Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! The season truly starts tonight, and since there are so many games, I'm just going to jump right in. Thursday, August 30 Ball State over Central Connecticut - While C Conn is coming off of a decent season, it is still an FCS team playing on the road at an FBS team (there are a LOT of these this week).  The Cardinals may struggle, but they should pull off the win. Georgia State over Kennesaw Stat e- The Owls of KSU could absolutely win this game, but I believe the GSU Panthers learned from their loss to FCS Tennessee State last year and won't let it happen again.  KSU will keep it close, however. UCF over Connecticut - The Josh Heupel era gets off to a great start on the road as the Knights win easily over the Huskies. Minnesota over New Mexico State - While the Aggies already have a game under their belts, I don't expect them to go on the road and defeat an up-and-coming Gopher team. Northwestern over Purdue - The Boilermakers are one of those teams I...

Welcome Back! Today is the day when I plan to give out interesting facts, figures, and thoughts on the current college football season.  A couple of features will be weekly, but mostly the content will differ from week to week. My first feature is conference records in non-conference games.  I'll go ahead and post this even though we only had 3 non-conference games last weekend (Hawai'i at Colorado State was a conference game).  Next week, and throughout September, the number of games will increase exponentially.  Here's where we are so far: SEC 0-0 ACC 0-0 Big Ten 0-0 Big 12 0-0 PAC 12 0-0 AAC 0-0 MWC 1-0 AC 0-0 C-USA 1-0 SBC 0-0 Independents 1-1 The MWC is 1-0 versus independents, and both C-USA and  the Independents are 1-0 against FCS competition. Secondly, I plan to keep up with the QB who has the most attempts without throwing an interception.  Now, I'm only going to keep up with a QB until he throws his first interception; I don'...

Welcome Back! With only 4 games involving 6 FBS teams last week (the impossibly stupid-named Week 0), there wasn't much movement in the rankings, and no movement in the top 80 (none of those teams played.  The biggest riser was UMass, despite their win over an FCS opponent.  This happened because they were relatively close to several teams above them.  The Minutemen rose 3 spots from 110 to 107.  The biggest drop was Colorado St, from 89 to 92.  The other 4 teams moved up or down 2 spots or less. Here is this week's rankings.  I expect MUCH more movement by next Tuesday! 1 Alabama 2 Clemson 3 Washington 4 Georgia 5 Wisconsin 6 Oklahoma 7 Miami, Fl 8 Ohio St 9 Michigan 10 Mich St 11 Auburn 12 Notre Dame 13 Penn State 14 Stanford 15 USC 16 TCU 17 FSU 18 Boise St 19 Texas 20...

Welcome Back! I hope you had a great weekend enjoying the first few games of the college football season!  There were only 4 games, involving 6 FBS teams, so this will be a relatively short TWIF Notes segment. Wyoming looked solid in defeating New Mexico State 29-7.  I expect Wyoming to be a very good team, despite the loss of Josh Allen.  Their defense was outstanding, and the Lobos looked lost.  New Mexico St may eventually become bowl eligible, but life as an independent is difficult. UMass was solid in destroying Duquesne 63-15.  However, this doesn't tell us much about the Minutemen.  Their game against Boston College this weekend should tell us more. Rice struggled against Prairie View, a middling FCS team last year, only winning 31-28.  It looks like it may be a long season for the Owls. Hawai'i defeated Colorado State 43-34, despite a furious comeback attempt by the Rams.  The question is, is the Rainbow Warriors' offense t...

Welcome Back! On Thursdays, I will be giving my predictions for the coming weekend, since most weeks have games on Thursday (though this one does not).  This week's slate of games is pretty sparse, but, to be honest, I'm not really sure why we have any at all.  This whole concept of a "Week 0" seems kind of ridiculous to me.  Anyway, it's here, so let's get to my picks! UMass over Duquesne - Though Duquesne had a pretty decent year last year (7-4),it is still an FCS program, and the Minutemen shouldn't have any problems handling them. Rice over Prairie View - The Owls were terrible last year (1-11), but the Mike Bloomgren era gets off to a good start. Colorado St over Hawai'i - The Rainbows are pretty good on the Island, but this is in Fort Collins.  The Rams roll.  Welcome back, Coach Bobo! Wyoming over New Mexico St - This may be the only competitive game of the weekend.  The Cowboys go on the road to take on a New Mexico St team that won a...

Welcome back! Today I start my weekly feature called Odds and Ends.  For most of the season, I will mention interesting facts about the current season.  These may be statistical, anecdotal, or just whimsical.  However, since the season hasn't started, I am going to list each coach relative to their job security.  This is not based on anything I've heard (I have NO inside sources.  Anywhere...), but is just my opinion based on over 40 years of observing college football as a fan.  So let's get started! Hot Seat Rankings Frozen (It would take a cold day in Hell for these to be fired...) (Urban Meyer was here a month ago...) Nick Saban, Alabama Bill Snyder, Kansas State Dabo Swinney, Clemson Jeff Monken, Army Cold (Margin for error- these guys are relatively safe) (Most first through third year coaches should reside here) (One or two bad seasons in a row could move you down to the next category) (Of course, a bad season for one program cou...

Welcome back! I know I revealed my power rankings several weeks ago, but that was 10 at a time (and only 5 at a time for the top 20).  Here, I present them to you in a concise fashion.  I will update this on every Tuesday until the season ends.  This is my own formula that I developed.  I have changed it a lot this year to be more comprehensive, and to be more accurate (I hope!). Here are the teams, from 1-130: 1 Alabama 2 Clemson 3 Washington 4 Georgia 5 Wisconsin 6 Oklahoma 7 Miami, Fl 8 Ohio St 9 Michigan 10 Mich St 11 Auburn 12 Notre Dame 13 Penn State 14 Stanford 15 USC 16 TCU 17 FSU 18 Boise St 19 Texas 20 Miss St 21 Texas A&M 22 West Virginia 23 Utah 24 Florida 25 Va Tech 26 LSU 27 Kansas St 28 Okl...