2017 STS Prediction Contest - Week 1

Back by popular demand (actually, I think literally no one asked for this, but it’s happening anyways) is the STS Prediction Contest... and it’s new and improved?

The overall concept remains the same - I pick 5 games per week and we all guess the winners and the scores of each game. However, instead of picking the exact score, the point score question is now a multiple choice question. See below for an example.

This will make it easier to “grade” the responses and somewhat increase the difficulty level. Giving you all +/- 7 was a bit too easy for some matchups. As before, choosing the winner of a game will get you 5 points. Picking the correct score range will give you another point, for up to 7 points per matchup.

This year, I’m told by our glorious leader that we will offer some sort of small prize for the top 3 overall finishers. We will also offer something for the winner of the bowl pick’em contest. As a note, I don’t want the bowl season to overshadow the regular season, so those games will be worth less for the overall standings. Last year the bowl games seemed to account for about 33% of the overall score - this year I would like it to be closer to 15-20%.

Here are your Week 1 matchups:

Kent State @ #5 Clemson

Vegas says: -40 Clemson

Revan says: 56-10 Clemson

The National Champs begin their season with Kent State. I think we all just want to see some injury-free early domination followed by getting the backups and the backups for the backups into the game as early as possible. Clemson should win big on both sides of the ball. The tough part about this is guessing how many points Clemson will give up. You wouldn’t really expect the 1st string to give up many, if any points. But, once backups are in the game, who knows? I’ll give Kent State some credit and say they’ll score at least 10 on us after backups are in the game.

#11 Michigan v #17 Florida (Neutral site)

Vegas says: -3.5 Michigan

Revan says: 27-20 Michigan

Will Florida have an offense this year? I guess we’ll find out with this early Top 20 match up. Florida’s also missing some players due to suspension. I think Michigan will win but it will be close?

#3 FSU v #1 Alabama (Neutral site)

Vegas says: -7 Alabama

Revan says: 24-17 Alabama

Woah, this might be a pretty good game. Smart money’s gotta be on Bama, even if some of their highly ranked players occasionally get themselves shot in the leg, right? FSU is pretty darn good too, though. Both of these teams have promising young QBs that performed decently well last year (I’m going to assume Jalen learned how to throw over the offseason?) and FSU has perhaps the best defender in college football in Derwin James, if he’s healthy. I certainly want FSU to win to set up a nice showdown with a (hopefully) undefeated Clemson, but one would think Alabama certainly has the edge here. This should be a low scoring game, which means it’s going to end up with both teams scoring 40+, I’m sure.

#22 West Virginia v #21 Virginia Tech (Neutral site)

Vegas says: -4 VT

Revan says: 35-21 VT

I don’t know really know anything about WVU’s team this year. People seem to think highly of the direction Feunte is taking VT, though losing Jerod Evans to the draft early was certainly a blow. Sure, VT I guess?

Texas A&M @ UCLA

Vegas says: -4 UCLA

Revan says: 31-28 UCLA

I was certainly tempted to put the defending Champions of Life, Tennessee, here instead of A&M and UCLA. This seems like a more interesting matchup, though (but all my best to GT in their game against Tennessee). UCLA still has supposed wunderkind Josh Rosen around and I can’t name any players on A&M, so I think I’m going with UCLA. Rosen seems way overhyped to me, but then again Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield also feel way overhyped.

Make your picks here!