Based on these numbers, we should expect about four upsets…however, if Memphis coming back to beat Houston means anything, we should shift our expectations to about 3.46, or right in the middle of three and four. I’m still going to roll with four upsets: Indiana over #18 Michigan State, Texas over #10 Oklahoma State, #19 Michigan over #2 Penn State, and Colorado over #15 Washington State.
90-99% (47-1 (+0.87); 4.68-0.32; 71.8%): all remaining games
I’d warned about this for a couple weeks, but we finally got a couple of huge upsets that we’ve been waiting for: Michigan State over #7 Michigan (82.5%) and Iowa State over #3 Oklahoma (92.7%). We’re still running significantly behind expectations for the 70-99% upsets, though. 70-79% teams should be about 15-5 right now; that’s likely to regress to the mean at some point this season. Same for 80-89%. Because the teams in 90-99% are that much better than their opponents, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if we only got the one 90+% loss this year.
Anyway, as you can see, there isn’t a single Top 25 vs. Top 25 game this weekend. It’s a pretty weak slate, all told. However, considering the unusually light season for upsets so far – we’re running about 5.2 upsets below expectation just six weeks in, which is seriously astounding – we’re due for something stupid. I’m going out on a limb and projecting six Top 25 teams to lose this weekend: Memphis over #25 Navy, West Virginia over #24 Texas Tech, Boise State over #19 San Diego State, Kansas State over #6 TCU, Texas over #13 Oklahoma, and Utah over #14 USC. Why not! Let’s root for some mean regression this weekend.
We already got one upset last night with NC State beating a Louisville team that’s very likely Lamar Jackson and 21 JAGs. However, that won’t be the only one this weekend:
This is a deeply unusual week – 1.5 seasons in, I’ve never had a week that gave three ranked teams as underdogs to unranked teams. It’s really weird, and I have a feeling we might have One Of Those Weeks. Your upset range is anywhere from three to seven within one standard deviation.
Sub-50% (1-1; expected record 1.22-1.78): #20 Utah (vs. Stanford) (33.0%), #11 Washington State (at Oregon) (44.3%), #13 Miami (at Florida State) (44.8%)
70-79% (13-3 (+1.04); expected record 3.14-0.86): #22 Notre Dame (at North Carolina) (77.2%), #8 TCU (vs. #23 West Virginia) (78.4%), #19 San Diego State (at UNLV) (78.6%), #9 Wisconsin (at Nebraska) (79.8%)
80-89% (14-1 (+1.24); expected record 4.98-1.02): #4 Penn State (at Northwestern) (80.7%), #25 UCF (at Cincinnati) (81.2%), #7 Michigan (vs. Michigan State) (82.5%), #5 Georgia (at Vanderbilt) (82.6%), #16 Virginia Tech (at Boston College) (83.0%), #12 Auburn (vs. Ole Miss)
90-99% (42-0 (+1.44); expected record 5.57-0.43): Every other game
There’s already been one upset with #24 NC State over #17 Louisville. Along with those, give me Stanford over #20 Utah, Florida State over #13 Miami, UNLV over #19 San Diego State, and – why not – Northwestern over #4 Penn State. We’re due a shocker. If every group reverted to their mean this week, we’d see eight upsets. Chaos may be coming.
70-79% (9-3 (+0.03): #2 Clemson (at #12 Virginia Tech) (70.5%), #15 Oklahoma State (at Texas Tech) (72.3%), #21 Florida (vs. Vanderbilt) (77.8%), #19 San Diego State (vs. Northern Illinois) (77.9%)
80-89% (11-1 (+0.83): #10 Wisconsin (vs. Northwestern) (84.3%), #4 Penn State (vs. Indiana) (86.6%), #18 South Florida (at East Carolina) (88.3%)
90-99% (37-0 (+1.23): Every other game
My picks are #16 Washington State over #5 USC, Duke over #14 Miami, and…I don’t know, Northern Illinois over #19 San Diego State. I suck at these this year so whatever. A lot of that is due to some insanely bad luck late in games (Kentucky-Florida, Iowa-Penn State, Tennessee-Georgia Tech, etc.), but…anyway, 2-12 on the year.
As bad as I am at picking these games (1-9 now!), our system is working: it projected four Top 25 upsets last week. We got four exactly, and it was mostly my fault for picking the wrong games: the system correctly identified three potential areas for upsets with the 50-59% range (Memphis over #25 UCLA), 60-69% (Vanderbilt over #18 Kansas State), and 70-79% (San Diego State over #19 Stanford). It did expect a fourth upset from the 80-89% range, but we got that in 70-79%: Mississippi State destroying #12 LSU. So…we’re moving in the correct direction. That’s a positive! Amazingly, if I’d just picked every one of the 50-89% teams to lose last week, I’d have a better record (4-8) than I do on the season with my subjective picks. Fun times.
