Bowl Projections

Chasing The Final Bowl Spots

November 24, 2010
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Everybody is talking about the BCS and the various conference title races going down to the wire. Hey, we’re interested in that too and we’ll be chatting about those game as the weekend goes forward. We couldnt be more stoked about Friday’s lineup that includes a tripleheader of Auburn/Alabama, Oregon/Arizona and Boise/Nevada. The three best teams in the land facing some of their tallest hurdles of the season. What a great way to unwind with leftovers and a brewdogger. High end college football drama over the Thanksgiving Weekend. We’ll be all over those games with commentary and picks as we get later in the week.

But what about the other end of all these conference tables? What about the basic pursuit of just getting to a bowl game? Lost in all the BCS hoopla is the fact that there are more teams this weekend just trying to collect another win so they can play in the postseason than there are teams still vying for a BCS spot. Think of the dozens upon dozens of college players this weekend just trying to extend their season and football careers for one more game. For many, this weekend will either be the last game of the season, or a glorious win that clinches a postseason bowl game. The stakes might not be as high, but the emotion that drives all our interest in this great sport will be.  Currently, there are 64 bowl eligible teams headed into the weekend, with a total of 70 bowl slots to fill.  In the BCS leagues, there are 11 teams that can still reach bowl eligibility and most of those teams have one last shot this weekend.  Let’s take a quick tour of the some of the action this weekend that will help fill out the complete bowl schedule for the holidays.

Brand Names Trying To Avoid Losing Season

Some of college football’s biggest brand names have languished this season and still need one more win to grab a bowl. Teams like Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and Colorado are all stuck on five wins, with one more chance to grab a six win and play themselves in the postseason. The Vols and Bulldogs are favorites in their games against Kentucky and Georgia Tech, but Texas and Colorado are significant underdogs in their closers against Texas A/M and Nebraska. Both the SEC and Big 12 have secured enough bowl eligible teams to fill their contractually obligated slots, but you can bet bowl organizers elsewhere will find room for any of these teams if they can win this week. Both leagues could also have as many as 10 teams bowling this holiday season if these teams can take care of business this weekend. In a way, you could also put the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in this category. At 6-5, they are already bowl eligible, but we’ve also seen 6-win ND teams forgo the bowl season. A 7th win this weekend over hated USC would not only remove that doubt, but likely place the Irish in the Champs Sports Bowl against an ACC team.

Big 10, ACC Lack Drama At Bottom

Outside of where their teams might go, there is no bowl eligibility drama in either the Big 10 or the ACC. This weekend will see important games in those league decide league and divisional titleists, but those who can clinch bowl eligibility have already done so. And, those who have not have already been eliminated. Sadly, Purdue-Indiana will just be for the Old Oaken Bucket this weekend. And pride. And to determine once and for all which is the better bar, Nick’s English Hut or Harry’s Chocolate Shop. Actually, no wait. The answer to that is Nick’s every time. However we do know that, sadly, a spot in Detroit’s Pizza Pizza Bowl wont be on the line. Read more »

Big 10 Bowling: Easy At The Top, Murky In The Middle

October 26, 2010
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Everyone these days is talking about the BCS. In Big 10 land, discussion is centered around the distinct possibility of a trio of 11-1 teams and which progam will get the short straw known as the Capital One Bowl.  It’s not a diffucly scenario to envisions: No upsets, Iowa over MSU and OSU over Iowa would give us OSU, MSU and Wisconsin all 11-1 marks at the close of next month. In the end, isnt dicussion at the top of the Big 10 standings a bit lame, though? I mean, it’s all but figured out, isnt it? Iowa plays host to MSU this weekend and to OSU later next month. Those are the only two games between contenders left. It’s clearly a four-team race and teams will only drop off from that pack, rather than join them. The Big 10 this season looks like a standard English Premier League table in any year. Four strong teams at the top. Everybody else fighting for rather irrelevant position underneath them. But is it irrelevent. There are as many as five bowl bids that the other seven league teams are fighting for, with countless head to head matches between those schools remaining on the docket to help iron out eventual holiday destinations. While their might just be two matches left between league contenders the rest of the season, there are three games this weekend alone between teams vying for spots in the bowl pecking order beyond the Big Four.  Let’s quickly take a look where we stand in those pursuits heading into the final weekend of October. They may not be big ticket bowls, but its more fun that breaking down five teams for one spot in the UEFA Cup.

