Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! I'm sure everyone is aware how dynastic Alabama  has been over the last decade plus, but you may not realize exactly what that means. With Nick Saban's retirement, I thought I would try to put the last decade in perspective.  From 2014-2023, the Crimson Tide was 127-14. That's an average record of 12.7-1.4 each year! Or, basically 13-1. Every year. In fact, their 127 wins over the decade is more wins than every other team has games played, except for Auburn (128 games played), Boise State (128), BYU (128), Clemson (139), Georgia (136), Hawaii (129), Iowa (128), Kansas State (127), Louisiana (129), Louisville (128), LSU (128), Marshall (127), Memphis (129), Mississippi State (127), North Carolina (128), Notre Dame (128), Ohio State (130), Oklahoma (131), Oklahoma State (131), Oregon (128), Penn State (127), Pittsburgh (128), San Diego State (127), TCU (129), UCF (127), Virginia Tech (127), and Wisconsin (128). That means only 27 (out of 134) teams have as many

Welcome Back! There has been much speculation lately about a number of changes and/or problems in college football. I want to take a few paragraphs and address some of these. And if I forget any big issues, please feel free to add a comment, and I will perhaps add that into my next blog. #1- The transfer portal is causing chaos in CFB. I can understand where this could be a huge concern. You sign a HS kid, develop him for 2 years, and then he leaves to go to another school, and you don't reap any of the benefits. In addition, schools are filling their rosters with transfers, and signing fewer HS kids. First of all, the transfer portal isn't going away, but perhaps it can be regulated to some extent (I'll get into that a little later). Second, this will ease somewhat when all of the Covid-year athletes move on, as some students have been playing for 6 or 7 years, taking up scholarship allotments, and one player, Cam McCormick, will be spending his 9th year on a campus this y

Welcome Back! The 1st bowl week, I was 4-4; not bad, but not good. I was sure I would do better the 2nd week. Boy, was I wrong! I was an embarrassingly poor 4-12 (25%!), which made me an overall 8-16 for the bowls, meaning I had been correct only 1/3 of the time! Fortunately, I finished strong, going 13-4 over the last 17 games (76.5%) to finish 21-20 overall (a very mediocre 51.2%).  Bowl Games are notoriously difficult to predict, and always have been, but it's been made so much more difficult with all the opt-outs, transfers, and coaching changes occurring much earlier than they used to. All of which is to say that if I can finish at or around 50% for the bowls, I will consider that a success. Above 60%/ That's a rousing success. 75% or better? That's a minor miracle! For the year, I finished 674-235, or 74.1%, with the bowls knocking 1.1% off my winning percentage. This is how each conference did in the bowls: Independents 1-0  1.000 Pac 12 5-3 .625 Big Ten 5-4 .555 Big