Only a few days away!  Time to get excited for the upcoming season.  To build further anticipation for next weekend and also to prepare everyone for watching next weekend’s games, I’ve decided to put together a viewer’s guide for all of the first week televised game.  This is kind of a take-off on a column the Charlotte Observer [...]

Along the same lines as my weekly picks entry, I’d also like to offer my predictions of a few upsets that could definitely happen in the first week.  These are ordered from smallest underdog to largest, and the value in each parentheses represents the number of points by which each team is currently an underdog according to the World Sports Exchange. 
Baylor [...]

I think it is close enough to the start of the season to go ahead and make my first set of picks. Most lines are already up for the opening weekend; including the site I use which is World Sports Exchange (www.wsex.com).  Let me first preface this by saying that I am not advocating sports gambling by writing [...]

With football season nearly upon us, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this summer in my sporting life.  It is a summer that I will remember for a long time, whether I want to or not.  Since I’m not a baseball fan, I direct most of my energy as a fan [...]

Brett Favre man… you’re becoming Muhammad Ali.  No you were never as good as Ali, but you’re similar in that you have a great legacy that you’re tarnishing with this retirement/return cyclical nonsense.  Go out and coach somewhere if you still want to be on a football field.  You’re just going to become worse and worse [...]

Date
Bowl
Teams
 

19-Dec
New Mexico
Air Force
Fresno State

19-Dec
St. Petersburg
Cincinnati
Southern Miss

20-Dec
New Orleans
Troy
UTEP

22-Dec
Las Vegas
Arizona
Brigham Young

23-Dec
Poinsettia
Northern Illinois
Florida Atlantic

24-Dec
Hawaii
Nevada
Tulsa

26-Dec
Motor City
Central Michigan
Wisconsin

26-Dec
Meinke Car Care
NC State
West Virginia

26-Dec
Emerald
Miami-FL
Stanford

27-Dec
Music City
Georgia Tech
Tennessee

28-Dec
Independence
TCU
Kansas State

29-Dec
Eagle Bank
UAB
Boston College

29-Dec
Champs Sports
Minnesota
North Carolina

30-Dec
Humanitarian
Louisiana Tech
UNLV

30-Dec
Holiday
Oregon State
Kansas

30-Dec
Texas
Missouri
Navy

31-Dec
Armed Forces
Utah
Houston

31-Dec
Sun
Oregon
Nebraska

31-Dec
Insight
Northwestern
Colorado

31-Dec
Peach
Georgia
Clemson

1-Jan
Outback
Iowa
South Carolina

1-Jan
Gator
Florida State
Notre Dame

1-Jan
Capital One
Penn State
Alabama

1-Jan
Rose
California
Illinois

1-Jan
Sugar
Ole Miss
Oklahoma

2-Jan
International
Rutgers
Western Michigan

2-Jan
PapaJohns.com
Pittsburgh
Boise State

2-Jan
Cotton
Oklahoma State
LSU

2-Jan
Liberty
East Carolina
Arkansas

2-Jan
Alamo
Michigan State
Texas Tech

4-Jan
Fiesta
Texas
South Florida

5-Jan
Orange
Virginia Tech
Ohio State

6-Jan
GMAC
Buffalo
Wake Forest

7-Jan
BCS
Southern Cal
Florida

When all the smoke is cleared, here’s how I see the final rankings for the 2009 season. For full analysis of each team see conference predictions below.

1
Southern Cal

2
Florida

3
Texas

4
Oklahoma

5
Virginia Tech

6
Oklahoma State

7
California

8
Ole Miss

9
Kansas

10
Illinois

11
Ohio State

12
LSU

13
Alabama

14
Penn State

15
South Carolina

16
Clemson

17
South Florida

18
Georgia

19
Boise State

20
Texas Tech

21
West Virginia

22
Nebraska

23
Oregon State

24
Florida State

25
Notre Dame

26
Pittsburgh

27
North Carolina

28
Rutgers

29
Oregon 

30
Brigham Young

31
Georgia Tech

32
Cincinnati

33
TCU

34
Tennessee

35
NC State

36
Iowa

37
Miami-FL

38
Stanford

39
Michigan State

40
Utah

41
East Carolina

42
Arizona

43
Minnesota

44
Arkansas

45
Colorado

46
Wake Forest

47
Northwestern

48
Missouri

49
Wisconsin

50
Boston College

51
UCLA

52
Southern Miss

53
Nevada

54
Houston

55
Arizona State

56
Connecticut

57
Michigan

58
Baylor

59
Vanderbilt

60
Washington

61
Kentucky

62
Central Michigan

63
Navy

64
Tulsa

65
Louisville

66
Auburn

67
Maryland

68
Kansas State

69
Virginia

70
Purdue

71
Western Michigan

72
Air Force

73
UTEP

74
Troy

75
Texas A & M

76
Miss. [...]

Here are the teams I’m predicting to disappoint in 2009 in order of the relative disparity between my picks and the experts’ average while also taking into account the relevance of the pick.  The experts’ average, which is listed in parentheses, consists of the avg. of the Athlon, Phil Steele, Sporting News, CBS, and various other sources. 
 1.  Oregon- 29th [...]

 Here are my surprise teams in order of the relative disparity between my picks and the experts’ average while also taking into account the relevance of the pick.  The experts’ average, which is represented in parentheses, consists of the avg. of the Athlon, Phil Steele, Sporting News, CBS, and various other sources.
1.   Illinois- 10th in nation [...]

Sun Belt
1.   Troy (74)- See Notre Dame and UCLA analysis regarding Phil Steele’s continual use of hard drugs when making some of these picks.  He continues this trend by ranking Troy as the # 31 team in the nation.  That’s way too high for them, but they should win Sun Belt though.
2.  Florida Atlantic [...]

MAC East
1.   Buffalo (81)- The Bulls should be relatively good again under superstar coach Turner Gill.  Should win the division again but think CMU will nose them out in the title game.
2.  Temple (85)- I really want to pick the Owls to make their first bowl in 30 years, but I just can’t quite do [...]

Independents
1.   Notre Dame (25)- Phil Steele must have taken a Michael Phelps bong hit before he picked the Irish as # 7 in the country.  ND will lose at least 3 and not make it to the BCS.
2.  Navy (63)- Predicted this team to surprise in ‘08 and I was right.  Unfortuantely, it was WFU [...]

C-USA East
1.   East Carolina (41)- Pinkney should lead experienced squad to repeat C-USA championship.  However, team has no chance of BCS contention with brutal non-conference slate.
2.  Southern Miss (52)- The Eagles built a lot of momentum for ‘09 by winning their last 5 games in Fedora’s first year.  Still think they’ll get nosed out by [...]

WAC
1.   Boise State (19)- With Moore at QB, this team def. has a shot at the BCS.  However, it’s too risky of a pick since the dream could very well be gone after their first game.
2.  Nevada (53)- Kapernick may be the most underrated QB in the nation, and the Pack will emerge as the [...]

Mountain West
1.   Brigham Young (30)- Expect another solid 9 or 10 win season from the Cougars.  Max Hall will continue to put up ridiculous numbers, and the team should win the MWC title.
2.  TCU (33)- I have the Frogs quite a bit lower than the experts’ average but can’t consider them a disappointment team because [...]