NCAA Football 2021-22 Season

Enix wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Another reason those six schools don't want an 8-team playoff, competition may disrupt their monopoly.

I don't think the networks don't want it either. Alabama in particular and the SEC in general (and Notre Dame and maybe a few other schools) are national brands. A national championship game featuring Iowa and Cincinnati and their locals-only fan bases is everyone's nightmare.

I think you're missing the point of expanding the SEC. The point is more teams in the big games to spread the money around. So expansion to 8 or 12 teams means instead of one to two spots, the SEC wants 3-4 spots (or more), likely between Alabama, UGA, UF, OU, Texas A&M, and LSU. Down the road as power teams ebb and flow, some others may more up or down that ladder. LSU seems to be falling after their one magical season for instance.

Also after the NCAA got smacked by the SCOTUS and had no prepared response, the SEC wants to control its destiny if the NCAA continues to lose power.

Enix wrote:

This is only about hustling up a buck. Don't overthink it! :P

Absolutely all of it is this.

Yes its all about money, and Sankey of course is in favor of it because its specifically more money for the SEC. A 12 team playoff for them is champions from Pac-12, ACC, B1G, Big 12, + 8 SEC teams. I am pretty sure the SEC (and other P5 conferences to be fair) are not looking for a path for Fresno State or BYU to get into a playoff.

Oh, OK.

Winners

"Group of Five: AAC commissioner Mike Aresco, who has lobbied so long and hard for his conference's inclusion, was headed out to dinner Thursday night with his wife. He was asked facetiously if he was on his second bottle of champagne. "I may drink it straight out of the bottle," Aresco said.

It's time to celebrate for the Group of Five conferences. The AAC, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt got what they always desired: a seat the table. Maybe more than one as the recommendation calls for the six highest-ranked conference champions (not specified to include the Power Five) plus six at-large teams in the field. That's another way of saying, for the first time, the Group of Five will be guaranteed at least one opportunity to play for the national championship.

In fact, Group of Five could get multiple berths. That would have happened last year when No. 8 Cincinnati and No. 12 Coastal Carolina would have gotten into the field as conference champions ahead of No. 25 Oregon."

If the goal is every G5 team gets to participate, great. If I was in charge I'd give up the Pac-12 spot to the MWC so we could play in the Rose Bowl. I'm not, so all I can argue for is if we're going to expand, that its fair and reasonable, and subjective rankings that one conference self-perpetuates, is not fair and reasonable.

Lets go back to traditonal bowls and we can argue whether team A or team B is number one. I'm fine with that.

Dawgs vs Ducks to start next season!

Didn't Oregon already play Fresno State this year?

Carlbear95 wrote:

Didn't Oregon already play Fresno State this year? :)

And barely survived to tell the tale!

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

At this point it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. For so long we have lived in a world where every media outlets have proclaimed Alabama and the SEC (and select other schools, one of which my wife is an alum of) world beaters that all the best high school football players have only known that, so they go to those schools. They sell the recruiting classes and the media rankings to their wealthy donors because everyone wants to support a winner, they use that money to build better facilities and hire 'better' coaches. After all, there is nothing wealthy alums like more than throwing their unneeded money at a really good football team. They then use those things to get better high schoolers.

Lather, rinse, repeat, and you have about a half dozen schools that consistently win and consistently vie for the four team playoff.

Another reason those six schools don't want an 8-team playoff, competition may disrupt their monopoly.

You were doing awesome until the bolded part! Hopefully by now you've believed what ferret said and/or checked it out for itself, because the SEC is absolutely pro-playoff expansion. There is, as some have said, definitely more money, and the SEC also believes it will get a ton of teams into a 12-team playoff. The Alliance shut it down, just as he said, after the announcement of the upcoming, misguided expansion of the conference.

Back to the main point, I agreed with everything else in your post, and highlight the difference between your position and Carl's. You correctly said that media hype leads to a team getting better players and becoming an actual top team*, whereas Carl suggested that Bama wasn't really all that.

*a certain university in Austin totally blows this argument up, but we can agree to ignore that for now.

Was reading a blog post this morning that playoff expansion is dead, at least for now. Presidents and chancellors are not even going to bother flying to the meeting to discuss because it's so dead.

