Bold Predictions for 2014-15 College Football Bowl Season
The 2014 regular season was uncomfortably predictable.
All four College Football Playoff teams were in the Associated Press preseason Top Five, and two more teams that finished in the CFP Top Eight began in the AP Top 10.
There are two ways to look at these results: (1) as a sign of things to come or (2) as an outlier that needs to be corrected. Will chalk reign supreme throughout bowl season? Or will chaos return to fore?
If answer (2) is correct—and my personal belief is it is—that means "bold" predictions are the way to go this bowl season. The safe picks have already had their moment. It's time to bank on long shots.
That doesn't, however, mean it's time to start predicting nonsense. This list does not pander to shock value. Everything here stands a realistic chance of happening, even if they aren't "likely."
Sound off below with your own bold predictions for bowl season.
Note: All spreads courtesy of Odds Shark, and all recruiting info refers to the 247Sports composite rankings.
Christian Hackenberg Reminds Us How Good He Is
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Christian Hackenberg might have been the biggest disappointment of the season—at least as far as players, not teams, are concerned.
The top-ranked quarterback in the 2013 recruiting class saw his QB rating drop 30 points as a sophomore and his touchdown-to-interception ratio flip from 2:1 to 1:2. He threw eight touchdowns on 434 attempts, including one on 116 attempts in his final four games.
But Hackenberg has undeniable talent and should benefit from the month-or-so to clear his mind. He ended last season with his best performance of the year—completing 21 of 30 passes for 339 yards and four touchdowns at Wisconsin—and is playing for a head coach, James Franklin, who has always fared well in bowl games.
"This season for a lot of guys, including myself and Christian, is going to help him tremendously as he goes forward," offensive coordinator John Donovan told reporters at Pinstripe Bowl media day.
If he needed to be humbled, he has been.
Boston College is a solid but beatable opponent that ranked No. 41 in the country in pass defense, per Football Outsiders' S&P+ ratings. It's precisely the type of defense Hackenberg can play well against without feeling like he padded stats against a scrub.
The SEC East Loses More Games Than It Wins
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The SEC East has five bowl teams, four of which are favored.
In chronological order, they are:
- South Carolina (vs. Miami)
- Georgia (vs. Louisville)
- Missouri (vs. Minnesota)
- Tennessee (vs. Iowa)
- Florida (vs. East Carolina)
Miami beating South Carolina was my favorite bet of bowl season, and I'm sticking to that. And the other four games all seem like they could go either way.
I am not sure which SEC East teams will join the Gamecocks in the loser circle, but there's a good chance two of them do. My gut says Tennessee and Missouri will lay eggs against the Big Ten West, but I could just as easily see Georgia going down against a very good Louisville team or Florida mailing it in against East Carolina.
Northern Illinois Upsets Marshall
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There is no good reason for Northern Illinois to beat Marshall.
Yes, they are both conference champions, but the Huskies (no. 72) rank 57 spots lower than the Thundering Herd (No. 15) on the F/+ ratings at Football Outsiders, the biggest discrepancy of any bowl game. Marshall is favored to win by roughly 10 points.
But Northern Illinois has been winning games it has no good reason to win for a long time now. It went 11-3 in 2010 and 2011 and 12-2 in 2012 and 2013. It enters the Boca Raton Bowl on a seven-game winning streak with a chance to win 12 games once more.
Marshall enters 12-1 but has struggled in each of its past two games. It lost to Western Kentucky in overtime and narrowly escaped Louisiana Tech to win Conference USA. Neither of those teams is awful, so there is no shame in struggling to beat them.
But neither of those teams is as hot as NIU right now, either.
Huskies on a last-second field goal.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Melvin Gordon Finishes No. 2 on All-Time Single-Season Rushing List
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It's been a close-but-no-cigar type of season for Melvin Gordon.
