Rice vs. Arkansas: College Football is Back!

 

Football is finally back!  It is time to make the full season predictions for the Arkansas Razorbacks including the games from other teams for this week.  The NFL season doesn't start until next weekend.  This post will then just contain predictions for this week's College Football games.

Last year I made a similar post where I predicted all of the games for the Razorbacks.  I predicted that they would go 3-7 including against the same opponents too.  The post is from this link if you want to check it out.  Without further ado, I will do by whole season prediction for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Season Predictions:

Rice vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

Texas vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

Georgia So vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

Texas A&M vs. Arkansas: Texas A&M

Arkansas vs. Georgia: Georgia

Arkansas vs. Ole Miss: Ole Miss

Auburn vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

AR-Pine Bluff vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

Mississippi St vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

Arkansas vs. LSU: LSU

Arkansas vs. Alabama: Alabama

Missouri vs. Arkansas: Arkansas

After these predictions, I make the prediction that Arkansas could go 7-5.  Last season's success gives me confidence that Arkansas will continue to improve well.  They could be just good enough to be even better than bowl eligible.  Of course, these are pre-season predictions and my weekly predictions for the game could change on how the Razorbacks perform during the season.

Now let's get to the predictions for the rest of the games that are part of the bigger headlines.

College Football Week 1 Predictions:

Oklahoma vs. Tulane: Oklahoma

Penn State vs. Wisconsin: Wisconsin

Fresno State vs. Oregon: Oregon

Alabama vs. Miami: Alabama

Miami (OH) vs. Cincinnati: Cincinnati

Indiana vs. Iowa: Iowa

Northern Iowa vs. Iowa State: Iowa State

Louisiana vs. Texas: Texas

San Jose State vs. USC: USC

Georgia vs. Clemson: Clemson

FAU vs. Florida: Florida

Kent State vs. Texas A&M: Texas A&M

Montana vs. Washington: Washington

LSU vs. UCLA: UCLA

Notre Dame vs. Florida State: Notre Dame

Let's have a great football season!

Super Bowl!

 

It's here.  It's finally here.  The Super Bowl.  Now we will have to see who will win after a Covid filled season like this one.  It's even amazing that there was a full NFL season at all.  Just count your blessings.  Now, let's get to discussing the game itself.

The ESPN FPI has this as their prediction:

This shows that Kansas City has a 52.1% chance of winning this match-up.  It seems to be a more even match since Tampa Bay is playing at home and Tom Brady seems to just not age.  We will have to see then if it really is an even match up.  Typically, Super Bowls involving Tom Brady do seem to have a close score.  The Super Bowl with his biggest points margin was against the Rams in Super Bowl 53 and that was just by 10 points.  The Chiefs and Buccaneers already played in the season in Tampa Bay and the Chiefs only won by 3 points.  This game will probably be similar as well, given the even match-up prediction from ESPN.  Also, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is still suffering from turf toe from a few weeks ago.  I don't know if that will really affect his game since he still played with turf toe against the Bills in the AFC Championship and they dominated on offense.  But, I see this as a close game and could potentially be a shoot out between bot QBs.  But of course, we could just have the Chiefs dominate the Buccaneers by 40 points and Tom Brady could retire then maybe.  I mean 7 rings for Tom Brady.  Sounds an awful lot like Tom Riddle with 7 Horcruxes (get my Harry Potter reference?).

Ok before we watch the game with our yummy chicken wings and Coca-Cola or Root Beer or whatever beverage and before the funny commercials, if they're even funny this year, let's make the final prediction.  I was 1-1 for Championship weekend which brings my total for the NFL season 71-39 (64.54%).  I guess not too bad. Now I will choose for the Super Bowl is.................................................

Chiefs.

Let's go!

See you later nerds...

NFL Championship Week

I don’t have a lot to say so let’s get to the predictions already! Last week for NFL, I was 2-2 which brings me to 70-38 (64.8%) and NFL Underdog predictions to 0-5 (0%).  Now I will prediction how the rest of the NFL Playoffs will go.

Championship Week

Buccaneers vs. Packers: Packers

Bills vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Super Bowl

Packers vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

NFL Divisional Round and Bowl Game Record

 

Bowl season officially ended this week with the National Championship and the NFL Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs begin. I don't have much to say, but some Browns players like Kareem Hunt and OBJ need to stop talking smack about their match-up against the Chiefs if they really want to win.  The Steelers did it to the Browns and they lost.  Dabo Swinney did it to Ohio State and Clemson lost to them.  I might happen again but we'll see.

Now let's get to this week's predictions.  My total record for Bowl Season was 13-11 which means that my running total for predictions for College Football is 94-34 (73.4%) and  Underdog Predictions to 1-8 (11.1%).  Last week for NFL, I was 3-3 which brings me to 68-36 (65.4%) and NFL Underdog predictions to 0-5 (0%).  Now I will predict how the rest of the NFL Playoffs will go.

