NCAA college football 2017-18: Official thread

I did get a "War Eagle" in at the Bama fans in my neighborhood yesterday!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Bama doesn't have the body of work this year, plain and simple. I'd be shocked if they made it in.

I wouldn't. I agree with your first comment, but there is a psychological aspect of "trust in Saban."

I mean, that's probably not wrong, in the sense that he'd probably have them ready to play (although maybe not win) a playoff game. But it's not how these things should work. This is not last year's team. Or the year before that. It should (as you allude) be based on their body of work. And if their non-conference games didn't allow them to demonstrate their prowess, so be it. Shame on them for ever scheduling Mercer.

But, as I said, I wouldn't be shocked if members of the committee decide that of course Bama has to be worthy of inclusion again this year.

HERM EDWARDS TO ARIZONA STATE SURE WHY NOT

(It's not decided yet, he's just interviewing, but still.)

Prederick wrote:

HERM EDWARDS TO ARIZONA STATE SURE WHY NOT

(It's not decided yet, he's just interviewing, but still.)

Well, at least we would know why they play the games.

firesloth wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Bama doesn't have the body of work this year, plain and simple. I'd be shocked if they made it in.

I wouldn't. I agree with your first comment, but there is a psychological aspect of "trust in Saban."

I mean, that's probably not wrong, in the sense that he'd probably have them ready to play (although maybe not win) a playoff game. But it's not how these things should work. This is not last year's team. Or the year before that. It should (as you allude) be based on their body of work. And if their non-conference games didn't allow them to demonstrate their prowess, so be it. Shame on them for ever scheduling Mercer.

But, as I said, I wouldn't be shocked if members of the committee decide that of course Bama has to be worthy of inclusion again this year.

The committee just released their rankings, and all of the top four control their own destinies. Alabama is fifth. Georgia is sixth. Miami is seventh, OSU is eighth.

All of those teams are in conference championship games except Alabama. I would guess that whoever wins is in, and Alabama would only ever have a prayer if the top four all lost. Then you'd see the winners of those games make it in, minus TCU (11), and potentially Bama. I still don't think so, though, because I believe the committee doesn't want to penalize teams for playing in a conference championship.

If the top four lost, I'd make the playoff Georgia, OSU, Miami, and Clemson. A one-loss reigning national champ has a better argument than any of the others, imho.

Yeah the talk at the end of the show was that Clemson would still get in if they lost a close one.

I only saw the show because it was on before the Louisville game. Just like the only other one I saw was between those opening basketball games a couple weeks ago. I'm here for hoops, ESPN. Stop talking so much football.

Stele wrote:

Yeah the talk at the end of the show was that Clemson would still get in if they lost a close one.

Well just for the record, this was my own independently generated thought.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
Stele wrote:

Yeah the talk at the end of the show was that Clemson would still get in if they lost a close one.

Well just for the record, this was my own independently generated thought. ;)

I know you're smarter than Herbstreit, and he said it. So yeah I believe you.

Stele wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Stele wrote:

Yeah the talk at the end of the show was that Clemson would still get in if they lost a close one.

Well just for the record, this was my own independently generated thought. ;)

I know you're smarter than Herbstreit, and he said it. So yeah I believe you.

You don't like Herbie? Most Ags do.

2013 Sugar Bowl

"Louisville has no shot to win this game."
"You could put Teddy Bridgewater, Joe Montana back there, it doesn't matter."

Etc.

And then after the ass whooping we gave, immediately making excuses.

"Florida was disinterested"

No, Herbie, you were just wrong, and you don't know sh*t.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

If the top four lost, I'd make the playoff Georgia, OSU, Miami, and Clemson. A one-loss reigning national champ has a better argument than any of the others, imho.

If Clemson loses, they'd have two losses.

