The Act II Mega-Bowl-Forecast Post Is Finally Here!

   Yes, it’s finally time to put our figurative neck on the line and make our selections for the winners of not only the 37 “meaningless exhibition” bowl games in the FBS (“football BOWL subdivision”) but also their two championship semifinals and the national championship games; PLUS the semis in the FCS and the finals in Divisions 2 and 3 college football!
   (By the way, in the spirit of anti-commercialism, we won’t be putting all the sponsor names on the. Owls unless that’s the only designation the bowl has. Those change almost yearly and leads to confusion about which game is which. Ok? We squared away, bro?)
   So let’s begin!

Games We’re Absolutely Sure About:
   The winner for Most Obvious Rout goes to the Boca Raton Bowl on Dec 19, between a 7-6 Akron team that’s only bowl eligible because it plays in the weakest division in football, against an undefeated in conference Florida Atlantic team that’s wrecked everything in its path the last two months. Oh! And the game will be played on FAU’s home field, too! We predict a three touchdown victory for the Owls.
   Our other certainties? In descending order, Florida State over Southern Miss (Dec 27, Independence Bowl); North Carolina State over the disaster that is Arizona State (Dec 29, Sun Bowl); Northwestern over Kentucky (Dec 29, Music City Bowl); and Arkansas State over Middle Tennessee (Dec 16, Camellia Bowl).

Games with a Clear Favorite:
    We’ll hit these in chronological order, since there are so many of them -
Dec 16, New Orleans Bowl: Troy over North Texas (the Green are good, but the Trojans are a league apart).
Dec 16, New Mexico Bowl: Colorado State over Marshall.
Dec 22, Bahamas Bowl: Ohio U over the best story in football, the 8-4 Alabama-Birmingham Dragons, back from the dead and in a bowl after two years dormant. Alas, Ohio is just better than they are.
Dec 23, Birmingham Bowl: South Florida over Texas Tech.
Dec 23, Armed Forces Bowl: San Diego State over Army-West Point. (There’ll be a LOT of running in this game!)
Dec 27, Pinstripe Bowl: Iowa over Boston College by three points. Strange to say it that way, but the universal opinion is that the Hawkeyes are three points better than the Eagles.
Dec 27, Texas Bowl: Missouri over Texas. Mizzou found a switch mid year and is as good as anyone in the country all of a sudden.
Dec 28, Camping World Bowl (gag): Oklahoma State over Virginia Tech. Tech’s good, but the Cowpokes are better.
Dec 29, Arizona Bowl: Utah State over New Mexico State. It’s been 57 years since NMSU has been in a bowl game, but unfortunately it will end the same way it did in 1960 - losing to Utah State.
Dec 30, TaxSlayer Bowl (gag): Louisville over Mississippi State. Lamar Jackson in probably his final collegiate game.
Dec 30, Liberty Bowl: Memphis over Iowa State, in a home game for the 11-2 Tigers.
Dec 30, Orange Bowl (a New Year’s Six game): Wisconsin over Miami of Florida.

Games That We’re Willing To Pick A Winner For:
   Again, for the sake of clarity, we’ll go in chronological order...
Dec 16, Celebration Bowl: North Carolina A&T over Grambling State. The battle for HBC supremacy should go to the undefeated Aggies, who have only had two opponents come within a touchdown of them all season.
Dec 16, Cure Bowl: Western Kentucky over Georgia State. Two six-win teams that really shouldn’t have bowl bids. WKU isn’t very good, but they’re better than GSU is.
Dec 23, Dollar General Bowl (ew): Two good teams, Toledo over Appalachian State.
Dec 24, Hawaii Bowl: Fresno State over Houston.
Dec 26, Quick Lane Bowl (sigh): Duke over Northern Illinois. A mediocre Power 5 team should defeat a mediocre Group of 5 team.
Dec 26, Cactus Bowl: Kansas State over UCLA.
Dec 28, Holiday Bowl: Always a good matchup. Michigan State should defeat Washington State.
Dec 29, Belk Bowl: Wake Forest over Texas A&M. Continuity wins out.
Dec 29, Cotton Bowl (a New Year’s Six game): Potentially one of the very best games of the season, Ohio State should be too much for Southern Cal. Should be...
Jan 1, Outback Bowl (the restaurant that claims to be Australian): Michigan is probably stronger than South Carolina. Probably...

