Brad’s 2010 Surprise Picks
Posted by deaconcat08 on July 28, 2010
Now that I have provided you with a comprehensive analysis of every Divison 1-A conference, I will now proceed to post a few additional portions of my preview guide. The first of these posts will be a summary of my surprise picks. As you probably noticed, I chose ten teams in all of 1-A who I believe will be better than the experts are predictions. Below you will see a listing of each team followed by my predictions for each and an average ranking of “expert” publications such as Athlon, Phil Steele, Sporting News, Rivals, and others. The teams are ordered based on the relative disparity between my picks and the experts’ average ,while also taking into account the significance of the pick. The numbers in parentheses in the third column represent the numerical difference between my pick and that of the experts, both nationally and within each team’s conference.
| Surprise Teams | My Predictions: | Experts Predictions: | |
| 1 | Washington | 17th in nation (+15); 2nd in Pac-10 (+1) | 32nd in nation; 5th in Pac-10 |
| 2 | San Diego State | 61st in nation (+26); 3rd in MWC (+2) | 87th in nation; 5th in MWC |
| 3 | Oregon State | 11th in nation (+13); 1st in Pac-10 (+4) | 24th in nation; 5th in Pac-10 |
| 4 | South Carolina | 16th in nation (+14); 2nd in SEC East (+1) | 30th in nation; 3rd in SEC East |
| 5 | West Virginia | 12th in nation (+14); 1st in Big East (+1) | 26th in nation; 2nd in Big East |
| 6 | Kent State | 87th in nation (+10); 3rd in MAC East (+3) | 97th in nation; 4th in MAC East |
| 7 | UL-Lafayette | 97th in nation (+17); 3rd in Sun Belt (+3) | 114th in nation; 6th in Sun Belt |
| 8 | Kansas State | 49th in nation (+27); 3rd in Big 12 North (+2) | 76th in nation; 5th in Big 12 South |
| 9 | Baylor | 54th in nation (+12); 5th in Big 12 North (+1) | 66th in nation; 6th in Big 12 South |
| 10 | Central Michigan | 85th in nation (+9); 1st in MAC West (+4) | 94th in nation; 5th in MAC West |