Today I'll do a run down of all of the conferences and pick a champion for each conference.
After going through and picking every single game of the season I learned that I don't know all of the teams as well as I thought I did. So if you're upset that I didn't pick your team to win, I'm sorry, I'll give you a full refund of all the money you paid to read this. This process took a lot longer than I thought it would, but that's probably because I had to write it without my boss noticing.
I'll go through the conferences in alphabetical order starting with the American Athletic Conference. The winner of the AAC championship game should be in a pretty good spot to win the Group of 5 bid into the New Year's 6. Both USF and SMU are going to be great this year and win their divisions. South Florida is going to have the best defense in the conference and SMU will have the best offense. I have USF going 7-1 in conference with Temple coming right behind them at 6-2. Heading into the conference championship game, USF will be 10-2 with SMU at 11-1, but USF will be higher ranked, and win that game and the bid for the Group of 5.
In the ACC, it's going to be an interesting year with Clemson and Louisville dropping a little bit and opening the door for Florida State to come out of the Atlantic division. The Seminoles go 6-2 in conference play with Clemson and Syracuse at 5-3 and Louisville and NC State at 4-4. Clemson is going to miss DeShaun Watson and at Louisiville, while Lamar Jackson is incredible, the rest of the ACC now knows what to do to slow him down. As for the Coastal division I think Virginia Tech runs away with it, not losing a game in conference. They are head and shoulders better than the rest of their division. They finally have the offense to go with their always terrific defense. This conference is going to be considered one of the best in the country, with all but 2 of the teams making bowl games this year. Going into the conference title game I have the Hokies ranked 5th in the country with a team not playing in a championship game just ahead of them, so all they have to do is win this game and they're in. However, in the Conference Championship I think that Florida State pulls the upset on VT and ruins the Hokies shot at making the playoff. But, Virginia Tech still makes a New Year's 6 game based on their great record and the fact that 3 of the NY6 games have no conference tie-ins. Florida State takes the ACC's spot in the Orange Bowl and Virginia Tech gets sent to the Cotton Bowl.
The Big 12 this year is adding a conference championship game which is just stupid, and this year will show why it's so dumb. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will be the top of the class this year in the conference. TCU doesn't seem to have the offensive firepower, and I still don't trust West Virginia's defense. Everyone else in that conference is middling and has major flaws. I have OU losing to 3 teams during the regular season, Ohio State, Kansas State and Oklahoma State. I think that all of those games will be close, but they're going to miss Bob Stoops a lot in those close games. As for Oklahoma State I think that they are playing a relatively easy schedule. They will pick up nice wins over West Virginia and Oklahoma during the season, and will roll fairly easily over the rest of the schedule and enter into the Big 12 Championship game 12 and 0. The reason this conference championship is so dumb is that they'll be in a position to get a bid into the playoff already and an extra win over Oklahoma will do nothing to increase their chances of making the playoff. If OU can pull the upset then this will ruin the Big 12's chances at making the playoff. I don't think that happens but this is the worst case scenario for the conference. In my opinion OSU defeats the Sooners again and heads to the playoff.
Next up is the Big Ten, and this conference will again be the most interesting one in all of college football. This conference is the hardest to predict with so many good teams in it. The top teams are all so close, so I made my best guess but I could see as many as 9 different match ups in the B1G championship game. My guess is that we have Penn State and Wisconsin. I'm not sold on Penn State but I think James Franklin has built a great program and has the talent ready to fill the holes that are left in the roster after losing so many players to the NFL last year. In the West division I think Wisconsin runs away from everyone else. The Badgers are good and after their loss to BYU early in the season (if you'd like to see why I think they lose to BYU check out Part 1 of the preview here) I think it makes the team better. They play harder in each game and they have one of the easier schedules in the Big Ten. They only play Michigan, out of the "Big 3" in the east division, and they get them at home. I think Wisconsin goes 9-0 in conference play and ends the regular season at 11-1. I have them as the 6th ranked team in the country entering the conference championship weekend. In the other division Penn State ends their conference run at 8-1, with their one loss on the road at Northwestern. I think both Michigan and Ohio State have the opportunity to win the division and both choke against the Nittany Lions. Why did I do that? I don't know. But something crazy always happens so I picked that. I have Ohio State with losses to Penn State and to Michigan, and the Wolverines have losses to Wisconsin and Penn State. This sets up Penn State as the number 8 team in the country with an outside chance at making the Playoff if everything falls their direction. And everything does fall their way, with all of the teams in front of them losing their conference title games. Unfortunately for them Wisconsin defeats them in the B1G championship and gets into the Playoff.