Games We Picked With Our Fingers Crossed:
   These six are tough; you could argue any of them the other way and I wouldn’t be upset.
Dec 20, Frisco Bowl: SMU over Louisiana Tech.
Dec 22, Idaho Potato Bowl (on the blue turf in Boise, my home stadium) Wyoming over Central Michigan. I’d been on the fence about this one but the stronger conference argument won me over.
Dec 26, Heart of Dallas Bowl: Utah over West Virginia. Hard to know, but it seems to me that Utah travels better.
Dec 28, Military Bowl (as opposed to “Armed Forces Bowl”. Yeah, there are too many bowls...): Naval Academy over Virginia. Although the Virginia that beat Boise in September would roll over Navy...
Dec 30, Fiesta Bowl (a New Year’s Six Bowl): Penn State over Washington, but I’m not at ALL sure about that. I’m going off last year’s bowl performances and betting against coach Petersen for the first time in my life.
Jan 1, Peach Bowl (also a New Year’s Six game): the annual token appearance of a Group Of Fice power against a real test from the Power Five. And Auburn will be a REAL test for Central Florida. We’re taking a strong Auburn team that beat both Alabama and Georgia, but UCF isn’t undefeated for nothing.

Games We’re Flipping a Coin Over:
   These five are toss ups that we’ve almost arbitrarily chosen one team because we had to...
Oregon over Boise State (Dec 16, Las Vegas Bowl).
Temple over Florida International (Dec 21, Gaspsrilla Bowl).
Arizona over Purdue (Dec 27, Foster Farms Bowl).
TCU over Stanford (Dec 28, Alamo Bowl).
Notre Dame over LSU (Jan 1, Citrus Bowl).

The Championship Four(s):
   FBS - in the Jan 1 Sugar Bowl, the rubber match between Clemson and Alabama will determine one finalist (we like ‘Bama by three, but the majority of pundits pick Clemson in a close one). Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl between Oklahoma and Georgia is a virtual tossup, even in Vegas, where the point spread has crossed from one team the the other more than once. (We also have a tie.) This should be a dandy!
   FCS - we are one game away from the final everyone wants! #1 James Madison will host #5 South Dakota State this Friday (we pick JMU by five), and #2 North Dakota State hosts #6 Sam Houston State on Saturday (we pick NDSU by a full 17 points!). The winners meet in Frisco, Texas, on January 6th, for the FCS national title.
   Division II - Texas A&M-Commerce has the unenviable task of facing off against the lovable second-year program from the powerful Gulf Coast Conference, West Florida, which has ripped through higher seeds all the way to the national final. We're not going against West Florida again!
   Division III - here, we got our wish: Mary-Hardin-Baylor is going to defend their national title in the final against perennial champion Mount Union this Saturday. We can’t wait!

The Final Fours in college football!

The final four teams have been named on the shores of American collegiate football. The College Football Playoff committee has ranked these four teams at the top of the FBS and seeded them in the semi-finals, played in the Rose and Sugar Bowls on January 1^st:

  Ø  #1 Clemson Tigers (12-1, champions of the ACC)

  Ø  #2 Oklahoma Sooners (12-1, champions of the Big Twelve)

  Ø  #3 Georgia Bulldogs (12-1, champs of the SEC)

  Ø  #4 Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1, SEC).

The difficult conversation for the committee came down to whether to put Alabama (with just one loss to 10-2 Auburn on the road which happened to keep them from winning the SEC) or Ohio State (champs of the Big Ten but twice losers, including a 31-point blowout at 7-5 Iowa) in that fourth spot. The consensus of the public was there was no right answer, and even USC (two-loss champs of the Pac-12) were considered. For the record, we have Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma all at a rating of 9 on our ELO-FOLLOWING FOOTBALL rating system, and Alabama and Ohio State the only two teams ahead of them (Alabama at 6, Ohio State at 8). So, either would have been an asset and a favorite.