Anyway, here’s this week’s chart:
I mentioned previous weeks as being the potential “the best upsets happen on the worst weeks” weeks, but this might really be it. There’s two good games (the two Top 25 vs. Top 25 matches) and a whole lot of potentially close games that offer no serious appetite nationally. The ABC game (#4 Penn State at Iowa) got moved to 7:30 PM ET, which is ABC admitting they think this game’s pretty boring. Heck, the most interesting Top 25 vs. unranked opponent game of the week (#8 Michigan at Purdue) runs at 4 PM on FOX.
With all that said, this week has serious poll-toppling opportunities. Here’s the categories by win percentage for the week:
50-59% (5-2 (+1.02 above expectation) on the season, expected record of 1.08-0.92, 29.26% chance of 2-0): #17 Mississippi State (at #12 Georgia) (50.1%), #23 Utah (at Arizona) (58.4%)
60-69% (6-2 (+0.66) on the season, expected record of 2.67-1.33, 19.83% chance of 4-0): #22 San Diego State (at Air Force) (62.6%), #20 Florida (at Kentucky) (67.5%), #6 Oklahoma State (vs. #16 TCU) (67.6%), #24 Oregon (at Arizona State) (69.4%)
70-79% (5-3 (-0.99) on the season, expected record of 2.98-1.02, 30.84% chance of 4-0): #21 USF (vs. Temple) (71.6%), #7 Washington (at Colorado) (73.0%), #4 Penn State (at Iowa) (75.0%), #5 USC (at California) (78.6%)
80-89% (7-0 (+1.09) on the season, expected record of 4.26-0.74, 44.86% chance of 5-0): #14 Miami (FL) (vs. Toledo) (80.4%), #12 Florida State (vs. NC State) (82.8%), #8 Michigan (at Purdue) (86.5%), #15 Auburn (at Missouri) (87.5%), #3 Oklahoma (at Baylor) (88.7%)
90-99% (30-0 (+0.88) on the season, expected record of 6.65-0.35, 69.49% chance of 7-0): #25 LSU (vs. Syracuse) (90.0%), #1 Alabama (at Vanderbilt) (90.7%), #13 Virginia Tech (vs. Old Dominion) (93.8%), #18 Washington State (vs. Nevada) (95.0%), #2 Clemson (vs. Boston College) (97.5%), #19 Louisville (vs. Kent State) (98.9%), #10 Ohio State (vs. UNLV) (99.2%)
I mean…look at that. Even factoring in that some ranking systems probably have yet to fully factor in Missouri and Baylor’s suck, you can count…what, six potential upsets that are nearly impossible to envision? I can’t see Alabama losing to Vanderbilt, ever, and Clemson through Ohio State are safe, but…yeah, something weird’s gonna happen. We’re underperforming our usual upset totals, and regression to the mean is coming. It’s probably going to happen later in the year, but this week seems like it’s got a good shot.
Without rationalizing, here’s my picks, because I no longer care to rationalize picks that are 10% successful: #12 Georgia over #17 Mississippi State, Air Force over #22 San Diego State, Kentucky over #20 Florida, and Iowa over #4 Penn State. Why? Why not. Mostly because I can’t let myself pick Jim Harbaugh to lose to Purdue. I’d cry.
Look for four or five upsets this week, including a top five team potentially going down. The top five has just a 46.25% chance of staying intact for Week Five. Iowa over #4 Penn State? Sure! Why not. Cal beating #5 USC for the first time in like 14 years? It could happen! Vanderbilt? Nah, but they’re in a good place right now.
There will probably be an 80-99% range upset, too. Picking these games is a zero-sum game in itself because you look like an idiot when it’s wrong, but combined, they have just a 10.91-1.09 expected record this week and a 31.05% chance of going undefeated. There’s going to be a GIANT upset this week…let’s see who it is.
Two top ten teams losing this week? Absolutely. I have the top ten as a whole with a projected record of 7.57-1.43 and a chance of going 9-0 at just 19.59%. Typically, this means we get multiple big upsets, which…yes, let’s do it. Go Colorado!
What happens if it’s just a boring week with a couple upsets? Then we messed up somewhere along the line. The expected upsets for this week, within one standard deviation, are anywhere between 2.607 to 6.102. Two standard deviations (95% of outcomes): 0.859 to 7.849. We very rarely hit the second standard deviation, so that should put our range of upsets this week between 3 and 6.
Eventually, we will hit on an upset. We’re 0 for 6 this year, though we did correctly nail that there would be an upset from the 60-69% range and at least one from 50-59%. It’s still one short of expectation. That typically regresses throughout a season. Either way, we’ll get our upsets in eventually.
