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!

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!

Here's another good regular read: Sam Cooper!

Cooper does a commendable job recapping many of the storylines of the weekend past in college football - some of these we've touched on, like the Maryland refusal to shake hands; some of them we haven't, like the tragedy of Connor Halliday's broken leg at Washington State or the yanked field goal of the aptly-named Pitt kicker Chris Blewett, or even the more delightfully named Munchie Legaux at Cincinnati. Take a look yourself, courtesy of Yahoo Sports! 

Week 9 - the "Water Tiers" (H-to-O... get it?)

Tier H: Air Force (6-2), Arkansas (4-5 in the toughest division in history), Boston College (6-3), Penn St (4-4), Stanford (5-4), and Utah St (6-3). 

Tier I: Two divisions have to have seven teams to total 128 FBS teams, and right now this is one of those: Cincinnati (5-3), Northern Illinois (6-2), Oregon St (4-4). Pitt (4-5), Rutgers (5-4), Tennessee (4-5), and Chris Petersen's Washington Huskies, at 6-3 in his first season in purple.

Tier J: Houston and Memphis (both 5-3 from the AAC), Nevada (6-3), and three ACC schools: Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina St (the Pack is 5-4; the others are 4-5).

Tier K: Two conference leaders from the Sun Belt and Conference USA headline Tier K: Georgia Southern (7-2) and Louisiana Tech (6-3). They're joined by 5-3 Bowling Green and Temple, and 4-5 former champions Texas and Virginia Tech.

Tier L: BYU (5-4), Navy (4-5 after a great game against Notre Dame), Northwestern (freefalling at 3-5), Syracuse (3-6), and 4-5 Toledo and Louisiana-Lafayette.

Tier M: Three 5-3 teams (Central Florida, UTEP, Rice), and three Michigan teams - Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Big Blue themselves, the Michigan Wolverines, who are NOT happy to be classified with their little brothers...

Tier N: Arkansas St (5-4), Illinois (4-5), Middle Tennessee (5-4), San Diego St (4-4), Texas Tech (3-6), and Wyoming (4-5).

AND finally, our brand new Tier O!: With seven teams in all the tiers from K-P, it was easy to separate out one more tier - we'd said we didn't know why we left out this tier last week; this must have been why! Florida Atlantic (3-6), both Fresno St (3-6) and San Jose St (3-5) from the Mountain West; Texas St (5-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (4-4) from the Sun Belt; and the Pac-12's wild guns from Washington St (2-7).

Forecasts for Week 8!

Looking through the oddsmakers' choices and spreads (and again, we do not advocate betting on football or any sport! It's just a device we use to estimate probable outcomes of games!), there aren't very many spots where we disagree with Vegas. Here are the most obvious:

In college football, we like Maryland over Wisconsin as an eleven point underdog, since we have them a tier higher to begin with!

We like Georgia Tech to beat Pitt despite their three-point underdog line, as we have them three full tiers higher than the Panthers!

We severely question the idea that Oregon St is a two-TD underdog to Stanford. We have them a tier higher, and since it's on the Farm, we figure it a pretty even game.

Looking at the West Virginia at Oklahoma St game, we see even lines from most Vegas houses, but we see it as a probable Mountaineer victory.

Old Dominion should be able to handle Western Kentucky, despite the Hilltoppers' home field advantage...and we don't see why Arizona is only a 2 1/2 point fave over Washington St. Sure, the Cougs will put up fifty - but they'll allow seventy!

In the NFL, we're always afraid to predict the unpredictable, but the two games where our tiers disagree with the oddsmakers are in the Meadowlands, where unlike Vegas we foresee Buffalo beating the Jets, and in New Orleans. Sure, the Saints are good at home...but the Packers are good everywhere. They're rated as a "pick'em" game, but we're pretty confident in Green Bay defeating New Orleans, even in the Superdome.

Finally, in the CFL, we're most interested in the Hamilton at Toronto matchup, and leaning towards the road team to win the first of the three-game round-robin tournament for the Eastern Conference title. 

Games in American Football for Week 6...