In the end, Ohio State was placed fifth (and out of the playoffs), Wisconsin 6^th, Auburn 7^th, and USC 8^th. All four of those schools got major bowl games as consolation prizes: USC and Ohio State are meeting in the Cotton Bowl Dec 29, Wisconsin goes to Miami in the Orange Bowl Dec 30, Washington and Penn State meet in the Fiesta Bowl Dec 30, and Group of Five champion Central Florida (12-0 after a 62-55 barn-burner win against conference rival Memphis Saturday; the only undefeated team in FCS) plays 10-3 SEC powerhouse Auburn in the Peach Bowl on Jan 1^st. 33 other bowl games were filled with 66 other teams with winning records, exhibition games that reward the teams and their fans for a successful season. (In truth, the coaches get fifteen extra practices with those bowl invites, so they get to work with their team when their lesser rivals can’t.)

The FCS level is down to eight teams rather than four:

  Ø  James Madison (26-7 winners over fellow CAA team Stony Brook) host Weber State (30-13 winners against Big Sky rival Southern Utah).

  Ø  South Dakota State (which defeated fellow MVC Northern Iowa 37-22) plays upstart New Hampshire from the CAA (which upset Central Arkansas 21-15).

  Ø  MVC champ North Dakota State (routers of San Diego, 38-3) plays SoCon champ Wofford (conquerors of fellow Southern conference Furman 28-10).

  Ø  And Kennesaw State (which upset #3 Jacksonville State 17-7 of the OVC) defends the Big South with a battle against Southland power Sam Houston State (54-42 winners against MVC power South Dakota).

Our money is still on a James Madison defense against five-time champion North Dakota State in the final. For comparison, NDSU has a rating of 21; JMU 23. No other school is lower than 29.

We haven’t mentioned Division 2 or 3 all season, but those exist within the NCAA bounds as well for smaller, non-scholarship schools. In Division 2, Indiana of Pennsylvania hosts West Florida, and Texas A&M – Commerce hosts Harding University this weekend. And in Division 3, Mary Hardin-Baylor defends its national title against Brockport State, while 13-time champ Mount Union plays Wisconsin-Oshkosh for a change (they’ve played Wisconsin-Whitewater in the finals for something like nine years straight before last season!).

      As for our ELO-FF ratings, well, we’ve already revealed our top five. Here’s our top 25:

      1.       Alabama (rating of 6)

      2.       Ohio State (8)

      3.       Georgia, Clemson, and Oklahoma (9).

      6.       Wisconsin and Penn State (11)

      8.       Auburn (12)

      9.       Washington (13)

      10.   Stanford (16)

      11.   Oklahoma State (17)

      12.   LSC and USC (18)

      14.   TCU (19)

      15.   Notre Dame, Michigan, and the best of Group of Five, Central Florida (20)

      17.   Iowa, Miami-FL, and if you want to break the rules a mite, North Dakota State! (21)

      20.   Kansas State, Northwestern, Iowa State, Texas, Mississippi State, and Memphis (22).

In the FCS level, let’s look at our top rated teams for the year as well:

      1.       North Dakota State (rating of 21)

      2.       James Madison (23)

      3.       South Dakota State (29)

      4.       Kennesaw State, Weber State (31)

      6.       Central Arkansas (32)

      7.       Jacksonville State, Western Illinois (33)

      9.       Youngstown State, Sam Houston State (34)

      11.   Northern Iowa (35)

      12.   Illinois State, Southern Utah, Furman, Samford, Richmond, South Dakota (36)

      18.   Wofford, Montana State, and San Diego. (37)

            North Carolina A&T is the top-rated “historically black college” at 38, alone in slot #21.

This weekend’s predictions? Not much to work with…

Well, there IS the uber-traditional “Army/Navy” game, which for the first time in forever we have as a toss-up, zero points to give in either direction. (My gut says Navy’s seeking revenge for breaking The Streak – they’d beaten Army fourteen years straight.)

And there’s the FCS quarter-finals, but except for the Sam Houston State v Kennesaw State, I see double-digit margins in the neighborhood – JMU by 19, NDSU by 12, and SDSU by 16. The only reason I’m favoring Sam Houston is the fact that they’re playing their second in a row at home, and Kennesaw’s playing its second on the road: SHSU by one.

In Division II, I’m expecting a final between the two most oddly named schools: Indiana of Pennsylvania, and Texas A&M-Commerce, while in Division III, I am REALLY hoping for form to hold and produce a match between current reigning champ UMHB and perennial champ Mount Union.

Our prediction record for the year stands at 826-252, for a batting average over 76.6% for the year. We also lead the Vegas oddsmakers 250-234, and the Sagarin ratings 250-216 in accuracy. Next week, we’ll forecast all the bowl games and the lower division finals for you!

A look at the FCS playoff picture

            We spend a majority of our time looking at what’s called the “FBS”, or the “Bowl Subdivision”, of American college football. The “big boys”. The big money. The four-team playoff through the already-existing bowl game system for those huge money-making programs.

            But the other half of Division 1 football in the US is nearing its playoffs as well: a 24-team bracket that gives it the “FCS” title – “Championship Subdivision”. In fact, it’s the only championship that the NCAA, the governing body of college athletics in the US, officially recognizes. So with two weeks to go in the regular season, let’s take a look at where those 13 conferences sit.

            Southland: Central Arkansas has two pretty easy games left to go 9-0 in conference and secure the automatic bid, and their 10-1 record will seed them in the top eight, allowing them a free pass into the second round. Sam Houston State is also likely to end at 10-1, with a loss to CAU, and I can see them earning a seed as well. McNeese State, in Louisiana, has two challenging games left to go 9-2, but should make the tournament even at 8-3. I’d love to see Nicholls State make the cut, after years of hardship on the field, but they’ll have to win two tough games to go 9-2 and have a chance.

            Southern: Wofford has lowly VMI left to beat to go 7-1 in conference and win any potential tiebreaker with Furman, which they beat 24-23 on the first day of the season. Both teams should qualify, and Wofford might get a seed as well. Western Carolina looks likely to earn a spot, if they beat 4-5 Mercer and make a decent showing at Power Five North Carolina next week, but it’s going to be tough for Samford to do the same without upsetting Furman next week.

            Pioneer: The lowly Pioneer League has eleven teams who essentially couldn’t cut it with the other conferences and formed their own, spanning the country. San Diego is the class this year, and can finish 8-0 in conference if they hold their 20+ point spread against Davidson this week and Marist next. No other team will be invited from the PFL except its champion.

            Patriot: Likewise, only the champion of the Patriot League is likely to get it. A cousin of the Ivy League with similar quality schools, this season will come down to the traditional Lehigh/Lafayette game in week 12. If Lehigh wins, they own the title, even if Colgate also goes 5-1 (Lehigh defeated them four weeks ago). Lafayette can also claim the title by beating both Colgate this week and Lehigh the next.

            Ohio Valley: Jacksonville State is the class of this league and a definite top eight seed. The winner of next week’s clash between Eastern Illinois and upstart Austin Peay, a surprising 6-1 in conference, will claim second place and have a good shot at a playoff spot.

            Northeast: This one’s easy: the winner of this Saturday’s game between Central Connecticut and Duquesne will be league champion and probably the one playoff invitee. Defending champion Duquesne is favored in our ELO-FF rating system by 12 points. There are rarely two candidates from this league, but maybe the loser has a chance as well. Maybe.

            Missouri Valley: The cream of the crop league comes from the northern Midwest portion of the nation. Five-time national champ North Dakota State lost its first game of the year Saturday at South Dakota State, but still has a game lead in this fiercest of all Division 1 conferences:

            North Dakota State (5-1, 8-1) still plays South Dakota and at Illinois State.

            South Dakota State (4-2, 7-2) still plays Illinois State and at South Dakota.

            Illinois State (4-2, 6-3) still plays at South Dakota State and North Dakota State.

            South Dakota (4-2, 7-2) still plays at North Dakota State and South Dakota State.

All four of those teams should make the 24-team tournament, no matter which one wins the conference. (I’m still betting on NDSU.) It’s also conceivable that Western Illinois (3-3 and 6-3) could be invited, with two wins against easier opposition to finish the season; Northern Iowa could go 7-4 with two more wins and get an invite; and even at 4-5 right now, reigning national finalist Youngstown State might get an invitation to return if they win twice more and get to 6-5 in the toughest of leagues.

            Colonial: Probably the second or third toughest league in the FCS, especially when the national champion James Madison Dukes are rampaging through it at 6-0 and 9-0 overall. They play Richmond this week and Elon next week, a possible title game as Elon is a surprising 6-0 and 8-1 this year themselves. Both teams should go to the tournament, as should 7-2 Stony Brook. The other feasible candidate would be New Hampshire, especially if they can beat Elon at home this weekend.

