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…