Will The Big 10 Save Detroit

Just when the great midwestern city Detroit needed its local athletic conference the most, the Big 10 bailed on the Motor City. Begging for the tourism dollars with the down economy, the city really could use a post-Christmas boost with a large, fat and ready to gamble and spend money fan base from one of the Big 10 member institutions. They are supposed to be the backbone of support for the Pizza Pizza Bowl, nee Motor City Bowl, after all. But, the league has not taken care of business during the fall. They have not had enough teams earn bowl eligibility the last couple of seasons to fill this last spot in their postseason pecking order. As a result, Detroit has missed out on a wave of Big 10 fans feeding the slot machines with their holiday bonuses and we fans at home have been treated to Sun Belt and Confernce USA teams filling our local boys spots. This year? Expect more of the same as its not likely, given the expectation that, like in most years, the Big 10 will have a pair of BCS bowlers, the conference will go the necessary eight deep with bowl eligible teams to fill the Pizza Pizza requirement and qualify for a long weekend in Detroit Rock City.

That math behind that could all change for the better with wins this week by Indiana and Purdue. Both clubs are stuck on 4 wins and if either or both can notch a fifth win in the next couple of weeks, they will play each other in the season finale with bowl eligibility on the line. The Old Oaken Bucket. Winner goes to Detroit. Maybe not precisely the stakes Lee Corso had in mind when he slept with the revered trophy more than 30 years ago, but sometimes a rivalry game will take any drama it can find.

The Hoosiers host Northwestern this week. They beat the Cats on this field in 2008 and should have beaten them a year ago, but vommited up an early two-touchdown lead en route to a painful 29-28 loss.  This has been a close series. The last three years, the games have been decided by 3, 2 and 1 point with the Cats winning two games, but the Hoosiers earning underdog covers in two. Each of the last 6 games between these clubs has been decided by a touchdown or less. With likely losses on deck against Iowa and Wisconsin, the Hoosiers need to spring the mild upset. And they need to rebound from a mistake filled, poorly coached loss to the Illini last weekend. If they dont, their bowl hopes will likely rest on sweeping thier final two games–Penn State on a nuetral field in Maryland and at Purdue, in order to get to six wins. Read more »

Mid American Conference Bowl Projections: Is Temple Really Chalk?

July 30, 2010
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Some questions to ponder before we dole out bowl projections for the Mid American Conference

IS TEMPLE THE REAL DEAL?

Yes, they are. Did you know that since joining the league, the Owls have the fourth best conference record. They’ve never had a losing season in MAC play. After a 7-1 mark a year ago, they welcome 16 starters back including nine from an offense that scored 29.2 points per game, improving by almost a touchdown per game each year since the start of the Al Golden era in 2006. Get Bernard Pierce on your college football fantasy team now. He’s going to score at least 20 touchdowns and flirt with 2,000 total yards. All five starters return on the offensive line, including the league’s most dominant rught side with RT Darious Morris and RG John Palumbo, both of whom earned  first team all-league honors a year ago.  On defense, nobody else in the league can match the front seven havoc the Owls can bring with Tackle Muhamed Wilkerson, End Adrian Robinson and MLB Elijiah Joseph. Those three, combined with Jacquawn Jarrett at safety give the Owls four returning first team all-MAC defenders sprinkled through their lineup. They also have the league’s best return game. The league is chalk full of teams who have the potential to be good and sound. But Temple has the potential to be great. They’re the only team in the league that  we can book as no worse than 6-2. Folks, meet your MAC favorites. About their only weakness is their inability to kick a field goal from beyond 40 yards. Otherwise, they have it all.

WILL THE END OF AN ERA JINX STRIKE MOUNT PLEASANT?

