MVC will be SDSU, NDSU, Northern Iowa and Western Illinois; in the Big Sky, we like SUU, MSU, Northern Arizona; in the Colonial, we’ll take Richmond, New Hampshire, Towson, and Stony Brook; in the Southland, we like McNeese, Central Ark, Lamar, NW St, SHSU and SFA; Presbyterian in the Big South; ETU and Citadel in the Southern; Duquesne, CCSU in the NEC; Tenn St, EIU, and SEMO in the Ohio Valley; Campbell, San Diego, and Drake in the Pioneer; Yale and Princeton in the Ivy; Bucknell and Lehigh and HC in the Patriot; BCU, NCAT, and SC State in the MEAC; and JSU and Prairie View in the SWAC.

Happy trails!

Thursday Thoughts - Braindroppings

Today, we want to jump all over the landscape and ask a ton of questions, point out a ton of interesting thoughts, and...well, if George Carlin were still around, he'd call these "Braindroppings"! So, here goes!

What makes a team a dynasty? Three titles in a row, like Hawthorn just achieved in the AFL? Does five in fifteen years count, like the NBA's San Antonio Spurs? What about the Patriots, who've won four and been to seven Super Bowls in the Belechick/Brady era (about fourteen years)? Certainly the 1950s-60s Boston Celtics count - they're the very definition of a dynasty! Eight in a row, eleven in thirteen years...but which of those is more important? Is winning over a long period of time, even if you missed a couple in between, "better" than the string over three or four years? What do you think?

Concussion protocols...without question, better than it's been in previous years, when you could convince your coach you were good to go play even when the other team seems to have twice as many players as they legally should have. But please, footy, football, every other kind of real contact sport - don't assume the problem's fixed! The iffy nature of concussions to begin with makes dealing with them nebulous in the best of times, and as we learn more and more about how much time it actually takes to recover from the hit, we have to change how we deal with it. Opinion?

Specials... which is what many coaches call "trick plays". Washington pulled a good one last night, a double pass which scored their first touchdown and led to an upset of USC in LA. SC State had a great one that I first saw the Rams pull on Seattle last year, where you have a punt returner fake like he's getting the punt, when in reality it's the guy on the opposite sideline who's catching the ball and (in last night's game) scoring a touchdown on the runback! (Bethune-Cookman won anyway, however, in a game which may have decided the MEAC.) So, the question that bugs some people is this - are "specials" basically cheating? If you can't win playing "correctly" (or "like men", if you want to really get machismo on this), you have to "resort to trick plays" to try to "cheat" your way to victory! My response - first of all, the plays are legal, so it's not cheating. Second of all, it's the brain versus brawn argument, and football has room for both. If you're okay with a team using the forward pass to win, which many in the early days of the AAFC and NFL weren't for the same reason (c'mon! Be a man and run at me!), you really can't complain about the double pass, or any other "trickeration", as our idol Chris Petersen would say. Petersen, of course, was the one who called the double pass that beat USC last night, and famously brought the house down in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl with a host of trick plays at the end of the game to pull out the Boise State victory over vaunted Oklahoma. What most people forget is that, until a great OU drive and a brainfade interception, Boise had OU soundly beaten (28-10, late in the third) with old-fashioned, hard-nosed, "my linemen are better than yours" football. You've gotta have the guys who can pull it off, too. Your thoughts?

Speaking of Boise v Oklahoma, the perpetual argument over whether a school from outside the Power Five conferences should ever play for a national championship rages, and will continue to until one gets in and then wins the tournament. The CFP folks threw the Group of Five conferences a nice bone by guaranteeing their best team a spot in the high-paying bowl games in the New Year's Six, which is more than they've had. But what if (to choose a team besides Boise, our personal favorite!) Temple or Toledo, both of whom look spectacular this year, goes undefeated in 2015, looks phenomenal in doing so, and two of the power conferences fail to produce any team the committee feels is worthy of a playoff bid? Who's to say that an undefeated Temple isn't a better choice than, say, a three-loss Florida State? What would be wrong with that? Think back to that 2007 Fiesta Bowl, which some say was the best game of all time (as much as I love Boise St, I'd go with USC/Texas in the BCS title game the year Vince Young won it for the Longhorns). Utah had been the first "mid-major" to qualify for a big bowl, but they played a five-loss Pitt team from a pathetic Big East, won, and proved nothing. Boise was the first mid-major to play in the spotlight against a top ten team - and not just any, but 7-time national champion Oklahoma, Big 12 champs, one loss, Adrian Peterson at RB. Somehow the screwed up rankings had BSU #7 and OU #9, but the Sooners were absurd betting favorites - David and Goliath was referenced multiple times in the intro. BSU dominated the game, and if it weren't for a Bronco punt coverage mistake late in the 3rd, Oklahoma was ready to give up. In fact, over the span of games that mid-major teams played in BCS bowl games, their record was 5-2. (And one of those losses was to another mid-major, when they pitted TCU and BSU against each other the year they both qualified. The other was Hawaii's debacle loss to Georgia, proving there's an exception to every rule.) Why can't a Boise St, a Houston, a Memphis, a Toledo, a Temple, a Navy, a Northern Illinois play for the title?

