As if the editors don’t make us conspicuous enough by putting our big, ugly mugs in the color a couple times each week, partner-in-crime Whitehouse and I provide additional fodder each preseason — and every week thereafter — by putting our fearless (clueless?) predictions in bold type.

Well, in this season of exorbitant claims and fact-checking (insert your joke about horses or bayonets or binders full of women here), I’ve decided to save you the research and the harassment by holding us accountable, myself.

Before I dive much more deeply into this statistical analysis, I would implore you to divert your eyes to the bottom of this page where we make our weekly picks.

See? We’re not entirely stupid. I’ve been right, oh, about 80 percent of the time. Whitehouse marginally less than that. Not that I’m keeping track.

Where the comic relief really kicks in is if and when you go back and reference our conference predictions from the final Friday in August, or inspect our state championship game forecast the following Thursday.

The only reason you would have saved them is if you’re a professional heckler or a stalker. And while I have encountered each during this glorious career, I’m going to assume you’ve already used those scandal sheets as kindling.

So allow me to walk us back through the four conferences that are home to local teams and see where we went right and where we went — ahem — oh-so-wrong.

Eastern Class A

Well, we both had Lawrence. That was an intelligent pick, even if it was wholly un-courageous. The Bulldogs have dropped precisely one regular-season game in the past six seasons.

Yours truly had Bangor finished second and pushing Lawrence to the brink in a barnburner of a Pine Tree Conference title game. That one didn’t pan out, but I’d like to believe that injuries were a factor and that all things being equal, the Rams had the talent to make such a run. Last week’s rout of Messalonskee seemed to prove that.

Otherwise, we did OK. Brunswick, Messalonskee and Cony were in our upper echelon back on Preview Sunday. We missed Oxford Hills as the best of the three local schools, although Edward Little’s narrow victory in the rain a week ago showed just how paper-thin that margin was, anyway.

Not bad. So we can stop now, right?

Oh,  alright …

Eastern Class B

Let’s stick with the news from the Duhhhhh Department. Mt. Blue and Leavitt were one-two from the beginning of last season through the bulk of this one. Wasn’t hard to see that coming.

I did make the unfortunate comment in our live, online preseason show that the gap between the Cougars and Hornets and the rest of the league might be even wider this fall. Not true. Hampden and Gardiner both have proven that they belong in the conversation.

One of us did correctly forecast Mt. Blue’s Week 6 victory in Turner, almost hitting the score on the nose. It wasn’t the dude with the red hair. But I digress.

As for the order of from fifth on back, hey, that gap didn’t change. I’m pretty sure I threw those names in a hat and picked them out one at a time.

Western Class B

Yup, this is where the unintentional comedy kicks in.

Both of us thought Mountain Valley had one more regional and state title run left in them. This posed major problems for us when Westbrook shut out the Falcons in Week 1, causing coach Jim Aylward to publicly question our sanity. Without mentioning names, of course.

Oh, like he would have picked a team that had advanced to the regional final eight years in a row to finish sixth in the conference. And as if you would have, too.

Speaking of throwing names into a hat, that might have been the best policy for ranking the playoff teams in the big-school division of the Campbell Conference, given the way that Marshwood, York, Wells, Greely and Westbrook beat up on one another the past eight weeks.

Western Class C

Feeling pretty good about myself here, since I had Traip-Oak Hill as the regional title tilt from Day 1. Both teams have big, senior-dominated lines and potent running games that have served them well all year and should shine even more brightly in the mud and cold weather.

We were in relative agreement that Yarmouth would be part of the conversation. Hey, I’ll defend that one. It would be hard to dismiss a program that entered the season with 24 straight wins and back-to-back state titles, regardless of graduation losses.

Take out Winthrop, plug in Old Orchard Beach and we would have gone 8-for-8 in forecasting the playoff field. The Ramblers had too many injuries and not enough beef up front to hang with this season’s physical pack.

Looking for more bold predictions? Better check in every Thursday from now until mid-November.

Making any calls that aren’t on a week-to-week basis is a crazy endeavor at this point. Even we aren’t that dumb.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter (@Oaksie72).