50-59% (5-1 on the season, expected record of 0.53-0.47): #25 UCLA (at Memphis) (53.3%)
60-69% (3-1 on the season, expected record of 2.62-1.38): #18 Kansas State (at Vanderbilt) (62.7%), #24 Florida (vs. #23 Tennessee) (63.5%), #3 Clemson (at #14 Louisville) (67.5%), #9 Oklahoma State (at Pittsburgh) (68.0%)
70-79% (3-1 on the season, expected record of 3.00-1.00): #19 Stanford (at San Diego State) (71.2%), #12 LSU (at Mississippi State) (72.3%), #10 Wisconsin (at BYU) (78.1%), #4 USC (vs. Texas) (78.6%)
80-89% (4-0 on the season, expected record of 2.54-0.46): #22 USF (vs. Illinois) (80.0%), #21 Washington State (vs. Oregon State) (85.8%), #20 TCU (vs. SMU) (88.3%)
90-99% (21-0 on the season, expected record of 8.70-0.30): every other game
Considering I’m 0 for 6 on the season so far, I might as well shoot for 0-7 or worse. Memphis defeating UCLA is a fairly realistic proposition (two of our eight models say it’ll happen and seven of eight give Memphis a 40% shot or greater), and I’ve no clue why UCLA is ranked other than people politely forgetting how absolutely, utterly awful they looked for 2.5 quarters against Texas A&M. Plus, if I screw this pick up, they play at noon so it can get over with early.
We need three more upsets, and, because I’m a hopeful person, we’re picking one from each group. On average, we’re looking at about 1.3 upsets from the top ten teams and 2.3 from 11-25. One of them is Memphis over UCLA; the other two are #14 Louisville over #3 Clemson and…wait, BYU over #10 Wisconsin? Uh…sure!
I’m rationalizing this with the following: the top 12 teams playing this week (FSU’s off) have an expected record of 10.45-1.55. The remaining nine favorites are expected to go about 6.95-2.05. If we’re to follow this, we need two top 12 upsets. The reigning Heisman Trophy winner gets a Clemson team at home that’s yet to force a turnover in front of a bonkers crowd. Good enough for me.
The other one’s borderline impossible to rationalize because BYU has looked like absolute butt thus far, but Wisconsin (minus Jonathan Taylor Tailback) has yet to look consistently good on offense thus far. This could just as easily be a Wisconsin blowout as it could be a weird, wonky 17-14 BYU win. It’s worth the risk.
Forcing in two top 12 upsets leads me to leave out the San Diego State over #19 Stanford pick I’d hoped to use. We need a new one, and, wildly enough, we’re going to go for an 80-89% game. The 80-99% games this week have an expected record of 11.25-0.75 and, combined, have about a 44.3% chance of going 12-0. That’s still pretty good, but it’s more likely than not we get a serious upset loss. It’s also significantly more likely it’s an 80-89% team.
I only seriously considered two games from this bracket: Oregon State-#21 Washington State and Illinois-#22 USF. We’re rolling with Illinois over #22 USF and I’m not confident. Oregon State really should be 0-3, because FCS Portland State completely outplayed them in every sense of the word. Illinois just beat what I thought could be a 12-0 Western Kentucky team and it wasn’t a fluke. By recruiting rankings, Illinois has more talent. By coaching rankings, Charlie Strong was one of the very worst by CFB Matrix Coach Effect in the last decade. Go Illini!
I very rarely pick a 90-99% upset, but if there’s going to be one it would have to be an absolute shocker: something like East Carolina over #16 Virginia Tech or Air Force beating #7 Michigan. Neither is going to happen in all likelihood, but both did have at least one model peg them as less than 90% favorites. Also interesting was the idea of Samford over #13 Georgia. Sagarin Ratings had that game at 83.5%, which is crazy, but also lends respect to a Samford team expected to be a strong contender in the Southern Conference.
Good luck on your picks this week, and wait for the first national college football writer to talk about how the worst weeks have the best games. Or something like that.
First off, an apology: our normally pretty good system went a solid 0-3. It required Tennessee to get outgained by nearly 300 yards and win, along with West Virginia failing to convert in the red zone, but it still went 0-3. This week, we’ll get at least one upset correct. Maybe.
50-59% (2-0 on the season, expected record of 2.32-1.68): #23 TCU (at Arkansas) (54.4%), #6 USC (vs. #14 Stanford) (57.6%), #17 Louisville (at North Carolina) (59.6%), #24 Notre Dame (vs. #15 Georgia) (59.9%)
60-69% (2-0 on the season, 1.38-0.62): #2 Ohio State (vs. #5 Oklahoma) (67.9%), #3 Clemson (vs. #13 Auburn) (69.6%)
70-79% (2-1 on the season, 0.71-0.29): #20 Washington State (vs. Boise State) (70.8%)
80-89% (3-0 on the season, 0.81-0.19): #4 Penn State (vs. Pittsburgh) (81.0%)
90-99% (11-0 on the season, 9.80-0.20): every other game
Yet again, no 90+% game is worth discussing. There literally isn’t a single one of these teams with a model that projects them to win by less than 25 points. Not interesting at all! Conference play will even this out. Anyway, two key notes: the 50-69% grouping last week was expected to go 2.47-1.53; they went 4-0. A 70-79% team lost, but it was the last one I would have expected. The 50-69% teams will not go undefeated this week; I can promise this. There’s a 5.3% chance they go 6-0.