Bodybag games...New Mexico State is getting about a million dollars towards balancing its athletic budget ($4.4 M over, last year) to go to the University of Mississippi and be a forty-three point underdog to a top-notch SEC team. Basically, they're being paid to be the Washington Generals. Remember the Generals? The Globetrotters' perpetual opponents? Name anything about them besides that. Thought so... Ole Miss wants a week off from the gauntlet of the SEC, wants to fill their stadium, give their fans a "guaranteed win" (as LSU will tell you about Jacksonville St, "no such thing"!), and is giving about a one-seventh share of the profits to the opponent for the privilege of being beaten badly. Some teams are notorious for needing these games to stay afloat - Following Football's favorite team, the MEAC's punching bag Savannah State, played Oklahoma St and Florida St in consecutive weeks two years ago, lost the first one 88-0, and would've lost the second to the national champs by worse if they hadn't gone to a running clock in the second half to finish early and avoid a storm coming in. Up here in the Northwest, I always pity the Idaho Vandals, who moved to the big-time because Boise St did, but in little Moscow, Idaho, they don't have the fan base or the resources to afford the lifestyle of an FBS football program. So instead of being the top-notch FCS program they were for decades, rivals with the Montanas of the realm, they're stuck as a bottom-feeder in the lowly Sun Belt conference, taking two payday games a year (this year at USC and Auburn) to financially survive another one-win season. Where's the shame in moving to FCS before your entire program disbands (see UAB)? Why don't schools like NMSU, Idaho, and several others improve both their bottom line AND their competitive results and return to the FCS where their school setting suggests they should be anyway? Your thoughts?

UPS and DOWNS for the Second Week of September, 2015!

DOWNS - your blogger, who's been a day off all week...not because of Labor Day per se, but because he was waiting for the results of the Ohio St/VaTech game Monday night before moving on into the next week...only to then be a day behind! I'll try to make it up by getting our Prophecies column out later today!

DOWNS - the Texas Longhorn football team, who in its last three games has looked nothing like the Burnt Orange Machine of old. The loss Saturday night was almost as devastating as the humiliation to Arkansas in its bowl game last winter, where the Longhorns had one TD drive of 43 yards (two good plays), and a game-total of 25 net yards - meaning that excluding one drive towards the end of the first half, Texas had negative 18 yards of offense for the game. In fact, over the last three games, the Texas offense has been outscored by the opponents' defenses 21-20!

UPS - Temple, who beat Penn St 27-10; Northwestern, who beat Stanford 16-6, and Illinois, who overcame its coaching mess to beat Kent St 52-3. All three have far brighter prospects today than they did a week ago!

UPS - the Canadian rivalries between Calgary/Edmonton, Saskatchewan/Winnipeg, and Toronto/Hamilton. CFL scheduling is a hoot! All three pairs of rivals play home-and-home series over last weekend and this one, building a chance for animosity, bragging rights, fights, and twice as many reasons as usual to hate the other team! Going into this second weekend, let's see if Edmonton, Winnipeg, or Toronto can manage to even the scales at home!