He finished second behind Marcus Mariota in the Heisman voting. Wisconsin finished second behind Ohio State in the Big Ten. And if he rushes for anything between 232 and 292 yards against Auburn in the Outback Bowl, he'll finish second behind Barry Sanders (Oklahoma State, 1988) on the all-time single-season rushing list.
Gordon already ranks No. 4 with 2,336 rushing yards and needs just six more to pass Marcus Allen (USC, 1981). The only other man between Gordon and Sanders is Kevin Smith (Central Florida, 2007), whose 2,567 rushing yards are on the outer periphery of striking distance.
But Wisconsin just lost its head coach and has nothing left to play for sans getting Gordon the record. And Auburn just lost its defensive coordinator from a unit that was already allergic to tackling.
Let's book Gordon for 250 rushing yards and another second-place finish. But there is no shame in looking up at Barry Sanders.
Ole Miss Holds TCU Under 20 Points
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TCU's offense has been great but not unstoppable this season. It ranks No. 2 in points per game (46.8) and No. 4 in yards per game (542.2) but outside the top 15 on Football Outsiders' S&P+ ratings.
Most notably, the Horned Frogs struggled at West Virginia in a game they really should have lost. Trevone Boykin completed 12 of 30 passes for 166 yards (5.5 YPA), but a litany of West Virginia turnovers helped them pull out the win, 31-30.
Ole Miss, meanwhile, has excelled against the best offenses in the country. Alabama and Mississippi State both rank in the top five of offensive S&P+, but neither topped 17 points against the Rebels.
Granted, both of those games were in Oxford. Let's not pretend home-field advantage doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter enough to ignore how well the "Landsharks" have played in big games. And the Peach Bowl—even if it's not the national semifinal both of these teams had set their sights on—still qualifies as a pretty big game.
TCU has scored 30 or more points in every game this season. But in Atlanta, it won't even reach 20.
Nebraska-USC Is the Randomly Amazing Bowl Game of the Season
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It's difficult to pick the randomly amazing bowl game of the season since the game is by definition random.
But USC-Nebraska has a lot of the tell-tale signs.
Bill Connelly of SB Nation ranked the Holiday Bowl No. 7 on his mathematical Watchability Rankings, and it might have ranked even higher if not for placing No. 21 in happiness (how both teams performed relative to expectations).
It did, however, rank in the top 12 in the other three metrics: quality (how well both teams played on aggregate), difference (how closely ranked both team are to one another) and excitement (the tempo and havoc created by both teams).
Ameer Abdullah will play his final college game against a USC run defense that we all watched get torched by Boston College. Javorius "Buck" Allen will counter against a Nebraska run defense that we all watched Melvin Gordon gouge for 408 yards in three quarters.
There will be big plays. There will be turnovers. There will be a first-year head coach and an interim head coach. And most of all, there will be two teams amenable to weirdness. USC lost to Arizona State on a Hail Mary in October. Nebraska beat Northwestern on a Hail Mary in 2013 and McNeese State on a Hail Mary-of-sorts in September.
Am I saying Nebraska will beat USC on a Hail Mary? Not in so many words. All I'm saying is that the Trojans better cover Jordan Westerkamp. It's probably in their own best interest.
Neither CFP Semifinal Is a Blowout
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Alabama is a nine-point favorite over Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl.
Oregon is a nine-point favorite over Florida State in the Rose Bowl.
But are we not giving the Buckeyes or Seminoles enough respect? It's possible. There's a reason Alabama and Oregon are laying close to 10 points apiece, but it's not hard to see both games being close.
Ohio State, after all, is 36-3 the past three seasons. Florida State is 39-2. They have combined to win 75 of their past 80 games.
And both are laying more than one score!?
The more I think about each matchup, the more I think we're in store for two great games. Ohio State has the vertical passing game to challenge Alabama's secondary. Florida State has the interior blocking to beat Oregon's defense up the middle. There are strengths that make both underdogs a good bet to cover, if not win outright.
I am too much of a wuss to call for the latter. But I'm man enough to call for the former. Both of these are one-score games.
And that's great news for every single one of us.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