*Edit, to add my actual fears for the future of CFP.

I think the Alliance if it does indeed kill playoff expansion is unintentionally dooming the conference model they are so hell bent on defending.

The Evil Mouse ultimately wants a Super League because they could care less about the G5 or even many of the Power 5. That is why they helped broker the OU/Texas move.

Without playoff expansion though, how long do one loss Oregon and Michigan's of the world stay content to narrowly miss out on CFP berths because of an every third year second SEC or ND inclusion.

What happens with the Mouse starts whispering to the Trojans, Huskies, Badgers, Nitty Lions, Heels and Noles and or Canes that hey, how bout you leave your ol buddies behind, at least for football and join the Super League. What is Washington St doing for your UCLA? You want a shot at the big money Sparty, well, tell those Boilermakers good bye, you can always see them on the hardwood.

The notion that the sport will ever go back to the bowl system is laughable. The mouse won't allow it. Too much money. Live sports is the last bastion of all that sweet, sweet ad revenue and the rodent has a nasty habit. If that Bristol plague carrier can guarantee more and more match ups like Penn St vs Auburn, it would be folly to think that its appetite will ever be sated until every game is between teams that move the TV needle.

Hell, this dystopian future might be unavoidable anyway, but I fear it accelerates without a CFP expansion.

At least we'll always have App over Michigan and that one time UCF declared themselves National Champs.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Back to the main point, I agreed with everything else in your post, and highlight the difference between your position and Carl's. You correctly said that media hype leads to a team getting better players and becoming an actual top team*, whereas Carl suggested that Bama wasn't really all that.

I'm not quite sure what I said to make you think this or if you are half joking

Carlbear95 wrote:

If we're willing to just assume Alabama is head and shoulders above the rest, then what?

Is what I said... maybe the word "just" is the word that's out of place. The intent behind that is we are taking "as a given that Alabama is head and shoulders above the rest". I think that's a fair statement. Even in the years they didn't win the national championship they are still probably one of the best teams in football. The "then what" part of it is what I meant to focus on. "Alabama is good therefore the SEC is good" is as true a statement as "Oregon is good therefore the Pac-12 is good". Cal beat Oregon last year so should go to the playoffs is the same as "Texas A&M lost to Alabama by x points" so should go to the playoffs (at least in their current 4-team form).

Anyways, Badferret's post is the first I've seen with regards to the CFP meetings, so it doesn't look great. Thankfully for Oregon and Michigan there is another answer.. ROSES. For whoever else.. don't you have the Gator or Orange or some other bowl?

Well, if you agree that Bama has been excellent to elite every year for a decade plus, then we have nothing to argue about there. They've earned the benefit of the doubt.

Honestly, the SEC debate has happened on this thread so many times that it isn't worth regurgitating, imho.

I still contend Alabama was gifted that title in 2011 when the computers and a lot of people had Oklahoma St above them. And nobody in their right mind wanted to see a 9-6 game rematch.

If LSU won, not much might have changed regarding SEC bias. But imagine an OK St championship instead of 2 out of 3 for Bama/SEC. Would have shifted power, bias, ranking, recruiting just a bit.

But voter bias just helped create a dynasty out of one good year in 2009. And turned the SEC rah rah into a raging monster by only including them in BCS.

At least that game might have helped us get playoffs faster. But at what cost...

I'm not invested in it, but I'll play devil's advocate: The computers were an input in the BCS formula. And Bama had already decisively beaten the longhorns in 2009, and were about to absolutely demolish Notre Dame in 2012; they were already top-tier, and Saban had already joined the very exclusive club of coaches to win it all at more than one school.

Oklahoma State lost to Iowa State, a team with a .500 record that had only gone 3-6 in conference play. Yes, it was a very close game that went to overtime, as was the Bama-LSU game. The difference was that LSU was the number one ranked team in the country, and Iowa State was unranked and a team that hadn't won more than 7 games since 2000, with losing seasons most of those years. They didn't get any respect in those days, and didn't deserve much. Back in the BCS days, losses to teams like that were seen as disqualifying, because in getting down to two teams you could hardly afford a single loss, let alone a bad one.

Anyway, I think we all agree that we're better off with four teams, and we'd be better off with more, if only the Alliance would get with the program.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Anyway, I think we all agree that we're better off with four teams, and we'd be better off with more, if only the Alliance would get with the program.