Edit: If the top 4 all loss, the conference champs would be:
* ACC: #7 Miami, 11-1
* SEC: #6 Georgia, 12-1
* Big 12: #11 TCU, 11-2
* Big 10: #8 Ohio State, 11-2
And just for completeness, in the Pac 12...
* either #10 USC, 11-2 or #12 Stanford, 10-3
** USC is a 3.5 point favorite but
** ESPN's matchup predictor says Stanford has a 56.6% chance of victory

Edit2: I can tell you what I suspect most of the state of Alabama is hoping for and the rest of the country would hate...
* 1 through 3 win their conference championships and stay the same.
* Ohio State beats Wisconsin, but a two-loss Ohio State (or a 2/3-loss Pac12 champ) doesn't look as good (or can't overcome SEC bias if you prefer) as a one-loss Alabama so Alabama slots in at #4.
* Alabama avenges last year's CFPNC loss by beating Clemson at the Rose Bowl.
* This year's Sugar Bowl looks an awful lot like last year's where Auburn beat Oklahoma 35-19.
* That would make the National Championship an Iron Bowl rematch in Atlanta.

Grumpicus wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

If the top four lost, I'd make the playoff Georgia, OSU, Miami, and Clemson. A one-loss reigning national champ has a better argument than any of the others, imho.

If Clemson loses, they'd have two losses.

And still 8 wins over teams with winning records.

No one else is close to them on SoS

Stele wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

If the top four lost, I'd make the playoff Georgia, OSU, Miami, and Clemson. A one-loss reigning national champ has a better argument than any of the others, imho.

If Clemson loses, they'd have two losses.

And still 8 wins over teams with winning records.

No one else is close to them on SoS

I wasn't saying one way or the other if they got in or not. Just correcting the statement that they'd be a "one-loss reigning national champ".

Edit: Not that it matters but I only count 7 wins over teams with winning records... and a loss to 4-8 Syracuse.

My bad on the one loss statement.

However, taking Bama over Clemson would essentially penalize Clemson for playing in a championship game and reward Bama for failing to make theirs, which is contrary to the messages the committee has sent in the past. Honestly, they've done a pretty good job so far.

Easy fix that I stated last year, if you don't win your conf champ game you don't belong in the "playoffs" anyway.

karmajay wrote:

Easy fix that I stated last year, if you don't win your conf champ game you don't belong in the "playoffs" anyway.

I agree for the most part, but this could cause some weird results in the years where a divisional champ has three losses and then makes it in over a one loss team with a better SOS, etc.

We need more teams in the playoff.

Well Chip Kelly strikes early out west. Kazemir Allen, a 4* running back with 70(!!) TD's this season in California and was basically a lock for Cal, just committed to UCLA.

Grumpicus wrote:

Edit2: I can tell you what I suspect most of the state of Alabama is hoping for and the rest of the country would hate...
* 1 through 3 win their conference championships and stay the same.
* Ohio State beats Wisconsin, but a two-loss Ohio State (or a 2/3-loss Pac12 champ) doesn't look as good (or can't overcome SEC bias if you prefer) as a one-loss Alabama so Alabama slots in at #4.
* Alabama avenges last year's CFPNC loss by beating Clemson at the Rose Bowl.
* This year's Sugar Bowl looks an awful lot like last year's where Auburn beat Oklahoma 35-19.
* That would make the National Championship an Iron Bowl rematch in Atlanta.

IOW, the darkest timeline. You would hit the trifecta:
1. Two teams from the same conference in the playoffs
2. A two-loss team in the playoffs (with a legit shot at the natty)
3. An SEC SEC SEC It Just Means MoreTM final, rematch. Again.

Bonus: A non-conference champ with a shot at the National Championship.

So, this is exactly what's going to happen, isn't it?

Damn.

As cruddy as it would be for college football in general, I do admit that, as a Bama fan, there's at least a small part of me that would be thrilled at an Iron Bowl with the national championship on the line.
I'm not convinced that the outcome would be any different though.

Besides, didn't we already basically go through this in 2011/12 with Bama and LSU?

