Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! I was only 50-17 this past week for a .746 winning percentage. Overall, I am 250-61, still barely over 80% at  .804. Last year, I finished at 71.8%, which was  WAY  below my usual average (I'm usually around 75%).  You should know that I only only pick who wins, not against the spread.  I'm not into gambling, and I certainly wouldn't use my picks to gamble with (if you do, that's on  YOU! ). I don't have inside information, I don't scour injury reports, I don't have a research staff, and this isn't my full time job; it's just a hobby, but I have been following college football for right around 50 years, and I've seen a lot of it.  My goal each year is to be correct 80% of the time over a full season, but I've never actually achieved that.  Most years, I'm right around 75%, but I think my high has been close to 78%, with last year perhaps being my worst in many years (very few FBS vs FCS games to pad my stats).  I will give y

Welcome Back! We finally have 4 weeks of games in the books, and now trends are starting to emerge. And there are an awful lot of great games this coming weekend (see the feature at the bottom, which only mentions a few). I hope you enjoy reading through all the info below! Which Conference is Best? A great majority of the non-conference games have been played, though there are still some left. 1. SEC 32-7 .821 2. Big 12 23-7 .767 3. Big Ten 29-9 .763 4. ACC 28-12 .700 5. MWC 25-16 .610 6. Sun Belt 19-15 .559 7. Independents 15-13 .536 8. AAC 20-18 .526 9. Pac 12 16-15 .516 10. CUSA 22-25 .468 11. MAC 19-26 .422 12. FCS 10-95 .095 The only change from last week is the ACC and MWC swapping places. Now the above includes the record against all competition.  What if we narrow it down to just FBS competition?  Does that change the standings?  Let's see... 1. SEC 24-6 .800 2. Big Ten 22-9 .710 3. Big 12 14-7 .667 4. ACC 16-11 .593 5. MWC 16-14 .533 6. Independents 13-12 .520 7. Sun Belt

Welcome Back! We had quite a bit of movement this week, but a lot of it was teams just swapping spots. There is still less movement than expected, I think because so much is still weighted toward my preseason rankings. However, we finally have some big jumps, just not very many of them. Again, I use a points based system, and my preseason points ranged from a low of 69.3 points to a high of 1123.54 points, so you can see that there is a lot of room to fit 130 teams in.  As I have pointed out previously, when we get into October, I will begin to drop off my preseason factors one by one over a period of several weeks, and so we will get a truer read on how teams are doing this season, and not have so much weight on preseason expectations. This will begin after next week's games- the games of the 10/2 weekend- and will continue for 8 weeks until all of my preseason factors have been dropped, so that when we get to the rankings following the games the weekend before Thanksgiving, they