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Chas Post

CFB: What Did We Get Right In 2018?


"Villanova will win the national title, and Kansas will reach the Final Four" (March 15th): Going into March Madness, we had the Villanova Wildcats pegged as the best team in the country, and six games later, they proved to be just that. Donte DiVincenzo led them with 31 points on 66.7 percent shooting from the field in the championship game versus Michigan, which capped off a historic year and a second title in three years for Jay Wright's crew. Beyond that, we also called who they'd defeat in the Final Four. Kansas was the top seed in their region, but many were picking either Duke or Michigan State to get there. Instead, we rode with the Jayhawks and it paid off. Kansas defeated Duke, 85-81, in the Elite Eight and advanced to the national semifinals where they ran into the eventual champions.


"Warriors and Rockets will meet in the Western Conference Finals" (May 1st): It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Golden State Warriors would reach the Western Conference Finals given their immense talent, but it wasn't always clear who they would face. The Houston Rockets had a league-best 65-17 record in the regular season, and many doubted them in the postseason. Part of that was because of the past struggles by James Harden and Chris Paul in the playoffs. The trendy pick became taking the Oklahoma City Thunder to reach the Western Conference Finals and face the Warriors, but we stuck with the Rockets and they followed suit. Houston went 10-2 in their first two series against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Utah Jazz to finally get past the second round.


"Orange Bowl will be Alabama-Oklahoma, and Michigan will go to the Peach Bowl" (August 25th): College football was probably our best projections of any sport, especially near the top. We picked Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma would reach the College Football Playoff. We got three out of four right. And we even predicted that it'd be the Crimson Tide and Sooners matching up in the Orange Bowl. Just beyond that, we also had Ohio State versus Washington in the Rose Bowl, Michigan in the Peach Bowl (albeit against Miami), and Texas in the Sugar Bowl. After just an 8-5 record last year and opening the season ranked 14th, we went out on somewhat of a limb to pick Michigan to make the Peach Bowl, where they are six-point favorites against the Florida Gators.


"Rams will go 13-3, Cowboys will go 10-6, and the AFC West gets two teams in" (August 31st): The NFL can be difficult to predict because of how frequent it is to go from worst to first and vice versa, but we did hit on a handful of teams. One of those would be the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams went 11-5 last year and we thought they'd build on that to go 13-3 and win the NFC West. They're currently 12-3 and finish up with a match with the lowly San Francisco 49ers. The Cowboys just missed out on the playoffs at 9-7 in 2017 and we projected they'd get one more win to go 10-6. They are 9-6 right now with a game against the New York Giants remaining, and have already clinched the NFC East. Lastly, we picked the Chiefs and Chargers to both make the postseason, and they've each already clinched that fate.


"Yankees will win the Wild Card, and Dodgers will win the National League" (October 12th): The New York Yankees had an incredible regular season with a 100-62 record, but it wasn't enough to win the AL East because of the Boston Red Sox's historic campaign. So they had to settle for an AL Wild Card matchup with the Oakland Athletics. With no disrespect to the A's, we didn't give them much of a chance to win this game. All of our writers picked the Yankees to move on and they were able to do that with a 7-2 win going away. In the NL, we picked the Los Angeles Dodgers to represent the league in the World Series for the second year in a row. Although the Milwaukee Brewers were the top seed in the National League, we correctly predicted the Dodgers would finish on top.


Photo Credit: Sooner Sports.

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