Looking Back At My Football Predictions

For the 2014-2015 season, my original predictions for college can be found here and for the NFL can be found here. I also made a pick of the bowl games and the playoffs. We will look at all of these predictions because it will give some perspective on what I have gotten right and wrong heading into any predictions about the NFL draft and the upcoming season. Then at the end of this post, I will examine my draft grades from last year's draft as well (in the next post). The first thing you will notice about the link is that the college football playoff link is missing. It is missing because I was horribly wrong on it. I had both teams losing that won their games. That was the low point of my football predictions, but I really did well elsewhere in my picks especially when it came to the draft, but like I said that draft post is next week...

Let's start with the college football preview..I said that FSU would win the ACC and Alabama would win the SEC and was right about both of those selections. However, I said Pittsburgh would win the ACC Atlantic and was very wrong. I also happened to be wrong about the other major conference winners. Jake Coker did not start for Bama as I predicted and they lost 2 games (I predicted they would lose 3 without Coker). In my defense on the SEC prediction, Alabama was getting a lot of favorable calls in SEC action. I was wrong on the Heisman winner, but had the right conference and was right about Winston not being top 3. I was correct in assuming that Winston would be expected to do far too much to win the award. My 5 under the radar games to watch were all fantastic other than the Oregon-Wyoming game. Those games were picked out quite well. Where I missed the mark in these games is that Pittsburgh and Miami was not for the ACC Atlantic crown as predicted. Another home run I hit was with my prediction of Ohio State. I expected Ohio State to lose one of their first two games and they did lose to Virginia Tech. Ohio State nearly lost to Navy as well. It did not knock them out of the title picture as predicted, but the loss to the Hokies came very close to eliminating the Buckeyes. Navy entered the Notre Dame game at 4-4 while I predicted it to be 7-1. However, Navy did win all of their games after Notre Dame and was a very strong team as predicted. Every loss they had was a game they were in for at least a half.

In that first article I predicted that FSU and Alabama would both make the college football playoff and was right. I also said that if I had to pick a team to win it would be FSU, but it was too close to call. I mentioned Oregon as another team that could easily make it and win. The Ducks made it over my pick of UCLA. My bowl picks were about as successful as my other predictions. I had some big hits and some big misses. One deadly accurate score was Central Michigan and Western Kentucky. I got the game wrong, but I picked it Central Michigan 49-Western Kentucky 47. It was Western Kentucky 49-Central Michigan 48. Overall in bowl games I went 17-19 for one I my worst records ever. Like I said though that one game I had pretty accurately counted as a loss and I picked West Virginia before Trickett's injury and I actually switched it after hearing about it, but still counted it as a loss because on the site I picked WVU. Still, I was off last year in college football on my picks.

Now, on to the NFL predictions for last season....
I predicted that Matt Stafford would be MVP banking on Calvin Johnson's continued production and the addition of Golden Tate for Detroit. Tate made a huge difference, but Megatron was hurt for most of the year and that prediction failed as a result.
I predicted 4 of the 6 playoff teams in the NFC correctly. I missed on Green Bay and Dallas, instead choosing New Orleans and Philly.The AFC had the same result for me as I hit 4 of 6 there. I predicted San Diego and Houston over the actual participants in Cincinnati and Indy.
Coach of the Year I was off because Houston wasn't quite as good as I anticipated they would be. The quarterback play did hold this team back.
Kelvin Benjamin was not offensive rookie of the year despite a fantastic rookie season. Odell Beckham's catch highlighted a fantastic finish for the Giants wideout.
Houston's defense finished 19th in sacks when I predicted they would be #1. Clowney's injury is what I am blaming, but I was disappointed in the performance of the Texans other than Watt last year. JJ Watt is an absolute beast and arguably the best player in the league.
Andre Ellington was banged up all season eventually ending up on injured reserve and dooming his pro bowl chances.
Johnny Manziel was 0-2 as a starter and a complete joke as a rookie, so I was right about that prediction.

Now, on to my draft grades to see what I have right so far. For those results check in with me next week. This will be followed by my long awaited post on Jameis Winston the following week.

-Noland