Useless ESPN Bowl Projections Week 12

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

 

In this week's useless ESPN bowl projections, here are the B1G bowl games predicted by ESPN's Edwards & Schlabach.

Italics= Not enough B1G teams bowl eligible to fill slots.

Bowl Schlabach Edwards
Rose Bowl presented by Vizio Nebraska vs Stanford Nebraska vs Stanford
Capital One Bowl Michigan vs Texas A&M Michigan vs Texas A&M
Outback Bowl Wisconsin vs Florida Wisconsin vs South Carolina
Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl Northwestern vs Miss. State Northwestern vs Miss. State
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl State vs Oklahoma St. State vs Iowa St.
Meineke Car Care Bowl of TX Minnesota vs Iowa St. Minnesota vs Texas Tech
Heart of Dallas Bowl Purdue vs TCU Purdue vs TCU
Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl Kent State vs Western Kentucky No. Illinois vs San Jose St.

Other matchups of note-

Bowl Schlabach Edwards
BCS National Championship Georgia vs Notre Dame Alabama vs Notre Dame
AT&T Cotton Bowl Texas vs Alabama Texas vs LSU
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Air Force vs UCF Air Force vs ECU

Thoughts?

Bodogblog

November 19th, 2012 at 12:06 AM ^

His stats weren't terrible, but he played poorly relative to the rest of this season. Credit goes to Stanford D, but the pressure and inexperience of being a freshman seemed to catch up to him.
I don't think the same would be true of Martinez. Remember a similar style of spread offense allowed Oregon to shred Stanford the last two years

B1G_Fan

November 19th, 2012 at 8:29 AM ^

 How many people thought Iowa would beat Michigan last year? Strangers things have happend so don't count them out. Maybe Nebraska is expecting the same thing an easy walk in the park and trips up. I'm hoping so because I don't want a big ten champion team that gave up 62 points

Wolverine Devotee

November 18th, 2012 at 9:31 PM ^

We want florida state to beat florida Saturday if we want to avoid A&M. I like Michigan's chances better against floirda, a team who struggled against the mighty ragin' cajuns of lousiana-lafayette. Rather than the team that beat alabama, in alabama. 

M-Wolverine

November 19th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^

They're better teams, right? It's really just a rational analysis of where we are as a program right now.  College football isn't as parity driven as the NFL. And Michigan isn't fully back to being MICHIGAN yet.  When we're there, sure, lets see some great games on equal footing. 

But I think people would rather see a good game, with a chance to send Denard and the rest out winners, and build on for next year than see a repeat (either figuratively or literally) of the Alabama game to start the season.  As results go, what do you think was more beneficial to the direction of the program? Losing to Mississippi State so badly everyone in America turned it off by halftime, or the Sugar Bowl in OT last year? If we had gotten someone way better than VT and they had beat our brains in, would that have been a better outcome for us because we'd have been "more manly"?

You know how you get to take on the best team? Be in the national championship game.  Then you're going to get the best for sure. Or at least get to Rose Bowls. How do you do that? Win more games.  And you win more games by winning more games, not by losing them on New Year's Day. It can set you up for a glorious upset. But I'm not sure the risk-reward falls on your side of the ledger.

B1G_Fan

November 19th, 2012 at 1:08 PM ^

 When giving a ridiculous example why stop at the Atlanta Falcons? Bring on the 85 Bears!

 Michigan was in trouble Vs. Alabama when in every interview you heard about what an honor it was to play the defending national champs and what a measuring stick it would be for the program. They didn't expect to win that game , Texas A&M did. What you did last year means nothing this year in college football. You hear hoke say it all the time but for some reason it was different with Alabama. All Alabama had to do at that point was show up

LSAClassOf2000

November 18th, 2012 at 10:24 PM ^

If you used the most recent Sagarin ratings to estimate how much teams were favored, the table below would be the result. It is important to note that in no case did the Big Ten team have the higher rating in the model. As they would be neutral site game, I did not add or subtract 3 points for HFA. 

Bowl Schlabach Schlabach Edwards Edwards
Rose Bowl presented by Vizio Nebraska vs Stanford 5.6 Nebraska vs Stanford 5.6
Capital One Bowl Michigan vs Texas A&M 7.19 Michigan vs Texas A&M 7.19
Outback Bowl Wisconsin vs Florida 12.17 Wisconsin vs South Carolina 7.96
Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl Northwestern vs Miss. State 0.6 Northwestern vs Miss. State 0.6
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl State vs Oklahoma St. 9.51 State vs Iowa St. 2.27
Meineke Car Care Bowl of TX Minnesota vs Iowa St. 9.19 Minnesota vs Texas Tech 11.66
Heart of Dallas Bowl Purdue vs TCU 8.87 Purdue vs TCU 8.87

 

Yeoman

November 19th, 2012 at 12:48 AM ^

I was looking at how this would go if OSU and PSU were eligible. OSU would currently be slotted in the MNC; Penn State would slide into one of the Florida bowls and everyone below would slide down a spot. Whoever played Miss State would be a slight favorite (unless it was PSU, that would be a tossup); whoever played Iowa State would be favored; everyone else would still be an underdog. Northern Illinois would, by Sagarin, be at least a TD better than Purdue or Minnesota in the Pizza Bowl.

I suppose it's more likely that there'd only be one team in a BCS bowl and we could empty the Rose Bowl or MNC slot and move everybody down one more. That would help, but not enough. There simply aren't any available opponents as bad as Purdue or Minnesota, and it doesn't matter who's in the Cap One or Outback, the B1G team is going to be a big underdog. No matter how it shook out, only the teams playing Iowa State and Mississippi State would be favored.

I was trying to tell myself the bad conference year is just because two of the better teams can't go to bowls. I was wrong.

Yeoman

November 19th, 2012 at 10:12 AM ^

Or even a two-loss team after they lost the B1G championship game.

But the premise here is this week's two sets of ESPN projections, and right now they'd be projecting an Ohio St./Notre Dame MNC.