College Football Post Week 9!

The 2015 college football season began September 3 and regular season ends December 12 putting us just past week 9 of college football season. That means that we’re getting closer to the end of regular season football and closer to the beginning of bowl play – and the early predictions.

The College Playoff Committee releases its first season rankings Tuesday, Nov. 3. Those rankings are likely to slightly influence some of the predictions or, perhaps, alter it altogether. Meanwhile, we thought we’d look at what some experts are “guessing” – educated guesses, of course.

The season has seen upsets, controversies, coach firings, retirements, and now just about everyone covering the season has a prediction.

We thought it would be interesting to compare a few of those predictions side-by-side. So we selected Bryan Fisher, from the Bleacher Report, and ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Brett McMurphy and took a look at their predictions.

While we can think of them as representing two entities, The Bleacher Report and ESPN, we thought we’d take each man at their own guess. It not only makes it more interesting, it’s also interesting to note where they individually agree and where they don’t. However, as Fisher points out, it’s only early November and there are a lot of games left in the season! All it takes is one ball dropped – just ask Duke after its game against Miami!

A total of 80 teams are needed to fill all the bowls – you could spend a lot of time thinking about who’s going where (and why). To keep things simpler, however, we opted to only look at a few of the many, many bowls to be played.

Below, we list each prediction preceded by the predictor’s initial (S = Schlabach; M = McMurphy; F = Fisher) for a side-by-side comparison of predictions. Again, it’s likely that the Top 25 Rankings released on Nov. 3 will influence the predictions, but for now, we’re going with these expert guesses:

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME:

• S = Ohio State v. Clemson
• M = Baylor v. Clemson

COTTON BOWL:

• S = TCU v. Ohio State
• M = Baylor v. Stanford
• F = Clemson v. Alabama

ORANGE BOWL:

• S = Alabama v. Clemson (same as Fisher)
• M = Michigan State v. Clemson
• F = Ohio State v. Stanford

ROSE BOWL:

• S = Michigan State v. Stanford
• M = Ohio State v. Utah
• F = Iowa v. Utah

SUGAR BOWL:

• S = LSU v. Baylor (same as Fisher)
• M = Alabama v. TCU
• F = TCU v. Florida

SUN BOWL:

• S = Miami vs. California
• M = Pitt v. California
• F = Iowa v. Utah

FIESTA BOWL:

• S = Iowa v. Notre Dame
• M = Florida v. Notre Dame
• F = Houston v. Notre Dame

RUSSELL ATHLETIC BOWL:

• S = Florida State v. Oklahoma
• M = Florida State v. Oklahoma
• F = N.C. v. Oklahoma

PEACH BOWL:

• S = Florida v. Memphis
• M = LSU v. Memphis
• F = Notre Dame v. Michigan

CITRUS BOWL:

• S = Michigan v. Ole Miss
• M = Iowa v. Ole Miss
• F = Michigan State v. Texas A&M

MILITARY BOWL:

• S = Louisville v. Navy
• M = Miami v. Navy
• F = Miami v. Navy

Now that you’ve seen a comparison of what the sports experts think, make your OWN college bowl predictions and SHARE this post on social media! Urge your friends to do the same! Then try comparing the predictions just like we’ve done here. The results might surprise you!

So go ahead and create a challenge and have fun! Post on social media and dare your friends to make their own predictions. Then try revisiting the list in a month and check to see who had the best predictions.

Sources:

Bowl Projections 2015: Predicting Playoff Standings and Bowl Games Post-Week 9

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14029573/college-football-bowl-projections-week-9

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