I made a few football predictions this year. I started the year with my mock draft, which honestly went about as well as I expected. I picked four correctly, which is one less than Mel Kiper and he gets paid to do this for a living. Then I did my college predictions, NFL predictions, my weekly pick ’em, and bowl games. Now it is time to see how well I did.
College
Out of 123 teams in ten conferences, I ended up picking 21 correctly. The best was the Big Ten, where I picked four. I was decent at picking the worst team in the conference. In the ACC, I did say that Pitt was a dark horse to win their division, but I did not predict them winning the entire conference.
ACC–3 (Miami, Georgia Tech, Duke)
Big Ten–4 (Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska)
Big 12–1 (Kansas)
Pac-12–1 (Oregon)
SEC–3 (Georgia, Alabama, Vanderbilt)
AAC–2 (Cincinnati, UCF)
C-USA–2 (UTSA, Rice)
MAC–1 (Eastern Michigan)
MWC–2 (UNLV, Air Force)
Sun Belt–2 (ULL, South Alabama)
I only picked one team to make the playoffs (Alabama).
The bowl games did not go as well as they have for me in years past. I only counted the ones that were on my post (I entered a few contests, which updated the teams as things changed due to covid). I picked th winners correctly 55.56% of the time. I was better with the over/under picks this year than I had been in the past (44.44%), but was slightly worse picking favorites (47.22%) than in previous seasons.
Correct Picks: 20/36
O/U: 16/36
Favorites: 17/36
I had two that were very close (Houston/Auburn–I said 17-14, actual 17-13; Iowa State/Clemson–20-17, actual 20-13).
I was completely wrong about National Championship game. I took Alabama and it ended up being Georgia.
NFL
I think this was one of my best performances in a few years. 16/32 for 50%. I picked 75% of the division winners and half of the wild cards. Oh, did I mention that I picked the Super Bowl winner??? I also had the Chiefs losing in the AFC Championship game. Obviously the Rams would have to win in the NFC Championship in order to win the Super Bowl. I did have the Rams beating the Bucs, but not in the Divisional Round. Oh well, I still look smart AF.
AFC East: 4/4
AFC North: 2/4
AFC South: 2/4
AFC West: 2/4
Division Winners: Bills, Titans, Chiefs
Wildcards: Steelers, Patriots
NFC East: 0/4
NFC North: 2/4
NFC South: 2/4
NFC West: 2/4
Division Winners: Vikings, Bucs, Rams
Wildcards: 49ers
Pick ‘Em
I won my fifth pick ’em title. In fact this was my first back-to-back since 2011-2012. I hope I can three-peat! The extra week helped me have my best record ever (156-127). But, this was actually my best correct pick percentage (55.12%) vs. 55.04% in 2016. As far as my underdog record, this year I went 13-9, which ended up winning me $74.63.
