Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! Wow! In what looked like a sleepy weekend with no (or few) big games, we instead had an upset weekend, as frequently happens.  This year, I decided to keep up with which teams I watch on tv, with a goal of seeing every team. Now, there is no way I can watch every team play a full game, so my criteria is seeing every team play at least one offensive and one defensive drive or series. So far, I have seen 119 of the 136 FBS teams, including every P4 team. I am only missing 1 team from the American (Navy), 3 from the Mountain West, 2 from the Sun Belt, 6 from the MAC, and 5 from CUSA. If that seems like I am prioritizing the G5 teams less, that is only partially true. My TV package does not include ESPN+ or CBS Sports Network, so I have to wait for teams to appear on Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN, SEC, BTN, or ACC networks. I also have the MWC app (it's free!), which allows me to watch contests from the Mountain West Conference that don't appear on other networks. For this reas...

Welcome Back! Last week, I was back above 80%, finishing 43-10 (a robust 81.1%), making me 298-66 overall with a winning percentage of 81.9% (down 0.1% from last week).  This week there are "only" 52 games, the fewest so far, and like 2 weeks ago, the schedule seems sparse on big matchups. Let's see if I can stay above 80%. So... on with the picks! Thursday, October 2 Sam Houston @ New Mexico State - Each team has 1 win in this (very) brief series, each winning at home the last 2 years. The Aggies are 2-2/0-1, winning their 2 home games and losing their 2 road games. The Bearkats are 0-4/0-1, with more losses than they had all of last year, but they've lost to conference favorite WKU, an SEC team, and 2 MWC teams, with 3 of those on the road. SHS doesn't get their 2nd home game (only 5 overall) until Oct 9! NMSU wins a close one. Friday, October 3 WKU @ Delaware - The Fightin' Blue Hens are actually 2-0 against the Hilltoppers, winning home-and-home games in 1...

Welcome Back! We are now about 1/3 of the way through the season for most teams, and there is a lot more interesting info, as we are now starting to see trends. However, OOC games are just about done, so that goes on the back burner until the end of the year. Interconference results Now that we are deep into conference play, there are only a few non-conference games each week. I will revisit this at the end of the season. Intraconference results The Sun Belt West leads the East 2-1. Undefeated/Winless teams The following teams are undefeated with a 4-0 record (unless otherwise indicated): BYU  Georgia Tech (5-0) Houston  Indiana (5-0) Iowa State (5-0) Louisville  Maryland Memphis (5-0) Miami, Fl Missouri (5-0) Navy  North Texas (5-0) Ohio State  Oklahoma Ole Miss (5-0) Oregon (5-0) Texas A&M  Texas Tech UNLV  Vanderbilt (5-0) 10 teams suffered their 1st loss this past weekend, so we are down to 20 out of 136 teams (14.7%) that remain undefeated....

Welcome Back! Well, I finally did it! I dropped the preseason points, and so now there are massive changes. Many will absolutely surprise you as I have teams moving as many as 91 spots! This is because of a number of factors. First, we have teams that have played 4 games, some that have played 5, and some that have played as many as 6 games. This is true every year, but it creates challenges. Teams with fewer games have had less opportunity to gain points. Second, without the preseason points, each result has an outsized influence, which means scores from way back in Week Zero (and from each week thereafter) is affecting the rankings more than before. The more games that get played, the less each individual result will affect the standings; it's the accumulation of the points that matters. Third, teams are much closer in points than before. Before I dropped my preseason points, there were 1,403.251 points between 1st place and 136th place (an average of 10.318 between each place); ...