Alright, let’s pick some losers. The most surprising part of our work this week is the following: the models give the top four teams (#5 Oklahoma left out as they are playing #2 Ohio State) just a 38.1% chance of going 4-0 with 0.82 expected losses. I highly doubt #1 Alabama will drop to Fresno State, and while it did happen last year, Pittsburgh beating a top ten Penn State team two years in a row seems not right. So it’s between two 60-69% games: #2 Ohio State vs. #5 Oklahoma and #3 Clemson vs. #13 Auburn.
These are basically a coin flip, and I’m ready to lose on another toss-up, so I’m taking #13 Auburn over #3 Clemson. Why? Well, consider it two-fold: Auburn’s got a recruiting talent advantage over Clemson, and when removing the largest outlier model for both this game and OU-OSU, this is a slightly more likely event (66.9% vs. 69.9%). There’s a 53% chance that either #2 or #3 lose on Saturday night; good enough for me.
We still need two more upsets, and both are likely from the 50-59% range. We need one more from the Top 25 vs. Top 25 grouping. How about #14 Stanford over #6 USC? This knocks out our necessity of finding an upset in the Top 15. Again, after removing the outlier model, this one was a slightly more likely event than Georgia defeating Notre Dame. I also like this one because it hits on some concerns with USC: the significant schematic advantage Stanford’s offensive staff likely has over USC’s defensive staff, plus USC’s significant struggles with a Group of Five team in the first game. Perhaps USC’s defense ends up being pretty good, but I’m not yet sold.
For our final upset, we need one from the low end of the Top 25. It needs to be an unranked team. We’ve got two contenders: #17 Louisville losing at a mediocre North Carolina team or #23 TCU losing at a probably good-ish Arkansas team. You can probably guess which way I’m swinging here: Arkansas over #23 TCU. Arkansas, based on stats from CFB Matrix, has a large coaching advantage on offense versus defense over TCU. Plus, it’s a home game, the first CBS game of the year, and Arkansas has both a small recruiting talent advantage and doesn’t have to play the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.
To recap, our picks this week are #13 Auburn over #3 Clemson, #14 Stanford over #6 USC, and Arkansas over #23 TCU. Other games considered: #15 Georgia over #24 Notre Dame, North Carolina over #17 Louisville, #5 Oklahoma over #2 Ohio State, and Pittsburgh over #3 Penn State. Three upsets should come from this group of eight games. If there is a fourth upset, look for Boise State over #20 Washington State.
We’ve made it! Through the harsh 7.5 month winter, an offseason that was wild, and about 15 million other things. I couldn’t be more excited to share season two of Upset Spotting with you guys. Last year, our model finished above 50% on the season, a remarkable rate considering that, on average, underdogs win in Vegas about 20% of the time. I’m looking forward to seeing which ways we can progress forward consistently in 2017.
To start, we’ve added several new models to the mix. Welcome Edward Kambour, Doktor Entropy, and Sagarin Ratings to the mix. These three have consistently shown their worth and ability to predict college football a bit above everyone else’s expectations. They’ve all been around for a long time, and I’m excited to see if these models can help us spot upsets at a more accurate rate in 2017.
Here’s how Week One looks:
As you can see, this isn’t exactly the most exciting Week One in recent memory. I have just four games involving a Top 25 team where the favorite has less than a 70% likelihood of winning the game. It’s abysmal and disappointing, especially considering I also do Knoxville-area high school odds on the side now and Week Two of the high school season brought 22 of 27 games being under 80% win likelihood. Hopefully, opening weekend will be more balanced in 2018.
Let’s get to the win categories. (It feels GREAT to say this.)
50-59% (expected record of 1.13-0.87): #25 Tennessee (vs. Georgia Tech) (54.2%), #11 Michigan (vs. #17 Florida) (59.0%)
60-69% (expected record of 1.34-0.66): #21 Virginia Tech (vs. #22 West Virginia) (63.9%), #15 Georgia (vs. Appalachian State) (69.7%)
70-79% (expected record of 2.28-0.72): #1 Alabama (vs. #3 Florida State) (71.6%), #10 Oklahoma State (vs. Tulsa) (77.3%), #23 Texas (vs. Maryland) (78.9%)
80-89% (expected record of 2.56-0.44): #13 LSU (vs. BYU) (82.8%), #4 USC (vs. Western Michigan) (83.1%), #2 Ohio State (at Indiana) (89.6%)
90-99% (expected record of 10.62-0.38): every other game
Well, sorry, I’m not going to get into the boring Great Team vs. Awful Team games. The only teams that had a single model put them below 90% to win their game in the 90%+ category were #16 Louisville vs. Purdue (88.9% from Sagarin) and #20 Kansas State hosting FCS Central Arkansas (88.5% from Sagarin). It’s pretty unlikely that any 90%+ team loses a game this weekend, but if they do, it’s most likely one of those two teams. There! You’re caught up.
