Now that I am done going off on my latest tangent, I will return to the business at hand . . . namely, continuing the effort to give myself a report card on my preseason predictions.
Here are some prognostications of mine that seemed like a good idea at the time:
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will lose three games this season.
Fortunately, the first of my forecasts was a good one, as I got this exactly right. I told you the Golden Domers were overrated!
The Arkansas Razorbacks will receive an Independence Bowl bid.
10-win season. Western Division championship. Capital One Bowl berth. Missed it by that much.
The Atlanta Braves will not win a playoff game in 2006.
Yeah, that one was a pretty safe bet in August, wasn't it?
Boston College will win its bowl game.
It was touch and go there for a while, but the Eagles are college football's most reliable postseason team.
The South Carolina Gamecocks will lose to a team that finishes the season with a losing record.
The Palmetto State Poultry's five losses were to Arkansas (10-4), Auburn (11-2), Florida (13-1), Georgia (9-4), and Tennessee (9-4). Oops!
Sonny Perdue will be elected to a second term as governor of Georgia.
As soon as the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating Mark Taylor instead of Cathy Cox, this was a done deal.
The winner of the Georgia-Florida game will not represent the Eastern Division in the S.E.C. championship game.
Florida won and the Gators got the bid to the Dome, so, yeah, that was just wishful thinking on my part.
Texas Christian will appear in a B.C.S. bowl game.
As it turned out, the Horned Frogs received a bid to the Poinsettia Bowl and, although they probably deserved a better postseason billet, a trip to a major bowl game was not in the cards for T.C.U.
The Peach Bowl will host a pair of nine-win teams.
Actually, it was an eight-win team and a 10-win team, so, unless I get to use averages, I have to say I missed this one.
The Navy Midshipmen will win 10 games.
The Mids went 9-4. Had the U.S. Naval Academy won its bowl game, I would have gotten this one right, but only at the cost of getting the Boston College postseason prediction wrong.
By suppertime on Christmas Day, Rich Brooks will have been replaced by David Cutcliffe as the head football coach at the University of Kentucky.
Not only was Coach Brooks spared the axe, he managed to guide the Wildcats to an 8-5 record, a win over Georgia, and a bowl victory. Maybe that's why U.K. didn't fire him!
There will not be two undefeated teams in the national championship game.
I told you so.
That makes a dozen predictions, out of which I got five right and seven wrong, putting me within striking distance of a .500 forecasting percentage. Hey, it could be worse . . . I could be an astrologer, an economist, a stockbroker, or a weatherman!
Go 'Dawgs!