Ramblings from the Ultimate Sports Sentimentalist

Every year since 1998, I have sat down on either the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving and drafted a set of bowl projections for the upcoming college football postseason.  I try to do a decent amount of research before making these predictions, and then as the actual pairings are announced, I analyze the accuracy of my picks in three different ways.  I calculate the  percentage of teams I correctly predicted to go bowling, the percentage of slots predicted correctly (ex: having the right SEC team in the Outback Bowl), and the percentage of total bowls correctly predicted (ex: having the correct matchup in the Outback Bowl).  My best marks in each category are: 100% of teams correctly predicted (2006), 57.4% of slots correctly predicted (2008), and 36% of bowl correctly predicted (2000).  I’m glad that I can finally share these with everyone in a public forum, and I hope they will prove to be  informative and prophetic.

Before I go through all the games, I just wanted to give an explanation of my reasoning in regard to certain aspects of these projections.  After I finished working on these picks, I went online to compare them with those found on other sports sites.  While there are obviously some similarities, one unique prognostication I have is that Oklahoma State will slip in the Big 12 bowl pecking order, as a result of their lackluster conclusion to the season.  Most projections still have them in the Cotton Bowl after their near-defeat to Colorado and shutout-loss to Oklahoma, but  I, on the other hand, feel like those performances will hinder their bowl standing and make them a less than attractive candidate for an elite bowl bid.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, which brings up another issue: I still have no idea when all the bowl pairings will be announced.  If you read my good thoughts/bad thoughts entry from College Football Week 12, you will see that I talk about the “Army/EagleBank delay”  and its possible effect on the entire bowl schedule.  I actually have not heard of any other pundits/columnists talk about this, so I’m thinking that either I’m the only person who is aware of it or there has already an explanation of what is going to be done that I don’t know about.

Finally, I obviously had to work off a few assumptions/predictions about next week’s games in order to make these.  First of all, I’m predicting Oregon, Florida, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, and Texas all win their respective conference title games.  If one or more of these team loses, then were will obviously be some modifications to the BCS bowls as well as some smaller bowls.  Furthermore, I am assuming that the two current bowl bubble teams: Army and Hawaii don’t win their last game and thus become ineligible for postseason play.  If one or both of these teams pulls off a big upset in their finale, then it would also change some of my predictions because both team would then be guaranteed bowl bids.

As of right now, all bowl eligible teams will get a bid except for three.  The two 6-6 Sun Belt teams (UL-Monroe and UL-Lafayette) are almost certainly going to get snubbed from the postseason, but the third in this group is somewhat a surprise.  Based on my analysis and other online projections, UCLA will most likely not be extended a bowl bid.  The reason being is that the Pac-10 has seven bowl eligible teams and only has six bowl tie-ins.  The Bruins will be Pac-10 team # 7 for selection purposes and will therefore have to receive an at-large bid.  After all the 7-5 at-larges are placed in bowl games (as required by law), only one spot for a 6-6 team at-large team will remain.  That spot will then almost certainly go to Notre Dame, so the Bruins will probably be squeezed out the postseason picture.  This may be confusing to some because you will notice that several inferior 6-6 teams (Wyoming, Marshall) will be getting bowl bids.  The reason they get one instead of UCLA is that their conferences have enough tie-ins for them to get a bid without having to enter the at-large pool.  At any rate, here are the picks.  Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about these.

 New Mexico (Dec. 19)- Wyoming (6-6) vs. Nevada (8-4)

St. Petersburg (Dec. 19)- Southern Miss (7-5) vs. Connecticut (6-5)

New Orleans (Dec. 20)- Troy (9-3) vs. Central Florida (8-4)

Las Vegas (Dec. 22)- Oregon State (8-3) vs. Brigham Young (10-2) (note: this would mark BYU’s 5th straight Las Vegas Bowl appearance)

Poinsettia (Dec. 23)- Utah (9-3) vs. Arizona (7-4)

Hawaii (Dec. 24)- East Carolina (8-4) vs. Fresno State (7-4)

Little Caesar’s (Dec. 26)- Notre Dame (6-6) vs. Central Michigan (10-2)

Meineke Car Care (Dec. 26)- North Carolina (8-4) vs. West Virginia (8-3) (note: rematch of same bowl last year)

Emerald (Dec. 26)- Boston College (8-4) vs. Stanford (8-4) (note: battle of elite private schools)

Music City (Dec. 27)- South Carolina (7-5) vs. Florida State (6-6) (note: Spurrier takes on his arch nemesis from yesteryear– Bowden and the Noles)

Independence (Dec. 28)- Auburn (7-5) vs. Texas A & M (6-6)

Eagle Bank (Dec. 29)- Northern Illinois (7-5) vs. Marshall (6-6)

Champs Sports (Dec. 29)- Virginia Tech (9-3) vs. Northwestern (8-4)

Humanitarian (Dec. 30)- Idaho (7-5) vs. Bowling Green (7-5)

Holiday (Dec. 30)- Oklahoma (7-5) vs. Southern Cal (8-3) (note: rematch of 2005 national title game)

Armed Forces (Dec. 31)- SMU (7-5) vs. Air Force (7-5)

Sun (Dec. 31)- California (8-3) vs. Nebraska (9-3)

Texas (Dec. 31)- Navy (8-4) vs. Iowa State (6-6)

Insight (Dec. 31)- Missouri (8-4) vs. Minnesota (6-6)

Chick-fil-a (Dec. 31)- Georgia (7-5) vs. Clemson (8-4)

Outback (Jan. 1)- Tennessee (7-5) vs. Wisconsin (8-3)

Capital One (Jan. 1)- Ole Miss (8-4) vs. Penn State (10-2)

Gator (Jan. 1)- Pittsburgh (9-2) vs. Miami-FL (9-3)

Rose (Jan. 1)- Ohio State (10-2) vs. Oregon (9-2)

Sugar (Jan. 1)- Alabama (12-0) vs. Cincinnati (11-0)

International (Jan. 2)- Rutgers (8-3) vs. Temple (9-3) (note: matchup of old Big East bottom-dwelling rivals)

Papajohns.com (Jan. 2)- South Florida (7-4) vs. Kentucky (7-5)

Cotton (Jan. 2)- LSU (9-3) vs. Texas Tech (8-4)  

Liberty (Jan. 2)- Arkansas (7-5) vs. Houston (10-2) (note: two SWC rivals meet up in a showdown of two explosive offenses)

Alamo (Jan. 2)- Michigan State (6-6) vs. Oklahoma State (9-3)

Fiesta (Jan. 4)- Iowa (10-2) vs. Boise State (12-0)

Orange (Jan. 5)- Georgia Tech (10-2) vs. TCU (12-0)

GMAC (Jan. 6)- Middle Tennesee State (9-3) vs. Ohio (9-3)

BCS Title Game (Jan. 7)- Florida (12-0) vs. Texas (12-0)