In case you haven’t noticed, we like to make predictions on this blog over the course of the spring, summer and preseason. We make a lot of them. Usually we reveal ourselves to be geniuses. Sometimes, we look like fools.
Now that the Big 12 season is all wrapped up, it’s time for a little accountability. We’re looking back on our finest and dumbest picks and prognostications for the 2015 season.
Brandon Chatmon: Oklahoma is this year’s TCU. Brandon offered up this prediction during a preseason post: “Bob Stoops’ defense should be good enough to put the Sooners in Big 12 title contention, or even battling for a College Football Playoff berth if the offense can hold up its end of the bargain,” he wrote. He was not wrong.
Jake Trotter: Baylor and TCU are undefeated in November. On Nov. 1, TCU was indeed 8-0 and Baylor was sitting at 7-0.
Max Olson: Oklahoma starts the season 9-0. This would’ve been true if not for those meddling Longhorns.
Chatmon: Kansas State starts 0-5 in Big 12 play. Yep, we actually called this during our season prediction series in the summer, and KSU started 0-6. Best reader at the time: “No way KSU loses first five conference games, they will pull off at least one ‘upset.’ These writers are clown shoes!” Clown shoes. Love it.
Olson: No Big 12 coach gets fired. This was a little too optimistic. Called this because I expected Iowa State to win enough games this season to keep Paul Rhoads safe. He will be missed.
Chatmon: Baylor doesn't top the Big 12 in points per possession. What an oddly specific thing to be wrong about. Not only did the Bears finish No. 1 in the Big 12, but their rate of 3.3 points per drive ranked No. 3 in FBS and best among all Power 5 offenses.
Trotter: West Virginia fields the best defense in the Big 12. The Mountaineers did come close to making him look good on this pick, but Oklahoma ended up finishing No. 1 in the Big 12 in scoring defense, total defense and yards per play.
Olson: The Big 12 WRs will explode. Corey Coleman and Josh Doctson were Biletnikoff Award finalists and All-Americans. Coleman won the trophy. Sterling Shepard and Jakeem Grant finished as all-time greats at their respective schools. James Washington broke out in a big way.
Trotter: Iowa State finds its featured back in Mike Warren. Darn good pick. Warren emerged from obscurity to become the nation’s leading freshman rusher.
Trotter: Oklahoma State newcomer Todd Mays steps into the Tyreek Hill role. Swing and a miss. Mays never played a game for the Pokes and elected to quit the team and drop out of school in November.
Chatmon: Oklahoma State upsets TCU. None of us got that pick right the week of the game, but Brandon correctly identified this big-time upset way back in July.
Olson: Texas-Baylor will be the most important game of Big 12 season. Memorable? Certainly. Decided who went to the Sugar Bowl? Yes. Most important? No. Those games were played in November, and Oklahoma already had the Big 12 title locked up prior to the Bears’ regular-season finale.
Trotter: King of the weekly picks. Jake finished with a record of 66-15 on his weekly picks this season. Nothing wrong with batting better than .800. Olson finished second at 63-15 and Chatmon wasn’t far behind, going 60-21.
All three: Eleven unanimous fails. Great minds don’t always think alike. We were unanimously wrong about 11 games in our weekly picks. It’s not hard to determine the worst of the worst: We were convinced West Virginia was going to upset Oklahoma in Norman. Oops.
All three: The Big 12 will be in the playoff. A Big 12 team did in fact make the College Football Playoff this year. We just didn’t tell ya it’d be the Sooners. Moral of the story: Always be hedging.