Hello Followers. Hope you all are doing great!
So, tonight marks the start of the 2015 College Football Season! And so we thought it timely to post our predictions about this weekend’s games.
Because time is a bit short on my end, I’ll make this brief.
First, everyone and their mother knows that the Cougs are going to win this weekend. The question is “by how much?” and “in what fashion?”
Last year, I offered three general keys to winning football for Washington State. This year, I am adding a fourth.
So, as I make a game prediction each week, I will make a few predictions about each of these keys. So, lets get to it:
Key 1: Will Luke Falk throw for over 400 Yards in this game?
Answer: Yes. Falk will throw for 410 before Leach pulls him in the 3rd.
Key 2: Will WSU rush for over 100 yards?
Answer: Yes. Wicks will get 65 and one of the other two will break one late. I say we end up with right around 118 (no sacks will help).
Key 3: Will WSU score more than 35 points? (You’ll notice here that I’m upping the ante since I think 5 touchdowns is necessary to win this year).
Answer: Yes. I fully expect us to score over 50 points in this one.
Key 4: Will WSU be +1 or better in the turnover margin?
Answer: Yes. I think WSU will be +2 on the day in this category. (That said, this is going to be a key area to watch since I think we can expect that we will turn the ball over a couple times a game–meaning that we will need to force at least 2 in order to “break even.”)
Final Prediction: WSU 51 Portland State 17
Other Games:
Utah 31 Michigan 21. If you watched last year’s contest in Ann Arbor you know that Utah was much faster than the Wolverines. And so, while I think that Captain Comeback is going to have his team ready to play (Brady Hoke had several top 20 recruiting classes), I think they’re a year away from being able to win a big game like this. Also: Utah is my darkhorse to win the Pac-12 south. So, I’ll be watching this one with intense interest tonight.
Washington 28 Boise State 27. UPSET ALERT. This game comes down to whether the Huskies are any good or not. If they’re not, they’re going to get blown out of the water (and wouldn’t that be great!). But if they merit the 4th place spot they’ve been given by the pundits, then I’m calling an upset here. And the reason: Peterson not only knows BSU’s scheme–he also knows their personnel. Conversely, while Harsin knows Pete’s scheme, he doesn’t know UW’s personnel. Plus, Washington is going to come out loose as a goose in this one, while Boise is going to be over-hyped trying to beat the pants off their old coach. If they don’t blow the Dawgs out early, I expect the Broncos to get VERY tight. But man, a 41-17 BSU thrashing would be such a great start to the year!
Oregon 55 Eastern Washington 28: If Adams has stayed at Eastern this game may have been interesting for a half. But Oregon’s defense is too good and the Ducks are just so loaded on offense. This one is not going to be close or interesting. But next week’s game against the Spartans will be one of the top 5 games of the year.
Arizona State 38 A&M 31. Honestly, I think that this is the game of the week nationally. The big difference in this one is that I think that ASU is much more equipped to handle what A&M is going to throw at them than the other way around. This is a big, big game for the Pac-12, especially since there is a high likelihood that both the Pac-12 and SEC champ is going to have 2 losses (and my sense is that Clemson–the ACC champ–is going to have 1 or none). So, if we want to see a Pac-12 team back in the playoff–ASU needs to win this game. GO DEVILS!
Alabama 21 Wisconsin 13. Big night for the Crimson Tide who as of this writing still doesn’t know who their quarterback is (boo-hoo!). I expect this one to be 14-13 late–so its going to be an entertaining affair at the end. But the punt fest that will occur for the first three quarters means that you might could skip the first half of this one.
Ohio State 48 Va Tech 21. This game is going to be close at the half before the Bucks pull away big time in the second. I’m going to enjoy watching this one because OSU has a bunch of guys suspended for this one and the game is in Blacksburg–which is a tough, tough place to play. But here’s to thinking that Elliot and company will get it done.
Game to bet on if you’ve got a lot of money to spend and have been drinking WAY too much: Take Northwestern and the points against Stanford who always seems to sputter offensively out of the gates,
That’s all I got. The rest of the blogfathers will add their two cents as the day goes on.
Enjoy the weekend! Go Cougs!
Hunches by Huddy
We’ve got some kinks to work out and rust to shake off at Blogfather headquarters. I was planning on putting up a prop bet type post to talk specifically about the Coug game, but Sutra hit on a lot of that. I’ll try to come up with something by way of a more in depth game preview tomorrow. My head already hurts thinking about it. In the mean time, here are my picks for the FIRST WEEKEND OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!
WSU 42 Portland State 10
I expect a bit of a slow start that has us biting our little Cougar claws for the first quarter or so before we break it open with some big plays.
Other Games:
Utah 24 Michigan 20. The only thing I know for sure is that we will be seeing pleated khakis. Beyond that, it’s hard to know what to expect from Michigan. Of course, Jim Harbaugh is on the scene, but like Sutra, I think he needs some time to get his own Jimmy’s and Joe’s in Ann Arbor. I’ll roll with the West Coast Bias and take the Utes.
Washington 17 Boise State 31. Welcome back, Coach Pete.
