Tournament Projections, Week 2, 2011

"In college football, one day you're in, the next day, you're out" - Dayne Crist

Since last week, OUT: Virginia Tech; IN: Oregon (flip flop of last week)

Playoff projections based on the fine work of BCSguru.com

First Round:

Jacksonville FL: #7 Florida State (ACC champ) versus #10 West Virginia (Big East Champ); Florida State keeps going in and out of the top six. This week versus Oklahoma will help determine if FSU is down here with the First Rounders or on their way to the top six with an Orange Bowl shot. And will the Big East ever be out of the ten seed? Two years ago, the Big East started with no ranked teams, but Cincy went undefeated to grab the three seed. UConn decided the ten seed was just fine with them last season.


Green Bay WI: #8 Wisconsin (Big Ten champ) versus #9 Oregon (at-large); Finally, a Pac-10 or 12 team has to go to Big Ten country rather than vice versa. Oregon returns after a week away from the projections.

Bowl Quarterfinals:

Sugar: #1 Alabama (SEC champ) versus Florida State or Wisconsin/Oregon winner; Bama bounces back to the top with the win at PSU. Wonder if things would have been different if the Bama fake punt was spotted an inch or two back.

Rose: #4 Boise State (non-BCS conference AQ) versus #5 Stanford (Pac-12 champ); Kinda like the Western Regional; a team from out west will be in St Louis, if this holds.

Fiesta: #2 Oklahoma (Big XII winner) versus West Virginia or Wisconsin/Oregon winner; Fiesta gets the odds on chance of Oklahoma-Wisconsin; AZ would love that

Orange: #3 Louisiana State (at large) versus #6 Oklahoma State (at large); The at-large bowl...Oklahoma State jumps into the top six

Semi-Finals (Football's Final Four) in St. Louis


National Championship in New Orleans

Week 1, 2011, Tourney Projections

Based on the first weekend of college football and the BCS estimates at BCSguru.com, here are the latest tournament projections.

"In college football, one day you're in, the next day, you're out" - Marcus Dupree

Since last week, OUT: Oregon; IN: Virginia Tech

First Round:

Green Bay WI: #7 Wisconsin (Big Ten champ) versus #10 West Virginia (Big East Champ)

Arlington TX: #8 Oklahoma State (at-large) versus #9 Virginia Tech (at-large)

Bowl Quarterfinals:

Fiesta: #1 Oklahoma (Big XII winner) versus Virginia Tech or Wisconsin/West Virginia winner

Rose: #4 Boise State (non-BCS conference AQ) versus #5 Stanford (Pac-12 champ)

Orange: #2 Louisiana State (SEC champ) versus Oklahoma State or Wisconsin/West Virginia winner

Sugar: #3 Alabama (at-large) versus #6 Florida State (ACC champ)


Semi-Finals (Football's Final Four) in St. Louis


National Championship in New Orleans

First weekend thoughts...

After a weekend of college football, we already have some insights into the real and imaginary (this blog) college football bowl picture.

-Did the Big East leaders look at each other after TCU's loss to Baylor and say, "This is our football solution? We are making our basketball teams fly to Texas to play these guys, for this?!" TCU will be hard pressed to make the tourney this last season before being part of the Big East. They are not eliminated, but they have little room for error.

-The current longest string of appearances in my tournament is a whopping TWO, with Oregon, TCU, and Ohio State being the only schools in the playoffs the previous two seasons. And they went 1-2 in week 1.

-Will Oregon's two consecutive losses to Auburn and LSU (both in real life and my tourney), and topped by the fact that their high powered offense looked underwhelming against the size and speed of these SEC foes, take some wind from their sails? It seems like it would be hard to be enthusiastic to get back on their high powered steed knowing they still need to get over a big hurdle to be real title contenders.

-I am not so old school that I am not opposed to trash talking. After all, I grew up during the Muhammad Ali era. But trash talking over nothing plays and when your team is struggling seems out of place and annoying. For the first three quarters, Auburn was up chirping in the face of every Utah State player seemingly after every play. I kept wondering what they were saying, "We may stink now, but YOU'LL never get a championship ring!" or "Sure we may lose today,but you have to go back to Ogden!" Alas, Auburn prevailed, but Utah State won the class battle.

-Any tournament would love to have Notre Dame, but, like TCU, the Irish are on the precipice of tournament elimination already. And their first drive gave credence to their pre-season hype. One wonders if that first fumble had been ruled stopped due to forward progress, would the game have progressed in a completely different direction.

-If Texas and Oklahoma join a Pac-16, does New Mexico look at a map and say, "Hey, what's wrong with us!"

-Boise State, you guys are allowed to start trash talking now. What a cool program. And I read that a rule has been made so that the Broncos cannot wear blue uniforms on their blue field. But does that apply to teams with green uniforms on normally green-toned turf?

-My guess, Oregon and West Virginia will be out of my projections, and Virginia Tech and South Florida will jump in.