Paul Prattles On

Welcome back! So far in my bowl predictions, I am 6-4.  That's not too bad, considering how notoriously difficult it is to pick bowl winners, but not anywhere near where I expect to be.  My dumbest pick was Boise State to beat Washington (they lost 38-7!), but picking SMU to beat FAU wasn't too bright, either.  I should have allowed myself to be convinced as I was writing up my picks from last week.  But that won't stop me from giving you another round of picks!  These will cover From today (12/26) through January 6, so this will be my last post of 2019.  I will do my National Championship Game pick probably on January 9, my normal Thursday for picks. Before I get into this next group of bowl games, let's examine how each conference has done.  So far, the bowls have only featured one P5 team- the aforementioned Washington.  But here are the standings so far: Pac 12 1-0 1.000 MAC 2-1 .667 SBC 2-1 .667 MWC 2-2 .500 AAC 1-1 .500 Ind 1-1 ....

Welcome back! Last week was my best yet! I went 1-0 for a 1.000 win percentage!  Overall, I am 649-199, which is still 76.5%.  I've done pretty well this year. Bowl week has arrived, and so have my picks.  However, please be aware that the bowls are notoriously difficult to predict.  Players sitting out, interim coaches, coaching staff changes, differing motivation levels for the 2 teams, and player suspensions all make the bowl games pretty much a coin flip.  But I'm going to try anyway! On to the predictions! Friday, December 20 Buffalo vs Charlotte (Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl- Nassau, NP)- The 49ers are playing in their 1st ever bowl game in just their 5th season in FBS, and are coming in on a 5-game winning streak, but only one of those wins- Marshall- wa...

Welcome Back! Here at Odds and Ends, I plan to look at some stats, trends, storylines, etc. as they play out.  I will also give my opinion on some issues, but you can take that for what it's worth. Today, I will examine how my preseason conference predictions panned out, and how they compare to what I consider the 4 major magazines:  Phil Steele, Lindy's, Athlon, and Street and Smith's. On pages 6 and 7 of his preseason magazine, Phil Steele outlines a method of comparing preseason predictions, one that was developed by Chris Stassen.  Using this method, I outperformed all 4 of the magazines listed above for the 2018 season!  Did I do it again? Unfortunately, the answer is no, but I did outperform 3 of the 4, and I was closer to 1st place than I was to 3rd.  Here is how the scores came out after I computed them (low score is best!): Phil Steele- 116 points Paul Anderson- 121 Athlon- 129 Lindy's- 131 Street and Smi...

Welcome Back! Today, I am simply comparing my final Power Rankings to my initial rankings.  Next to each team, you will see whether they moved up or down from the preseason, and by how much. Three teams finished exactly where they started: Utah State at #53, Colorado at #73, and Bowling Green at #121.  Nine additional teams finished within 2 spaces of where they started.  The biggest surprise team (largest move upward) was Central Michigan, who started at #114 and ended at #32.  The biggest disappointment (largest drop) was Stanford, who went from #23 to #110, a drop of 87 spots. Now, on to the rankings! 1 Ohio State +2 2 LSU +6 3 Clemson -1 4 Oklahoma +2 5 Oregon +10 6 Utah +6 7 Georgia -3 8 Appalachian State +44 9 Memphis +32 10 Alabama -9 11 Boise State +20 12 Baylor +31 13 Penn State ...

Welcome back! The regular season is now completely finished!  Navy defeated Army 31-7 to break a 3-year losing streak and claim the Commander-in-Chief Trophy.  The Midshipmen finish 10-2 for their 1st 10-win season since they won 11 in 2015, and they complete a reversal from last year's 3-10 record.  I wonder how many times teams have gone from 10 losses to 10 wins in 1 year?  The Black Knights went in the opposite way, finishing at 5-8 after last year's 11-2 season. The rest of this week will be slightly different.  Tomorrow. I will present my final power rankings until the bowls are over.  I will compare my final rankings to my initial rankings, and see how close they were, who was I right (or close) on, and who was I most wrong on.  Should be an interesting exercise, if not terribly informative. On Wednesday, in my Odds and Ends, I will compare my conference and division predictions to how they actually came out, and then I will com...