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Yahoo Sports' College Football Fake News Awards
Why not celebrate President Donald Trump’s Fake News Awards with some fake news of our own?
While President Trump’s Fake News Awards may actually never happen and thus become … fake news, we aren’t too proud to mock ourselves for some of our bad predictions. Below you’ll find some of the worst predictions we made before the 2017 college football season.
SAD! team we didn’t think would be SAD!
Our Dr. Saturday preseason top 25 started with North Carolina at No. 25. Oops.
We made the foolish decision to have faith in former LSU quarterback Brandon Harris with the Tar Heels. Harris didn’t have success and UNC was ravaged by injuries on the way to a 3-9 record.
UCF may be fake national champions, but our preseason disrespect was real
This was Sam Cooper’s predicted order of finish in the American Athletic Conference’s East Division.
East: USF, Temple, UCF, Cincinnati, East Carolina, UConn
Yes, Sam put Central Florida behind Temple. Temple!
Typical fake news media lies about Florida State
I put the Seminoles at the top of the ACC Atlantic with an 11-1 record. An 11-1 record that came with 11-straight wins after a Week 1 loss to Alabama.
At least I had this in FSU’s writeup.
We’re going to have a pretty good idea of where FSU stands after the month of September. Following the Week 1 matchup with Alabama, Florida State plays Miami and NC State in Weeks 3 and 4. The good news for the Seminoles is that both of those games are in Tallahassee, and so is an Oct. 21 matchup with Louisville.
Yes, we all did have a good idea of where the Seminoles stood. They lost to Alabama, Miami and NC State, though the Miami game got moved for hurricane-related reasons. FSU lost to Louisville for good measure too on the way to a 7-6 season.
A lyin‘ prediction about a conference that actually had some truth to it
Here’s what Pat Forde had to say about the ACC’s playoff chances at the beginning of the year.
The Atlantic Coast Conference (7) will cannibalize itself right out of the playoff. Florida State, Clemson and Louisville will take turns knocking each other off. Improved North Carolina State is going to score a big victory or two. Syracuse will shock someone in the Carrier Dome. Wake Forest will drag a good team into a close game – and actually finish the deal this year. Miami will have a good season and win the Coastal – then lose to a multi-loss Atlantic champion in the ACC title game.
Outside of the playoff part, Pat was pretty on target. NC State beat South Carolina and Florida State and had a good season. Syracuse beat Clemson. Wake Forest went to the Belk Bowl and beat Texas A&M. Miami won its division.
Maybe this prediction warrants half of a fakey football. If it does, this other prediction from Pat deserves double scorn.
Florida Atlantic was not a hoax witch hunt
Florida Atlantic’s hire of Lane Kiffin worked out. Pat was not on board with it.
Lane Kiffin (8) will make us pay attention to Florida Atlantic football for the first time since the mid-Schnellenberger. Not because he’ll win a big game, or many games at all. Because he will do something so stupid or smarmy that America will not be able to avert its gaze.
Kiffin turned into college football’s best Twitter personality during 2017 and won a bunch of games at FAU as the Owls won the Conference-USA title and the Boca Raton Bowl. We can’t stop watching because Lane can’t stop tweeting and winning games, not because of anything negative. 2017 was the year of Lane Kiffin. We’ll see if 2018 is as well.
Fake Florida dossier failed bigly
Pete Thamel’s coaching carousel columns were full of great information throughout the season. And as Florida was looking for a new head coach in the wake of Jim McElwain’s departure, it made a lot of sense to look toward UCF coach Scott Frost.
Names: Scott Frost, Dan Mullen, Matt Campbell
Prediction: Scott Frost. This one seems pretty obvious. Florida needs offense. Frost has dominated the competition, and Florida gives him a much better platform than Nebraska to win a title.
Welp. Frost, as you know, decided to go back to his alma mater and coach at Nebraska. Florida did hire the second name on this list, Dan Mullen.
Crooked September polls aren’t to be taken seriously
Pete wrote this after Oklahoma State beat Tulsa early in the season. The Cowboys, with quarterback Mason Rudolph and wide receiver James Washington, looked poised for a Big 12 title, right?
Brush aside the mane, scatter the rattlesnakes and pause your throwback YouTube rant. Then take a breath and begin to ponder the possibility that this night percolated with.
The Cowboys looked every bit like a team that should have been picked to win the Big 12 and should be considered a contender for the College Football Playoff. [Tulsa coach Philip] Montgomery served as a Baylor assistant from 2008 to 2014, meaning he’s witnessed some high-end Oklahoma State teams. (Including the 2011 crew that was a bad Friday in Ames from playing for the national title). Montgomery isn’t prone to hyperbole, and his assessment should be a warning that the Cowboys need to be taken seriously in the highest echelons of the sport.
Wrong. Oklahoma State lost to TCU and Oklahoma and Kansas State on the way to a 9-3 season. The Sooners won the Big 12 yet again and made the College Football Playoff.
Baylor was about as good as covfefe
We had Baylor pegged for 6-6 overall in 2017. Here’s what Sam had to say about the Bears.
The non-conference schedule (Liberty, UTSA and Duke) should allow the Bears to get some early-season wins under their belt before a brutal stretch — Oklahoma, at Kansas State, at Oklahoma State, West Virginia, at Texas — to begin conference play. There won’t be many wins to find during that portion of the schedule, but the Bears can creep toward a bowl berth by handling Kansas, Texas Tech and Iowa State late in the year. And don’t be surprised if the Bears pull off an upset somewhere along the way.
Baylor lost to Liberty, UTSA and Duke and the team’s only win came against Kansas. At least the Kansas win was in the Big 12 so Baylor didn’t finish last.
Lightweight USC didn’t have the stamina to hang with Ohio State
I’ll take complete credit for this tweet sent during the Pac-12 Championship Game between USC and Stanford.
*whispers*
USC is better than Ohio State
— Dr. Saturday (@YahooDrSaturday) December 2, 2017
Ohio State fans were all too happy to retweet it after the Buckeyes’ Cotton Bowl win over the Trojans. I can’t blame them.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