            Big South: Usually only the winner of the Big South gets invited to the Big Dance, but there are two strong candidates who meet in the season finale next week: Monmouth at Kennesaw State, two surprising teams who sit unbeaten in the Big South and 8-1 overall. If they win this week, it might be hard to turn down the loser of a close game between 4-0/9-1 teams.

            Big Sky: Another premier league in the FCS, its leaders are doing their usual cannibalization routine, knocking each other off rather than having one dominant team to send to the top seeds. Nevertheless, it looks like Weber State should go 7-1 in conference with two more wins, as will the winner of next week’s Northern Arizona at Southern Utah donnybrook. Those three teams look like the most likely to advance to the national bracket. Depending on how the strength of the league is evaluated by the NCAA this year, Montana might have the record at 8-3 with a victory over strong rival Montana State next week to get in as well.

            The Ivy League doesn’t send its champion to any post-season competition (in the name of the “purity of the sport”), but Yale now has a one-game lead over four others (Columbia, Harvard, Dartmouth and Cornell) and could win the title outright with two difficult wins over Princeton and Harvard.

            Likewise, the Metro East (MEAC) and the Southwestern (SWAC), which are made up of what are called “historically black colleges”, send their champions to the Celebration Bowl against each other. (That looks very likely to be North Carolina A& T, 9-0 and about to win the MEAC, against Grambling State, the class of the SWAC. Don’t ask why it’s “Southwestern” when it’s schools located around Alabama.) However, the MEAC is willing to let any non-champion go to the playoffs, and North Carolina Central looks like they may end up being a 9-2 candidate to do just that this year!

            *SO, what will that make the playoff bracket most likely look like?*

            Our guesses for the top seeds 1-8: 

James Madison (Colonial), North Dakota State (MVC), the winner of the South Dakota/SDSU matchup (MVC), Jacksonville State (OVC), Central Arkansas (Southland), Weber State (Big Sky), Sam Houston State (Southland), and Wofford (Southern).

           Our guesses for teams 9-24, in no particular order…

Furman and Western Carolina (Southern)

McNeese State (Southland)

Elon and Stony Brook (Colonial)

South Dakota/SDSU loser, Illinois State, and Western Illinois (Missouri Valley)

Southern Utah and Northern Arizona (Big Sky)

San Diego (Pioneer)

Lehigh (or Lafayette or Colgate) – (Patriot)

North Carolina Central (MEAC)

Central Connecticut / Duquesne winner (NEC)

Monmouth / Kennesaw State winner (Big South)

Austin Peay / Eastern Illinois winner (OVC)

            We’ll check back in two weeks and see how it turns out! Next week, we’ll take a similar look at the FBS conferences: who’s likely to make the title games, who’s going to reach bowl eligibility, and what the New Year’s Six Bowl teams and the Playoff Four look likely to be.

And the Committee has spoken!

Originally, I wanted to talk about the surprise teams of the 2017 college football year: Iowa State, Boston College, Arizona, even Austin Peay and Elon in the FCS. But the elephant in the room was too large.

The first College Football Playoff rankings came out Tuesday night (Wednesday, Australian time). Wisely, the 13-member committee of experts (how sarcastically that term is used depends on your opinion of the process; I think it’s as good as we can expect) do not issue any preliminary rankings until a few weeks before the actual need for a top four and a top twelve, so as not to waste our time or theirs. As expected, their top four teams as of week 9 are (drum roll, please)…

…the Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and the Clemson Tigers. (You could hardly ask for a better, more varied set of mascots than that, could you? Maybe if we had the TCU Horned Frogs in there, or the Ohio State Buckeyes…)

In the ELO-Following Football rating system, there are five teams who stand head-and-shoulders above the others, and they particularly show up when you remove the pre-season ranking bias that we and every other system incorporates in September at least. [I’ve found that maintaining the pre-season portion of the rating improves prediction results over the adjusted scores, which is why I only use the adjusted score for demonstrations like these.] And one of those teams named today isn't among them, despite their on-field credentials. When you make that adjustment in our numbers, here are the top five teams:

Alabama (adjusted score: 0.) ELO-FF rating: 5, 1st place

Georgia (adj score: 1.)          ELO-FF rating: 11, 4th place

Ohio State (adj score; 1.) ELO-FF rating: 7, 2nd place

Penn State (adj score: 2.) ELO-FF rating: 9, 3rd place

Notre Dame (adj score: 2.)          ELO-FF rating: 14, tie for 6th

Then, there’s a significant gap to the next team, Oklahoma State (adjusted score of 5, fifth place ELO-FF rating of 12), and an even bigger gap to seventh place and beyond (with adjusted scores of 9 to 13) – Iowa State, Mississippi State, TCU, Auburn, Central Florida, Virginia Tech, Stanford, THEN Clemson, Wisconsin, and the University of Washington. (Strictly speaking, the next lowest score belongs to defending FCS champion James Madison at 14, with North Dakota State close behind them at 16!)

If you’re serious about picking out the four best teams for the playoff at the end of the year, that’s as far down as we need to go when we’re two-thirds of the way through the season. (Seriously: do you think Arizona or Texas are getting in? Those are teams #17 and #18 on our list right now.)

As for Clemson, undoubtedly the reasoning the committee used was that their one loss, as bad as it was (27-24 to lowly Syracuse), came on a short week, in a road game, when their starting quarterback went down early in that game. But the ELO-FF system ignores that for the simple reason that if you're evaluating teams strictly on their on-field performance, as they claim to be (for example, the committee famously does NOT account for games yet to be played - see Baylor/TCU three weeks ago). Clemson played that game, and they lost. The teams the one-loss crew of ours failed against - Notre Dame lost to Georgia by one; Penn State to Ohio State by one, and Ohio State to 7-1 Oklahoma - all fall in the CFP top six. (OU was 5th, OSU 6th, and Penn St 7th). Syracuse, not surprisingly, is not ranked by the committee, despite their "signature win".

We still believe that those five teams that have separated themselves from the peloton – two SEC schools, two from the Big Ten that just played a phenomenal, 39-38 thriller won by OSU in the final minutes, and the independent powerhouse Notre Dame – are basically guaranteed to have first say in the make-up of the CFP foursome. The winner of the SEC championship game on December 2 – and if they’re both still undefeated going in, very possibly the loser as well – will be there. Ohio State now has a clear run to their finals spot if they beat Michigan in a few weeks, and then win the conference title game (most likely against Wisconsin). Both Penn State and Wisconsin will have something to say if they hiccup, but it’s now the Buckeyes’ spot to lose. And a 12-1 Power Five conference champ WILL be in the finals.

As for Notre Dame, their independent status is advantageous only when it allows them to schedule well – and this year, it has. Besides the one-point loss to Georgia in one of the games-of-the-year, they’ve wiped up ACC Atlantic leader North Carolina State by 21, resurgent Boston College by 29, and Pac-12 South leader USC by 35 points! Their scheduled “lightweights” aren’t that light, either: Miami-Ohio (top tier team in the MAC), equally resurgent Michigan State, and two teams expected to be better than they have been, Temple and North Carolina. If they finish 11 and 1, they’ll also have beaten a strong Naval Academy club, a Wake Forest team we have in our top 25, #18 Stanford and #9 Miami of Florida. No other team has that kind of “Murderer’s Row” to battle through, so if the Irish succeed, they’ve written their own ticket to the CFP.

Do any other teams have a chance? Of course.

Even if these five teams hold up their end of the bargain, you’ve only got two conference champs in the bunch. It would be easy for the committee to “reserve” a spot beyond Notre Dame and the SEC and Big Ten champs (and off course, if more losses creep into their resumes, more spots may open up): Justify Penn State’s absence as having been the victim of their unofficial “elimination game” this past weekend, and remove the loser of the Alabama-Georgia SEC title game the same way.

So who’s most likely to fill that spot? Well, Clemson will evidently get first ups, according to the CFP committee.

The ACC champ will certainly have an argument, especially if it IS defending champion Clemson. But even an undefeated (or even a one-loss) Miami of Florida, or possibly a one-loss Va-Tech, will get serious consideration from the committee - as we said before, a 12-1 Power Five champ will probably get into the final four.

Perhaps the carnage in the Big Twelve will ease up these last four weeks, and one of TCU, Iowa State, Oklahoma or Ok-State will end up with just the one conference loss, a victory in the nonsensical title game and thus a legitimate argument for a spot at the finals table. But even with Oklahoma at five right now, it's hard to imagine them going through OSU, TCU, and then one of those three top teams again unscathed.