I just dont know how often the Chips will be loose this fall at Central Michigan. Year One without Dan LeFeveour should be one with zero expectations, frankly. Recent history in the MAC portends to bad things when replacing a longtime, franchise quarterback. The End of an Era jinx. Miami and Toledo have barely been competitive in league play since the departures of Roethlisberger and Gradkowski.  Bowling Green suffered a fall in the immediate two years after Josh Harris’s tenure despite having a seemingly capable replacement ready to go. Akron became a good MAC team during Charlie Frye’s upperclassmen years, including a MAC title in 2005 during his final season. They havent won more than three leagues games in a season since. We saw Buffalo and Ball State crater to losing records a year ago during their first campaign in years without Drew Wiley and Nate Davis.   Here’s the deal with the MAC. It has a large, balanced middle class. All the teams are about the same. Week in, week out you’re playing basically even teams. Having a guy like LeFevour, the Tim Tebow of the MAC since 2006,  gives you a chip no other team can think of matching. It separates you in this field more so than it would it just about every other conference in the land. CMU will return to that middle ground this year and its hard not seeing several losses as teams finally get their licks into them. For that matter, it’s hard to project WMU and BGSU into great things either with the Broncos needing to replace Tim Hiller and the Falcons holding audtions for Tyler Sheehan, the schools #2 career passer, replacement.  These teams are hardly left in shambles, but it’s going to be tough for them to muster the winning consistency needed to put up enough league wins to guarantee a bowl spot.

WHO WILL BREAK A BOWL DROUGHT?

Every year it seems the MAC delivers a formerly woebegone program into the postseason. In 2004, Northern Illinois qualified for their first bowl in 21 years.  In 2005, it was Akron, making its first ever postseason appearance. Western Michigan broke a 20-year bowl draught in 2006. Ball State did the same in 2007. The last two seasons have seen Buffalo and then Temple, longtime college football laughingstocks, play into a 13th game. Who will that be this year? I say Kent State. The Flashes havent had a winning season since logging a 6-5 mark in 2001. They havent gone bowling since a 1972 date in the Tangerine Bowl. They went a non-descript  5-7 a year ago. But, a few things emerged in their favor during the season that might set them up for a postseason berth this year. On offense, the discovered their QB of the future in Sophomore Spencer Keith. He threw 14 TD passes as a true freshmen. Most important, the Flashes were 5-2 in his starts, 0-5 when somebody else started. They were a pretty good MAC team with Keith at the helm. You could probably say the Flashes would have done no worse than reach bowl eligibility last year had he started every game. They liekly would have finished 6-6, except Keith missed the finale, a dismal 9-6 loss to Buffalo.  With their top rushers, pass catchers and four starters back on the OL, this offense could take a leap in Keith’s second year on campus. Defensively, there’s a lot to be excited about. They have 7 starters and their top six tacklers back from a year ago, including three starters in the secondary, their top sack artist from a year ago and, perhaps, the biggest individual force on defense in the league in LB Cobrani Mixon, who racked up 108 tackles, 3 sacks, 7.5 TFLs and 7 PBUs a year ago. He is the leading candidate for Defensive POY in the conference. This D made major improvements a year ago, decreasing their points allowed by nine points and cashing in 15 more sacks than the previous year. Another round of improvement and this could become a dominant unit in the league. The Flashes also have the best punter in the league. With winnable home games out of conference against Murray State and Army, the flashes just need to squeak out a 5-3 MAC record (they went 4-4 a year ago) and they’ll have seven wins and probably a bowl bid by the time November ends. Read more »

Bubble News: Bid Thieves On The Prowl Saturday

March 13, 2010
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One of the best parts about the closing weekend of the league tournament rush is that there’s always a team or two from these conferences playing this weekend that get in serious range of an automatic bid, despite their lowly status in the conference. They would have no chance as an at-large candidate, expected to be one-and-done fodder in these sectionals, but spring a few upsets forcing bubble teams everywhere to nervously look over their shoulder. These are Bid Thieves. And we have three of them on the loose during the 16-game schedule today that will go a long way, if not finalize the Field of 65 bracket. Teams who left flat final impressions like Virginia Tech, Florida and Ole Miss might fall by the wayside if these burglars break in. Teams like Rhode Island, Illinois and Washington, who feel like maybe they’re done enough to get in, might be best served to add another win today to help stave off the roaming thieves. Their attempts at extending their runs will be one of the primary afternoon storylines. We’ll know before night falls whether or not all these thieves have been rounded up or if any remain on the run looking to spoil someone’s selection day.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL. UNLESS ITS MARCH AND AN NCAA BID IS ON THE LINE

Championship Week Saturday begins this year like it has now for several years running: A heavy-chalk, top-seed, tournament lock Conference USA regular season champion going head-to-head with an ultimate bid stealer. The suspects involved have turned over from the previous run. And perhaps there’s even a lot more drama involved because the degree of difficulty for the burglar disguised as Cinderella is lower than in years past. UTEP took over Conference USA in February and won the league going away. As good as they’ve played, they are not the power monster Memphis has been in running this sectional four years in row, keeping it a one-bid league each time. Just to put the degree of difficulty into perspective, during the 4-year Memphis vice grip on the league the Tigers were favored in the CUSA Title games by an average of 14 points. Today, the Miners are just 6.5-point chalk against a team it finished eight games better than in the standings. About the only negative for UTEP right now are the whispers that coach Tony Barbee is a shortimer with eyes on Depaul.

