2014-15 College Gameday Season Preview

And as always, we are here with the official College Gameday season preview, complete with predictions on Heisman winners, conference champions, the national championship, and various other items.  Of course, these are not counted in the official record, but will be great to review after the season is over so that we can see who is this year’s Nostradamus, and who truly embarrassed themselves.

Lee Corso:
Florida to win SEC East
Notre Dame to win 9 games
UCLA to win Pac 12
Brett Hundley to win Heisman
UCF to make major bowl
FSU to win ACC
OU to win Big 12
Mich St to win Big 10
Bama to win SEC
Final Four: FSU, Mich St, UCLA, Bama
UCLA over FSU in championship

Kirk Herbstreit:
Georgia to win SEC East
Notre Dame to win 7 games
Stanford to win Pac 12 North
UCLA to win Pac 12
Brett Hundley to win Heisman
UCF to make major bowl
FSU to win ACC
OU to win Big 12
Mich St to win Big 10
Bama to win SEC
Final Four: FSU, Bama, UCLA, Mich St
FSU over Bama in championship

Desmond Howard:
Georgia to win SEC East
Notre Dame to win 9 games
Todd Gurley to win Heisman
Marshall to make major bowl
FSU to win ACC
Texas to win Big 12
Wisconsin to win Big 10
UCLA to win Pac 12
Georgia to win SEC
Final Four: FSU, Georgia, UCLA, Wisconsin
UCLA over Georgia in championship

Jennifer’s Picks:
Brett Hundley to win Heisman
Boise St to make major bowl
Clemson to win ACC
Baylor to win Big 12
Mich St to win Big 10
UCLA to win Pac 12
Georgia to win SEC
Final Four: Georgia, Baylor, Mich St, UCLA
UCLA over Baylor in championship

2013-14 Season Awards!

Yeah so it is a little bit delayed, but here are the awards for our 2013-14 season of Cole’s Gameday Blog Football Championship Stuff Edition!!!

2013-14 Bowl Co-Champions:
Phil Steele/Robert Smith (21-14).  It was a down year in the Bowl Pick’em leagues, but our two champs this year include multiple Bowl Pick’em winner Robert Smith, and newcomer (to this blog) Phil Steele.

Best preseason pick of the year: Colin Cowherd, Ole Miss over Texas.  It was supposed to be a bounce-back year for Mack Brown and the Texas Longhorns, and nobody was predicting big things for the Ole Miss Rebels.  However, Colin went out on a limb and called this one week before the season started, and was amazingly right!

Best Weeks of the Year:
Colin Cowherd, Week 9 (11-0)
Bubba Watson, Week 5 (10-0)
Jennifer’s Picks, Week 5 (13-1)
Pat Forde, Week 4 (30-3)

Worst Week of the Year:
Robert Smith, Week 8 (0-9)

Best Picks of the Year:
Lou Holtz, Week 1: NDSU over KState
Lou Holtz, Fiest Bowl: UCF over Baylor
Nobody on earth would have picked either of these upsets.  Somehow Lou Holtz picked both.  What does this mean?  I don’t know, but it is impressive.

Upset Specialists:
Jennifer’s upset specials: 10-5, 66.67%
Mark Schlabach: 7-5, 58.33%
Todd McShay: 8-10, 44.44%
Brad Edwards: 6-8, 42.86%
Lee Corso: 2-3, 40%
Kirk Herbstreit: 1-4, 20%

2013-14 Cole’s Gameday Blog SEASON CHAMPION!!!
Pat Forde: 301-95, 76.01%
This year’s champion, Pat Forde, is unusual in the sense that not only did he finish with the strongest record amongst our competitors, but he also had the most picks of anyone this year.  I would say that is strong to quite strong.  The full slate of results is below, but let’s take a minute to congratulate Pat Forde for a historic season.

The first section is our true competitors this season, and the second section are those who didn’t have enough picks to qualify for the yearly awards.

Pat Forde: 301-95, 76.01%
Phil Steele: 102-36, 73.91%
Colin Cowherd: 115-43, 72.78%
Desmond Howard: 71-30, 70.30%
Jennifer’s Picks: 149-63, 70.28%
Mel Kiper Jr.: 54-27, 66.67%
Lee Corso: 128-50, 66.07%
Mike Bellotti: 26-14, 65.00%
Mark May: 46-25, 64.79%
Kirk Herbstreit: 114-63, 64.41%
Dari Nowkhah: 117-66, 63.93%
Jason Sehorn: 72-43, 62.61%
Brad Edwards: 31-19, 62.00%
Celebrity Guests: 95-60, 61.29%
Todd McShay: 65-44, 59.63%
David Pollack: 32-22, 59.26%
Mark Schlabach: 31-24, 56.36%
Robert Smith: 70-55, 56.00%
Lou Holtz: 38-31, 55.07%

