Tuesday, January 1, 2008

College Football Bowl Picks

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm way late on this, you don't have to tell me. Here are my picks for this season's bowls. Since I'm so late, you are just going to have to trust that these are my actual picks, even for games that have already happened. The honor system. I'd like to think I have a little honor left...

Utah over Navy (no head coach for Navy)
FAU over Memphis (flipped a coin...and won!)
Cincinnati over Southern Miss (Brian Kelly bandwagon pick)
New Mexico over Nevada (Adam's bowl-naming theory)
BYU over UCLA (UCLA sucks)
Boise State over ECU (no more magic...)
CMU over Purdue (lots of points...just not enough for CMU)
Texas over ASU (I hate the Pac-10)
MSU over BC (should have won this game- but didn't. Matt Ryan=overrated)
TCU over Houston (2 for 2 on coin flips)
Oregon State over Maryland (too far for Maryland to travel)
UConn over Wake (well, I guess UConn's Cinderella season had to end sometime)
UCF over Miss St. (I bought into the Kevin Smith hype)
Penn St. over Texas A&M (Joe Pa versus lame duck coach...easy one)
Alabama over Colorado (in Saban I trust)
Air Force over Cal (I'm wrong...and I still hate the Pac-10)
Fresno State over Georgia Tech (3 for 3)
South Florida over Oregon (I'm impressed, without Dixon they still put on a show)
Kentucky over FSU (FSU gave it their all, I'm impressed again)
Indiana over Oklahoma State (I wanted this one for the Hoosiers...)
Auburn over Clemson (closer than I thought)
Wisconsin over Tennessee (Big 10 love)
Arkansas over Missouri (McFadden is the real deal)
Texas Tech over Virginia (my Crabtree man crush continues)
Florida over Michigan (bye bye Lloyd)
Illinois over USC (this game will be CLOSE)
Georgia over Hawaii (time to play against the big boys, Rainbows)
West Virginia over Oklahoma (I want this one for WVU, and I hate OU)
Kansas over Virginia Tech (shows why they should be in a BCS bowl)
Rutgers over Ball State (4 for 4?)
Tulsa over Bowling Green (I saw Tulsa once this year, and I liked them)
Ohio State over LSU (they want this one BAD. They won't have a repeat of last year)

Currently I am 13-8. Over .500! I'll take it.

Before I wrap this post up, let me just comment on a couple of things. Florida State football players who were caught cheating on their online course. I have to say I'm really disappointed, and it's not from the football players' end. Apparently the music course the players were taking hadn't updated their test in seven years. The players then used the answers from the previous years' tests to pass. And I have zero problem with this. I can remember back in college borrowing notes and old tests from friends who had taken the same course before me to help me study and get a better feel for the final and whatnot. And I don't think I'm alone on that one. I think that's part of the culture of a college student. Students share notes, old tests, etc.- knowledge essentially. Knowing this, how does a university not change its course's final for seven years? That's plain ignorance on FSU's part. In this dog-eat-dog world, sometimes you have to take advantage of the idiots. I know I'll probably get backlash about being honorable and doing the right thing, but if you drop a twenty dollar bill on the ground each year for seven years and never claim it, well then I'm going to keep it and use it because you're an idiot.

Second thing. I hate when bowls promote games as conference matchups. For instance, last night's Auburn-Clemson matchup. They were promoting the game as the SEC versus the ACC. Well, that's not true. It's Auburn versus Clemson. Just because one team wins over the other does not mean that the SEC is better than the ACC. Could that be true, though? Sure, but for that night the only thing that was proven was that Auburn was better Clemson. And this has bugged me for a year now, since last year's bowls when Florida beat OSU. People have been saying that the SEC is far superior than the Big Ten because Florida trounced the Buckeyes. While they might be right in their opinion, you cannot use that game as a basis for your argument. The only thing that game proved was that the Gators beat the Buckeyes on one night in January. That's it! If you want to use that for your argument, what about Penn State beating Tennesee and Wisconsin beating Arkansas last year? Doesn't that mean the Big Ten, since it won more games against the SEC, was better?

If you have conference pride, that's great. You should root for your conference to win. Just don't promote these bowls as conference versus conference, because that's not what they represent. It's team A versus team B, with different conference affiliations for each. Okay, done with that rant.

Enough college football =).

~Mikey D

3 comments:

Adam said...

I did not know anything about the cheating scandal... the players should not have been stupid enough to have gotten caught. BUT, that is ridiculous that the school hasn't changed the test and I am sure 80% of the students in that class look at the old tests.

Mikey D said...

Eek...15-12 now...not such good predictions yesterday.

-Happy for Michigan, and Lloyd Carr. Way to go out on a high, instead of an all-too-familiar low.
-Hmmm...with Georgia's dominance I HOPE there are some voters out there who regret insanely jumping the lower ranked LSU over the Bulldogs. That team can play with anyone.
-Completely wrong about USC/Illinois. I give USC credit for a dominating win, but I do have to question the Illini play calling. Some of the calls were curious at best. Perhaps that's just a tribute to a great USC defense.

Kevin said...

My parents, Uncle, and three of my cousins went to Illinois, so the Rose Bowl was huge at our house. My Uncle and his sons even made the trip to California to watch the game in person. It was a very disappointing outcome for the Illinois fans in the family.

I think that the experience of USC, and inexperience of Illinois, was a big factor in the game. You could see the confidence of the USC players, and the nervousness of Illinois, especially after the first USC touchdown. And turnovers KILLED Illinois, especially that fumble by the WR in USC's endzone.

USC was on its game, so the Illini needed some lucky bounces to go it's way. However, USC got ALL of the bounces. (Mcknight picking up that lateral/fumble and running for 60 yards...) USC is definitely the better team, but if they played the game again tomorrow, I think that Illinois would give them a better game.