The weekend starts on Thursday night, as the Indianapolis Colts go to Houston to play the Texans in the game of the night (BYU at UCF is a yawner - sorry, boys...). As much as the Following Football crowd loves JJ Watt (he who proposed to a six year old girl who swooned over him on YouTube last year!), you cannot bet against Andrew Luck in a prime time game (not that you should ever bet on football - especially pro football! WAY too unpredictable - even we so-called 'experts' are correct against the spread about as often as a coin flip!). We like the COLTS over the TEXANS by more than the 3 point spread.

Friday
San Diego State should beat New Mexico handily (by more than six), and we don't see Washington State allowing Stanford to beat them by the seventeen points the oddsmakers suggest. Take the Aztecs and the Cougars (for recreational purposes only!).

SATURDAY
 The games we like: Cincinnati won't lose by two touchdowns to Miami of FL...Expect West Virginia to go to Texas Tech and handle the Red Raiders easily...Texas Longhorn fans should watch something else Saturday than their game against Oklahoma: go cruise the State Fair, have a corn dog, or (gag!) deep-fried sweet tea (how do you even do that?). But the Sooners will demolish them sooner rather than later... Georgia Tech by more than four over Duke, thanks to the work of their chaplain's pre-game speeches...Kent State, despite being winless, will beat up UMass, who can't figure out how to win a game when the opposing team hands it to them (as Miami-OH did last week)...Not a no-brainer, but we like Baylor to win against the TCU Horned Frogs by more than the 8 1/2 point spread at home...Oregon will be quacking mad, and ready to rush right through the paper-mache offensive line of UCLA Saturday; expect a big Duck win...Idaho won't break their winless streak at Georgia Southern this week, but they will hold it closer than three TDs...We absolutely cannot believe that Michigan is favored over Penn State Saturday night; the Nittany Lions will make cat food out of them...LSU should be more than a 1 1/2 point favorite at Florida, but most bettors can't believe that the SEC West is as weak as the SEC East is strong. Literally, the first place team in the West would lose against all but Arkansas in the East, and even Arkansas would be 4-3 or better in the West. Take the Tigers.

SUNDAY
Again, betting on NFL games in the age of parity is like playing roulette, but here's a couple of games we think we can guess the way the chips will fall: The Broncos should end up ten or more points clear of the Jets, but Peyton'll wait until being back in Denver to break the TD record...We like the Panthers to keep close to the Bengals, and the Steelers to stay close to the Browns, although we have no confidence on victories in either case... The Redskins, Raiders, and Giants are all expected to lose (to the Cardinals, Chargers, and Eagles, respectively), but we think the line-makers are too conservative. Take the favorites and the points.

And on Monday night, it's hard for us to see the Rams staying closer than a field goal to the Forty-Niners, even at home.

How did we do on last week's predictions? Let's find out...

Places We Looked Brilliant:
    Arizona not only covered at Oregon... Louisville handled Syracuse with ease...Utah State not only  covered, not only defeated BYU, but basically eliminated their chances of success this year by breaking Tayson Hill's leg...we looked prescient picking Air Force over Navy, and California winning a WILD game over Washington State, in which the Wazzu QB threw for a record 744 yards, and was undone by a missed 19-yard last second field goal!...We also projected FCS losses for UC Davis and (surprise, surprise!) Savannah State, and a tight game between Montana State and my alma mater Sacramento State, which turned into a really exciting, back-and-forth 59-56 Bobcat win.

Places We Looked Like Stevie Wonder Judging A Beauty Contest:
   San Diego State failing to cover against Fresno State...neither did Texas A&M against Mississippi State, or LSU versus Auburn...Florida barely scraped by Tennessee after switching quarterbacks (probably for good), East Carolina couldn't annihilate SMU after all, who scored 24 points, tripling their season total!...TCU was much better against Oklahoma than expected, and so was Idaho (congrats, Vandals!).

And, Somewhere In The Grey Area Where We All Spend Most Of Life:
NCAA,    Florida State 43, Wake Forest 3...Notre Dame/ Stanford had the same three point spread Vegas predicted, as did Oregon State/Colorado. After the Charlie Weis firing, Kansas did as expected and played inspired football...for a while, before West Virginia put them away 33-14. Michigan did indeed play Rutgers close before losing 26-24. Finally, the Boise State / Nevada game was back and forth, as expected, with the Broncos winning a wild game 52-47.