5 Bold College Football Predictions for Rivalry Weekend
Things have a tendency to get weird on rivalry weekends, and why would we expect anything different from a season that has already had plenty of unpredictability?
This is the time of the season for something—or somethings—out of the ordinary. Championship contenders could watch their dreams go down the drain thanks to their most hated of rivals. Playoff pictures can get turned upside down.
It's prime time for chaos.
I've already made my against-the-spread picks this week for each of the Top 25 games, and the flavor of my predictions was quite vanilla. But, faced with the task of marking out some bold predictions for rivalry week, I decided to walk more on the wild side.
Have any bold predictions for rivalry weekend that you could see coming to fruition? Shout them out in the comments below.
Navy Routs Houston
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We'll start these predictions with what is shaping up to be a thrilling contest between a pair of one-loss teams out of the AAC's ultra-competitive West division—Houston and Navy.
According to Odds Shark, Houston opened as a 1.5-point favorite against Navy, but now it's down to just a one-point favorite and even an underdog in some places. The S&P+ projections from Football Study Hall have the Midshipmen taking this road game by a touchdown, and I'm going to go a step further and say Navy drops the hammer on Houston this weekend.
Navy has been on fire since losing to Notre Dame earlier this season. The Midshipmen have outscored their last five opponents by an average of 23.6 points and have stepped their game up on the defensive side of the ball.
Houston, on the other hand, is coming off a heartbreaking loss at UConn. The Cougars' quarterback situation might be a little more clear this week with the recovering Greg Ward Jr., but their rush defense hasn't faced a challenge quite like the one it'll get from Navy's record-breaking quarterback, Keenan Reynolds.
After suffering a letdown away from home, Houston gets the full brunt of Navy's unstoppable option attack. The Midshipmen earn a trip to the AAC title game and take a huge step in nailing down the Group of Five's bid to a New Year's Six bowl.
Clemson and Alabama Get Tougher-Than-Expected Road Tests
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The top two teams in the country are both favored by double digits against their hated in-state rivals this weekend, despite having to play them away from home. That makes sense, considering South Carolina just lost to an FCS opponent and Auburn has been woefully inconsistent in 2015.
But things don't always have to make sense on rivalry weekend, and my bold prediction here is that Clemson and Alabama both get tougher-than-expected games from South Carolina and Auburn, respectively.
South Carolina is coming off an abysmal loss, sure, but the Gamecocks were already eliminated from bowl eligibility heading into that ugly contest against The Citadel. This weekend, they'll pull out all the stops and try to upset their biggest rival's dream season. Keep in mind that South Carolina's last four losses have all come by 10 or fewer points.
Then, in the Iron Bowl, Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn unloads his entire bag of tricks against Alabama's elite defense and puts up some surprising touchdowns on the Tide. The Auburn defense does a good enough job containing Derrick Henry to force a game eerily similar to the 2009 contest at Jordan-Hare Stadium, when Alabama needed a late touchdown to keep its national title hopes alive.
I expect both teams to win their rivalry games—and I picked both to cover the spread—but it wouldn't shock me to see them get all they could handle for a pair of desperate and upset-minded rivals.
The Big 12 Cannibalizes Its Playoff Hopes
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Now's the time where I reveal my true #TeamChaos colors and boldly predict some major upheaval all at the expense of the conference that was shut out of last year's inaugural playoff.
I picked both road favorites to win in the Baylor-TCU and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State showdowns earlier this week, but I could see some dominoes falling from a certain quarterback matchup.
On Friday night, Baylor will visit a TCU team needing to rely on its third-string quarterback after the season-ending injury to original backup Jarrett Stidham. Chris Johnson played well and helped the Bears earn a win over Oklahoma State, but TCU could get an extra advantage in this one with the return of its own quarterback, Trevone Boykin.
The Frogs, who almost beat Oklahoma last week without Boykin, hand the Bears their second loss of the season. That swings the door open for Oklahoma State to grab the outright Big 12 title with a victory over rival Oklahoma, which jumped all the way to No. 3 in the playoff rankings this week.
With a conference championship and the shot at ruining Oklahoma's playoff bid on the line, Oklahoma State rises up and knocks off Oklahoma at home in a completely insane game worthy of the Bedlam moniker. The Sooners lose their second game of the season, and the one-loss No. 11 Cowboys take home the Big 12.
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Michigan Beats Ohio State by Double Digits
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Ohio State opened as favorites against Michigan, according to Odds Shark, but the host Wolverines are now favorites in some locations with just a few days left before The Game.
The S&P+ projections like Michigan to win this game by four or five points at home. And with the way both of these schools looked last week, I could see an even bigger margin of victory for the Wolverines.
Michigan's defense has been excellent for the vast majority of the season, and Ohio State's offense was a dysfunctional mess against Michigan State last Saturday. Wolverines quarterback Jake Rudock has played lights-out in recent weeks with 1,033 yards, 10 touchdowns and two interceptions in his last three games.
It will be interesting to see how Ohio State handles itself after its first loss in a long time, especially after the firestorm generated last weekend by running back Ezekiel Elliott's comments on the play-calling against Michigan State. This is rather uncharted territory for the Buckeyes, who now have to go into a hostile environment and play a team that has won four straight games.
My bold prediction here: Jim Harbaugh makes a huge statement in his first game against Ohio State as the Michigan head coach. The Wolverines put 10 points or more between them and the reeling Buckeyes on the scoreboard at the Big House.
Stanford Gets Back into the Playoff Race
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Chaos in the Big 12 and a loss by Ohio State would be a dream scenario for one team: the No. 9 Stanford Cardinal.
Stanford hosts No. 6 Notre Dame, which is coming off a tight win over Boston College at Fenway Park and is suffering through a couple more key injuries. The Cardinal got back on track last weekend against California and is a 3.5-point home favorite against the Irish.
David Shaw's team will get a tremendous fight out of a gutsy and resilient Notre Dame team, but it won't be enough to stop the likes of Kevin Hogan and Christian McCaffrey. Stanford gets a good-looking win over the No. 6 team in the country.
If all these predictions came true—and, again, these are considered bold for a reason—the No. 3, No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 teams would all lose this weekend. With wins this weekend, No. 4 Iowa and No. 5 Michigan State would face each other next week in a Big Ten Championship Game, presumably for the new No. 3 spot in the playoff.
That would open up a chance at the No. 4 spot, by process of elimination, to a two-loss Stanford team that is coming off a win over Notre Dame and has the inside track at a conference championship game. Cue the outrage and the drama heading into the playoff committee's penultimate rankings.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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