2018 Purdue Boilermakers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2018

It didn't take long for Jeff Brohm to prove that he is an up-and-coming star in the coaching ranks. He took over a Purdue program that was a laughingstock under Darrell Hazell and got them to their first bowl game since 2012. In four years under Hazell, Purdue won nine games. Brohm won seven in his first season, including a bowl victory over Arizona.

2018 Illinois Fighting Illini Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2018

I have been a lifelong Chicago Bears fan. So I will always have a special place for Lovie Smith. But in two years at the helm of the Illinois program, Smith hasn't done anything to engender any confidence that he can be successful at the college level. Smith has gone 5-19 overall the past two years and just 2-16 in league play after a crushing 0-9 Big Ten mark last season.

2018 Maryland Terrapins Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2018

The Terps have been an afterthought in Big Ten football since joining the league in 2014. They aren't expected to compete, really ever. But even their league "rivals" had to feel bad for what Maryland went through last year after the team was decimated by injuries.

2018 Rutgers Scarlet Knights Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/7/2018

The Scarlet Knights have won just seven of 34 conference games since joining the Big Ten prior to the 2014 season. They've won just six games since hiring Chris Ash two years ago - with two of those wins coming against FCS opponents - and this year Rutgers will try to throw punches in what is by far and away the best division in college football. They can't compete. No way, no how.

2018 Auburn Tigers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Auburn feels like it is at a crossroads season. Gus Malzahn's program should feel good about itself coming off a 10-win season and SEC West title. Yet, the Tigers are entering Malzahn's sixth season at the helm. And after watching in-state rival Alabama win yet another National Championship, the War Eagles feel as far away from the Tide as ever before.

2018 Mississippi State Bulldogs Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Former Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead is in an intriguing situation as he takes over in Starkville. This is Moorhead's first head coaching job at the FBS level. And while most new coaches have some leeway as they ease into stewardship of a new program, Moorhead takes over a talented, experienced Mississippi State team that is poised as a potential sleeper in the SEC West. Expectations are high. And Moorhead's learning curve will be sharp.

2018 Kentucky Wildcats Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

For a basketball school, Kentucky has produced a couple of solid football seasons. After coming heartbreakingly close to bowl games in 2014 and 2015, the Wildcats broke through for back-to-back bowl appearances in 2016 and 2017. Now they will be gunning for their third straight bowl game, something the Wildcats have accomplished only twice in over 100 years of football.

2018 Florida Gators Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Things could not have gone worse for the Gators last season. Ten players, including several starters, were suspended before the season opener. Then their second game was cancelled because of a hurricane. They mustered a three-game winning streak. But then the bottom dropped out with five straight losses, a rash of injuries, several blowouts and a lame duck coach by November. When the dust settled the Gators had just four wins for the second time this decade. And those two four-win seasons were the only two since the 1970s.

2018 Vanderbilt Commodores Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Every now and again Vanderbilt is able to jump up and bite someone and prove that they do belong in the SEC. All things considered, the Commodores have done pretty well for themselves. Because, despite being the weakest program in the league, they've managed to keep from becoming total fodder that just gets run through and embarrassed every week.

2018 Ole Miss Rebels Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Ole Miss is still dealing with the fallout from the Hugh Freeze fiasco. And this year will be their second in a row impeded by a bowl ban. But I have to hand it to coach Matt Luke; he is plowing ahead with his rebuild and reshaping this team into a faster, pass-happy team that could be a potential spoiler in the SEC.

2018 Arkansas Razorbacks Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/6/2018

Admittedly, Bret Bielema was always a bit of an odd fit at Arkansas. That said, his unceremonious firing shows that the Razorbacks clearly have unrealistic expectations about where their program should be. Toiling in the SEC West, one of the three or four most difficult divisions in college football, Arkansas is not going to be a perennial championship contender. And after three of four winning seasons and back-to-back bowl wins (in 2014-15) for the first time in school history, Bielema was given his walking papers.

2018 Alabama Crimson Tide Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

History will show the Alabama dynasty as one of the greatest achievements in college football history. The Crimson Tide once again enter fall camp as the defending National Champions. They have won a stunning five titles in 10 years. And with all the impediments in major collegiate athletics, both on the field and off, this is a feat we may not see again for a long, long time.

2018 Georgia Bulldogs Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

Are the Bulldogs on the verge of a new SEC dynasty? This year's Georgia squad will attempt to pick itself up off the mat after a heartbreaking overtime loss in the National Championship Game last January. It was nearly a dream season in Athens, with UGA dominating the SEC East, easily winning the SEC Championship and taking a lead into halftime against rival Alabama in the title game.

2018 LSU Tigers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

Head coach Ed Orgeron enters his second full season as the head man in Baton Rouge and, frankly, things aren't looking great for the Tigers. Orgeron, who has a 31-33 career record, barely survived last season in a pathetically weak SEC. With just 10 returning starters and a dearth of top-end talent, I think that this year could be a watershed moment for the LSU program after running Les Miles out of town.

2018 South Carolina Gamecocks Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

Will Muschamp was in over his head and flopped as the head coach of Florida. But there is no denying that he's got something cooking up in South Carolina right now. The Gamecocks have overachieved in each of his first two seasons in Columbia. And they enter the 2018 campaign as a potential sleeper in a top-heavy SEC East.

2018 Tennessee Volunteers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

The Butch Jones Era came to a comical, predictable end last season after a 4-8 debacle of a campaign. Jones and the Vols spent back-to-back years failing to live up to their trendy "sleeper" designation and are now a woeful 57-56 in the nine years since cutting Philip Fulmer loose.

2018 Missouri Tigers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/2/2018

I've heard more than one prognosticator suggest that Missouri could be a potential sleeper in the SEC East this year. After all, the former Big 12 doormats managed to scam their way to back-to-back SEC title games as recently as 2013 and 2014. And with a quarterback that tossed for nearly 4,000 yards and 44 touchdowns last year, the Tigers could be some kind of run-and-shoot counterpoint to the rest of this ground-and-pound conference.

2018 Oklahoma Sooners Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/1/2018

Baker Mayfield's crotch grabbing and the Oklahoma defense's complete collapse in the second half against Georgia seems like ages ago. And with Mayfield's Heisman, a Big 12 title, and a College Football Playoff choke all behind them, the Sooners are now set to begin Year 2 of the Lincoln Riley Experiment in earnest.

2018 Texas Longhorns Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/1/2018

There were several prognosticators that expected Tom Herman to glide into Austin last season and lead the Longhorns back to national prominence immediately. It didn't work out that way. Now in Year 2 we are again left to separate hype from happenstance regarding one of the nation's premier college football programs.

2018 TCU Horned Frogs Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football
by Robert Ferringo - 8/1/2018

I feel like this year's TCU Horned Frogs are going to be one of the more volatile teams to bet on or against in college football. This team is scary. Not scary good or scary bad. But TCU seems like the type of team that is going to lose two or three games that they shouldn't and win one or two games that they shouldn't, with the public getting burned by them every time.