Watching the Sugar Bowl between the Utah Utes and the Alabama Crimson Tide last night, I was reminded of Stewart Mandel's preseason prediction from July 30th. (Click here to see his origjnal SI.com Mailbag prediction.)The three teams he gave the best chance of going from unranked to the top fifteen in the final 2008 rankings were the Utah Utes (who at 13-0 have a strong argument for being the National Champions and certainly can't finish lower than #2 if there's any justice), Alabama (ranked at #1 for five weeks until they lost to Florida in the SEC championship game; they'll definitely finish in the top ten), and our beloved Scarlet Knights. When the Knights were 1-5, Stewart looked like he was totally off on one of his three picks, but who would have known at that point of the season that the Knights would then pull off seven victories in a row? With an extra four points in the game against Cincinnati, we would have been going to the Orange Bowl instead of the Pizza Bowl, and we would have been ranked despite the slow start. If early season games were discounted in football the way they are in basketball, the dominant RU team of November and December would definitely be in the top 15 now, so I'm giving Stewart props for his predictive acumen.
He was also two for three on his picks for the three teams he thought had a chance to drop out of the top 25 in the final standings after starting in the top 10. West Virginia and Wisconsin didn't waste much time dropping from their preseason heights. Ending the regular season at #8, Texas Tech will probably hang onto a place in the top 25 even after their bowl loss to Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl yesterday, but they'll probably drop out of the top 10.
Congratulations Stewart! I know you're probably reminded about your bad picks more often than about those with which you're (almost) right on.
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