Way too early College Football chatter

The Game Room
21

I’m a Big Ten fan. Just my opinion, but I think the consensus rankings for Wisconsin and Ohio State are too high and for Michigan State and Penn State too low.

My way too early guesses at the Big Ten -

Michigan State 5
Penn State 8
Ohio State 12
Michigan 19
Nebraska 22
Minnesota 29
Iowa 30
Wisconsin 33

Five teams in the top twenty five might seem too high, but the league does have 14 total teams now.

This might be the year Minnesota finally wins the Axe, but probably not since the game is in Madison.

22

tOSU Band is in some hot water. The Band director was fired after allegations {gasp} of band members being hazed.

23

I’m about to light out on a project that I hope somebody else has already done the grunt work on. Using the preseason rankings as they stand before AP makes things more or less official, I want to list the teams that are in anybody’s Top 25 so that there’s a reasonable chance the really strong teams will be on the list.

Then I want to check those teams’ schedules for how many of the other Top-X-Number teams they will face this season.

Then compile a listing of which teams will face the most Top-X-Number teams.

Have you seen such a breakdown yet?

24

I have seen websites that collate all the pre season rankings in past seasons. I suspect there will sites that will do the collating.

25

Some that I have located for the basic data are:

http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

26

A couple more links to add to the confusion:

http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/2014/sec-football-strength-of-schedule-2014/

Once Jeff Sagarin updates his list there may be more to work with in the SOS area. I may just wait at least that long to get deep into my “project.”

27

I can’t see PSU winning more than 8 games, let alone finishing in the top 10. They’re still under sanctions.

What the hell is going on at Texas? It sounds like half the players have been kicked off the team.

28

Can PSU go bowling? How long before the contend for a NC?

29

UCF will win 9, take the AAC again, and finish in the top 25.

Maryland will win 5 and fire Randy Edsall.

30

All ten teams of the Big Twelve have had a lot of police problems this off season. At least, on casual inspection it seems that way. If not being in trouble for DUI, drug possession, or beating on someone, they have scholastic issues. And not just the grunt players. The high profile ones, too.

Hey, if enough Big12 players get arrested, indicted, scholastically suspended, or kicked off the teams, maybe they’ll let some women try out!

31

Looking at Mississippi State, I count 7 “should win” games: Southern Miss, UAB, South Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, UT Martin, and Vanderbilt.

I count 3 “Unlikely to win” games: Bama, LSU, Auburn

Which leaves 2 “make or break the season” games: Texas A&M, and as always, Ole Miss.

I think 9 wins are possible, but 10 or more would probably trigger a zombie apocalypse. I’m going to call 8 wins with fingers crossed for more.

32

I follow SEC (but watch all football), and this is how I see this year playing out.

SEC East:
1.) Mizzou :smiley:
They will surprise everyone this year, again, and win the East. They have home games against Georgia, Vandy, Kentucky, and Arky. Away games against S.C., Florida, Tenn, and aTm. They will win 2 of 3 from S.C. aTm and Florida while Carolina as usual loses a game they souldn’t (Tenn last year).

2.)Georgia
Will have a great running game returning with Gurley and Marshall. Georgia’s cross divisional games are Auburn and @ Arky, and they are also away at S.C. early in the year. They will finish with the same conference record but lose to tie-breaker to Mizzou.

3.)South Carolina.
Like I said they will end up losing to Florida or Tennessee and after losing to both Auburn and aTm finish the season in conference 5-3. They will also lose to “Big Brother” Clemson.

4.)Florida
Muschamp.

5.)Tennessee
How a once mighty program has fallen.

6.)Kentucky
I actually like the recruiting classes they have brought in the last couple years. Could surprise a team or two.

7.)Vandy
With their former coach leaving and taking recruits with him it doesn’t look good for the 'Dores this year.

SEC West

1.)2.)3.) Alabama, Auburn, LSU
Have no clue how these teams will finish, they all have lost big pieces. Auburn is returning their QB and a lot of other piece, but who knows.

4.)aTm
They will continue to be a little too creepy (as a school) for my liking.

5.)MSU
Dak. Dak. Dak. is all you will hear until they have their stretch against LSU, aTm, and Auburn and then it will taper off. MSU somehow lucked themselves into the SEC, where realistically (on a scholastic level) they should be in the Sunbelt. They will however win their Superbowl against Ole Miss.

6.) Ole Miss
Attended a game there last year, had a good time, but the Grove is overrated.

7.) Arky
Will once again go 0-8 in conference.

33

Retro-WTH happened to the Vols?

34

Dooley.

35

I’m liking my Spartans in the Big Ten again this year. Schedule is favorable with Ohio State and Michigan both at home. Best non-conference game of the year is Michigan State at Oregon. I like Wisconsin to win the Big Ten West and get postitively stuffed in the title game by MSU. About halfway through the year I expect Maryland and Rutgers to wonder what they were thinking when they joined.

36

I feel the same about the Big Ten, I’ll start paying attention as soon as they have 10 decent teams.

37

It may well be that no conference has a BIG 10 teams. I can’t account for more than these currently contending SEC teams:

Georgia
South Carolina
Missouri
Florida

Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Ole Miss

You might toss in a couple more after the season gets underway, but my source for this “guess” is

and you can check for the other conferences there or some other “reliable” prognosticator.

They can’t all be “California Girls.” :smiley:

38

Have you had this thought lately: now that the FBS division is up to 128 schools (a neat member in the powers of 2) would it make better sense to move the Top X-Number up to 32? Why 25 for so long?

Isn’t it pretty close to a certainty that at least the Top 32 will have at least winning records when it’s all said and done? Not necessarily the Preseason Top 32, but the end-of-season batch? With the inclusion of out-of-division games in the win-loss records, can’t there be more than 64 Winning Teams in the FBS?

According to Dennis Dodd

Should we at SDMB instigate our own Top 32 so as to get ahead of the game?

39

When (and why) did it become 25, anyway? I remember when the standard was 20.

Besides - technically, you can expand both the coaches and AP polls out to every team that got at least one vote. Both polls include “also receiving votes” lists (with numbers) each week.

The NCAA already has a plan in place should there not be enough bowl-eligible teams. If this happens, teams become eligible using the following priority:
[ol]
[li]Teams that did not have a win against an FCS opponent that gave out at least 90% of scholarships in the previous two years (each team can count one such win per year), but would be bowl-eligible if a win it had against an FCS opponent that did not meet the scholarship requirement were to count;[/li][li]Teams that beat two FCS teams and would be eligible if both wins counted;[/li][li]Teams that had a regular season record of 6-7 (a team that plays an away game at Hawaii gets a 13th regular season game)[/li][li]Teams in their fourth year of FCS-to-FBS transition that would be eligible if they were already full FBS schools;[/li][li]Teams that went 5-7 and are in the top 5 of the FBS APR.[/li][/ol]

40

Just missed the edit window…I thought I’d add, just in case anyone is wondering:

The “UCLA Exception” now applies to all teams automatically - a team is considered bowl-eligible if it finishes its regular season bowl-eligible but then plays in, and loses, its conference championship game. (Not too many years ago, UCLA went 6-6 in the regular season, but lost the Pac-12 Championship Game, technically making them bowl-ineligible; they appealed to the NCAA, which granted a waiver.)