College Football
WSU Vs. Cal: A First Look At The Golden Bears
by Craig Powers on Nov 4, 2011 2:39 PM PDT
in College Football
I always give myself a chuckle when I publish these things on Friday and they say "A First Look At The So-and-Sos." I'm sure that all of you hold off on doing any sort of research into the team until CougCenter has their preview on Friday afternoon. What's that? You don't? Well then you just aren't dedicated to the cause then.
In doing my research for these previews I occasionally have myself way more excited about the Cougs' chances in their upcoming game than I should be. More often that not, after looking at the numbers, I find myself with little-to-no faith in a Cougar victory. I suppose that makes the rare wins all the more exciting.
This week I fall into the latter category. It seems that most of you believe that this game will be much closer than the 9.5 point spread indicates. After poking around on my usual websites, I find the spread to coincide with how I feel about this game
In their weekly F +/- predictions, Football Study Hall predicts a 15-point Cal victory. Cal is ranked #50 in Bill Connelly's S&P while the Cougs are way down at #100. After the jump, we'll dive unto the offense/defense previews.
4 commentsCollege Football Rankings: Week 8 CougCenter Ballot
by Craig Powers on Oct 17, 2011 7:53 PM PDT
in College Football
This week, I finally decided to reward the Houston Cougars and the Kansas State Wildcats for their undefeated records. I put it off for so long, but with so many teams losing in the last half of my top 25, I could wait no longer.
For the second straight week, there is no movement at the top. Alabama hangs on to the top spot. Once you get past ten, things get a bit haywire. I gave Michigan State a fancy #11 next to their name, and that will certainly be tested on Saturday when they play host to Wisconsin.
The Washington Huskies make their debut at #20, while Texas A&M returns. The Aggies finally pulled away from an opponent in the second half, knocking off the previously-ranked Baylor Bears.
As usual, you can see the rankings after the jump and tell me how dumb I am.
Week 7 CougCenter BlogPoll Ballot
by Craig Powers on Oct 10, 2011 8:52 PM PDT
in College Football
The top eight remain unchanged from last week, with the Alabama Crimson Tide once again at my top spot. Right now, I honestly think the top three might be interchangeable. The Oklahoma Sooners can rest well knowing that if they win out, they will likely have a spot in the championship game. The LSU Tigers will have to play Alabama, and that may (I said MAY, weirder things have happened) knock the loser out of the title game.
Of course, we always start making these projections assuming the top teams are going to win out, and that never seems to happen. Oklahoma still has to play their in-state rival, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, who put up 70 on Kansas this weekend. The Stanford Cardinal still have to play the Oregon "Fighting" Ducks. Boise State still has....TCU I guess?
Moving farther down the list, you'll notice that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have made their debut in my rankings. I know, right? Gross. The Irish have been on a roll and S&P loves them, so I couldn't resist any longer. 20-25 are pretty crazy in general, as I moved several teams in and out of my poll. The Georgia Bulldogs make their debut as Bronco fans rejoice.
I probably punished Texas a little harshly, dropping them from #11 all the way out of the rankings, but I had my doubts about them to begin with. Also, it's Texas.
As always, rankings after the jump and the opportunity to tell me how dumb I am.
Week 6 CougCenter BlogPoll Ballot
by Craig Powers on Oct 3, 2011 5:29 PM PDT
in College Football
This week I decided to let the numbers of Football Outsiders guide my hand a little more in picking my Top 25. I resisted putting teams like Notre Dame in there, but looking at the S&P rankings caused me to shake things up a little bit. It also reaffirmed by decision to place Alabama at #1.
Also this week I finally give Georgia Tech their due for running up and down the field on everyone. Only a late gambler-suicide-inducing fumble made their score look closer this week. Texas, Illinois, and Michigan are all begrudgingly ranked highly because they are undefeated. Even with all the stats that are created to take out every bit of bias we can when ranking teams, it is still really hard to resist that urge to extra-extra value wins. Even when the wins have come against less-than-stellar competition.
After the jump you can look at my ballot and tell me how dumb I am.
BLOGPOLL TOP 25: More Change At The Top
by Craig Powers on Sep 27, 2011 7:49 PM PDT
in College Football
This week, I am a miserable failure.