AUs_TBirD wrote:

As cruddy as it would be for college football in general, I do admit that, as a Bama fan, there's at least a small part of me that would be thrilled at an Iron Bowl with the national championship on the line.
I'm not convinced that the outcome would be any different though.

Besides, didn't we already basically go through this in 2011/12 with Bama and LSU?

I would love for it to go the same way too....

If Mike Leach to Tennessee actually happens, I will buy the SEC Network next year for that alone.

....and the press conferences where they ask him about recruiting, and he goes on a 10-minute ramble about the search for El Dorado.

Prederick wrote:

If Mike Leach to Tennessee actually happens, I will buy the SEC Network next year for that alone.

....and the press conferences where they ask him about recruiting, and he goes on a 10-minute ramble about the search for El Dorado.

Hard to believe that their current comedy of errors could lead to such a great hire. I'd love to see it happen. SEC media days would go back to having as much entertainment as when Spurrier was coaching, and since UT is in the East, we'd only have to play against him every six years.

If you want some UT history to shore up the defense, they could bring back John Chavis. I assume he's out of a job due to the A&M coaching turnover.

Chavis is still seeing recruits this week, so good on him. AFAIK he's never worked with Fisher, but that's no requirement. However, I've heard it rumored that Fisher will be trying to get the DC from South Carolina, Travaris Robinson. Chavis may well be available.

I would also be surprised if Chavis followed Sumlin. For one thing, he's used to making money most schools won't pay for coordinators. For another, I've heard rumors that Chavis disagrees with the lighter degree of contact in Sumlin's practices. Just rumors, of course, but believable.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Chavis is still seeing recruits this week, so good on him. AFAIK he's never worked with Fisher, but that's no requirement. However, I've heard it rumored that Fisher will be trying to get the DC from South Carolina, Travaris Robinson. Chavis may well be available.

I would also be surprised if Chavis followed Sumlin. For one thing, he's used to making money most schools won't pay for coordinators. For another, I've heard rumors that Chavis disagrees with the lighter degree of contact in Sumlin's practices. Just rumors, of course, but believable.

Chavis has always been odd in never really making it out of being a highly regarded coordinator into a HC. There were rumblings that he wanted the HC job at TN when they got rid of Fulmer, but don't know if that was true or not.

Seems to have done well for himself without the pressure of being up front.

Depending on what happens, people have been looking for a TN tie in new staff once the HC stuff settles down. Him or Steele at Auburn would fit the bill, but I don't know enough about Leach to know if they'd fit with his type of crazy or not.

(I'm totally not assuming Leach is coming after this debacle. Just thinking out loud)

I did enjoy this piece today on this mess:

Anyway:

We backed up the truck for Mike Gundy and made him say no. This was good! This was a good idea! The process they used to get here is:

Florida hired Dan Mullen, who I’d say was now off the board but I’m honestly not sure he was on there in the first place.

Had ….something weird happen with Jeff Brohm. I’m not sure what happened here, so I’m just going to make a note and come back to it.

Arizona State hired Herm Edwards. That has nothing to do with Tennessee, but you probably missed this yesterday and it did pretty much lock in Tennessee to the second-worst hire of the offseason at worst. Yay?

Made an offer to Dave Doeren, whose coaching profile looks like “hey, what if we hired Butch Jones but only with 75% of the success?”

Had the band play over videos and every single stoppage during the Tennessee-Mercer game to drown out “Fire Currie’ chants coming from the student section. If you missed the game last night, 1) you should watch the Basketvols, they’re good!, 2) you could hear some chants over the TV in the first half.

Jimbo Fisher left FSU, presumably to take Texas A&M’s open head coaching gig.

Doeren, head coach at NC State, decided he wanted no part of this.

One nitpick: Fisher is still at FSU, presumably until Sunday.

Sam Houston State is in the FCS playoffs yet again. Second round vs. South Dakota is tomorrow. