Big East projection

Posted 08/27 at 11:22 AM (0) Comments

It’s West Virginia, South Florida and everyone else.

the battle between Pittsburgh and Rutgers for third place should be interesting, and Louisville, Connecticut and Cincinnati will all be tough.

West Virginia 8-0 12-0
South Florida 7-1 11-1
Pittsburgh 4-3 8-4 (non-conference loss to Notre Dame)
Rutgers 4-3 8-4 (non-conference loss to Fresno State)
Louisville 3-4 7-5 (non-conference loss to Kentucky)
Cincinnati 3-4 8-5 (non-conference loss to Oklahoma plus an extra-game win over Hawaii)
Connecticut 1-6 5-7 (non-conference loss to North Carolina)
Syracuse 0-7 2-10 (non-conference losses to Northwestern, Penn State and Notre Dame)

Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer

ACC Projection

Posted 08/27 at 07:09 AM (0) Comments

The ACC was probably the toughest conference to pick, other than maybe the middle of the Pac-10.

Clemson is good, but they’re bound to lose a game. I went with the Nov. 8 trip to Florida State on that one.

I see Maryland picking up an upset or two, and North Carolina doing a little better than I initially predicted.

Here’s how I see things finishing out (for conferences with title games I’m including the title game in the team’s record):

Atlantic Division:
Clemson 8-1 12-1
Maryland 6-2 9-3 (non-conference loss to California)
Wake Forest 6-2 10-2
Florida State 5-3 8-4 (non-conference loss to Florida)
N.C. State 2-6 3-9 (non-conference losses to South Carolina, East Carolina and South Florida)
Boston College 1-7 5-7

Coastal Division:
Virginia Tech 8-0 10-2 (non-conference losses to East Carolina - but only because it’s the first game of the season at a neutral site and I see them being caught off guard - and Nebraska)
North Carolina 6-2 9-3 (non-conference loss to Rutgers)
Miami 4-4 6-6 (non-conference losses to Florida and Texas A&M)
Georgia Tech 2-6 4-8 (non-conference losses to Mississippi State and Georgia)
Duke 1-7 2-10 (non-conference losses to Northwestern, Navy and Vanderbilt)
Virginia 0-8 1-11 (non-conference losses to USC, Connecticut and East Carolina)

Clemson knocks off Virginia Tech in the title game and gets an Orange Bowl berth. At least that’s how it would happen in a sane world, but that’s not what we’ve gotten in Clemson, S.C.

Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer

Here we go ...

Posted 08/27 at 06:04 AM (0) Comments

As promised in yesterday’s column, we’ll begin our conference breakdowns today. The ACC Preview is coming up in an hour, and the Big East and Big Ten will come over the course of the day.

You’ll get the Big XII, Pac-10 and SEC tomorrow, along with bowl projections and predictions for Week 1’s games.

As a disclaimer, there have been some changes since my previews over the course of the summer with injuries, eligibility issues and the like. And with some teams I just picked a game for them to lose because I just couldn’t see them doing as well as I had them on first glance.

OANow Staff

Buy your tickets now!

Posted 08/20 at 01:47 PM (2) Comments

Sure, Auburn hasn’t even started the 2008 season. But the news is out about the first nonconference matchup of the 2011—yep, 2011!—season.

Auburn will host Samford, according to a press release from the Samford athletic department. As you’re probably aware, Samford coach Pat Sullivan is a fairly notable Auburn grad; maybe you’ve heard he won a little thing called the Heisman Trophy as an Auburn quarterback in 1971.

It’s part of a process of schedule-strengthening for Samford, a Football Championship Subdivision school. (That’s the group formerly known as Division I-AA, for you old-schoolers out there.) Samford will play at least one Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) team in each of the next three seasons, starting with the 2009 season opener at UCF (AKA “Central Florida.“) Samford has also reached an agreement to play Florida State—currently coached by former Samford QB Bobby Bowden—in 2010.

The 2011 Auburn-Samford game will be the first meeting between AU and Samford since 1993, though the schools have met 27 times overall. (Not to kill the suspense 39 months in advance, but Auburn is 25-0-1 in the series.)

Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer