2025 college football season thread

The Game Room
181

Florida State, Auburn, UCF, Rutgers and Temple, 5-7 teams all, have also now told the bowls “no thanks.”

I think this is a slow burning situation that is either a result of the expanding playoff fields or something which will affect schedules in the future, I can’t decide which.

Mike DeCourcey of The Sporting News is arguing with me on Twitter that conference schedules won’t increase in number because schools need the two home cupcake games to maximize revenue. I believe instead that dissatisfaction with unbalanced schedules will win out and that schools will make up the revenue with more meaningful and competitive games.

182

You’re getting close to a system similar to what the UEFA Champions League uses and have set my evil heart aflutter.

183

I thought the teams benefiting from that arrangement were the cupcakes. A team like, say, Samford, makes up a good chunk of their athletic department budget when they get payed a million dollars (or whatever the number is) to go to College Station every year to get slaughtered by the Aggies. Texas A&M doesn’t benefit except for an easy victory. As a fan (of Texas, not A&M), I’d say those games need to disappear from the schedule.

184

Ohio State almost always plays another in-state public university every year in order to spread the wealth. Not good for the Buckeyes, but it is good for other schools.

185

Not that it would ever happen, but from a fan’s standpoint I think it would be better if that money was just transferred due to some kind of NCAA profit sharing rule, the cupcake games eliminated, and those games replaced with games that are competitive.

186

Definitely, but the problem is political: the boosters of the other schools love to watch their team play Ohio State in the Horseshoe, and they vote. Ultimately taxpayer-funded universities like OSU have to serve the public. (The legislature has considered requiring the games.)

Ohio State doesn’t try to schedule cupcakes, although it’s hard to find ranked teams willing to play.

187

It seems like an odd way of thinking to me. I wouldn’t want to see my hometown Texas A&M - Kingsville (although I still think of them as Texas A&I) Javelinas go up to Austin or College Station to serve as cannon fodder for the Longhorns or Aggies.

188

Whatever the reasons for the cupcake games, there is some kind of a market for them. That market doesn’t include me; I won’t watch them or bet on them.

But they’re pretty useless in determining playoff participants, something for which I am very much in the market.

189

You can always guarantee that when something like this comes up, the answer to why a powerhouse school is doing something isn’t ever “out of the kindness of their hearts”.

When you put McNeese State on your schedule, you don’t get to raise ticket prices like you do when you schedule LSU. So how do you make up that lost revenue? By not having to schedule an away game against McNeese State the following year. The cupcake games give you both an easy win and an extra home game.

190

It’s because of the transfer portal

191

Ohio State, like other big-time schools loves to schedule games against lesser programs and is happy to pay for its guaranteed wins.* While OSU in some years does play other in-state schools, it’s virtually always in Columbus. OSU has played the only other really competitive university in the state, Cincinnati, a total of six times since 1999, and all but one of those games was at home (in the one exception played in Cincinnati, OSU squeaked through with a four-point win, so they’re probably loath to make that scheduling mistake again).

*gotta be careful though to avoid something like Michigan’s debacle against Appalachian State.

192

I think that’s why these days they schedule those cupcake games against FCS teams instead of Group of 5 FBS teams.

193

Are the lesser Bowls going to die out? When 5-win teams decline your invitation, it doesn’t bode well. Will advertisers pull away? Fan interest?

194

Gosh, I hope not. Once again, I can hardly wait to watch the StaffDNA Cure Bowl.

195

I’m diehard Notre Dame, but I’ll be objective. It’s the process to pick playoff teams that is bonkers, and at best, arbitrary. My fantasy football league process is much more transparent and consistent.

Strength of Schedule was relatively comparable; from the teens to the top 30’s. Except for Tulane and JMU, who had awful SOS.

On Nov 4, with both teams 6-2 and Miami with a head-to-head win over ND, ND was #10, Miami was #18. The committee said ND was a playoff team. Since then ND won out by a margin of almost 40pts/game. Miami won out by about 27pts/game. Not sure what changed, but I guess the head-to-head didn’t matter for many weeks and then it did matter yesterday. It was certainly public knowledge since Week 0.

When Alabama lost in week 13 and were 8-2, they fell to #10, ND went to #9, Miami was #13. According to the committee, ND was better than both those teams and a playoff team. Alabama would only go on to squeak by a coachless 5-7 Auburn team and lose by 21 points in the SEC conf game.

It’s just a weird process since the initial ranking to continually say we think you are better/a playoff team and then at the last moment, when the only thing that is different is Alabama losing by 21 points, say no, we change our minds and the rules, Alabama and Miami are in fact better, ND is out. Every other team to ever, in any year, to play a conf championship game and lose had fallen in the rankings except for Alabama yesterday.

These results/final rankings are fine, those are good teams with good arguments to make, but the committee for weeks said ND was a playoff team. And then with nothing changing (well, Alabama lost by 21), said no ND was not a playoff team anymore. Bit frustrating to parse the arbitrary change in logic.

There’s an episode of the kid’s show “Bluey” about them playing a game and wanting/needing to just cheat a little because it was getting too hard to play by the rules and still get the result they wanted. Bluey was adamant they had to play by the rules but she couldn’t explain why. Just something she felt. However, by the end, she figured out why - the rules make it fun . If you just cheat a little when it gets too hard/to get a desired outcome, the game is not as fun anymore.

196

Ohio State out-of-conference, non-cupcake opponents, during the regular season, past ten years:
2025 Texas (1)
2024 Marshall
2023 Notre Dame (9)
2022 Notre Dame (5)
2021 Oregon (12)
2018 Oregon State, Texas Christian (15)
2017 Oklahoma (5)
2016 Oklahoma (14)

Collected from 2025 Ohio State Buckeyes football team - Wikipedia and similar page for each year.

197

That’s a bunch of power teams, and good for tOSU for scheduling at least one of them each season. I wonder if any other P4/5 school has had a comparable schedule. I know that Florida and Florida State play each other consistently. And Notre Dame usually has a tough schedule early on, before conference play starts.

Of course, Ohio State followed up the Texas game this year by playing Grambling State and Ohio.

198

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if someday even a 4-loss Alabama team manages to get put into the playoffs by a committee in the upcoming years. That Bama bias is real.

199

The playoff system was supposed to solve the problem of subjective selections and bias, but it still exists. I am happy to see that Miami (though I can’t stand them) got the nod over Notre Dame because of their head-to-head win over the Irish.

It would help if conference championships counted as playoff wins.

200

That could be true, especially with ESPN owning the television rights to the SEC.

I’ve often joked with friends that the Champions League uses a mathematical, results-oriented system to determine its participants which, however flawed, is widely accepted by European futbol fans. Because the alternative is to put the tournament in the hands of flawed and corrupt humans. While here in the US we trust the process to a committee composed of people with special interests because we don’t trust computer-based metrics.