Brad’s College Football Season in Review- Preseason Bowl Picks
Posted by deaconcat08 on January 15, 2012
Well, the college football season has come to a close, and it’s time to look back to see how accurate my preseason predictions were compared to the experts. Overall, this is the fifth season I’ve conducted this full, in-depth analysis of my preseason picks and have had mixed results in doing so. I ended up being more accurate than the experts in both 2007 and 2009, less accurate in 2008, and about the same in 2010 (see full history here). This year I had some highlights and lowlights, but overall my predictions were slightly worse than Phil Steele and most other preseason prognosticators. With that being said, I still had some ingenious predictions which deserve some recognition.
Here are my preseason bowl predictions. My correct picks are marked in bold, and an analysis of my success is featured at the bottom of this entry.
| Date | Bowl | Teams | |
| Dec. 17 | New Mexico | Colorado State | Idaho |
| Dec. 17 | Humanitarian | Temple | Fresno State |
| Dec. 17 | New Orleans | SMU | FIU |
| Dec. 20 | Beef O’Brady’s | West Virginia | UCF |
| Dec. 21 | Poinsettia | Nevada | TCU |
| Dec. 22 | Las Vegas | Air Force | Washington |
| Dec. 24 | Hawaii | UAB | Hawaii |
| Dec. 26 | Independence | North Carolina | San Diego State |
| Dec. 27 | Little Caesars | UL-Monroe | Toledo |
| Dec. 27 | Belk | Miami-FL | Pittsburgh |
| Dec. 28 | Military | Georgia Tech | Navy |
| Dec. 28 | Holiday | Arizona State | Texas |
| Dec. 29 | Champs Sports | NC State | Notre Dame |
| Dec. 29 | Alamo | Texas A & M | Utah |
| Dec. 30 | Armed Forces | Brigham Young | Houston |
| Dec. 30 | Pinstripe | UConn | Texas Tech |
| Dec. 30 | Music City | Maryland | Tennessee |
| Dec. 30 | Insight | Missouri | Ohio State |
| Dec. 31 | Meineke Car Care of TX | Baylor | Iowa |
| Dec. 31 | Sun | Oregon State | Clemson |
| Dec. 31 | Liberty | Tulsa | Kentucky |
| Dec. 31 | Kraft Fight Hunger | Cincinnati | Kent State |
| Dec. 31 | Chick-fil-a | Virginia Tech | Florida |
| Jan. 2 | Ticketcity | Northwestern | Southern Miss |
| Jan. 2 | Outback | Michigan State | South Carolina |
| Jan. 2 | Capital One | Illinois | Georgia |
| Jan. 2 | Gator | Mississippi State | Penn State |
| Jan. 2 | Rose | Nebraska | Stanford |
| Jan. 3 | Sugar | Alabama | Boise State |
| Jan. 4 | Orange | Florida State | Rutgers |
| Jan. 5 | Fiesta | LSU | Wisconsin |
| Jan. 6 | Cotton | Oklahoma State | Arkansas |
| Jan. 7 | BBVA Compass | South Florida | Miami-OH |
| Jan. 8 | Godaddy.com | Ohio | Troy |
| Jan. 9 | National Title Game | Oklahoma | Oregon |
Comparison with Phil Steele: Phil ended up being more accurate than me in picking both bowl slots and complete bowls. I correctly predicted 7 bowl slots and 0 total bowls, while Phil got 9 bowl slots and 1 full bowl.