College Football Handicapping Articles

2016 Arizona State Sun Devils Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2016

Arizona State's 2015 campaign began in the Top 15 and finished below .500. Despite a host of returning talent, the Sun Devils couldn't build on back-to-back 10-win seasons and now enter Todd Graham's fifth season with a lot more questions than answers.

2016 Cal Golden Bears Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2016

I was driving the Cal bandwagon last season, and I feel like I got my money's worth. The Golden Bears started 5-0 and worked their way into the Top 25 for the first time in years, won eight games - compared to just nine wins the three prior seasons- and blew out Air Force in a bowl game.

2016 Colorado Buffaloes Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2016

Colorado has endured a gruesome decade of football, and it is hard to remember that for a solid two-decade stretch the Buffs were a perennial Top 15 team. They've gone just 35-88 straight up and 53-68 against the spread over the last 10 seasons and have been a laughingstock since shifting to the Pac-12 in 2011 (5-40 league record).

2016 Oregon State Beavers Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2016

Mike Riley was underrated as the Oregon State coach. He kept the Beavers competitive and relevant, and Corvallis was one of the toughest places in the Pac-12 to get a late-season victory. But Oregon State bottomed out in 2015 under first-year coach Gary Anderson. Now the Beavers have to scrape themselves off the deck and really start rebuilding what is, right now, the worst team in the league.

2016 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/8/2016

Brian Kelly may be a bit of a maniac, but he is the best coach that Notre Dame has had in a quarter century, and Kelly continues to do a fantastic job at one of college football's flagship programs. The Irish have gone 39-13 over the past four seasons and enter this year in the Top 10. Kelly continues to stockpile talent in South Bend, and Notre Dame is in a great position for continued success.

2016 BYU Cougars Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/8/2016

The Cougars bid adieu to Bronco Mendenhall this offseason, as their long-time coach surprisingly took a job at Virginia. Rookie head coach Kalani Sitake will be charged with guiding a very talented BYU team through the gauntlet of another tough independent schedule. Sitake, a former Cougars player, has a wealth of experience as a defensive coordinator, primarily at Utah, and has injected new life into a program that could be headed back into a conference as soon as next season.

2016 Army Black Knights Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/8/2016

The Black Knights are routinely one of the worst college football teams in the country. Army is just 35-86 over the last decade and has enjoyed just one winning season during that stretch. In fact, Army's 2010 bowl appearance was their first since 1996. Considering there are about 1,000 bowl games each winter, that's a pretty sorry mark.

2016 LSU Tigers Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Over the last 10 years Les Miles has won 101 games as the head coach of the LSU Tigers. Most programs would kill for that level of success. But you get the feeling that this might be a now-or-never year for Miles, who has been facing increasing calls for his ouster from Baton Rouge over the past several seasons. LSU is one of the most talented, most experienced teams in the country, and Miles will try to get them back in the national title picture for the first time since 2011.

2016 Alabama Crimson Tide Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

I have said, and I still believe, that Alabama was extraordinarily lucky to get two of their three previous National Championships. I still think the fact that they were placed in the 2011-12 BCS Championship Game is the biggest sham - in one of the most corrupt, nonsensical sports in this country - so far this century in college football. But there was absolutely nothing fluky about Alabama's title run last season.

2016 Tennessee Volunteers Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Tennessee was everyone's sleeper team in the SEC coming into last season. With 17 returning starters from 2014's seven-win club the scuttlebutt was that the Volunteers could be poised for their first SEC East title since 2007. The Vols had that - and potentially a trip to the College Football Playoff - within their grasp. But four losses by a touchdown or less, three of which in games where they led by two touchdowns, kept Tennessee outside the Top 25 and the SEC title game.

2016 Georgia Bulldogs Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

This season begins a new era of Georgia football. Mark Richt was let go and former Alabama co-defensive coordinator, and Georgia alum, Kirby Smart was brought in to hopefully get the Bulldogs over the hump and competing for national titles. Richt had gone 94-38 over the last 10 years. Apparently that wasn't good enough. So while Smart will enjoy a grace period, the bar is set pretty high.

2016 Auburn Tigers Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Last season I was one of the only handicappers and analysts in the country that wasn't buying into Auburn. They entered the year at No. 6 in the Top 25 and they were the overwhelming media choice to win the SEC. Instead, they needed OT to beat Jacksonville State in Week 2 - as a 47-point favorite - and then flopped their way to a 4-6 close to the campaign and last place in the SEC West. I easily hit with my 'under' play on their season win total.

2016 Texas A&M Aggies Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

It's been a rough few months for Kevin Sumlin. It wasn't long ago (2012) that Sumlin was considered one of the hottest coaches in college football. But after back-to-back 8-5 campaigns, and with a dearth of big victories in College Station in front of the home faithful, Sumlin enters this season with enormous pressure. It doesn't help that Sumlin has had a mass quarterback exodus, losing four quarterbacks to transfer over the last 18 months.

2016 Florida Gators Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

I was bullish on Florida and Jim McElwain last season, and they didn't let me down, winning the SEC East while working their way up into a Top 10. The Gators came back to reality a bit late in the season, though, getting blown out in their final three games, losing to Florida State, Alabama and Michigan by a combined score of 97-24. Those ugly defeats kind of sapped UF of any momentum coming into this season.

2016 Mississippi State Bulldogs Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

The Bulldogs exceeded my wildest expectations - dealing me my first top play college football futures loss this decade - while winning nine games last season. Dak Prescott singlehandedly carried this veteran team to nine victories and a bowl win over N.C. State to cap one of the best careers in Bulldogs history.

2016 Ole Miss Rebels Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Mississippi is coming off one of its best-ever seasons, winning 10 games for just the third time in over 50 years. You would expect that to give the Rebels some positive momentum coming into this season. But a bit of a pall was cast over Ole Miss this offseason after losing three star juniors to the NFL and enduring the draft night controversy surrounding Laremy Tunsil, with allegations of NCAA violations.

2016 Arkansas Razorbacks Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Bret Bielema has increased Arkansas' win total from three to seven to eight in the past several seasons. That includes improving their conference record from 0-8 in his first year to 5-3 last season. But now the Razorbacks may be at a bit of a crossroad. They are an afterthought in the SEC West this season, picked sixth by several media outlets in the seven-team division.

2016 South Carolina Gamecocks Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

No one can say enough good things about what Steve Spurrier was able to build and accomplish at South Carolina. In the 60 years between the end of World War II and Steve Spurrier's hiring in 2005, South Carolina went to 10 bowl games. In the 11 years that Spurrier was in Columbia he guided the Gamecocks to nine. But Spurrier ditched USC last year during the season, damning the Gamecocks to an ugly 3-9 year and casting a lot of questions on the future of this program.

2016 Missouri Tigers Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

Missouri proved that they belong with the big boys by winning back-to-back SEC East titles in 2013 and 2014. But things went off the rails for the plucky Tigers last season, both on the field and off, and the end result was a bowl-less season and then the retirement of longtime coach Gary Pinkel.

2016 Kentucky Wildcats Football Predictions and Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2016

I felt like Kentucky was one of the bigger disappointments in the Southeast last year. They got off to a 4-1 start, with the lone loss a heartbreaker against Florida. But they lost another tight game at home to middling Auburn before getting blown out three straight games against Miss State, Tennessee and Georgia (combined score: 121-40). Kentucky blew a game at Vanderbilt and then choked away a 24-7 lead, at home, against rival Louisville in the final game of the season. When the dust settled Kentucky had gone just 3-9 against the spread.