As for the games with outcomes in doubt, it appears we can expect one upset from each of the 50-59%, 60-69%, and 70-79% ranges. When you subtract games versus Top 25 teams from our model, it appears to expect about one loss from a Top 6-15 team to an unranked team and one from Top 16-25. Figuring out these games is as tough as it gets, so we’re going to take a pair of shots in the dark to start the season: Georgia Tech over #25 Tennessee and Appalachian State over #15 Georgia.
Why are we hating on the SEC East? Well, two reasons:
Tennessee is coached by Butch Jones.
Georgia is coached by Kirby Smart and somehow retained Jim Chaney as its offensive coordinator.
As I said, these are shots in the dark. I picked Appalachian State because they were given the highest chance of winning from a model among the teams facing Top 6-15 teams: a 48.9% chance (!!!!!) from Sagarin. As a Tennessee fan, I’ve feared a Georgia Tech win for six months. Might as well pick it here, too. Also, as it stands, there are 17 games with double-digit favorites from the Top 25 this weekend…and about 1.57 expected losses. Even if we lay the conservative side of this, you should expect at least one big-time shocker. It was either Georgia or Oklahoma State, and I have a feeling it’s not going to be the team with a great coach and an NFL QB/WR tandem.
For the third, we’ll need a Top 25 team to beat another Top 25 team. We exhausted our 50-59% games and 60-69% games…so why not pick one from 70-79%? If it ends up being wrong, it was worth a shot: #3 Florida State over #1 Alabama. As weird as that sounds, think of it like this: few teams in the entire nation can recruit in the same stratosphere as Alabama. Even crazier, two other teams in the nation have ten or more 5* players on their roster. Georgia’s one. Florida State is another. Let’s give it a shot.
Other upsets considered: #22 West Virginia over #21 Virginia Tech and Tulsa over #10 Oklahoma State. If our numbers are correct, three of the five upsets we’re looking at will happen.
This is yet another dumb idea I had late on a weekday night, based on a recent podcast from the guys at the Solid Verbal. They offhandedly mentioned their still-to-come hipster college football teams for 2017. I love dumb stuff like this, because it helps me waste time and think about my favorite four months of the year. However, this is the first time I’ve gotten into it to this extent. Below, I’ve created Rules to even be considered a Hipster Team in the first place and Preferences to narrow down our true champion for 2017. Consider this the preamble to a much larger post coming down the pipe ranking the watchability of teams this season.
There are several rules and regulations in this post to try and create a list of teams that casual college football fans probably don’t know much about. Some entries will obviously surprise you (Louisville? Houston?) but a large amount of these teams are effortlessly lovable. Kind of like my new favorite band of the year. Below, your eleven 2017 Hipster Teams.
Rules:
Must not be ranked in the preseason AP Top 10. We’re currently assuming this to be ten of the following 12 teams: Alabama, Florida State, Clemson, Ohio State, USC, Penn State, Auburn, Washington, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Michigan, and LSU.
Must have won less than 10 games in the regular season in 2016. I hate to do this, but once a team hits double digits in wins, the secret’s sort of out. True hipsters hate when the secret’s out and they have to deal with these dumb normals being fans. We’re allowing a 9-3 record with a bowl win under special circumstances – you didn’t finish in the AP Top 10 (if you’re a G5 team, the Top 25), which means you weren’t that popular. Sorry, USF and San Diego State – the Bulls will crush in the 2017 ESPN GamePlan Power Rankings of the most relentlessly watchable teams.
Must have appeared in a bowl game in 2016. Sorry, Oregon and Texas Tech. It’s not your fault. Well, it is, but you get the point. Even hipsters like winners.
Must be projected to be a top-20 scoring offense in the nation (38 PPG or higher). I’m using Phil Steele’s guide for this, which is based predominantly on returning production and past performance. It’s a good resource.
Preferences:
Group of Five status preferred, but not a requirement. We’ll accept Power Five conference teams that meet our requirements.
Quirky or otherwise attractive coaches preferred. I get it if you like Paul Chryst because he’s a good coach (he is). No one likes him because he has an unusual personality.
Electric or exciting QBs preferred. Must be projected for 1,000 rushing yards or more.