 Louisville transfer Derek Caracter gives them an NBA talent down low, so there is still some element of prime cut out there that most of this league cant match. But the Miners are more than that. This team would have been in the mix in the post-Calapari void in the CUSA race without Caracter. They get some high end production from a lot of guys. Randy Culpepper is explosive and leads them in scoring. Julyan Stone led the team in assists and is one of the league best defenders. Arnet Moultire crashes the boards and is among the league leaders in rebounds along with Caracter. But he’s also an excellent passer and active defender. The can fill it up as the 28th best shooting team in the nation, and put a lid on it as their 14th ranked field goal and 21st ranked three-point defense indicates. They’re tall going 6/7, 6/11, 6/9 among their starting frontcourt. When has life ever been better for Miner fans? I’m going to say in the closing seconds of their 1991  1992 second round win over Final Four contender Kansas. Although this team could pull the same sort of feat. They have the talent. And the swagger. They havent lost since January 13th.

Conveniently, that team who beat them was the Houston Cougars. Houston went 7-9 in CUSA play and was the seventh-seed in this field. But after wins over East Carolina, Memphis and Southern Miss the last three days, they stand a win away from the NCAA Tournament. Despite a lot of angst over an uneven season, the Cougars have their best chance in nearly two decades at making the final tournament bracket. Ah, the redemtive powers of March. Houston has the 310th ranked scoring defense and you can get 2-pointers on them all day long. But, they’re more than happy playing the whole game trying to get three for your every two. They average 78.6 points per game and are they are efficient enough from behind the arc that their volume of treys taken has an impact. Aubrey Coleman is the stud scorer, averging 26 points per game. You have to think he needs to drop at least 30 for the Cougars to win. But, they rotate in 3-4 other guards who are decent three point shooters. The one big guy who gets serious run is Maurice McNeil, who doesnt score much, but is one of the leagues better rebounders. You wonder if the Cougars will need some sort of career night of out Kendrick Washington or Sean Coleman to win this one. They are the Cougs #2 and #3 big men, but only get about 15 minutes per game. But, they’ve upped their production the last three days while on the court. Coleman has chipped in with a couple key buckets each of the last two nights. Coleman was a beast on the boards against Memphis on Thursday with 11 rebounds. Given the height advantage in the Miner’s starting rotation, they’ll be used to try to offset in spots. Will they add anything when out there? Read more »

Preseason Bowl Chronicles: Las Vegas Bowl

July 23, 2009
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My call for BYU to win the MWC in 2009 begins and ends with these numbers, courtesy of Phil Steele’s preseason magazine: The last four times BYU has had a senior quarterback, they have won their conference title. Going back further into program history, whenever BYU has hd a senior starting QB they have a combined 106-23-2 record.

Good enough for me, especially with Max Hall back at the controls after throwing for a shade under 4,000 yards and accounting for 39 total touchdowns during his junior campaign.

I also like the fact that fellow offensive playmakers Harvey Unga and Dennis Pitta have healed from injuries which dogged them at different times in 2008. Behind this trio of stars, the Cougars will have no problem hanging 35 or more points against just about everyone on their schedule.

Defensively, look for one of the most experienced units seen in BYU iduringrecent years to improve upon last year’s results, which dipped from the previous two years efforts. After avergaing 4 returning starters over the last 5 years, the Cougars have eight back this season including two ALL MWC performers from a year ago at DE and LB.

The showdown with TCU that will turn the league race takes place in Provo, where BYU is riding an 18-game winning streak. Nobody has come within a touchdown of the Cougars during this streak. Sometimes thats the difference when you’re making bowl predictions in July.
 
 The one problem with the pick is that it puts the Cougars back in the Las Vegas Bowl for the fifth straight season. That just seems odd. Not to mention unimaginative of me. But, hey, its where the league champ is earmarked to go, so why overthink things? Read more »