Conference USA will have some really good teams. Unfortunately none of their good teams will have a tough enough schedule to really make a push for the Group of 5 bid to the NY6. I think this is the year Old Dominion finally comes through and wins the conference, just barely edging out Western Kentucky to get to the conference title game. Both teams have excellent offenses but ODU has a slightly better defense. In the West division I think that Louisiana Tech is the best of the teams, but will actually end with the same conference record as Texas-San Antonio. Louisiana Tech will have beaten UTSA during the season so they get the tiebreaker and get to face the Monarchs in the title game. ODU will pull off the win though ending the year at 11-2 and ranked 11 in the country, but that will only be good enough to set up a really fun match up against the MAC champion in the Bahamas bowl.
Speaking of the MAC, Western Michigan is no longer the powerhouse that they were last year losing their incredible WR, Corey Davis, and coach, PJ Fleck. This opens the rest of the conference up to be looking at a potential NY6 bid, but none of the teams have the quality to win enough this year. I have Kent State coming out of the East at 9-3 and Central Michigan at 11-1 with their one loss coming on the road at Western. There's 3 or 4 teams in each division that could win their respective divisions. I went with Kent State and Central Michigan because they had some quality players last year and assuming they got a little bit better they have the talent to go to the conference championship. Central Michigan should beat Kent State in the MAC title game and head to the Bahamas bowl against ODU.
The Mountain West is going to be the toughest it's been in a long time this year. Wyoming is good. Boise State is good. Hawaii is good. San Diego State is good. Colorado State is better and so is Air Force. This is not going to be a good year if you're trying to build up your program. I have Boise, Wyoming, Hawaii, and SDSU all going 7-1 in conference play, with Boise State and Hawaii winning the tiebreakers and facing off in the MW championship. Boise will end up winning the championship over Hawaii because they have the experience in big games, ending their regular season at 11-2. This would have been good enough to win the NY6 bid almost any other year, but this year it's just not quite enough and they head to Las Vegas for their bowl.
Now for the PAC-12. All of the teams are going to be down this year except for USC. For any other conference this would be a bad thing, but for the PAC-12 it's excellent. USC will be highly ranked the whole year and they should be able to run through the conference. Even with a loss they should still be considered favorites to make the playoff. However, I think that they will go undefeated through the regular season. The North division will be more exciting with 3 teams all feeling like they have a chance to make it to the title game. It was tough for me to decide who would win, but after looking at the schedules and going through them a couple of times, I ended up with Washington winning the North again. Washington State and Stanford both finish 6-3 in conference but the Huskies get to 8-1. I had Utah and UCLA tying for 2nd place in the South, but with Utah's win over UCLA they get the tiebreaker. The big surprise in the way the season plays out is that Oregon State finishes 6-6 and makes a bowl game, based on the strength of a very easy schedule and a good defense.
The SEC is next and you'll never guess who I predicted to win. Ok fine... You were right. It was Alabama. I think that they roll through most of the conference except for the game against LSU. That will be the biggest game of the year and I think whoever wins that game makes the playoff. The SEC East is once again going to be the lesser of the two divisions, and South Carolina and Georgia will finish the regular season tied 6-2 in conference. I had South Carolina beating Georgia during the season so that leaves South Carolina to get blasted by Alabama in the championship game. With all that said, I think that LSU is going to be the most interesting and debated team at the end of the season. They'll be 11-1 with just the one loss to Alabama. I think they'll be ranked 4th going into the conference championship weekend but will fall out of that last spot since they didn't play in a conference championship.
Finally the Sun Belt. I apologize to all Sun Belt fans. I really didn't get a chance to watch the conference last year so I'm not as familiar with them as I should be. So with that said, I picked Georgia Southern to go undefeated in conference play, with South Alabama and Georgia State also getting enough wins in conference to make it to a bowl game.
Here are all of the divisions and conferences ranked by their record in conference! The teams in grey are the bowl eligible teams.