And in the land of make-believe, there’s also the possibility that the CFP will forget that the one-loss Washington Huskies were the victims of perhaps the ugliest of the losses any of that category of teams suffered, or that carnage will ensue and either the two-loss Stanford Cardinals, the two-loss Southern Cal Trojans, or the remaining AAC-unbeaten, Central Florida, will emerge as a viable option when December 3rd comes around. More likely, those teams will be hoping for a seat at the New Year’s Six banquet, rather than a backstage pass to the playoffs.

But if I were a betting man (and I’m not), the top four on the initial CFP ranking is also the way I’d bet for the top four to look in five weeks, when it matters.

Let’s take a look at this week’s top games:

There are two huge games in the ACC Saturday: Clemson travels to North Carolina State to try and re-take control of the Atlantic division, while Miami of Florida hosts Virginia Tech and hopes to hold off the Hokies’ attempt to do the same in the Coastal division. While Vegas has Clemson as a 7.5 point favorite and Miami as a three-point underdog, we see Clemson as just a three-point favorite, and rate the Miami/VT game as a toss-up. (Georgia Tech at Virginia may also be a classic, although we favor the “ramblin’ wreck” by 12.)

Nothing in the Big Ten rivals the Ohio St/Penn St heavyweight clash from last Saturday night, but Penn State does have to host Michigan State, and despite being touchdown favorites (we have it more like two scores), PSU could be in danger of a letdown game against a good Spartans team. The other interesting games are Ohio State waving to the children’s hospital patients at Iowa (and winning by about 15), and Northwestern playing at Nebraska (nobody knows what to make of Nebraska this season: the spreads range from one point Nebraska’s way to four points the Wildcats’ way. We like Northwestern by two).

Bedlam reigns in the Big Twelve this weekend – Oklahoma plays at Oklahoma State. For once, the Sooners are underdogs: the home team is favored by three in Vegas, and by us by seven points. But each is 4-1 and has company at the top from TCU and surprising Iowa State, which has beaten both TCU (14-7 this weekend) and OU (38-31 earlier this season). They have a tough game at West Virginia (we see WVU by two), while TCU hosts Texas (the Frogs are a five-point favorite everywhere).

Stanford goes to Washington State, and the loser’s third loss eliminates them from title consideration completely (we have Stanford by five; Vegas has WSU by two!). In the Pac-12 South, Arizona has to go to the Coliseum and must play as a touchdown underdog to USC in their climb to conquer the division.

Alabama has the first of its big tests in the SEC, hosting LSU this Saturday as twenty-point favorites, while Georgia hosts South Carolina at the same spread. The most interesting game may be watching how Florida reacts to the sudden ousting of its coach following a bizarre disagreement between he and the administration regarding death threats. Florida plays at Missouri Saturday, and while Vegas has them as field goal underdogs, it’s hard to fathom how to predict the way interim coach Randy Shannon and the Gators team reacts this weekend.

In the Group of Five, we’ll be keeping an eye on the Conference-USA matchup between two rising teams in the east Friday night. Marshall goes to Florida Atlantic as a touchdown underdog. In the west, North Texas’ run to the conference title game will have to go through Louisiana Tech, which is between a three and ten-point favorite (we have it at ten) at home.

As for the FCS, North Dakota State faces perhaps its toughest challenge of the home-and-away season, travelling to South Dakota State as just three-point favorites. They’ll finish out the season against the two teams directly beneath them in the Missouri Valley Conference, South Dakota and then Illinois State. Their major rival nationally, 2016 national champ James Madison, has a fairly easy game at Rhode Island this weekend (they’re favored by 26), but then finishes their season against traditionally tough Richmond and 2017 upstart Elon as they seek the Colonial Athletic Association crown.

We went 6-3 in the games we picked in this space last week, and 76-33 overall for the week. For the year, we’re batting 76.5% in our overall picks, and compared to the Vegas lines and the Sagarin system predictions over all FBS games this season (Vegas traditionally doesn’t publish lines for FCS games), we have enjoyed a margin of accuracy over the two of 175 to 164 for Vegas and 152 for Sagarin. (Past performance does not guarantee future accuracy, however, and we don't recommend using anything written here for monetary purposes.)