College Football: Week 1 Predictions

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by jsc1953’s football thread, I am chomping at the bit to get the season underway. I thought it would be fun for Dopers week-to-week to make predictions (so we could mock each other at the inaccuracies come Monday morning). I don’t have much, but I will be rapt with attention as Colt McCoy takes the reins from Vince Young for the Longhorns as they crush North Texas. (Thanks for coming down, guys!) Two games on the schedule raise my eyebrows, though…

  1. Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech.

I think Notre Dame is way, way overrated. I think GT is a decent team and will give ND a run for their money. Not calliing an upset, but I don’t think it’ll be a blowout.

  1. USC at Arkansas.

USC embarrassed the Razorbacks last year but USC isn’t as good and Arkansas is much better. Again, not calling an upset, but it will be a 2 TD or less victory for the Trojans.

Anyone else care to step out on the ledge and make a prediction?

2

As always.

:smack: I have to admit I’m *still *in shock from the Rose Bowl and not even sure if I can watch football yet. :frowning:

But I’ll drink beer. :wink:

3

Heh, Gatopescado.

Nobody wants to go on record with their predicitions? C’mon, people!

4

Alabama v. Hawaii
We (Alabama) will win by one TD, claim that the Hawaiians “came to win” and “played their hearts out” so we don’t feel so embarrassed about almost losing to a non SEC team, then continually bring up the Hawaii will as the season grows dimmer. Come December we’ll be a big stinking pile of drunks slurring “But we really kicked Hawaii’s ass!”

Yeah, it broke my heart when I was watching the CBS SEC round up and they got to Alabama and said “sorry guys, maybe next year”. They twisted the knife with the predictions that Auburn is going to take the SEC.

But make no mistake: I will still be there, either in the stadium or my living room floor, cheering and singing and screaming Roll Tide!

As I said in the other thread: beer me.

5

I’m going to go out on a ledge and say that Ohio State will beat Northern Illinois, Wisconsin will beat Bowling Green, Penn State will beat Akron and Minnesota will beat Kent State. :smiley: As a Kent State/MAC alum I will be quite happy if I’m wrong about any of these. I think Toledo can beat Iowa State.

Notre Dame will beat Georgia Tech handily.

6

Arizona will beat BYU

Florida State will embarass Miami

California over Tennessee

7

I’m going to go out on a limb here and pick LSU over UL-Lafayette.

8

Wouldn’t a shot of sour mash be more appropriate? :smiley:

I’ll wait until tomorrow to post my full list of predictions, but since there’s one game tonight, I’ll post it as my weekly Upset Special.
Knowing full well that picking upsets is a sucker’s game: Mississippi State over Steve Superior and South Carolina.

9

<<big hugs for dalej42>>

I’m going to be at this game…a speck of blue in a sea or orange…but I have no clue. I have this nagging feeling that Cal is a media-darling trendy-pick, and no pundit has any idea what they’re talking about. Or maybe we actually are good. We’ll know in about 52 hours.

SC over Arkansas, big.
Ramblin’ Wrecks upset ND
Auburn over Wazzu, big.
Miami over FSU in the Thug Bowl

10

OK, so I get the dubious distinction of making the first wrong prediction this year. :o (Miss. State didn’t upset South Carolina. I did say picking upsets was a sucker’s game, right?

Not many games to pick on this weekend, as most of the big boys are playing tune-ups. Here goes:

Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech
Yes Notre Dame is over rated, but not THAT much. Notre Dame.

California vs. Tennessee
As much as I like to see the Big Orange take an ass kickin’, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. There’s a world of talent hangin’ around Knoxville, and this game gives them a chance to start on the redemption road from last year’s folly. Tennessee.

Southern Cal vs. Arkansas
This one could be closer than many expect. USC, but it won’t be easy.

Auburn vs. Washington State
This one will look like a lot of Auburn’s games: The Tigers should build up a safe lead, then play a lot of subs late (a good thing, really) and the final score will be closer than the impression you get from watching the game. Auburn.

Miami vs. FSU
I’ll take the Seminoles by two, Alex. This time the FSU kicker doesn’t miss wide right, or wide left either. FSU.

11

Go GaTech! Woo! Actually I don’t care, I may or may not go, but I like to atleast pretend to support this place.

That is all.

12

Just wanna say War Eagle, Hook 'em Horns, Roll Tide, Fight On, and, of course…Go Bears.

13

So, jsc1953: Aside from the outcome of the game, how did you enjoy your trip? Did you perchance see that old bridge over the river that’s just below the stadium? A beautiful work of architecture.

I’m of the opinion that they hired Auburn engineers to design and build that thing, as it is an object that’s clearly beyond the ability of any Big Orange person to grasp.

I guess we’ll wait until after Monday’s Miami/FSU game to declare a SDMB Weekly Winner, eh?

14

Yes, four points fits my definition of handily. :wink:

Miami over FSU.