Divisional Round

Rams vs. Packers: Packers

Ravens vs. Bills: Ravens

Browns vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Buccaneers vs. Saints: Saints

Championship Week

Saints vs. Packers: Packers

Ravens vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Super Bowl

Packers vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Wild Card Playoffs and the National Championship and FPI

 

It's that time of the year again.  We have the College Football Playoff National Championship featuring Alabama vs. Ohio State and the beginning of the NFL Playoffs with Wild Card Week.  Moments ago, Devonta Smith of Ohio State won the Heisman Trophy.  This is awesome since he's the first receiver to do this since 1991 when Desmond Howard won the award.  With this in mind, Nick Saban is 2-0 in the National Championship when one of his players win the Heisman in the same season.  We'll see if he can go 3-0.  Bowl season is quite over yet, but I'll release my final prediction record for the College Football season after Alabama and Ohio State battle.

In speaking of the National Championship, I am going to pick Alabama to win.  Not just because Nick Saban is undefeated so far in the National Championship when he has a player that also wins the Heisman, the FPI says so.  If you want to read more about it, here's the link.  Let's take a look at ESPN's FPI prediction for the National Championship.  

According to the FPI, Alabama has a 62.5% chance of winning.  That also means that they have a 37.5% chance of losing this match-up according to the FPI.  When it came to my pick for when Ohio State played Clemson, I chose Clemson because they had a 50.6% chance of winning, which made it pretty even.  But of course, the FPI can't predict everything and Ohio State won 49-28.  The same thing could perhaps happen against Alabama too.  But, I will take my chances and believe the FPI has it this time.  If you didn't know, the FPI has predicted the winner accurately for 75% of the games that it predicts for college football.  That's just if the team it predicted had a chance of winning higher than 50%.  Therefore, we shall see if Alabama's chance are better than Clemson's against Ohio State.

Now let's get to the NFL Predictions!  I was 12-3 (80%) last week and I made no Underdog predictions.  Now I am 86-43 (66.7%) for regular NFL predictions and 0-5 (0%) for Underdog predictions.  Now for my playoff predictions!  I'll predict all of the playoffs but of course change week to week when each round happens for the playoffs.

Wild Card Round

Colts vs. Bills: Bills

Rams vs. Seahawks: Seahawks

Buccaneers vs. Washington: Buccaneers

Ravens vs. Titans: Titans

Bears vs. Saints: Saints

Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh

Divisional Round

Steelers vs. Bills: Bills

Titans vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Seahawks vs. Saints: Saints

Buccaneers vs. Packers: Packers

Championship Round

Bills vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Saints vs. Packers: Packers

Super Bowl

Packers vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Texas Bowl Cancelled?? NOOO!

If you haven't heard yet, the Texas Bowl between Arkansas and TCU on December 31, 2020 has been cancelled.  This is due to too many TCU players testing positive for COVID-19.  Below is the statement from Sam Pittman concerning the cancellation.

Great words from a great coach. I guess you could say that the winner of this competition was us since we didn't have any players positive with COVID-19? Oh well.  At least we made it to a bowl game for the first time since 2016. I would say that the Razorbacks improved so much under just one year.  For one, we won 3 conference games which is 3 times more than our total conference wins from the 2017 to 2019 seasons!  Let's look at some graphs below:

Chart 1:

Chart 2:

Chart 1 just shows the amount of points that our offense scored for those years versus the amount of points that our defense gave up too.  We can see that only the years 2014 and 2015 where we were able to score more points than points given up.  But, this chart shows all of that data for non-conference and conference games.  Since the 2020 season only had the Razorbacks playing in conference games, we need to adjust this chart to reflect that in order to judge if the Razorbacks improved or not this season.

From Chart 2, we can see that it's a little different.  Only 2015 is a season in conference where we scored more than points given up.  We see that during the Chad Morris years (2018-2019), the offensive points were very low and the defensive points given up were very high in conference.  Under one season with Sam Pittman, the offensive points increased and the defensive points given up decreased.  We've shown improvement, but of course we still need to improve a lot.  Getting to to 3 conference wins in 1 season compared to just 1 conference win in 3 seasons (2017-2019) is a big improvement for us considering this.  There are also a lot of experienced players like T.J. Hammonds and Grant Morgan who announced that they'll return for next season.  Believe it or not, we will need to replace Feleipe Franks with a different QB.  The best ones that we have are K.J. Jefferson and Malik Hornsby.  They are both dual-threat QBs too.  Isn't that exciting?  It isn't everyday that you hear that Arkansas will most likely have a dual-threat QB as the starter for next year.  That is of course if there isn't some other experienced graduate transfer QB like Feleipe Franks that will come to campus for 2021.