I went to Boston for the weekend for a sports stat conference and was in a Harvard classroom all day Saturday (I'm smarter than you now). Since then I've been trying to catch up on the studying I missed for the test I had today, all the while helping my students study for the test they had today, then proctoring said test. In doing all this, I did not submit a BlogPoll ballot for this week.
Priorities, amirite?
I've posted the rankings after the jump. Most notable is LSU rising to #1, no doubt impressing the voters with their road win in Morgantown. Most curious is how the poll uncharacteristically punished highly ranked teams who lost to other highly ranked teams. Texas A&M dropped eight spots following their narrow loss to Oklahoma State. Arkansas and West Virginia dropped six spots a piece after failing their biggest early-season tests.
For the best analysis on the rankings, check out Andy Hutchins's BlogPoll Top 25 piece over at the mothership.
Pac-12 Football, Seattle Sports Open Thread
by Grady Clapp on Sep 24, 2011 12:07 PM PDT
in College Football
One play doesn't win or lose a football game. Or change the direction of a program. Still, you could argue that last year's failure by Cal to stop Chris Polk at the goal line on the final play of the game allowed Washington to 1) go on to beat WSU and become Bowl eligible 2) beat Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl and 3) Sell the Husky program as a "program on the rise"... rather than a program that was struggling to make it back to relevancy after 0-12.
Of course, little of this matters to WSU. But on a day like today where the Cougs are off, thoughts naturally turn to the state's other team and some good ol' fashioned rooting against your rival.
Relevant to your sports interests today:
12:30 p.m.
California at Washington
Colorado at Ohio State
UCLA at Oregon State
1:00 p.m.
Mariners at Rangers (why?)
7:15 p.m.
USC at Arizona State
Oregon at Arizona
7:30 p.m.
Sounders at Whitecaps
Week 4 CougCenter BlogPoll Ballot: Flip-Flop At The Top
by Craig Powers on Sep 19, 2011 5:53 PM PDT
in College Football
As I created my ballot last week, I decided to give LSU the nod as the top team in the nation because of their victory over Oregon in the season opener. This week, Oklahoma one-upped the Tigers by going on the road and beating Florida State. For that, they earn the top spot.
I tried not to punish FSU too much for their loss to the Sooners. They didn't get run out of the building and they may end up giving OU their toughest test for several months.
Two teams that I did punish heavily were out of the Big Ten. Ohio State went down to play the undead corpse of the Miami Hurricanes and failed to put the ball in the endzone. I was pretty uncomfortable with how highly I ranked them last week, and they decided to make me look like a fool this past weekend. Methinks the Buckeyes miss Terrelle Pryor just a little bit. Michigan State also drops out for getting curb-stomped by Notre Dame. Apparently the Spartans didn't realize that losing to Notre Dame is longer the cool thing to do.
The bottom of my poll saw lots of movement. FIU earns a spot because, well, there are a whole lot of teams that are all the same right now and they have the longest name. So that's cool. South Florida moved up a bagillion spots because I didn't really pay that much attention to the bottom half of my week three bracket.
Full ballot after the jump. As always, feel free to tell me how dumb I am.
Week 4 CougCenter BlogPoll Ballot: Suggestion Box
by Craig Powers on Sep 18, 2011 10:17 AM PDT
in College Football
Last week I had to have the CougCenter BlogPoll ballot done by early Monday morning, so that didn't leave much time to seek out ideas from the community in assembling the rankings. Luckily, Andy Hutchins (the writer who runs the BlogPoll for SBNation) talked to the higher-ups and now we have until Tuesday morning to finalize our ballots.
So with that, I've decided to go back to the practice of including you guys in the rankings. You don't necessarily need to post a full 25, but I invite you all to discuss in the comments who should be moved up, who should be moved down, and who should be moved out altogether (looking at you Michigan State and Ohio State). Every Sunday I will through this post up some time in the morning and give you guys the chance to discuss Saturday's action. On Monday night I will take a look at the comments and put together a ballot that I think best represents the voice of the CougCenter community.
To start us off, here is the link to my ballot, and here is the link to the BlogPoll Top 25 rankings from Week 3.
Discuss away!
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