University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana UnLimited -- Football's "Prediction Season"
8/2/2022 1:30:00 PM | Louisiana UnLimited
Even if Louisiana fans weren't visibly gnawing at the bit for the season to begin, it would be easy to tell that college football season's right around the corner.
The growing stacks of preseason magazines, the increasing volume of podcasts and the non-stop trumpeting on social media are letting everyone know that preseason camps are only days away and the Ragin' Cajuns' Sepember 3 opening outing against Southeastern Louisiana is already on the radar.
That means it's time for everyone's annual ritual of predicting what's going to happen in the 2022 season – something that's often an exercise in futility.
Admit it, who was bold enough to forecast that Louisiana would go 13-1 last fall and would go into this season riding the nation's longest winning streak?
That stellar season all but insured that the Ragin' Cajuns would receive a lot of love in this year's preseason polls. After all, coaches, media and other "experts" admit – or should admit – that their votes in such polls are based on results from the previous season more so than any major changes in programs in the off-season.
Doing that this year in the Sun Belt Conference is an iffy proposition. The brave new world of Sun Belt expansion and the rapidity that it took place brings a lot of new faces and new scenarios – new alignments and new opponents – and, more notably in some early predictions, new perceptions. It makes for a ton of uncertainty.
For example:
Troy and South Alabama are the popular picks to claim the other upper-division spots in the West, with Arkansas State a popular dark-horse selection to make some noise.
The only other consistency in all the preseason picks is the opinion that the power in the league lies in the East, and for sheer numbers that's a safe pick. App State stunned Coastal Carolina at mid-season to take control of the East and went on to win its last six non-conference games before losing to the Ragin' Cajuns in the Sun Belt Championship Game at Cajun Field.
The consensus is that any of four teams – App State, Coastal, Georgia State and Marshall – could win an East Division that also includes JMU (33-5 over the last three years), a new-look Georgia Southern team and an Old Dominion squad that won its last five in the regular season.
Of course, all these picks are nothing but individual or small-group opinions, based on subjective observations and with a nod toward last year's finishes. There's nothing magical about any of the preseason polls, especially in a revamped Sun Belt league. Until play begins in September, they're all opinions, and as the cliché' goes, everyone has an opinion and nobody wants another one.
There is one matrix out there that's a little different, courtesy of our friends at ESPN. That media giant already has its Football Power Index (FPI) out for every conference, and uses numbers instead of subjective ratings to rank teams in each league and do national comparisons.
The Sun Belt's FPI listings assign a power index to each team and a ranking based on that index, along with a projected win-loss record and percentages for each team to win out, to grab the six wins necessary for bowl eligibility, to win its division and the overall league title, and to make the CFP playoffs.
Their projected results are based on 20,000 computer simulations of all games to be played during the season.
App State has the league's best FPI to start the season along with a projected 8.5 wins and 3.9 losses, a 97.6 probability of winning six games, and a 27.9 percent probability to win the overall conference title. By comparison, UL is third in the FPI preseason rankings with a projected 8.2 wins and 4.2 losses and a 95.7 percent probability to win six games. And, since the FPI also agrees that it'll be harder to win the East, the Cajuns have the league's best probable percentage to win their division (41.3 to win the West).
App State has an 0.3 percent chance to "win out" and the Cajuns are at 0.1. UL wasn't much higher than that (0.3) after losing its opening game last year, but the Ragin' Cajuns did "win out" from that point after being given approximately a 1-in-300 chance to do that by the FPI rankings.
It should be pointed out that even though UL won the league overall title and had the league's best final record by two games (UL finished 13-1, Coastal Carolina 11-2 and App State 10-4), the Cajuns were still ranked third in ESPN's final 2021 FPI rankings behind App and Coastal. That can happen when the rankings are based solely on a number matrix.
As far as the rest of the "subjective" polls, again it's a matter of personal opinion. It is fact that over the past three years, the preseason Sun Belt rankings by Athlon's magazine has been closest to the actual results, with Lindy's magazine a close second.
The growing stacks of preseason magazines, the increasing volume of podcasts and the non-stop trumpeting on social media are letting everyone know that preseason camps are only days away and the Ragin' Cajuns' Sepember 3 opening outing against Southeastern Louisiana is already on the radar.
