The tired comparisons of Charlie Weis tenure with Ty Willingham could return this season if some analysts (rhymes with Mark Gay?) hold serve. Coach Willingham's record at the end of three seasons is 21-15, and Coach Weis stands currently at 19-6. The Irish would have to go 2-9 in their first eleven games which is highly unlikely. However, the media will make hay of the comparison if the Irish start out poorly in their early stretch which includes USC, Michigan, Penn State, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Boston College, Purdue, and Michigan State. Five losses during this stretch is possible, so brace for the witty analysis. By the way, Bob Davie checks in at 21-16 over his first three seasons, a record which would have been identical to Willingham if Kent Baer had not coached the Insight Bowl loss to Oregon State.
Sports Illustrated's college football preview is out and has the Irish ranked 42nd and is predicting a 7-5 record. Unlike other magazines, they do not predict individual games but by looking at predictions for each of our opponents for their conference wins and losses this season you can deduce the following
Wins - Georgia Tech, Michigan State, Purdue, Navy, Air Force, Duke, Stanford
Losses - USC, UCLA, Michigan, Penn State, Boston College
Discarding my irrational exuberance, these predictions are pretty realistic in that most pundits would forecast 2 automatic losses in USC and Michigan, six competitive games in UCLA, Penn State, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Purdue, and Michigan State which SI splits at 3-3. The four final games are all heavy leans towards the Irish. One ray of hope is that SI picks USC as their national champion this season. A pretty safe bet, but one that Carroll and company may have wished away, given the SI curse. For an outstanding resource compiling all of the various predictions, accountants click here.
There's another win in here somewhere.
Borrowing from SMQ's prediction method, which is an expansion of the Athlon system. The method rates each game per the following points system:
- 9: Likely blowout win; no conceivable defeat
- 8: Comfortable win; chance of competitive game
- 7: Competitive win; minor upset threat
- 6: Close win; major upset threat
- 5: Toss-up win (likely, but not specifically, awarded to the home team)
- 4: Toss-up loss
- 3: Close loss; major upset threat
- 2: Competitive loss; minor upset threat
- 1: Big loss; chance of competitive game
- 0: Blowout loss; no conceivable victory
| By Game | |
| 5 | Georgia Tech |
| 3 | at Penn State |
| 1 | at Michigan |
| 7 | Michigan State |
| 6 | at Purdue |
| 4 | at UCLA |
| 5 | Boston College |
| 1 | USC |
| 7 | Navy |
| 8 | Air Force |
| 9 | Duke |
| 7 | at Stanford |
| 5.25 | Total |
No comments:
Post a Comment