College Football Predictions: Conference by Conference

When it comes to football, make mine of the Collegiate variety over that played in the professional league. Yes, what's played in the NFL is the "top of the sport" but what's played at colleges across the land has an incredibly bigger amount of diversity, joy and passion.

From an offensive/defensive strategy perspective the College game knocks the NFL into a cocked hat. There are more mismatches that can be exploited, more risks that can be taken and the result is a better brand of football than the NFL's stripped down, bland version of the game.

For the NFL I talked about teams, for Collegiate football I think the appropriate granularity is to discuss conferences.  Because of this, I've analyzed every D-1A Collegiate game, including the games played against D-1AA teams. I've come up with win/loss predictions for all teams both overall, and in conference, and have predicted the conference champions for all of the majors.

After that I ranked the teams as I thought they might be ranked at the end of the year, and have projected the Top 5 teams, including the 4 that I believe have a good shot at this year's College Football Playoff. And, of course, I've selected a champion (thus guaranteeing they will not win [sorry guys]).

Despite the fact that I am a Michigan fan, I don't "hate" any team and I try to stay neutral in my analysis. I realize that I'm supposed to hate Ohio State but I don't, probably because I'm married to a Buckeye.  There are teams that I don't like (Michigan State, Notre Dame, Alabama) but I respect all of them for what they do well.

My methodology is simple:  I look at the games, take what I know about the teams, and pick who I think is going to win.  Later in the season, when we get some actual statistics on THIS version of these teams, I'll start deep-diving into those an some of my predictions MIGHT change, but I doubt it.

So, over the next few days get ready for yet another exercise in silliness as I lay-out how I think the College football season is going to go.  Don't worry, if I suggest your team is going to have a bad year take heart. I said before the season started last year that Alabama would not make the Top 4.