Never Too Early

There's an AJC article attached to this forum called \"Never too early for football predictions.\" I concur. Here are my observations on the world of college football post-spring practice. I'm sure predictions will change come the summer, but just to give us something to chew on and talk about, I've written up some predictions for each conference. I'll post my SEC predictions in a different post, since a) they're the longest and b) let's face it, SEC football merits a different discussion! But I'm a fan of ALL college football, so I'd like to talk about the rest of the NCAA too. So, without further ado:

Western Athletic Conference

I’m going out on a limb here. Jared Zabransky and Ian Johnson are gone. Eventually Chris Pedersen has to lose a game as a head coach. Colt Brennan is back for his senior year, and the Warriors went 10-2 last year. I’m going with Hawai’i to win the WAC this year. They might have a conference loss to Nevada or Fresno State, but they’ll beat Boise State head to head and come out on the winner’s end of the championship split. Then again, knowing Hawai’i’s penchant for staying at home, they could well go 11-1, run undefeated through the WAC, and still accept the Hawai’i Bowl bid against Washington State or something.

Sun Belt Conference

I’m actually making an informed choice this year: Troy. Seriously. They’re far and away a better team than anyone else in the Sun Belt, college football’s version of the minor leagues. They’re coming off a big bowl win – the first in history for a team from the conference – and they’ve got some upsets in their recent history.

Mountain West Conference

BYU will not repeat. The Becks are both gone, their replacements have played a combined total of less than twenty snaps, and as mid-majors go, the Mountain West is one of the most competitive. I’m thinking TCU will get back on track and take the conference, crashing the BCS party on its way to a one- or zero-loss season. After all, the Horned Frogs’ only losses last year were to Utah and eventual winner BYU. That includes victories over the high-scoring Texas Tech Red Raiders, as well as a 37-7 drubbing of Northern Illinois in the bowl game. If you’re doing your math correctly, that adds up to just three losses in the last two years. TCU could be this year’s Boise State, and might play for it all in New Orleans if they start out the season ranked highly enough.

Conference USA

I can’t imagine anything more exciting than an East Carolina – Houston matchup in the C-USA championship game, so that’s what I’m picking. No one was more disappointed than I – well, maybe Skip Holtz – when the Pirates blew it against Southern Miss and dropped the Eastern Division bid at the end of the season. I think ECU will be overmatched by the Cougars, who just have too many weapons offensively and will win the conference again this year.

Mid-American Conference

Man, is this conference ever a mess. Last year’s MAC was a microcosm of all of college football: the teams that are traditionally the best were way down, while middle-of-the-road teams had great years. I mean, seriously, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Ohio and Kent State were the class of the MAC in 2006? That said, I think Frank Solich has got something going up in Athens, and I think the Bobcats will take the Eastern Division for a second straight year. Without Garrett Wolfe, Northern Illinois will flounder, and Western Michigan will take the West if the traditional powers don’t step up their game. I’m going with my gut, though, and saying that in that matchup, the Broncos overpower Ohio to take the MAC.

Independents

Notre Dame. Unless, of course, Lil’ Jimmy Clausen proves to be as much of a head case as big brother Casey, in which case the Irish will drop a few more key games than they usually do and Navy will run away with the…well, not the conference, exactly…I guess they’ll just kind of force Notre Dame to play in the Gator Bowl, won’t they? Unless ND ends up ranked in the top 44, of course, in which case they’ll get an automatic birth in the Orange Bowl.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Anyone who thinks Jim Grobe doesn’t have something real cooking at Wake Forest is using his head as a colonoscope. The Deacons are getting their starters back this year at QB and TB – that’s right, they won the ACC last year on backup juice! – and the championship team from last year is largely returning, seasoned and hungry. UNC, NC State, Boston College and Miami all have new coaches, while Duke, Clemson and Georgia Tech inexplicably retained their old coaches. I think the biggest impacts are going to be felt at NC State, who hired Tom O’Brien away from BC, and Miami, where discipline-meister Randy Shannon has taken over for Larry “Do It With Your Own Recruits” Coker. Can you imagine what O’Brien will do with the talent that Chuck Amato squandered?

Maryland’s going to be strong, Florida State is always a threat, and Virginia Tech is possibly the deepest and most talented team in the conference. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I think the ACC will be back this year, and in a big big way. Remember how everyone dismissed the Big East before last year as a two-team show? Yeah…then Rutgers came along. Then the Big East went 5-0 in the bowls. I think we’re looking at the same thing with the ACC this year. How the hell do you pick a champ?

Usually I reserve this amount of space for the SEC, the conference I know the most about. So I’ll wrap this up: the Jacksonville game will involve Virginia Tech out of the Coastal Division defeating Boston College out of the Atlantic Division. There. I said it. Hokie hokie hokie hi!

Big East

Okay, so I was wrong. This conference is dangerous. That said, I think that the defending Big East champ suffered the mightiest blow of them all – the departure of Bobby Petrino. Brian Brohm’s not going to have a Michael Bush to hand off to anymore, and I don’t think new Coach Kragthorpe is going to have the kind of offensive mind that Bobby brought to Papa John’s Stadium. The Big East is still going to be exciting this year. Two coaches that stayed with their teams are Greg Schiano and Rich Rodriguez at Rutgers and WVU respectively, and they’re going to be locked in a battle for conference supremacy. Cincinnatti is dangerous, and I mean they knocked off Rutgers last year, nearly knocked off Ohio State, and are only getting better. South Florida is an up-and-comer, and Pitt might even win a few games against big teams before choking and dying in late October. I’ll take West Virginia straight up, though a loss or two will keep them out of national title contention.

Big Ten

You mean the Big 2 plus 9? Unbelievable how this slow, plodding, top-heavy conference keeps getting “National Title Contender” splashed all over its teams. I’m not going to waste time on this conference. The title will come down to the Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe, with Wisconsin emerging victorious over Michigan and taking the Rose Bowl berth. Ohio State might beat Michigan again this year, but a couple of conference losses along the way will relegate them to one of the Florida Bowls, far away from Pasadena.

Big Twelve

This conference is actually getting more exciting. Now that Nebraska is back in the picture, along with the fact that Texas A&M has made the South a three-team race, there may actually be some intrigue to the Big Twelve winner in 2007; you know, more than “do we wear maroon or burnt orange come December?” Kansas and K-State are improving, but don’t look for the North to be competitive; it’s still pretty much all Cornhuskers. Colt McCoy will show marked improvement, Texas will win the South and defeat Nebraska in the championship game by less than thirty points.

Pac-10

USC.