College Football 2012: Best Win Total Unders
By Ty Duffy
Arizona Wildcats [5.5] Rich Rodriguez’ offense will take time to get going. The defense has not looked impressive. The Wildcats play Oklahoma State non-conference. They have a tough road schedule, including trips to Stanford, to Oregon, to Utah and to UCLA. They host Washington and USC. To hit the over, they would have to sweep Toledo, South Carolina State, Colorado and Oregon State and then find two more wins. Rich Rodriguez has never won more than three games in his first season at a school. Michigan fans will know the peril of writing off an early home game against Toledo.
Arizona State Sun Devils [5] The Sun Devils face regime change, just four returning starters on each side of the ball and what could be a brutal schedule. ASU scheduled two potentially tough non-conference games, against Illinois (home) and Missouri (away). They have four home games instead of five in the Pac 12 this year. None of those – Oregon, Utah, UCLA, Washington State – is a definite win. They travel to USC, to Cal (much tougher at home), to Oregon State, to Colorado and get rival Arizona on the road in the final game.
Georgia Bulldogs [9.5] Georgia has an easy schedule by SEC standards, but who are we presupposing they will beat? Georgia has not finished inside the SRS Top 20 the past three seasons. They are 1-9 against Top 30 SRS teams the past two seasons. There is no team on the schedule Georgia can’t beat, but there are quite a few that could beat them. Missouri will be a tough away trip the second week (Georgia has recent losses to Oklahoma State and Colorado traveling that direction). They go away to South Carolina and to Auburn as well. There’s the neutral site game with Florida, and home games against Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech.
Oklahoma State Cowboys [8.5] We tend to underestimate quarterback experience declines. Oklahoma State is replacing a 28-year-old senior with an 18-year-old true freshman. For a team that wins with offense, that could be catastrophic. The non-conference schedule is benign (toughest opponent: Arizona). The Big 12 schedule could be worse. Though the Cowboys have a weird stretch, where they have two byes in three weeks, sandwiched by Texas. They also have to play Oklahoma, TCU and West Virginia. That’s not even mentioning teams such as Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Tech and Baylor who can show up on a given week.
Clemson Tigers [8.5] We’re breaking one of college football’s golden rules, which is never bet on Clemson to do anything, good or bad. Simultaneous turnover on both the offensive and defensive lines is never good. The Tigers play Auburn (without Sammy Watkins) and South Carolina non-conference. They also play Florida State at home. That could easily be three losses. They would then need to flub one more game with Virginia Tech being a strong candidate. Clemson has not won nine games in consecutive seasons since 1991.
[Photo via Getty]