That means it's time for everyone's annual ritual of predicting what's going to happen in the 2022 season – something that's often an exercise in futility.
Admit it, who was bold enough to forecast that Louisiana would go 13-1 last fall and would go into this season riding the nation's longest winning streak?
That stellar season all but insured that the Ragin' Cajuns would receive a lot of love in this year's preseason polls. After all, coaches, media and other "experts" admit – or should admit – that their votes in such polls are based on results from the previous season more so than any major changes in programs in the off-season.
Doing that this year in the Sun Belt Conference is an iffy proposition. The brave new world of Sun Belt expansion and the rapidity that it took place brings a lot of new faces and new scenarios – new alignments and new opponents – and, more notably in some early predictions, new perceptions. It makes for a ton of uncertainty.
For example:
- James Madison has been an FCS powerhouse for several years, reaching the semifinals last year, before moving to the FCS ranks with its new Sun Belt membership (and yes, the Dukes are eligible for the conference title). But different polls have JMU anywhere from fifth to 11th in their preseason rankings.
- Marshall's up-and-down season did include seven wins, but also two season-ending losses by a combined 47 points (including the 36-21 loss to the Cajuns in the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl). The Thundering Herd didn't beat an FBS team that finished with a winning record all year. But one preseason ranking (by College Football News) has Marshall as the best team in the Sun Belt.
- Old Dominion swept its last five Conference USA games after a 1-6 start in its final run through that league, after not playing at all in 2020 in a self-imposed COVID exile. Their reward? Rankings between 10th and 13th in the 14-team league.
Troy and South Alabama are the popular picks to claim the other upper-division spots in the West, with Arkansas State a popular dark-horse selection to make some noise.
The only other consistency in all the preseason picks is the opinion that the power in the league lies in the East, and for sheer numbers that's a safe pick. App State stunned Coastal Carolina at mid-season to take control of the East and went on to win its last six non-conference games before losing to the Ragin' Cajuns in the Sun Belt Championship Game at Cajun Field.
The consensus is that any of four teams – App State, Coastal, Georgia State and Marshall – could win an East Division that also includes JMU (33-5 over the last three years), a new-look Georgia Southern team and an Old Dominion squad that won its last five in the regular season.
Of course, all these picks are nothing but individual or small-group opinions, based on subjective observations and with a nod toward last year's finishes. There's nothing magical about any of the preseason polls, especially in a revamped Sun Belt league. Until play begins in September, they're all opinions, and as the cliché' goes, everyone has an opinion and nobody wants another one.
There is one matrix out there that's a little different, courtesy of our friends at ESPN. That media giant already has its Football Power Index (FPI) out for every conference, and uses numbers instead of subjective ratings to rank teams in each league and do national comparisons.
The Sun Belt's FPI listings assign a power index to each team and a ranking based on that index, along with a projected win-loss record and percentages for each team to win out, to grab the six wins necessary for bowl eligibility, to win its division and the overall league title, and to make the CFP playoffs.
Their projected results are based on 20,000 computer simulations of all games to be played during the season.
App State has the league's best FPI to start the season along with a projected 8.5 wins and 3.9 losses, a 97.6 probability of winning six games, and a 27.9 percent probability to win the overall conference title. By comparison, UL is third in the FPI preseason rankings with a projected 8.2 wins and 4.2 losses and a 95.7 percent probability to win six games. And, since the FPI also agrees that it'll be harder to win the East, the Cajuns have the league's best probable percentage to win their division (41.3 to win the West).
App State has an 0.3 percent chance to "win out" and the Cajuns are at 0.1. UL wasn't much higher than that (0.3) after losing its opening game last year, but the Ragin' Cajuns did "win out" from that point after being given approximately a 1-in-300 chance to do that by the FPI rankings.
It should be pointed out that even though UL won the league overall title and had the league's best final record by two games (UL finished 13-1, Coastal Carolina 11-2 and App State 10-4), the Cajuns were still ranked third in ESPN's final 2021 FPI rankings behind App and Coastal. That can happen when the rankings are based solely on a number matrix.
As far as the rest of the "subjective" polls, again it's a matter of personal opinion. It is fact that over the past three years, the preseason Sun Belt rankings by Athlon's magazine has been closest to the actual results, with Lindy's magazine a close second.
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