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As 2014 comes to a close, the inaugural FBS playoff system is about to ramp up with the Big 12 sitting on the outside in a couple New Year's Eve/Day bowls. We find ourselves sItting just outside those bowls, playing in the air-conditioned confines of the Alamodome, where, well you know what happened last time. But before we get into all of that, I'm going to bore you with some numbers about how terrible we are at predicting outcomes.
It turns out we had a more realistic idea of how we would fare before the season as opposed to the weekly polls that were administered. Our preseason hunches outperformed our in season thoughts 79% to 76.3%, even though only 3.9% of us predicted TCU would win in August.
Digging a little deeper, it appears that as time passed and we got ever so slightly older, our cynicism started to kick in and our optimism really took a hit. Either that, or other team's fans more readily voiced their opinions, but that detracts from my narrative. In games that the Cats won, 72.1% predicted that would be the case a few days before, when 91.8% of our younger, less scornful selves knew that would be the case.
Of course, the positive side to our more pessimistic outlook on life is a more accurate loss prediction. However, 49.4% to 40.6% is not enough to offset the almost 20% difference in win predictions in the overall scheme of things. So lets all do ourselves a favor and look on the bright side of life.
| 2014 Regular Season Schedule |
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| Date | Opponent | Preseason Poll |
Result | Weekly Poll | |||||
| Win | Lose | L > 7 | L = 7 | Tie | W = 7 | W > 7 | |||
| 8/30/14 6:10 p.m. | Stephen F. Austin | 408 | 0 | W 55-16 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 284 |
| 9/6/14 11:00 a.m. | @Iowa State | 389 | 17 | W 32-28 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 22 | 380 |
| 9/13/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 9/18/14 6:30 p.m. | Auburn | 297 | 109 | L 14-20 | 203 | 27 | 54 | 141 | 46 |
| 9/27/14 11:00 a.m. | Texas-El Paso | 192 | 0 | W 58-28 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 146 |
| 10/4/14 6:00 p.m. | Texas Tech | 188 | 4 | W 45-13 | 32 | 26 | 2 | 27 | 330 |
| 10/11/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 10/18/14 | @Oklahoma | 81 | 111 | W 31-30 | 53 | 28 | 17 | 161 | 62 |
| 10/25/14 | Texas | 174 | 5 | W 23-0 | 6 | 13 | 0 | 37 | 261 |
| 11/1/14 | Oklahoma State | 170 | 9 | W 48-14 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 257 |
| 11/8/14 | @TCU | 172 | 7 | L 20-41 | 61 | 59 | 18 | 241 | 145 |
| 11/15/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 11/20/14 6:00 p.m. | @West Virginia | 230 | 3 | W 26-20 | 26 | 22 | 4 | 96 | 98 |
| 11/29/14 | Kansas | 232 | 1 | W 51-13 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 171 |
| 12/6/14 | @Baylor | 129 | 104 | L 27-38 | 83 | 24 | 5 | 169 | 61 |
| 2015 Alamo Bowl | |||||||||
| Date | Opponent | Preseason Poll |
Result | Weekly Poll | |||||
| Win | Lose | L > 7 | L = 7 | Tie | W = 7 | W > 7 | |||
| 1/2/15 | UCLA | - | - |
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Third place Big 12 finish = Alamo Bowl berth.
Our final opponent of the season features a UCLA team that garnered national title hype at the beginning of the season and has largely failed to live up to expectations. Nevertheless, the 14th ranked Bruins feature a potent offense and finished 6-3 (coming a few feet right of finishing 7-2) in one of the toughest conferences in the nation.
In the F/+ rankings, UCLA sits two spots higher that the Wildcats at 19th. Their offense ranks among the elite at seventh overall, but defense and special teams have been more suspect at times. While being ranked 49th in both those departments isn't bad by any means, it has held them back from the lofty goals set at the beginning of the season for them.
According to Vegas, the Bruins will win by 1.5. According to our respective Texas scores (backup quarterback or not), the good guys will win by 20.
Vote, be merry, and whatnot.