And once again, the annual fawning over OU begins. Every year the beat up on Big 12 teams and convince sports writers to take them seriously, usually to be let down in January. There should be ZERO Big 12 teams in the playoff this year. Washington could be in it if they can avenge their lone defeat in the Pac 12 title game and if there’s a decisive victory / defeat in the upcoming Ohio State - Michigan game. If there’s a low-scoring game that ends in OT it’s entirely possible that Washington gets screwed even if they do win the PAC 12, though there’s pressure to reward conference champs. Will be interesting indeed.
In other news, looks like Charlie Strong is out – which is to be expected. I liked Strong and thought he’d do well but he just hasn’t had a handle on the program. Tom Herman now looks like the likely replacement and that would make sense given his knowledge of Texas recruiting. Some writers are already saying that Ed Orgeron is absolutely out after the loss to Florida. I’d say his chances went from about 66 percent to about 50%. The problem for LSU is they don’t have any names handy. I don’t think they’d do well to fire Orgeron, who has absolutely gotten more performance out of LSU than Miles has the last 2 seasons (at least so far) – not unless Urban Meyer, Jimbo Fisher, or Chris Peterson expresses serious interest. And that’s just a fantasy at this point.
I’ve watched very little college football this year, but let me do my annual rant on the stupidity of the ridiculous trend of constantly changing uniforms. Ohio State, in the biggest game of the year with the most tradition, is wearing black helmets. They shouldn’t call them uniforms, just call them costumes. It sucks that the football team has more costumes than the theatre department at most universities these days.
I was very disappointed Michigan didn’t win. As a Wisconsin fan, beating them in the conference championship game would have given us a really good chance at a final four. Now, even if we beat Penn State, we probably won’t make the playoffs.
Given how well Penn State has been playing, I suspect they’ll be favored.
I hate the trend of having different unis every game. OSU wearing those ridiculous grey helmets made it seem like they weren’t respecting the tradition. As a Spartan, I didn’t have a dog in the fight but I think the Wolverines got screwed over by the officials, who should have been wearing scarlet and grey stripes. They blew a pass interference non-call against OSU and called PI on Michigan on a non-catchable ball. The fourth down spot was very close and I don’t mind so much that one going the other way, but all day long they put their whistles in their pockets when OSU was guilty of something and blew them freely on U-M.
If Penn State defeats Wisconsin, I think the Nittany Lions, and not the OSU Buckeyes, should enter the CFP. They’ve got one more loss but if they win convincingly in the finale then they’d clearly be the best team in the Big 10 over the last 8 games, including a win over OSU. Of course I know that won’t happen - the TV execs want another Bama - OSU rematch and they’ll use the fact that OSU has only one loss as justification for setting up the rematch of 2014. Wouldn’t be right, though.
I don’t see the playoff changing from what it is now, though there are occasionally shocking upsets. But I fully expect Alabama v Washington and Clemson v Ohio State.
I highly doubt Clemson loses – Clemson/VT is a complete mismatch in 2016. Now in another year or two, VT could be for real, but I fully anticipate a throttling by the Tigers this weekend. I think the Tigers got a little bored at the mid-way point of the season and didn’t believe they could lose. Pitt proved 'em wrong and they’ve been playing with more focus lately.
Washington, on the other hand, is playing a game opponent in the Buffs. I still think the Huskies are better, mainly on the strength of their defense, but I could at least see this game producing a surprise result.
Surprised it didn’t happen earlier. The fans and the boosters were never really thrilled with Helfrich to begin with but felt that they’d already recruited a team that was adapted to the Chip Kelly system and wanted continuity as long as Marcus Mariota was QB. The team has pretty much collapsed since his departure and now they want a new direction.
In case anyone else hasn’t noticed yet, once again there will not be enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all 40 bowl games. Louisiana-Lafayette and Army can still become bowl eligible with wins, but that’s still not enough.
Assuming the APRs that the NCAA has online are accurate, and the ones being used, four teams are guaranteed bowl berths:
Hawaii (because of an NCAA bylaw that says a 6-7 team has to be chosen before any team with only 5 wins)
Army (even if it loses, it would have the highest APR among the teams that weren’t 6-6 or better - actually, Army would be 6-6 if it loses to Navy, but the six wins included two FCS teams, and a team can count only one FCS win towards bowl eligibility)
North Texas
Mississippi State (this gives the SEC 12 bowl teams, tying its own record for the most in a year by a single conference)
There are two spots left. South Alabama and Louisiana-Lafayette get them if they win.
If either loses, Texas gets in
If both lose, Northern Illinois gets in.
The next three teams on the list are Louisiana-Monroe (if it beats Louisiana-Lafayette), Cal, and Arizona State, but for any of them to get in, at least one team would have to turn down a bowl invitation. (If Texas gets in, then three of the five teams Cal beat this year would be in bowls - the other two being UCLA, which would have gotten in had it beaten Cal as its APR is better than Mississippi State’s, and Oregon - while Cal is left out.)
There are 128 FBS teams, and 39 bowls (the 40th is actually the championship game). Do the math on that - you’d need to have 78 out of 128 teams at .500 or better. It seems inevitable that we’re going to have a few sub-.500 teams in a bowl game every year.
And I’d bet on having more bowl games in the future, not on less. College football is going to turn into a frickin’ t-ball league, everybody gets a trophy.
So we might have a bunch of teams not knowing what bowl they’re going to or whom they’ll be playing until a week before, and scrambling to get the travel together on 3-4 days notice. Mind you, as a casual observer I love the chaos. But I’d probably hate this if I was trying to prepare a team for a mid-level bowl game.
There are 40 bowls this season, not counting either the CFP championship game (which, for strange NCAA bylaw purposes, is technically not a “bowl game”) or the Celebration Bowl (which is FCS). 80 of the 128 FBS teams qualify.
Some sites (ESPN, for example) don’t list the Cure Bowl for some reason.