Have a ridiculously fast or shifty punt returner/utility guy? Perfect! We love guys that see the field eight times per game. Required: 4 punt returns of 30+ yards OR 4 kick returns of 40+ yards.
Top-25 per-play offense in 2016.
If G5, game vs. Power Five on national TV. For P5s, game vs. projected Top 10 team.
Head coach is at his first job. Half-point for second job if at Group of Five school.
Prolific QB through the air. Must be projected for 3,600 passing yards or more.
Team averaged 3+ sacks per game in 2016. Sacks are dope.
Team forced 27+ turnovers in 2016.
Projected as Top 15 team in total offense.
Projected as Top 15 team in passing offense.
If you meet the Rules, you get three points each. Preferences earn you one point each, and Preference #6 earns you one point for each game or occurrence.
11. Kansas State (15.5 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Interesting head coach, 1,000+ rushing yard QB.
Kansas State met all four conditions we required just to make this list of rankings: not a top 10 team, went 9-3 or worse in the 2016 regular season, appeared in a bowl game (and won!), and is projected to be a top-20 offense by scoring. Good enough! Seriously, Kansas State football is never anything less than interesting, has a literal wizard as a head coach, and has beaten Top 25 opponents often enough (though not since 2014) for us to always be on alert. It’s worth noting that despite losing their last nine against Top 25 competition, four came by one possession. Against non-Top 25 teams in games decided by one possession from 2012 on? 10-3 (2-4 vs. Top 25). Kansas State has a weird ability to make nearly any game entertaining, and having a quarterback who led the team in rushing last year in Jesse Ertz (1,184 non-sack yards on 183 carries) helps. Worth noting: Bill Snyder is 30-11 ATS as an underdog of any kind since 2009 and is 42-12 at home in the same span. Guess who comes to Manhattan in 2017? Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. Not bad.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Texas (October 7), TCU (October 14), Oklahoma (October 21), at Oklahoma State (November 18)
T-9. Tulsa (16.75 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Potentially fun QB, multiple Top 25 opponent opportunities, rising star coach
You last saw Tulsa obliterating a Central Michigan team that kind of beat Oklahoma State. They were secretly one of the most fun teams in college football last year: dumped 42.5 points per game on opponents, posted 40+ points in 10 of 13 games, played Tom Herman and Houston down to literally the final yard of the game, and crescendoed with a wild comeback against Cincinnati and a 55-10 bowl win. They lose a lot – no more Dane Evans (3,348 yards), James Flanders (1,629 rushing yards), or two 1,000 yard receivers. But: the presumed starting QB is named Chad President, their coach does some weird yoga stuff with his wife, D’Angelo Brewer (1,435 rushing yards) returns, and including his time as the lone offensive coordinator at Baylor (co-OC 2008-2011), there’s yet to have been even a good Philip Montgomery offense. They’ve all been great or elite.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Oklahoma State (August 31), at USF (November 16)
T-9. Louisiana Tech (16.75 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Top 25 per-play offense, 3+ sacks per game, top 15 passing offense
Louisiana Tech closed a quietly extremely fun season where nearly every game either had a ridiculous scoreline or a crazy finish with a game that had both – the Armed Forces Bowl against Navy. The Bulldogs won 48-45 in what might’ve been the most purely fun game of the postseason not involving Penn State or USC. Anyway, it’s with regret that I note they lost the three top producers from an insane offense: QB Ryan Higgins (4,617 yards) and receivers Trent Taylor (1,803 yards) and Carlos Henderson (1,535 yards). The good news: Tech could have their best running QB in some time if J’Mar Smith starts and overcame similar issues last year (9 returning starters in 2016). Supposedly, their offense will decline slightly while their defense will be better. So, yet again, a terribly frustrating team no one wants to play and everyone gets to enjoy. Fine by me! The Week 2-4 stretch of Mississippi State/WKU/South Carolina will be a delight, and the chances they pick off one of the two SEC teams seems fairly high. Get in before those late to the party do, and try to stay on board when they inevitably drop a game to North Texas or Rice.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: Mississippi State (September 9)
8. TCU (17.25 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Interesting coach, 3+ sacks per game, top 15 total yardage
2016 TCU oscillated wildly between irrelevance and straight-up wild. Back-to-back-to-back weeks produced this: a listless overtime loss to a garbage Texas Tech team, a 62-22 road blowout of 6-1 Baylor, and a 31-6 home loss to Oklahoma State. Also, they gave up 41 to South Dakota State, lost in overtime to Arkansas in a super entertaining game, lost 52-46 to Oklahoma in a throwback of 2012 Bonkers Big 12, beat Kansas by a point, and beat Texas 31-9 out of nowhere in between 31-6 and 30-6 losses. It’s a very strong version of Young Team Things. TCU is now Older and won’t be as prone to this, but their SEO is down a bit thanks to last year’s 6-7 run that concluded with a loss to the worst Georgia team since 2009. However, let me submit the following: Kenny Hill quietly ran for 813 non-sack yards last year and threw for 3,208 yards. TCU brings back their top eight receivers. Their defense dropped 43 sacks on opponents last year and returns 22.5 of those this season. Gary Patterson is wildly entertaining and a great coach. Plus, if you’re looking for a team that is guaranteed to play in an instant classic, TCU’s pulled it off in eight of the last nine seasons. On the negative side, I doubt TCU fans are enthralled with left politics.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Oklahoma State (September 23), vs. Texas (November 4), at Oklahoma (November 11)
T-6. Pittsburgh (17.5 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Electric return man, top 25 yards per play, rising star coach, 3+ sacks per game
I hate to do this, but when you think of Pittsburgh, you don’t think excitement. You either think about (no longer!) boring, title-winning football or boring, title-winning hockey. (Sorry, Pirates.) Or you think of food. Anyway, you don’t really think about an exciting, unknown college football team. That changed in the span of a few seconds last fall.
