And Down The Stretch They Come!

            The final regular season week is here for the FBS schools in college football, which determines who goes to conference championship games, who goes to one of the 39 bowl games, and eventually which four teams are selected to play January football for the national championship. It’s also the beginning of the 24-team playoff bracket for the top teams in the ten FCS conferences who participate – the two conferences of “Historically Black Colleges” hold their own title bowl game December 16, and the Ivy League schools (Yale was the champion this year) do not participate in anything beyond the ten game schedule they just concluded.

            Let’s look at the lower-division FCS teams first: of the eight teams we forecast to receive top eight seeds (and the week off that comes with it) two weeks ago, seven of them did indeed get selected – in order, #1 James Madison (Virginia, of the Colonial conference), North Dakota State (MVC champ), Jacksonville State (of Alabama, the OVC champ), Central Arkansas (the Southland conference champ), South Dakota State (MVC runner-up), Sam Houston State (Texas, the Southland runner-up), and Wofford (in South Carolina, the Southern Conference champ). The number eight seed was indeed the Big Sky conference champion, as expected, but that turned out to be Southern Utah rather than Weber State.

            This week’s eight games set up to determine their eight opponents next week. Included are our ELO-Following Football point spread predictions and who the winner would play:

            Lehigh (Patriot conference champ) at Stony Brook (CAA 2^nd place) – winner plays at James Madison. Lehigh went 5-1 in the Patriot League, and 0-5 outside it. Stony Brook by 12.

            Western Illinois (MVC at-large) at Weber State (Big Sky co-champ) – winner plays at Southern Utah. We like Weber by three.

            Central Connecticut State (NEC champ) at New Hampshire (CAA at-large) – winner plays at Central Arkansas. CCSU came from 2-9 last year to win the Northeast, unbeaten in conference. But New Hampshire plays in a much tougher league: UNH by 10.

            Monmouth (Big South runner-up) at Northern Iowa (MVC at-large) – winner plays at South Dakota State. We’re ecstatic Monmouth made it in, but we like NIU by nine here.

            San Diego (Pioneer champ) at Northern Arizona (Big Sky at-large) – winner plays at North Dakota State. We favor NAU by two.

            Furman (Southern Conference at-large) at Elon (CAA at-large) – winner plays at Wofford. Elon has had a great turnaround season, but we think Furman ends it by ten.

            Samford (Southern Conference at-large) at Kennesaw State (Big South champ) – winner plays at Jacksonville State. We think Kennesaw was disrespected in its placement, and we like them here by six.

            South Dakota (MVC at-large) at Nicholls State (Southland at-large) – winner plays at Sam Houston State. We’re really happy for Nicholls State, which went 0-12 three years ago. But South Dakota could have been seeded, so we’re predicting USD by four.

            Two weeks ago, we thought Western Carolina might represent the Southern Conference instead of Samford, but this was the right call: Samford has more good wins, and WCU lost its last game 65-10. We’re surprised Nicholls State got in over conference foe McNeese State, but we’re excited to see how them manage against a tournament veteran like South Dakota. Illinois State fell apart towards the end of the season, and Northern Iowa deserved “their spot” in the tournament. The other teams we were thinking had a good shot Saturday night included Eastern Washington of the Big Sky (on pedigree as much as record), and our precious Governors from Austin Peay, which went 7-1 in conference and 8-1 in FCS (their other three losses were to good FBS teams). But when you break a 29-game losing streak THIS season, it may be too early to expect more than a pat on the back this year.

            As for those “HBC” conferences, the SWAC has a couple of weeks left to settle its internal squabbles, while the MEAC behemoth awaits. Southern and Grambling put on their annual “Battle of the Bands” surrounded by a football game in New Orleans this weekend (we like Grambling by six), the winner to play Alcorn State for the league title next week. After that, the SWAC champion gets to play in the brand-new Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta on December 16 against 11-0 North Carolina A&T, which we would favor over anyone in the SWAC right now.

            On to the last week of the FBS season!

            The biggest games are three of the traditional rivalries that will determine division championships, and probably the best game of the three will be Alabama at Auburn, to settle the fate of the SEC West. We all assumed ‘Bama would dust the field with the Tigers until Auburn demolished SEC East champ Georgia 40-13 last week; now, even though Alabama still has the best rating in the sport, Auburn is only a five-point underdog on our rating scale. The winner plays Georgia for the SEC title and presumably a spot in the playoff foursome.

            The second important rivalry game is Washington/Washington State, and if WSU can overcome what we have as a four-point margin against them, they would win the Pac-12 North and take on USC for the conference title. If they lose, Stanford will host the title game. Regardless of outcome, though, the Pac-12 champion is NOT guaranteed a spot in the playoff; other teams ahead of them will have to lose.

            One of those might be Wisconsin, which will be a two-TD favorite against Minnesota. But if the undefeated Badgers make it past the Gophers and then defeat Ohio State in the Big Ten title game, they’ll be in the final four. If not, though, it’s not clear if the two-loss Buckeyes are in; part of that determination depends on how they look against their arch-rivals this weekend, the Michigan Wolverines. We have OSU as a 9-point choice, and we would currently favor them by five against Wisconsin on the neutral field in Indianapolis they’ll play on next week.

            Clemson and Miami have warm-up games before they meet in a winner-take-playoff spot game on December 2 for the ACC title, regardless of the outcomes this weekend. Both are 12-point road favorites on our books, Clemson at South Carolina and Miami at Pittsburgh.

            The third rivalry game with conference title implications takes place in Orlando Friday, where South Florida and Central Florida match up for the AAC East title in the “War On I-4”. The winner will be the favorite against 9-1 Memphis for both the conference title and the New Year’s Six bowl game spot allotted to the best non-Power Five team in the country. (We favor the home UCF Golden Knights by nine this week.)

The only other real rival for that position at this point in the rankings outside the AAC might be Boise State in the Mountain West, which has an interesting situation Saturday night. Both Boise and Fresno State have clinched their respective divisions with one game left to play…against each other, oddly enough. So they’ll play two consecutive games: the first, with nothing on the line, and the second, for the conference title. Our puzzle – how would you coach that first game? Do you play conservatively, show nothing, and rest your stars? Or go all-out, try to run them into the ground and send a message, maybe show them seven weird formations they’ll have to prepare for all next week? We’re going to be fascinated to find out how the coaches handle this odd situation! (Under normal circumstances, we’d favor Boise by five. But this game? I wouldn’t bet this game on a death threat.)

Here’s a run-down of ELO-FF’s predictions of other rivalry games that don’t have title implications riding on them:

Ø  North Carolina State by ten at North Carolina.

Ø  Georgia over Georgia Tech in Atlanta by ten.

Ø  Florida State by four at Florida.

Ø  Virginia Tech by a touchdown on the road versus Virginia.

Ø  Iowa by six at Nebraska.

Ø  Stanford by five at home versus Notre Dame.

Ø  We see Arizona at Arizona State as an even game.

Ø  Tennessee is a nine-point favorite at home against Vanderbilt.

Ø  Mississippi State is a six-point home favorite against Ole Miss Thursday night in the “Egg Bowl”.

Ø  Western Michigan is a nine-point underdog at the Glass Bowl against Toledo.

Ø  Nevada-Reno has a three-point edge at home against UNLV.