NCAA bracket predictions: Picks based on college football

While Florida went 0-1 against FCS teams in 2013, Albany is an especially bad FCS team.

Pitt, UCLA, Ohio State, Syracuse, and Stanford are obvious picks over Colorado, Tulsa, Dayton, Western Michigan, and New Mexico. And Stephen F. Austin over VCU, considering VCU doesn’t have a football team.

This region also contains a Kansas game.

Florida plays Pitt, and I don’t really have to make a choice between brand-name and store-brand sadness, since either loses to UCLA in the Sweet Sixteen anyway.

Ohio State edges Syracuse by a suspiciously low margin, remains No. 2 in the BCS, is favored by six points against Stanford in the next round.

Florida-UCLA might be the most spastic possible game between two major football schools. While the Gators’ bold incompetence is well known, the Bruins did things in 2013 like commit more penalties than all but three teams, an improvement over ranking the year prior. UCLA is better at football, but do not expect a pretty game. The SEC is thus eliminated.

Ohio State loses to Stanford, remains No. 2 in the BCS.

It wasn’t until right here that I realized we actually have to choose whether to go with 2013 teams or 2014 teams for this. As you can see by Stanford beating UCLA to reach the Final Four, we’re using 2013 teams.

Easy choices here: Memphis over George Washington, Cincinnati over Harvard, Michigan State over Delaware, North Carolina over Providence, Iowa State over NC Central, and Villanova over Milwaukee.

We’ve got what some would describe as a football upset: Coastal Carolina over Virginia. The Chanticleers are one of FCS’ best teams, having reached the playoffs semifinals, while Virginia had one post-August win.

This region also contains a UConn game.

In-theory upsets continue in the East, with Coastal Carolina over Memphis and Villanova over UConn. Sagarin says so!

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio beats up on his previous employer, Cincinnati.

Paul Rhoads is excited.

Michigan State and North Carolina end the Coastal Carolina and Villanova upset sprees.

Michigan State loves to punt. UNC’s only hope to score against Michigan State is punt returner Ryan Switzer. The Spartans puzzle through the quandary and decide to limit themselves to only so many punts, advancing to the Final Four.

Stress-free selections: Arizona, Oklahoma State, San Diego State, Baylor, UL-Lafayette, and Wisconsin to beat Weber State, Gonzaga, New Mexico State, Nebraska, Creighton, and American, which might or might not be an American Athletic Conference all-stars team.

Oregon beats BYU, but we should note these two teams put a combined 766 rushing yards on Texas.

Oklahoma beats North Dakota State, and every other AQ-conference team here is really, really glad Oklahoma got North Dakota State.

Four honest-to-gosh good football teams enter the Sweet Sixteen, with Oklahoma State over Arizona, Oklahoma over San Diego State, Baylor over UL-Lafayette, and Oregon over Wisconsin.

Bracket Bedlam! Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State in unconvincing fashion during the regular season. The rematch is a coin flip. Let’s say OU wins, since it already did.

Oregon beats Baylor, despite Bret Bielema tweeting outrageous medical facts the entire game.

If we want to do the common opponents thing, we’ll note Oregon beat Texas by 23 and Texas beat Oklahoma by 16. Ducks to the Final Four.

The no-brainers here are Cal Poly over Wichita State (which hasn’t played football in decades), Kansas State over Kentucky, NC State over Saint Louis, Louisville over Manhattan (though this means no Manhattan, New York vs. Manhattan, Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen), Iowa over UMass, and Duke over Mercer (great job, Duke!).

Arizona State to beat Texas is the hardest pick of the whole first round, as no reasonable person should have any degree of confidence in either of these teams. The advanced stats all still love the Sun Devils, with F/+, SRS, and Sagarin ranking them in the top 20, so alright.

This region also contains a Michigan game ... against a SoCon team! Those are always pretty good.

K-State beats Cal Poly and Louisville beats NC State, with both games having about the same score.

8-5 Iowa over 10-4 Duke probably seems like an upset, but the Hawkeyes’ defense would be one of the three best Duke saw all year — the other two, Virginia Tech and Florida State, held the Blue Devils’ busy offense to 20 total points.

Arizona State vs. Michigan would be the most slapstick football thing ever conceived. It would either be a 39-point blowout or a goal-line catastrophe that would be memed forever. All we know is that ASU would win.

Kansas State beats Louisville, and you’re all just going to have to deal with it.

Iowa is the next to tumble into Arizona State’s tunnel of madness.

Kansas State finally puts a stop to Arizona State’s nonsense, reaching the Final Four.

We’ve already seen Stanford vs. Michigan State in the Rose Bowl, and that was in the Cardinal’s home state, with Spartans linebacker and captain Max Bullough suspended. There’s no clear reason a do-over in Texas would end more kindly for Stanford.

We’ve also recently seen Oregon vs. Kansas State, with the Ducks winning the previous year’s Fiesta Bowl.

The Michigan State vs. Oregon final is just about the only really hard to game to pick on the whole board. Considerations:

We’re taking Michigan State to beat Oregon, but it’s still a brilliant clash of styles. And this is with 2013 rosters, of course; we’ll get to see what the 2014 editions do to each other in Eugene on Sept. 6.