Never gets old. We really thought Clemson was done in the title race! (For about three hours.) Anyway, that was just one of a bunch of bizarro classics Pitt played in, in order: 42-39 W against Penn State, 45-38 L to Oklahoma State, 37-36 L to North Carolina, 37-34 W against Georgia Tech, 39-36 L to Virginia Tech, and the highest-scoring FBS game in regulation of all time, a 76-61 W over Syracuse. With a defensive head coach and not much name power, this was one of the last teams you’d expect to be aggressively watchable, and yet they were. Now, they have to figure out how to replace future NFL bench guy Nathan Peterman and excellent OC Matt Canada, which means fans are preemptively abstaining from jumping on the bandwagon. Screw ’em. They’ve still got maybe the most fun kick returner in college football who can do anything at any time, a coach that could be taking a major job in the near future in Pat Narduzzi, and a defense that dropped 43 sacks last year. Will they be as good as last year’s edition? Probably not. But what if things come together quickly and Narduzzi’s as good as some think? Then you’ll want to say you were there when they were playing shows to 17 people.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Penn State (September 9), vs. Oklahoma State (September 16), vs. Miami (FL) (November 24)
T-6. Houston (17.5 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Coach at first job, 3+ sacks per game, top 15 pass offense
Houston was the most interesting team in college football for about six weeks last year. They dumped Oklahoma on the side of the road to start the year, came back in waves against Cincinnati, and avoided any sort of letdown…until October 8, when they went to Navy and the Midshipmen blasted them with an unstoppable option game. Then the wheels fell off in proportion with Tom Herman’s coaching rumors shooting up: a goal-line stand to beat Tulsa the next week. A 38-16 loss to SMU. A near-collapse at home against UCF. They came out of nowhere to obliterate Louisville, but then lost at Memphis the next week. After that, Herman was gone. Now, for me, they might be more interesting to start the year: Major Applewhite’s in his first year as a head coach. They had a great defense last year that sacked QBs relentlessly and bring back seven starters from it, including future first round pick Ed Oliver. The offense brings back eight, with the new QB being a former five-star recruit who was fine in his one year at Texas A&M. They’ll go from a rushing-dominant offense to one that can light up opponents through the air – subjectively way more fun. No one will be paying attention to them to start.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Arizona (September 9), vs. Texas Tech (September 23), at USF (November 4)
5. Colorado St. (17.75 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Top 25 yards per play, coach at first job, QB with 3,600+ pass yards, top 15 total offense
As someone who has written postgame columns about Tennessee football for two seasons, I was taken aback by how ridiculously efficient their clogged-toilet offense became out of nowhere in November. A team that languished around the 40s and 50s for efficiency was suddenly the #1 per-play offense in the nation for a month. More shocking to me was #2: the Colorado State Rams. There was basically no reason for national commentators to care or know about Colorado State football last year thanks to a slow start (3-4, including a 44-7 loss to rival Colorado) and a bland and boring team. Nothing stood out about them until a six-game offensive run to end the year like this: 42, 37, 46, 49, 63, and 50 points. Suddenly, the Rams lit up every team they played. Why was this? A thrilling quarterback in Nick Stevens who was hurt earlier in the season, a very underrated offensive coach in Mike Bobo, and a team much better than their record showed. No one seems to know this, but the Rams will likely be favored in 10 of their 12 games this year and possibly 11. Might be time to see them while the shows are still cheap.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: Oregon State (August 26), Colorado (September 1), at Alabama (September 16), vs. Boise State (November 11)
4. Louisville (18 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Interesting coach, fun QB, top 25 yards per play, multiple Top 10 opponent opportunities
It really can’t be said enough that Louisville rehired a coach who left them without warning to run the Atlanta Falcons for 13 games and had a mistress on a motorcycle. Bobby Petrino is as fascinating as they come. He’s also really good at coaching! I know what you’re thinking: wasn’t Louisville in the Top 10 for most of last season? Weren’t they in the national conversation for three months? Didn’t their incredibly fun quarterback win the Heisman Trophy?!?!? Yes, all of this is true. What’s also true is they lost their final three games to go 9-4. They qualify for this, and just barely. Think of it like your favorite band getting onto a major label and having a phenomenal album followed by a stinker that causes people to stop paying attention. Or something. Anyway, people aren’t paying as much attention to what will be a very fun team that will be on TV often. Plus, Louisville’s still an underrated city and they were very close to ranking second or first on this list.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: Clemson (September 16), at Florida State (October 21)