Tim Cowlishaw: 3-0, 100.00%
Tim Tebow: 1-0, 100.00%
Kevin Blackistone: 1-0, 100.00%
Charles Arbuckle: 26-5, 83.87%
Ivan Maisel: 16-5, 76.19%
Chris Fowler: 12-4, 75.00%
Trevor Matich: 29-10, 74.36%
Tom Luginbill: 24-10, 70.59%
Paul Finebaum: 15-7, 68.18%
Bill Plaschke: 4-2, 66.67%
Matt Millen: 5-3, 62.50%
Ryen Russillo: 23-14, 62.16%
Danny Kanell: 12-8, 60.00%
Joey Galloway: 3-2, 60.00%
Andre Ware: 3-2, 60.00^
Jesse Palmer: 14-10, 58.33%
Skip Bayless: 9-7, 56.25%
Brian Griese: 21-18, 53.85%
Ed Cunningham: 18-17, 51.43%
Chris Fallia: 11-11, 50.00%
Kevin Carter: 4-4, 50.00%
Scott Van Pelt: 3-3, 50.00%
Woody Paige: 2-2, 50.00%
JA Adande: 1-1, 50.00%
Mike Golic: 1-1, 50.00%
Stephen A. Smith: 1-1, 50.00%
Matt Stinchcomb: 7-8, 46.67%
Brock Huard: 2-3, 40.00%
Jackie MacMullen: 0-1, 0.00%
Mike Greenberg: 0-2, 0.00%
Rod Gilmore: 0-4, 0.00%

2013-14 Bowl Season: Results are in! #bowlmania

In this reporter’s opinion, the 2013-14 Bowl Season was one that upfront looked like a disapointing schedule, yet turned out to be one of the more exciting bowl seasons I can remember.  The BCS era definitely went out with a bang thanks to four of five major upsets, and a championship game which will be remembered for a long time.  However, our panel of experts struggled this year with the bowl picks.  For reference, the previous bowl season champions are:

2006-2007 Bowl Season Champion: Howie Schwab @ 24-8, 75%
2007-2008 Bowl Season Champion: Colin Cowherd @ 25-7, 78.1%
2008-2009 Bowl Season Champion: Pat Forde @ 17-10, 63%
2009-2010 Bowl Season Champion: Jesse Palmer @ 18-16, 52.9%
2010-2011 Bowl Season Champion: Todd McShay @ 20-11, 64.52%
2011-2012 Bowl Season Champion: Tony Reali @ 25-10, 71.43%
2012-13 Bowl Season Co-Champions: Robert Smith & Jennifer, 25-10, 71.43%

So some years are up and others are down.  This wasn’t quite as bad as the 2009-10 season when Jesse Palmer won the championship basically because I already ordered the trophy and had to send it to somebody.  However, this year I would like to present to you a set of co-champions for the second year in a row.  This year’s winners are last year’s co-champion Robert Smith and newcomer Phil Steele.  They went 21-14 this season, which is low for a champion, but this is also a year in which none of our main competitors (defined as those who picked all 35 games) finished with a losing record.  It was a very tight group.  Check out the records below to see how your favorite (or most hated) personality did this year in the bowl games.

Qualifying Competitors:
Phil Steele: 21-14
Robert Smith: 21-14
Dari Nowkhah: 20-15
Jennifer’s Picks: 20-15
Pat Forde: 20-15
Todd McShay: 19-16
Mark Schlabach: 18-17
Ed Cunningham: 18-17

Others receiving votes:
Mel Kiper Jr.: 1-0
Mike Golic: 1-0
Chris Fowler: 1-0
Trevor Matich: 1-0
Tim Tebow: 1-0
Brad Edwards: 1-0
Scott Van Pelt: 1-0
Bill Plaschke: 1-0
Ivan Maisel: 1-0
Stephen A Smith: 1-0
Andre Ware: 3-2
Joey Galloway: 3-2
Matt Millen: 3-2
David Pollack: 7-7
Brian Griese: 3-3
Magic Johnson: 3-3
Ryen Russillo: 2-2
Kirk Herbstreit: 6-7
Lee Corso: 4-5
Desmond Howard: 2-3
Kevin Carter: 2-3
Brock Huard: 2-3
Danny Kanell: 3-4
Jesse Palmer: 3-5
Mark May: 2-4
Lou Holtz: 2-4
Mike Bellotti: 1-4
Tom Luginbill: 1-4
Matt Stinchcomb: 1-4
Colin Cowherd: 1-5
Mike Greenberg: 0-1
Paul Finebaum: 0-1
Skip Bayless: 0-1
Woody Paige: 0-1
Jackie MacMullen: 0-1
Rod Gilmore: 0-4