Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! Since starting 10-2, I've since gone 8-5 (a decent-for bowl season- 61.5%) to bring my overall bowl record to 18-7, which is 72%. With 17 games remaining (that includes the NC Game), I only need to win 5 to finish above .500! But I will definitely NOT hatch my chickens before they're counted, to ruin a saying. And so far, I've been able to watch at least a portion of every bowl game played. I think I've even figured out how to watch the one on Barstool Sports! Anyway, here is how the conferences are doing so far. As you can see, no one conference is really dominating, though the ACC and Pac 12 are off to good starts, but remember, the Sun Belt started 3-0 and look how they ended up. And though the SEC and Big 12 are both 1-3, that's also how the AAC and CUSA started. The P5 conferences have the majority of the matchups still to come, as only 3 G5 teams have yet to play. The Big Ten has only played 1 game so far. At the end of bowl season, I will update...

Welcome Back! This will just be a brief missive with information I forgot to include in yesterday's blog. I figured this would be better than trying to update yesterday's blog. Here is how each conference is doing so far in the bowl games (through Thursday, Dec 22) Conference Wins Losses Pct Games Remaining ACC 1 0 1.000 8 Mountain West 3 1 .750 3 Sun Belt 3 1 .750 3 MAC 2 1 .667 3 Pac 12 1 1 .500 5 CUSA 2 3 .400 1 Independents 1 2 .333 2 Big Ten 0 0 .000 9 SEC 0 1 .000 10 Big 12 0 1 .000 7 AAC 0 2 .000 5 As you can see, the MWC and SBC are doing the best among conferences that have played multiple games, and the AAC and CUSA are doing the worst. It's still early, especially for most of the P5 conferences, as the Pac 12 is the only one to play in more than one bowl, and the Big Ten has yet to participate, and won't until next Tuesday.  Feel free to leave a comment. Check out yesterday's bowl picks, and come back next Thursday for Paul's Picks Bowls Part III!  Un...

Welcome Back! I'm off to a pretty decent start to my bowl predictions, as I'm 10-2 so far, missing on the Louisville-Cincinnati game and the WKU- South Alabama game. This does not include today's Baylor-Air Force game, obviously (I picked Air Force in last week's blog). I don't expect to keep up this 83.3% pace for the whole bowl season, though.  As I'm sure you know, bowls are notoriously difficult to pick, especially lately. This is because of all of the coaching changes, with interims coaching bowls in some cases, all of the opt-outs as athletes prepare for the NFL Draft, and all of the players entering the transfer portal who will not be available. And then of course there are the "normal" things like injuries, motivation (or lack thereof) for each team, and the long layoffs for many teams and how that affects them. And now this year, Redshirts can play even if they've reached their maximum of 4 games played! All I'm saying is that this is ...

Welcome Back! I was perfect last week, as I went 1-0, or 100%, which makes me 602-252 for the year, or 70.5%, no change from last week. This is the lowest percentage I've had for a full year that I think I have ever had. Maybe this is a good thing, as perhaps parity is coming to college football. At least this is what I'm choosing to tell myself. Bowl season starts this week, and as I'm sure you know, bowls are notoriously difficult to pick, especially lately. This is because of all of the coaching changes, with interims coaching bowls in some cases, all of the opt-outs as athletes prepare for the NFL Draft, and all of the players entering the transfer portal who will not be available. And then of course there are the "normal" things like injuries, motivation (or lack thereof) for each team, and the long layoffs for many teams and how that affects them. And I don't pretend to know who is available, and who isn't, for each match up. All I'm saying is th...

Welcome Back! NOTE : Before I do anything, I just wanted to send my condolences to the family of former Mississippi State HC Mike Leach, who died earlier this week from complications from a heart attack. He was just 61, which makes him not much older than me, and I'm sure his family and team are saddened by the news. As of now, I have not heard how this will affect MSU's status as a bowl team, but I'm sure any decision they make will be in the best interests of the athletes and the university. Instead of an Odds and Ends this week I'm doing a Conference Call. With the changing landscape in College Football, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit how the conferences will be set up over the next few years, and when those changes will be happening. I am also going to compare the accuracy of my preseason conference standings predictions with the 3 major magazines: Phil Steele, Lindy's, and Athlon, so let's start there.  Using the formula that Phil Steele descr...

Welcome Back! This week, I will compare my end-of-season Power Rankings with my Preseason Power Rankings to see how much they changed. It will be fun to see how wrong I was! The only change from last week to this week is that Army moved up after their win over Navy, and Navy moved down.  Obviously, there is no way to be completely right on predicting how 131 teams may end up, and it's only going to get harder when we add more teams in the next few years. However, I was exactly right on a few teams, and many were within 10 spots or less of where they started. Below I list the 10 teams I undervalued the most, and the 11 teams (there was a tie for the 10th spot) I overvalued the most. Beside each team in the list I also put their preseason ranking, so you can see for yourself how they compare. Here are the teams that were undervalued the most, and by how much: South Alabama +90 Kansas +86 James Madison +85 Tulane +81 Troy +77 Duke +68 Illinois +64 Vanderbilt +64 Texas Tech +61 Oregon ...