NCAA Football 2021-22 Season

I'd bet a steam game or something similar that a close SEC championship sees both teams in the playoff. Like if they are within 7 both teams will go.

$10 in Steam bucks? And to be clear, I'm only betting on Bama not making it on a narrow loss, 7 points or less. I think Georgia is in no matter what.

ND is in before a close loss Bama, and ND is in the clubhouse.

If OK. St and Michigan win their title games, they are in before a close loss Bama.

Cincy beating Houston is probably in before a close loss Bama.

Close loss Bama needs lots of help.

Tennessee did better than I expected this year, finishing 7-5 during the regular season and 4-4 in the SEC. In my youth, I would have hated that and thought we had a failure year, but for a team that's been through what this one has, including going 3-7 last year, firing a complete football staff including the AD (officially he retired) that won your last national championship in a cheating controversy, then having !30! players hit the transfer portal in the offseason. Not to mention the trauma the fanbase has gone through since Fulmer's original firing with all the bad coaching hires.

And UT went down to the end with Pitt and Ole Miss and could have conceivably won one or both of those in a slightly different universe with a couple of minor breaks. We were at least competitive in all games this year up until half, then our depleted roster just couldn't keep up with Alabama, Florida, and Georgia and collapsed somewhere in the second half. Recent years we'd have been boat raced in at a majority of those games.

Heupel at 7-5 has the best record of any first year coach this year (at least at a P5?), and is one of only a handful of coaches in UT history to win 7 games in his first year, and the only one following a 3 win season (not a ton of those in UT history). (At least from reports I heard on some podcasts on my drive home).

So going in this team and coaching staff had low expectations and they definitely far exceeded them. Plus, it was a very fun team to watch with some crazy offensive stats (especially after the Pruitt/Guarantano's era).

Hopefully improvement will continue next year, but we'll have to hit the transfer portal hard. Our recruiting class right now is still hurt by the looming sanctions, but looking at what Heupel did for players like QB Hooker (VT) and receiver Velus Jones (USC) who transferred in, maybe we can be a second chance option for some good kids lost in depth charts around the country. Especially with the new rule that allows for up to 8 to replace kids that transfer out.

This is how you rivalry!

Quick, what is the last non-military academy football game of the 2021 regular season? SEC Championship? B1G or B12 championship? ACC Championship?

NO! Your final 2021 regular season football game is the 4-7 u$c trojans against your mighty 4-7 California Golden Bears at 8pm Pacific as a makeup game for the game that was COVID postponed 2 weeks ago. With absolutely nothing on the line, this should be all sorts of exciting. Maybe Lincoln Riley will be hiding in the stands. I'm sure there will be plenty of good seats for him to fit into.

Yeah $10 in steam bucks works for me.

Oh, I don't know.

Georgia's D line against Bama's O line?

Brian Robinson, the Tide's leading rusher is probably out.

Brock Bowers against your linebackers?

Georgia's D has given up 83 points, except not really, as the offense gave up two scores, so the defense has actually only given up 69 points (Nice!) and even then, 21 of those points were given up deep in garbage time by the third and fourth stringers.

Oh, and you know who is number two in scoring defense? Clemson at 180 points.

Or how about, the scores of our four common opponents?

And what exactly are Alabama's impressive wins? Ole Miss, with Lane going for it on fourth down 28 different times? The Hurricanes?

To be clear, y'all have a great QB and some good wideouts, and more overall talent than anyone else the Dawgs have played this year and maybe you win. But this is not last year's Tide team and this is not last year's Dawgs.

Hotter take... he'll have a harder time beating MWC teams than SEC teams... as the Pac-12 always does. If he wanted to beat up on SEC and B12 teams (past, present and future), maybe he should have come to Cal.

Wouldn't he be better off just losing to Alabama every year? Fed, I think you've argued for A&M to be in the playoffs more when you lost to them last year than when you beat them this year.

We had one loss last year, to Bama. We should have been in there over those fraudulent teams. We didn't have any record to brag about this year, despite beating them. But you know this, you troublemaker!

Still not hot, still just facts!

I don't think it's that SEC losses don't count. I think it's losses to the #1 that may not move you down quite as much. I haven't looked to see how many top 4 losses are there in the top 5 or 6 teams to know how that counts this year.

Don't know your point. He's not suggesting that A&M should be playoff bound this year. He was talking last year when their only loss was to the #1. Pretty reasonable argument that A&M would have had a better showing than ND last year.

The discussion is if Alabama loses to UGA and A&M this year if one loss to a #1 and one to team like A&M would have them out.

And which one of those teams is playing the #1 this week? Or even somebody in the top 5? (None of them)

I'm not even arguing that Alabama should be in. New blood in the playoffs will be fun. But do those other teams look better? We'll see after this week.