The Eye Test: Week 2 Reaction

College football these days is all about perception.  Come the end of the season people will be asking things like how bad was that loss? And, how good was that win? A decision in the minds of the voters will have to be made as to which team “looks” the best and those perceptions are already being built in this young season. Thus, it is so incredibly important for conferences to perform well and for teams to win big and not struggle.  You have to pass the "eye test".

In this post, I’m not going to talk about how good Alabama or LSU or the SEC look, because they are already at the top of public perception.  Nor am I going to talk about how bad the Big East looks, because well everyone expects that.  I want to point out some trends that I think will be important to keep an eye on as time progresses. 

Preseason Conference Projections

Its that time of year again! I have done a moderate research and some random guessing to come up with my Preseason Conference Champs and BCS Bowls Projections! It will be a two part post with the Bowl Projections coming out tomorrow.  I will also be keeping my own top 25 this year, so that should be fun too.  Keep a look out later in the week for my weekly picks as well as other thoughts on the season.  

Below I have written up how I think each major conference will play out this year. And yes, I still included the Big East.

In order to make this interesting, I’m going to pick the top 3 teams from each conference.  For conferences with a championship game, that will include the two division champs and then a third “wild card” team.  For the others it will just be the top three.  The rankings next the team represent their "pre-conference championship game" record. 

SEC

LSU – West (12-0)

Georgia – East (12-0)

Alabama – (11-1)

Georgia wins the East by not having to play any of the powerhouse teams from the West.  With probably the easiest schedule in America, the bulldogs go into the SEC championship game undefeated.  They lose big in the championship game.

PAC-12

USC – South (11-1)

Oregon – North (11-1)

Washington State– (9-3)

USC wins the south and beats Oregon twice in the process.  They will have home field advantage for both the regular season game and the championship game and win both in close fashion.  USC will lose one close game this year on the road.  Washington State will have a nice under new head coach Mike Leach. 

B1G

Michigan – Legends (10-2)

Wisconsin – Leaders (9-3)

Michigan State – (10-2)

If anyone beside Wisconsin wins the Leaders division, it will be the biggest upset of the year.  With OSU and PSU ineligible, all they have to do is beat Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue.  On the other side Michigan finally beats MSU and clinches the Legends division and then beats a worse than expected Wisconsin team. 

BIG12

Oklahoma (11-1)

West Virginia (10-2)

Oklahoma State (9-3)

West Virginia will beat both Oklahoma and Texas in their first season in the Big 12 but won’t be able to avoid the upset (twice).  That leaves OU and OSU to fight it out in the bedlam, which (sadly) Oklahoma should win.  

ACC

Virginia Tech – Coastal (10-2)

Florida State - Atlantic (11-1)

Clemson – Atlantic (10-2)

Virginia Tech will lose to both FSU and Clemson during the regular season, but will still win the Coastal.  They will avenge their loss to FSU in the conference championship game.  FSU beats Clemson and I don’t trust any ACC team to not trip up at some point (thus the loss for FSU and for Clemson).

BIG EAST

USF – (8-4)

Louisville – (8-4)

Rutgers – (7-5)

This is a crap shoot of a conference these days.  I pick USF because they are from Florida and should be able to recruit better players (in theory).  It really doesn’t matter…

College Football Week 10 Analysis

Yesterday’s football slate ended up being quite sub par when I came to quality games.  And living in Dallas, I couldn’t catch the local coverage of the ACC games.  But, here are some notes and thoughts on what I saw in yesterday’s action.  Be sure to check out my post from earlier on the LSU vs Alabama game as well. 

The Crazy Big Ten:

In the past three weeks in the Big Ten, six ranked teams have been upset and chaos is ensuing atop the conference standings.  Right now eight teams are already bowl eligible with Northwestern and Purdue still close to making it as well.  Additionally, 7 teams have 2 or fewer losses in conference play; making these last few weeks extremely interesting.  I said last week that I thought Nebraska would meet Wisconsin the title game; but, with Nebraska’s loss, I will revise that to say that I think we will see Michigan State vs Wisconsin.  Be on the look out for next week’s version of the “Weekly Big Ten Championship Game Pick”!

Oklahoma State’s Big Play Defense:

We saw last night what happens when a team that takes risks on defense doesn’t get the big plays that they need.  In the first 8 games this season Oklahoma State was able to force 30 turnovers or 3.75 per game! That is a ridiculous amount.  They were able to do this by taking risks on defense.  They over purse the quarterback, try to strip the football and jump routes looking for interceptions.  Last night, this strategy didn’t work, and a patient Kansas State team was able to take advantage.  Thankfully, their offense is so solid that they were able to win without relying on their defense to provide them with a short field.  When matched up with other aggressive Big 12 teams, look for Oklahoma State to get back to their normal self in forcing turnovers.  However, if forced to face a power / running offense again like Kansas State, we will have to see if their offense can make up the difference again.

Week 10 Picks Review:

This week I went 6-2 overall missing two silly ACC games.  I’m not sure why I thought Duke would win, I probably was just (1) really hoping that Miami would embarrass themselves and (2) wanting Virginia Tech’s close win last week to look better.  My other miss was on Wake Forest who took a 7 pt lead into halftime, but just couldn’t score at all in the second half.  On the other hand, the NCState vs UNC game went like I thought it would.  NCState showed up at home and UNC didn’t on the road; just like they have all season.