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By Gary Cole
I have to be honest. The only upset I ever correctly predicted was one that took place immediately after I'd eaten a plate of questionable mussels at a late-night joint in New Jersey. I've been prognosticating Playboy's top 25 in college football for 21 years now. I've correctly, and perhaps luckily, predicted the eventual national champion six times during that span -- better than most of the sports media that don't feature Playmates. However, I still can't figure out how to predict an upset.
Last season was the year of the upset. Fans witnessed three of the greatest shockers of all time. The significant number of upsets once again threw the herky-jerky BCS formula for determining a national champion into confusion. Let's not get sidetracked into that whole "should we or shouldn't we have a playoff to determine the college-football national champ" debate. Clearly, we should. But because certain college administrators and bowl lobbyists don't want it, we won't have it. Let's look instead at the schedules for this upcoming season and try to imagine another instance of a Division I-AA team beating a preseason top five as Appalachian State did to Michigan last year. Or a 41-point underdog defeating one of the most dominant football teams in the nation over the past several years, as the unranked Stanford Cardinal did to number-two ranked USC last October. How do you forecast those kinds of results? Forget it. It can't be done. Rather than risk another plate of rotten mollusks, I'll focus on the teams that have the best players and coaches, the most favorable schedules and the best chance of coming up big winners as this season kicks off.
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