15

I noticed lots of bridges, but I don’t think I saw that one. I must say that every Tennessean I’ve met online and in person has been extremely gracious; even walking out of the stadium we got lots of "thanks for coming"s. (I imagine they treat OOC guests better than they do SEC)

Every year in week 1 there’s a highly ranked team who completely falls flat on their face, and everybody points at them and laughs and says “overrrraaated”. This year, it’s my Bears. I feel sick.

16

Tip of the hat to jsc1953… I want to rub in the loss to Tennessee but you’re a class guy/gal.

I have a lot of issues with the Pac-10 and Cal. Probably goes back to the early 90s when rumors broke out that Texas was going to leave the Southwest Conference and go to the Pac-10. First, a bunch of Pac-10 pumpers came out and said that Texas wasn’t competitive enough to be in the Pac-10 (seriously!). Back then we weren’t as dominant as we are now, but that statement was absurd beyond words. Second, I remember all of those supposedly great Desert Storm teams, the Arizona teams that SI pumped and ended up being huge disappointments. And let’s not talk about Oregon’s grotesque unis and their Joey Harrington campaign.

Last, in '04 a lot of Cal people - including the QB who’s riding the pines in Green Bay, Aaron Rogers - had a lot to say about Mack Brown’s statements about Texas deserving a shot in the BCS. First off, I’m sure Mack’s comments were a wash. As many voters were turned off as were compelled to vote for Texas. And he was right… one loss to Oklahoma and all of a sudden Texas isn’t a BCS caliber team? Let’s not forget Cal’s ugly win vs. Southern Mississippi, and proving that God is indeed a Longhorn fan, their decapitation by an average Texas Tech team in the bowl game they ended up going to… See, if they’d won the game, Cal fans would have a point. But they lost… badly. While Texas beat a good Michigan team in the Rose Bowl with the best game of the season.

Anyway, jsc1953, I don’t consider you in those clumps of Cal jerks, and I know the feeling - it’s like when a so-so Notre Dame team came to Austin in '98, I think, and pretty much embarrassed us. College football is a funny sport, and a lot of folks make insane insights based on very little real information. Hopefully your team will bounce back and have a good season.

Notre Dame was lucky to play against Chan Gailey, who still can’t coach and bizarrely abandoned the star receiver that made the Irish secondary look foolish. Otherwise they’d be the biggest letdown story today.

That USC-Arkansas score wasn’t that impressive. It was 23-7 late in the third, so reports that USC is back is another example of the hype machine.

Certainly the “wow, what a horrible opening day” award has to be split among Oklahoma, Colorado, Notre Dame, and Cal. Auburn and Texas looked most impressive to me, and Ohio State had nice numbers but gave up an ugly 177 yards on the ground to NIU. Next week ought to be interesting…

17

Thanks, HH. It’s a funny thing about pre-season punditry: the ones who guessed right are now laughing at the ones who guessed wrong…but what does that have to do with my team? They didn’t rank themselves.

Mack Brown is still a dirty word among Cal fans, but I think we’re just projecting all our frustrations with the BCS on him. (Interestingly, I heard Jeff Tedford being interviewed on Tennessee radio on Friday, and heard him admit for the first time that the 2004 team was totally crushed flat by being relegated to the Holiday Bowl.)

18

Fair enough, jsc1953, though Cal fans should remember that Mack Brown is Texas’ coach. I mean, what was he supposed to do? Cal fans should remember how Texas was snubbed by the BCS in 2003 - ranked in the top 5 and sent to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl. Mack didn’t say shit back then, and the team was rewarded with the same San Diego post-Christmas trip. Been there, done that. (We also lost that game, albeit only by a touchdown.) The University of Texas writes checks for Mack, not the University of California. More importantly, Tedford’s job was to get his team ready to destroy middle-of-the-pack Big XII Texas Tech, not get taken to the woodshed.

But the BCS does suck. Even last year people were talking about a Marcus Vick-led Virginia Tech team would leapfrog the undefeated 'Horns… luckily Miami saw to that. It came that close, though, and you might have never seen the Texas-USC matchup that everyone wanted. Remember how Auburn got screwed a few years back as well. If a coach doesn’t do everything he can to get his team a crack in this fucked-up system, he’s doing a disservice to his team and his school.

All the pundits are scrambling to excuse their embarrassing pick of Cal for a potential MNC… I think it’s funny, but as you said it sucks for the team as they didn’t ask for the hype. I’ll be rooting for Cal vs. USC this year…

19

Woo hoo! FSU!!!

:smiley:

20

Ok, so I went 5-1 for this week. I think that’s the best record among those who picked games where the outcome might have actually been in doubt. If not, I stand to be corrected and put in my place. :slight_smile:

Re: Miami/FSU
I was underwhelmed my these two teams. They’ll both win a fair number of games, but I’ll be surprised if either one of them is in the top 10 when it’s all over.

Thoughts?