Please leave a comment below if you want to tell me how wrong I am, or contact me on twitter @mbishky or @tripleSpodcast. If you missed the first part of this where I previewed BYU and Utah's schedules in depth click here. The postseason preview will be out on Friday.
| America Athletic East | |
| USF | 7-1 |
| Temple | 6-2 |
| UCF | 4-4 |
| Cincinnati | 3-5 |
| ECU | 3-5 |
| Conn | 3-5 |
| American Athletic West | |
| SMU | 8-0 |
| Navy | 5-3 |
| Memphis | 3-5 |
| Houston | 3-5 |
| Tulsa | 2-6 |
| Tulane | 1-7 |
| ACC Atlantic | |
| Florida State | 6-2 |
| Clemson | 5-3 |
| Syr | 5-3 |
| Louisville | 4-4 |
| NC St | 4-4 |
| Wake | 1-7 |
| BC | 0-8 |
| ACC Coastal | |
| VT | 8-0 |
| GT | 5-3 |
| Miami | 4-4 |
| Pitt | 4-4 |
| UNC | 4-4 |
| Duke | 3-5 |
| UVA | 3-5 |
| Big 12 | |
| Oklahoma State | 9-0 |
| Oklahoma | 7-2 |
| TCU | 6-3 |
| West Virginia | 6-3 |
| Texas | 4-5 |
| Kansas State | 4-5 |
| Texas Tech | 3-6 |
| Baylor | 3-6 |
| Iowa State | 3-6 |
| Kansas | 0-9 |
| Big Ten East | |
| Penn State | 8-1 |
| Michigan | 7-2 |
| Ohio State | 7-2 |
| Michigan State | 4-5 |
| Indiana | 3-6 |
| Rutgers | 3-6 |
| Maryland | 0-9 |
| Big Ten West | |
| Wisconsin | 9-0 |
| Minnesota | 6-3 |
| Nebraska | 5-4 |
| Northwestern | 5-4 |
| Iowa | 3-6 |
| Purdue | 2-7 |
| Illinois | 1-8 |
| Conf USA East | |
| ODU | 8-0 |
| WKU | 7-1 |
| MTSU | 5-3 |
| CHAR | 5-3 |
| FIU | 2-6 |
| FAU | 2-6 |
| MRSH | 2-6 |
| Conf USA West | |
| LT | 6-2 |
| UTSA | 6-2 |
| USM | 5-3 |
| UNT | 3-5 |
| UTEP | 3-5 |
| Rice | 1-7 |
| UAB | 1-7 |
| MAC East | |
| Kent State | 7-1 |
| Akron | 4-4 |
| Miami (OH) | 3-5 |
| BGSU | 3-5 |
| Buffalo | 3-5 |
| Ohio | 1-7 |
| MAC West | |
| CMU | 7-1 |
| WMU | 5-3 |
| Toledo | 5-3 |
| NIU | 4-4 |
| EMU | 4-4 |
| Ball St | 2-6 |
| MW Mountain | |
| Boise | 7-1 |
| Wyoming | 7-1 |
| CSU | 5-3 |
| Air Force | 4-4 |
| USU | 2-6 |
| UNM | 1-6 |
| MW West | |
| Hawaii | 7-1 |
| SDSU | 7-1 |
| Nevada | 3-5 |
| UNLV | 3-5 |
| SJSU | 1-7 |
| Fresno | 1-7 |
| Pac 12 North | |
| Washington | 8-1 |
| Washington State | 6-3 |
| Stanford | 6-3 |
| Oregon State | 4-5 |
| Oregon | 3-6 |
| Cal | 1-8 |
| Pac 12 South | |
| USC | 9-0 |
| Utah | 6-3 |
| UCLA | 6-3 |
| Colorado | 4-5 |
| Arizona | 1-8 |
| Arizona State | 0-9 |
| SEC East | |
| South Carolina | 6-2 |
| Georgia | 6-2 |
| Kentucky | 4-4 |
| Vanderbilt | 4-4 |
| Florida | 2-6 |
| Tennessee | 2-6 |
| Missouri | 1-7 |
| SEC West | |
| Alabama | 8-0 |
| LSU | 7-1 |
| Texas A&M | 4-4 |
| Arkansas | 4-4 |
| Auburn | 3-5 |
| Ole Miss | 3-5 |
| Mississippi St | 2-6 |
| Sun Belt | |
| Georgia Southern | 8-0 |
| South Alabama | 7-1 |
| Georgia State | 5-3 |
| Texas State | 4-4 |
| NMSU | 4-4 |
| Louisiana | 4-4 |
| Coastal Carolina | 4-4 |
| Troy | 3-5 |
| Ark St | 3-5 |
| App St | 3-5 |
| Idaho | 2-6 |
| Louisiana Monroe | 1-7 |
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