Oregon 56 Eastern Washington 17: The Ducks are just getting warmed up for the big one against Michigan State. I can’t find a linkable picture to EWU’s new unis, but they are sweet! They’re worth at least 17 points. Trust me. Quick aside, I recently visited my parents and my Dad, a UO alum, insisted on me using the Oregon bottle opener that plays their fight song whenever I have a beer. They have a Coug one too and when I finally used that one, I spilled wine everywhere. Seems ominous.
Stanford 13 Northwestern 14: I’d rather watch these two teams have a Spelling Bee.
Virginia 20 – UCLA 42: Back in my Chinook apartment days, my roommate and I would have epic battles in dynasty mode on EA Sports College Football. After leading Wazzu to the elite, I took a job at UVA. In our ridiculously high scoring battles, almost always for the national championship, the fake Virginia band would strike up “Auld Lang Syne” after every touchdown. Paul freaking hated it and it was awesome. As for this game, “Auld Lang Syne” won’t play nearly enough times. Should be neat to see how Josh Rosen does, though!
Elsewhere in the conference, USC will destroy Arkansas State and Cal will destroy Grambling. The Beavs will struggle with Weber State, but not go full Sac State and lose.
Arizona State 45 A&M 28. PAC-12 BABY!!!
Alabama 21 Wisconsin 24. I don’t know what it is about this era of Alabama dominance, but I am never convinced that they are truly that impressive. I’ll take the Badgers in an upset.
Ohio State 31 Va Tech 17. For my friend Drew and many others from high school, I’d love to take Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi Tech Tech VPI, but it’s not gonna happen.
SEANHAWK SEZ:
Helloooo, Cougs. Yeah, it’s been a while that there’s been some real activity around here. As for yours truly, I’ve pretty much been off the grid as far as blogging stuff goes, basically wandering the country in the RV (as shown above). At least in my head I’ve been out there on the open road, when in reality I’ve been working as hard as ever in my job. But I’m still here, still paying attention to most things Cougs. So it’s good to be back writing something (anything?) again.
Of course, huge props to Sutra for getting the band back together:
I guess no matter what happens going forward, we’ll keep the blog alive and use it as we see fit. We’ll see how it goes as far as posting consistently, but enough of all that, we’ve got actual football GAMES to consider!
On to the picks:
WSU 48, Portland State 24
I am finding myself in the “we’ll start slow, but turn it on later” camp. Like everyone else in the free world, I think the offense clicks and yards and points are there for the taking. But the D gives up some disturbing big plays while they are, well, trying to make a big play for new DC Alex Grinch! But the Cougs have enough talent to pull away and win comfortably, yet there will be some hand-wringing after week one. And make no mistake about it, the margin for error only shrinks as the season plays out. But I look at this as a game to just get the kinks and mistakes out of the way – NOW – in game action for the young guys, meanwhile Falk develops even better chemistry on the field with his excellent stable of skill guys, and we’ll walk away with the W.
Other Games:
Utah 43 Michigan 27. Pleated khakis, definitely. And Michigan plays extremely hard to impress Harbaugh and company, but it won’t be enough before a hostile Salt Lake crowd. Utah’s running game really takes over late and Michigan looks a lot like Michigan that we remember from last year – slow, and just not very good yet.
BSU 38, UW 30. Have a weird feeling UW surprises early here and gives the Broncos all they can handle. They are touting this game as the biggest regular season game in BSU history, and it’s hard to argue that outside of Oregon visiting the blue turf a few years back in the infamous LeGarrette Blount punch game, adding in UW and Chris Petersen coming home, it’s hard to argue against this being the biggest ever! I don’t know why, maybe because it’s early and we really don’t know how good these guys are? Or maybe it’s because all anyone has been saying all summer was how Boise was going to kick UW’s ass. If we’ve been hearing it, so has UW (times 100), so I just have a feeling it’s a tight one. BSU makes a few more big plays late and the home cooking plays a factor with the refs, and UW starts 0-1 but feeling not-so-bad about it when it’s all said and done.
Oregon 45, Eastern Washington 14: I think the Eags hang around but as EWU fans know all too well, that new Duck QB Vernon Adams is really something. Not Mariota, but he won’t have to be, at least not this week. Not yet anyway.
Stanford 19 Northwestern 16: Eh. Cardinal by a field goal in a snoozer.
UCLA 37, Virginia 17: Bruins are oozing with talent, and should roll the Tony Bennett’s with ease.
Arizona State 31, TX A&M 29. Tough game to start with and a hat tip for both programs putting on their big boy pants with a legit BCS team out of the chute. I think Mike Bercovici is the real deal, with a better arm and reportedly better accuracy compared to Taylor Kelly. He makes a couple of huge plays late to prove it’s “his team”, and the Devils get it done in Houston.
Hawaii 31, Colorado 27 – The Buffs are better as they have a real up-and-comer at QB in Sefo Liufau and a legit star in WR Nelson Spruce, but come up just a little short in a difficult place to open a season. That said, if CU can nab this one? Believe it or not, 4-0 is a real possibility if they can then beat UMASS, CSU and Nichols State the following 3 weeks. Imagine the Buffs 4-0 heading into an October showdown at Oregon?? Crazy but it could happen.
The rest of the story: Arizona, USC, Cal, and the Beavs all take care of business against lesser foes.
Hey, COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS BACK! Enjoy the games, and of course, GO COUGS!
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