All in all, it looks like good things are happening in Fayetteville and you should be excited too. Now let's get to the predictions for this week of football.  I've already made my predictions for Bowl Season from my last post but my running total for College Football is 81-23  (77.9%) and for Underdog predictions is 1-8 (11.1%). I'll update that when bowl season is over and do my final prediction for the National Championship when it comes. For NFL, I was 9-7 (56.3%) and my NFL Underdog predictions were 0-0 (none%).  My running total for NFL is 74-40 (64.9%) and my NFL Underdog predictions are 0-5 (0%). Now here are my next predictions:

NFL Week 17

Chargers vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Dolphins vs. Bills: Bills

Ravens vs. Bengals: Ravens

Steelers vs. Browns: Browns

Vikings vs. Lions: Vikings

Jets vs. Patriots: Patriots

Cowboys vs. Giants: Cowboys

Falcons vs. Buccaneers: Buccaneers

Packers vs. Bears: Packers

Raiders vs. Broncos: Raiders

Jaguars vs. Colts: Colts

Cardinals vs. Rams: Rams

Saints vs. Panthers: Saints

Titans vs. Texans: Titans

Washington vs. Eagles: Eagles

NFL Underdogs

Bowl Season During Covid Season

It is finally bowl season and the Razorbacks are going bowling!  It's against TCU in the Texas Bowl on December 31 at 7:00 PM.  Cheer for the Hogs to get one more victory before 2020 ends.  We haven't gone bowling since 2016.  We lost to Virginia Tech 35-24 that year at the Belk Bowl. The first year of Sam Pittman just keeps getting better.  We are 3-7 which is a weird record a for a team going to a bowl game.  But remember, we played 10 conference games.  Winning 3 conference games could mean that your record has at most 7 wins if you played 4 non-conference games like a regular season and won them all.  To be positive about this season, let's just assume the best and say that we went 7-5 if this was a regular season.  I say that's pretty good compared to going 4-18 when Chad Morris was our coach.  You know what?  Auburn just fired Gus Malzahn from the first season that Chad Morris got onto their staff.  I just thought that that was funny.

It is bowl season now and I am on my winter break from grad school.  There are a lot of games to cover and I can't wait to see how my predictions go.  In speaking of bowl games, today Feleipe Franks said that he will play in the Texas Bowl since he wants to "finish what he started."  I just think we all need to appreciate having a more decent quarterback on our team now.  To me, he kind of has the play and physique of Patrick Mahomes.  He has arm strength like him and can be a warrior at times to run for the first down if he needs to.  But of course he isn't Patrick Mahomes or that would be so awesome.  Even after Feleipe Franks is gone, we still have KJ Jefferson who played a very good game as the starter against Missouri.  The offense scored 48 points and we still lost the game so I don't blame the QB for that one.  I actually appreciate that we had more games like that this year instead of getting blown out by 30 points for a lot of games the past few seasons.

Now let's get to the predictions for this week of football.  My predictions last time for College Football was 7-2 (77.8%) and my Underdog predictions were 0-0 (none%).  My running total for College Football is 81-23  (77.9%) and for Underdog predictions is 1-8 (11.1%).  For NFL, I was 14-2 (87.5%) and my NFL Underdog predictions were 0-0 (none%).  My running total for NFL is 65-33 (66.3%) and my NFL Underdog predictions are 0-5 (0%). Now here are my next predictions and I'll do all of Bowl Season that hasn't happened yet and even predict the National Championship:  Here we go:

College Football Bowl Season

UCF vs. BYU: UCF

Louisiana Tech vs. Ga Southern: Ga Southern

Memphis vs. FAU: Memphis

Hawaii vs. Houston:  Houston

Marshall vs. Buffalo: Marshall

Louisiana vs. UTSA:  Louisiana

Western Kentucky vs. Georgia State: Georgia State

Liberty vs. C. Carolina: C. Carolina

Oklahoma State vs. Miami: Miami

Texas vs. Colorado: Texas

Wake Forest vs. Wisconsin: Wisconsin

Iowa vs. Missouri: Iowa

Florida vs. Oklahoma: Florida

Arkansas vs. TCU: Arkansas

Tulsa vs. Mississippi St.: Tulsa

Ball State vs. San Jose State: San Jose State

West Virginia vs. Army: West Virginia

Georgia vs. Cincinnati: Georgia

Auburn vs. Northwestern: Auburn

Notre Dame vs. Alabama: Alabama

Ohio State vs. Clemson: Clemson

Ole Miss vs. Indiana: Indiana

Oregon vs. Iowa State: Iowa State

Texas A&M vs. North Carolina: Texas A&M

National Championship:

Alabama vs. Clemson: Alabama

College Football Underdogs

NC State vs. Kentucky: Kentucky

NFL Week 16

Vikings vs. Saints: Saints

Buccaneers vs. Lions: Buccaneers

49ers vs. Cardinals: Cardinals

Dolphins vs. Raiders: Raiders

Falcons vs. Chiefs: Chiefs

Browns vs. Jets:  Browns

Colts vs. Steelers: Colts

Bears vs. Jaguars:  Bears

Giants vs. Ravens: Ravens

Bengals vs. Texans:  Texans

Broncos vs. Chargers:  Chargers

Panthers vs. Washington: Washington

Eagles vs. Cowboys: Cowboys

Rams vs. Seahawks:  Seahawks

Titans vs. Packers:  Titans

Bills vs. Patriots:  Bills

NFL Underdogs