3. Memphis (18.25 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Rising star coach, QB with 3,600+ pass yards, top 15 total offense, top 15 pass offense
Memphis was quietly fun last year and then became very fun right at the end: a lot gelled together in November and bowl season, and they closed the final five games with 51, 42, 34, 48, and 31 points. Not bad! Even better: they beat Houston on Black Friday, smashed Cincinnati, and pushed 11-win South Florida to the brink. This was a really fun team that had the misfortune of losing some SEO after Justin Fuente left for Virginia Tech, but Mike Norvell appears to be pretty good in his own right. Memphis secretly had the top Group of Five recruiting class this past offseason, and their days as a confusingly bad program seem to be over. They return Riley Ferguson, a Tennessee transfer who dropped 3,698 yards and 30 TDs last year. The offense is projected to be top 15 in total yardage and pass offense. They’ll have a few opportunities to prove themselves on a national stage, including what could be an Absolutely Giant Game for the Tigers on September 16th at home against UCLA (the biggest-name non-Tennessee opponent to visit Memphis since potentially 1996 Miami). The schedule sets itself up for a 5-1 or 6-0 start hinging on the UCLA game. Both of their high-end AAC games are played on weeknights for higher visibility. It’s a real from-the-ground-up opportunity.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: UCLA (September 16), Houston (October 19), Tulsa (November 3)
2. Oklahoma St. (18.5 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Interesting coach, top 25 yards per play, QB with 3,600+ pass yards, top 15 total offense, top 15 pass offense
Everyone’s favorite Hipster Team was so, so close to being #1. Subjectively, this might be the team I watch the most this year: there’s no better mix of intoxicating offense, beloved coach, rapid-fire attacks, and schedule both on this list and maybe in all of college football. They’ll play a Top 10 team at home on November 4th in Oklahoma. That concludes a four-week run of epic offensive competition: Baylor, Texas, West Virginia, and the Sooners. Those four games may combine for 300+ points. They play three of the teams on this list in the first four weeks: Tulsa, Pittsburgh, and TCU. They play a fourth in November (Kansas State). Mason Rudolph may be a Top 5 pick in the next NFL Draft. They have one of the best receivers in football, known only as Junkyard Jim. I would eliminate precisely one testicle if it meant Mike Gundy would coach my beloved Tennessee. And they came up just shy. They’re #1 on my subjective list, but coming up second to our first-place team is no dishonor. These Cowboys will be a favorite of many.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: Every game but South Alabama, Iowa State, and Kansas.
1. Western Kentucky (18.75 points)
SCORED HIGHLY IN: Interesting coach, electric return man, top 25 yards per play, rising star coach, QB with 3,600+ pass yards, top 15 pass offense
Yes, the following’s all true:
Western Kentucky won 23 games in the last two seasons.
Their coach just left for Purdue.
Most people know about Western Kentucky football by now, right?
WRONG. If you asked casual football fans about Western Kentucky, their response would be one of the following: “the team that gave up the weird Hail Mary?”, “yeah, they play Alabama sometimes”, or “of course! 34 bowl confidence points last year!” I guarantee that almost none of them know how great Western Kentucky has been. That’s what makes WKU insanely attractive at all times: it feels like you’re being let in on a secret you’re not supposed to know about. The Toppers are the best program to come through Conference USA in a very long time. They get to bring back Mike White at QB, who tossed a pretty 4,363 yards/37 TD/7 INT combo last year. Here’s an insane and true stat: Western Kentucky didn’t score less than 44 points in any of their final ten games. Oh, and they have a legitimate contender for the most electric kickoff returner in college football. Lastly – and this one ashamedly put them even higher for me, personally – Mike Sanford, Jr. is easily the hottest coach on this list. Easily. WKU will be favored in at least 11 of their 12 games – all that stands between them and Normie Love are road wins at Illinois and Vanderbilt.
GAMES IN WHICH THIS TEAM WILL PLAY THE SPORT OF COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL AGAINST HIGH-END COMPETITION: at Illinois (September 9), at Vanderbilt (November 4)
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