Alabama 2008 Football Schedule

College Football Predictions: Futures Betting for BCS Conferences

The 2011 college football season is a little more than two months away, but it’s not too early to start handicapping which teams have the best chance to win their respective conference and hopefully qualify for a shot at playing for a national title in the BCS Championship Game in early January. Here we will offer some college football predictions on futures betting for the BCS conferences.

Starting with the ACC, bookmakers have opened Florida State as the odds-on-favorite to win the conference at +150. Next is Virginia Tech at +250, followed by Miami at +350. The Seminoles enter the second year of the Jimbo Fisher era with probably their most talented team in recent memory. QB Christian Ponder is off to the NFL, but E.J. Manual is more than capable of filling his shoes as a duel threat with both his arm and his legs. The real strength of this team could be a defense that returns eight starters, including DE Brandon Jenkins and CB Xavier Rhodes. Florida State could have a clear path to a national title game if it gets by Oklahoma in Week 3.

The Big East has not placed a team in the BCS Championship Game since Miami was still a member in the early 2000s. This season, West Virginia and South Florida open as the co-favorites to win the conference at +250, but neither are expected to figure in the national title picture. The Mountaineers return eight starters on offense, including QB Geno Smith, who should be able to improve upon a very average 2010. The Bulls are coming off their third straight 8-5 campaign and appear poised to take the next step behind one of the best defenses in the country.

Bookies have tagged the newest member of the Big Ten as the favorite to win the conference as Nebraska has opened at +150, followed by Wisconsin at +200. The ageless Joe Paterno and his youthful Penn State Nittany Lions come in at +375, while Ohio State’s recent fall from grace drops the Buckeyes down to the fourth favorite at +500. The Cornhuskers return 13 starters from last season’s 10-4 squad, including QB Taylor Martinez and DT Jared Crick. The Badgers lost 11 starters from last year’s team but, but they should be able to quickly reload with a wealth of talent on the roster. Look for these two teams to meet in the first-ever Big Ten title game as a result of the new six-team Leaders and Legends divisional set-up.

Alabama By the Numbers: Third Down Conversions - Roll 'Bama Roll

Over the past two days, I've had posts up on Team Speed Kills, the SB Nation site covering all things SEC, looking at third down conversions. On Monday it was a look at offensive third down conversion percentages and yesterday was a post on defensive third down conversion percentages . My observations for across the conference are available there but I wanted to provide a look at Alabama's stats by themselves.

This chart shows Alabama's third down conversion percentages over the past five years. Obviously, the red line indicates the offense's ability to move the chains. The grey line shows the third down conversion percentage for Alabama's opponents, or more to our interest, the ability of the Crimson Tide defense to get off the field on third downs.

Source: CFB Stats

Now those two thin red lines I've drawn on the grid indicate the targets set by Coach Saban for the team. He want's the offense to convert 45% of the time and the defense to limit opponents conversions to 30%. As you can see, these are not easy standards to reach.

Last year the offense actually reached that target for the first time in Coach Saban's tenure. Alabama ranked fourth in the conference for offensive third down conversions, a mark only matched once prior in the last half-decade, in 2008. The defense though showed a notable drop-off of efficiency from the past two seasons, but was still better than every other team in the conference save one - Arkansas (and no, I got no answer for that either).

So, basically, aiming for the targets Coach Saban sets means the Crimson Tide is likely to end up in the elite level of the SEC in both these categories. And this graph shows pretty plainly that even if the offense isn't able to reach that level of efficiency, it's not necessarily a crisis as long as the defense can. But, conversely, even if the offense is stellar, a step back on the defense can be extremely costly.

The USA Today College Football Encyclopedia 2009-2010

2008 Alabama Crimson Tide Football Team

The Fighting Tigers, 1993-2008, Into a New Century of LSU Football

Sacred to the Memory of the Blairs

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