As much as expansion is good for fans (and individual teams), waiting on the 12-team playoff is in line with "getting with the program"...if the program is to maximize revenue. From a purely financial point of view, it makes sense to wait until the CFP contracts expire to start the new format. To do that, they have to tamper fan expectations and slow-walk this thing for the near future.

firesloth wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Anyway, I think we all agree that we're better off with four teams, and we'd be better off with more, if only the Alliance would get with the program.

As much as expansion is good for fans (and individual teams), waiting on the 12-team playoff is in line with "getting with the program"...if the program is to maximize revenue. From a purely financial point of view, it makes sense to wait until the CFP contracts expire to start the new format. To do that, they have to tamper fan expectations and slow-walk this thing for the near future.

I don't see how. Surely all the parties to the CFP contracts could agree to the 12-team format, which is obviously more money. They just don't all agree right now. What am I missing?

Not that Marshall would ever be one of the four, or eight, or 12, or maybe even 16 teams, but man last night sucked. I never thought I would miss a Doc Holiday defense, but at least they were competent.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
firesloth wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Anyway, I think we all agree that we're better off with four teams, and we'd be better off with more, if only the Alliance would get with the program.

As much as expansion is good for fans (and individual teams), waiting on the 12-team playoff is in line with "getting with the program"...if the program is to maximize revenue. From a purely financial point of view, it makes sense to wait until the CFP contracts expire to start the new format. To do that, they have to tamper fan expectations and slow-walk this thing for the near future.

I don't see how. Surely all the parties to the CFP contracts could agree to the 12-team format, which is obviously more money. They just don't all agree right now. What am I missing?

Only that ESPN has exclusive rights if they add more games. So, they’ll pay them more, but within some structure defined by ESPN.

The theory is that if they take the expanded format to the open market, they could set up more of a bidding war.

Completely unacceptable by the Dawgs. Only three points in the second quarter.

Cards go up 31-7 at FSU and hold on to win 31-23. Not pretty in the second half, but good enough. And another game winning INT, not a pick 6 this time. But that's a nice streak.

Clemson falls at NCSU in OT!

So... Louisville at Wake... for 1st place in the Atlantic division next week.

Prederick wrote:

ARKANSAS GON' WOMP

What have you done, Spencer Hall?

Somebody check on Fed.

Badferret wrote:
Prederick wrote:

ARKANSAS GON' WOMP

What have you done, Spencer Hall?

Enriched our lives once again to an immeasurable degree.

MIGHT WIN. MIGHT LOSE. DEFINITELY GON' WOMP.

Prederick wrote:

Meanwhile, at Ohio State....

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FALU7e-UcAMqmQT?format=jpg&name=900x900)

Also:

IMAGE(https://www.statefansnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/ibl5srnM38qfiE.gif)

...and if anyone wants to say the Ags should be lower too, fine, I know we haven't proven anything yet - but with our schedule, we will be tested plenty by the end of the season.

Quicker then I thought for sure

karmajay wrote:
...and if anyone wants to say the Ags should be lower too, fine, I know we haven't proven anything yet - but with our schedule, we will be tested plenty by the end of the season.

Quicker then I thought for sure

Are you Kendrick Lamar? Because

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/UIe4Dmu.jpg)

Well Cal was an underdog going to Seattle and the good news is we put ourselves into a position to win it when it looked like the game would be a blow out. Ultimately we lost in OT, but there was some glimmer of hope. Our offense is "good enough", but seriously I've seen Chase Garbers throw 3 INTs and I swear its the same pass every time, a 10-15 yard out pattern to the right. Not sure if the WRs are doing a bad job route running so the DB gets an easy read to jump it, or if Garbers is throwing it that poorly, but maybe work on it a bit more in practice or stop throwing it. Also another missed wide open WR down the middle of the field that would have at least put us up at the end of regulation instead of tied.

For this week somehow Cal is opening up as 7.5 favorites home against WSU. Now the Cougars may very well be the worst team in the North, if not the Pac-12, but I don't think Cal deserves to be a 7.5 point favorite against anyone. However if our D plays like it did in the 2nd half of the UW game, I think we have a chance.