STS Prediction Contest - Week 1 Recap

Week 1 of college football is in the books and, wow, what a week. Three of the Top 10 teams were upset this weekend and Tennessee and Clemson nearly joined them. FSU survived a scare, too. Madness!

It’s not too late to join our prediction contest! Over the course of a long season there will be plenty of time for you to catch up, especially since SOME of our esteemed commentariat did not fare so well in Week 1.

Here’s how the recap will work: We’ll run through each of the games from last week and then at the end I’ll give a link to the scoreboard so far.

Week 1 Matchups

1) Clemson 19 - Auburn 13

My pick: 34-17 Clemson

100% of participants correctly chose the winner

Well, yikes. This was very nearly a disaster for Clemson. We all seemed to be quite confident in the offense - it was the defense that concerned most of us. Not a single person was within 7.5 points of Clemson’s score. The lowest prediction for Clemson’s offense was earlboston93, who predicted a 28-14 Clemson victory.

2) Georgia 33 - UNC 24

My pick: 24-17 Georgia

49% of participants correctly chose the winner

I’m surprised that more people didn’t go with Georgia. UNC got run on by Baylor in their bowl game last year and I didn’t really think their run defense would improve all that much this year. A late run by Nick Chubb sealed the win for Georgia.

3) Oklahoma 23 v Houston 33

My pick: 31-27 Houston

37% of participants correctly chose the winner

Sometimes you call the upset special and you strike it rich. I should have bought a lottery ticket last week. Even though it was a Houston home game, the line was -11 for Oklahoma, but Houston took down the then #3 Sooners in what was arguably not even the biggest upset of the weekend (I’d probably give that honor to Wisconsin toppling LSU).

4) Ole Miss 34 v FSU 45

My pick: 23-13 FSU

96% of participants correctly chose the winner

For most of the first half, most of us looked really dumb. Ole Miss was moving the ball well against the FSU defense, which I thought would be a real strength of the team and the FSU offense couldn’t get anything going. A score before the half put FSU right back in it and what I can only presume were some epic halftime adjustments lead to a dominant third quarter by FSU.

5) Alabama 52 v USC 6

My pick: 41-20 Alabama

100% of participants correctly chose the winner

Well, we knew Alabama would win. No one picked against the Crimson Tide. We just didn’t know they would blow them out by a 46 point margin. Only a handful of people predicted Alabama scoring more than 40 points. User burpsngiggles came closest at 48 and was the only user this week to get a point for predicting Alabama’s score within 7.5 points.

Standings

You can access the full standings here. It will show you where you stand overall, the picks you made and the points you earned for each pick.

After the first week, the leader is a familiar presence around these parts... it’s Dr. Quacking Tiger with 31 out of a possible 35 points! Hmm, that can’t be right, is this thing rigged? Rounding out the top 5 are Orange66, myself, Dabo Duck and ChiCard23. And, unfortunately, bringing up the rear with 15 points are ClemsonFlinn and AussieTiger. Don’t worry people, it’s a long season!

If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or if I’ve made a mistake with your prediction, please feel free to let me know in the comments.