UPS AND DOWNS - it's too early for any adjustments in our Top Eights or Bottom Fives, but here's a sneak peek at the college teams we pushed towards the "first among equals" status on one end, and the "isn't there a tier lower than this?" on the other...
POWER FIVE CONFERENCES: Alabama, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and Notre Dame all looked remarkable this weekend! Meanwhile, Washington St and Colorado lost to middling-to-poor lower level teams (Portland St and Hawai'i, respectively) and don't appear to have improved as much as we'd hoped...i.e., at all.
GROUP OF FIVE CONFERENCES: While Boise St would probably still be sitting atop this group for now, their second half was not impressive, even given the Pac-12 opponent. More impressive were the wins by Western Kentucky (against a vastly improved Vanderbilt), Appalachian St, Temple and Houston of the AAC, and we'll count BYU in this group for now on the strength of its Hail Mary victory at Nebraska. (Speaking of which, don't skip the last UP today!) Downs to the usual candidates: Idaho, Georgia St (lost to newbie Charlotte 23-20), Kent St and Tulane.
FCS CHAMPIONSHIP CONFERENCES: Southern Utah absolutely should have a win over Utah St under its belt today - they dominated the Aggies on defense (13 USU punts!) and were it not for USU's special teams (a blocked XP converted on the other end, and a 4th quarter punt return), Southern wins easily. Credit to the Missouri Valley Conference and Big Sky schools, of course, winning in FBS stadia - South Dakota St, Portland St, and North Dakota. Jacksonville's victory over Chattanooga spoke highly of the OVC. On the down side, the Colonial Athletic Association went 2-9, and it would've been ten losses had Stony Brook's game with Toledo not been cancelled before halftime with Toledo already up 16-7.
HBC CONFERENCES: Alas, off to a bad start at 6-17 across the board, and the six wins included four against lower division opponents and two against each other (Prairie View def Texas Southern; Ark-Pine Bluff lost to South Carolina State).

And finally, UPS to the Mangum family of Eagle, Idaho, who were in Pocatello watching one son make the catch of the day (according to ESPN, who made it Top Ten Play #2) for Idaho State, and were alerted that their other son was in at QB for BYU after the starter was injured, and saw him throw a Hail Mary to the end zone which gave the Cougars the 33-28 win in Nebraska - and was ESPN's Top Ten Play #1 for the day! "What are the odds?" said Dad, "We're just going to enjoy it for now!" This weekend, one parent's headed back to Pocatello and the other to Provo, so they can watch both sons play!

Reviewing our Week 10 predictions!

Well, if you've been with us this week, you know we've been firing on all cylinders in Week 10! Here's our results...

Successes: Bowling Green over Akron...NIU over Ball St...Temple closer than a TD to Memphis...Baylor destroying Oklahoma...Duke big over Syracuse...Army over UConn...TCU over Kansas St...LSU took Alabama to overtime....Toronto over Ottawa late...Hamilton wins against Montreal (half-credit)..,Cardinals big over the Rams. We'd like to be able to claim Minnesota's win over Iowa, but we didn't, so we can't.

Missteps: We said UL-Monroe would win against Appalachian St; the Warhawks gave up a late FG to lose 31-29...We were surprised Old Dominion beat FIU 38-35, but they had to score ten points in the last 65 seconds to do it...Ohio St beat Michigan St, on the road...Arizona St sure impressed us, handling Notre Dame...Didn't think Saskatchewan still had it in them to beat Edmonton...and the half-credit Hamilton was because we did NOT think the Tiger-Cats would win by enough to win the division (8). They won by fifteen. (Yes, that's more than eight.)

(And there's still the chance that Chicago could stay close to the Packers tonight.) So, right now, we are 10.5 - 5.5, so we will take that!

Ah, it's GOOD to be the king...

As Saturday morning progresses and we get ready for the weekly onslaught of college football (glorious!), we pause to check the morning betting lines - only to find that the public sees the games the way WE do, not as Vegas does!

Seemingly EVERY point spread that's shifted has done so in the direction our Following Football tiers would dictate! Increased spreads for LaTech, Duke, Oregon St, Boise St, and UCLA, for example, match our own predictions; a reversal in the Fresno/San Jose nightcap (the Dogs are now a home favorite) and a reduction inMichigan's gap also testify to our sentiments. The glaring difference, Auburn's predicted margin over A&M, is justified by the QB issues in Aggieville. 

Add to that the Memphis/Temple game last night, which we called even rather than a TD spread, hit halftime 10-10, was tied at 13 one second from the death, and was won by a FG for Memphis on the last play...and we feel pretty cocky this morning! 

Uh-oh....

Texas A&M just suffered through three terrible beatings to three extremely good teams, so thankfully they get an easy game this week against UL-Monroe.

Uh-oh.

As we speak, the Aggies are only up five, 21-16, deep in the fourth quarter, and ULM has the ball...

At least it's not East Carolina, whom Temple is currently outscoring 21-3...so much for being the highest ranked Group of Five team (and the automatic major bowl bid...)