Greetings and salutations oh great and wonderful fans. This week was…odd. Not only was my life outside of blogging even busier than normal (and that’s kind of saying something, tbh), but there’s only 1 FBS game, the only FCS bowl game and the FCS quarterfinals happening this week. Oh yeah, and the bowl schedule was announced – that too. But after 3 months of 100+ games a week, 6 is a little on the light side. Granted, all of them, as all were last week and will be through the rest of this season, are important games. This will be the 120th meeting, which is the 16th most played rivalry, .
Here’s a little fun – in the comments, name the most commonly played rivalry in college football at a whopping 155 games. For a bonus name the most common game between teams currently in the FBS (that’s a little bit of a clue for the first question) at 129 bouts. For an additional bonus name the 2 southern schools tied for the the most at 124 and the most common west coast game at 123.
Now back from the trivia, the game is being played in Philadelphia for the 89th time. Last year the game was played in the snow and the all white clad Black Knights beat the Midshipman 17-10. I enjoyed that game a lot although it had to be tough to see Army in the snow, but then again, camouflage is kind of important. Navy leads the series 60-52-7 and will win back bragging rights. See the table below for the details.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times that there are 3 FCS conferences that choose not to participate in the playoffs. The Ivy League plays 10 games, best team is champion (Dartmouth) and done. The MEAC chooses a team to play the SWAC champion in the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta. The MEAC is not required to pick the winner of the conference – in fact, Florida A&M was 7-1 in the conference, but North Carolina A&T (2nd place) is representing the league. The SWAC has 2 divisions and last week Alcorn State defeated Southern University to win their trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. This bowl began in 2015 and is a fun game to watch if you get a chance. These teams play a good game of football. Vegas likes NC A&T-2.5, but the GCR picks Alcorn State 61.6%
The FCS playoffs continue this week with the quarter finals. All 4 games are played at the higher seeded team’s home. The games are listed below, but I want to state my prediction of the final game which is played in Frisco, Texas. James Madison (GCR FCS #1) will face North Dakota State (#8) who won every year 2011-2018 except 2016 when, you guessed it, James Madison beat Youngstown State. But I could be wrong – it’s never good to put too much faith in teenagers meeting expectations – and there are 6 games before the final.
Without further ado, here is the GCR prediction for every game this week.
Other than coaching changes (which will have a G’s Explanation all on their own in 2020), the other big news this week was the little thing called, what was it again, oh year, the bowl schedule. This week, I’m listing all of the bowls and the Vegas lines as of today. Next week, I’ll add the current GCR predictions to the table. I could do it today, but they will change after the games this week especially for those teams that played either Army or Navy or both. I do want to call out that all the bowls are technically at neutral sites (although in many cases one team is MUCH closer than the other to the venue), but there are two games held at one team’s home field (what a ripoff for the players – no exotic trip, sleep in the dorm – eat school food). SMU is traveling to meet Florida Atlantic in the Boca Raton Bowl played at…FAU’s home field. The bowl started in 2014 and this is the second time FAU got this advantage – beating Akron 50-3 in 2017. The other one is the Hawaii Bowl played at Aloha Stadium since 2002. This is the 9th time the Rainbow Warriors have played in the game splitting the first 8. Those games will be treated as home/away for the participants. All other bowl games will be treated as neutral site in the predictions. Here’s the full list followed by conference analysis:
The odds are as of today. Next week when I update with predictions, it will have the new rankings as well as odds. While I thought it was kind of cool to have all of that info in one location for the football connoisseur, it’s a little tough to follow conference A vs conference B in the table. So, being the nice blog geek that I am, I did the analysis for us. Here it is:
Of note: the ACC has more teams in bowl games than any other at 10. However, 4 of those teams (Miami, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, and Boston College) play Group of 5 teams (Louisiana Tech, Eastern Michigan, Temple, and Cincinnati, respectively). Even with that advantage (no other Power 5 conference plays more than 2) they are still expected to go 5-5. Note: this assessment clearly does not count the championship game, which, according to Vegas, would be LSU and Clemson. I found it a bit surprising that the Big 12 is 0-6 in Vegas odds. Even Kansas State is an underdog against Navy (pending this week’s game, I’m sure). The Sun Belt is a Vegas sweetheart at 4-1 (the only underdog being Georgia State facing Wyoming). The two conferences that are fighting for the strongest conference this year have completely different expectations from Vegas. The SEC is favored in 8 of the 9 games it plays, all against Power 5 schools, with only Kentucky being an underdog versus Virginia Tech, while the Big 10 is just 4-5 on the Vegas Board, 3-5 against Power 5 teams. Head to head Alabama and Auburn are favored against Michigan and Minnesota, respectively.
Vegas, Shmegas, what does the GCR say? I know that’s the question on everyone’s lips. And why wouldn’t it be, right? Tune in next week and I’ll give the as of then picture with predictions, but during the bowl period, I’ll update each game day (or really the day after the games are played but before the next one’s start) with new predictions. The normal G’s E’s will be on hiatus for a bit with predictions being the big thing. In January, I’ll switch again to a backward look at the year and the best conferences, divisions, December/January surprises, and, of course, the coaching merry-go-round.
But that’s a wrap for tonight – I hope you enjoyed this look – please comment, question, challenge (and don’t forget the trivia). The site is growing all the time, and I have all of you to thank. Please keep sharing to friends with the direct link or Twitter or Facebook and let’s keep growing.
thanks, G
