Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! The first few bowls have been completed, and so far, I'm 3-2 (.600). Not great, but not too bad either. Fortunately, the games have been competitive so far, and I hope that continues. The CFP starts tonight, but my 2-year record of watching at least part of every bowl game will be in jeopardy, as I will be on the road for the next 2 days. That means I'll be listening to the games on Sirius XM, but probably won't get a chance to watch (unless I can get my wife to drive and let me watch on my phone!).  Bowl games are notoriously difficult to pick, as opt outs, coaching changes, and motivation (or lack thereof) can all affect the outcome. But I shall give it the old college try, and predict the winners with very little knowledge of who will or will not be playing for every team. Yay! Now... on with the picks! Friday December 20 StaffDNA Cure Bowl Ohio vs Jacksonville State (Orlando, FL) - Not surprisingly, these teams have never met on the field of play before, a...

Welcome Back! Conference Championship Week could not have gone much worse for me prediction-wise, as I was only 4-5, a miserable 44.4% correct. This was my worst week of the season, and brings me down to  72.5% overall, a decrease of .4%. Today I will pick the Army-Navy Game, and the 1st few Bowl Games. Bowl games are notoriously difficult to pick, as opt outs, coaching changes, and motivation (or lack thereof) can all affect the outcome. But I shall give it the old college try, and predict the winners with very little knowledge of who will or will not be playing for every team. Yay! Now... on with the picks! Saturday, December 14 Navy vs Army (Landover, MD) - The Midshipmen lead the series 62-55-7, but the Black Knights have won the last 2, and 6 of the last 8. This will be their 1st meeting as co-members of the AAC, though this will not count as a conference game. Since both teams defeated Air Force, the winner of this game gets to claim the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy. The Falco...

Welcome Back! Now that the season is over, I thought I would take a look back at how my preseason conference picks panned out, and then compare them to the major magazines. I must confess, it's not pretty... Here is what I said about each conference, and how right (or very wrong...) I was. MAC Chances to make the playoff : Slim to none. Any team would have to go undefeated, but the teams expected to win the conference have almost no chance to go undefeated. Miami plays at Northwestern, Cincinnati, and at Notre Dame; Toledo plays at Miss State and at WKU; NIU plays at Notre Dame and at NC State; BGSU plays at Penn State and at Texas A&M; and Ohio plays at Syracuse and at Kentucky. All of the teams, with the exception of Toledo, have at least 2 nearly guaranteed losses on their schedule.  Don’t be surprised if … the MAC loses to 2 FCS teams for a 3rd straight year. I’m not convinced … Eastern Michigan will finish in the bottom half of the conference. EMU HC Creighton always seems...

Welcome Back! Power Rankings Now that the CFP has been set, it's interesting to see how my rankings compare.  I got the 12 teams correct, but in a slightly different order. I have SMU higher than the committee, and Clemson and Boise State flipped. Most of the rest I missed is in the 5-12 range. The ones I got right are #1, #2, and #5. All-in-all, I would have to say my Power Rankings did a good job of picking the CFP teams! #8 SMU would host #9 Penn State, with the winner moving on to play #1 Oregon #5 Texas would host #12 Boise State, with the winner taking on #4 Arizona State #6 Notre Dame would host #11 Tennessee for the privilege of playing #3 Clemson #7 Indiana would host #10 Ohio State, with the winner facing #2 Georgia Here are my rankings (again) from 1 to 134: Rank Team Previous 1 Oregon 3 2 Texas 1 3 Notre Dame 2 4 Georgia 5 5 Indiana 4 6 SMU 6 7 Penn State 7 8 Ohio State 8 9 Tennessee 9 10 Clemson 14 11 South Carolina 10 12 Arizona State 15 13 Alabama 11 14 Ole Miss 12 1...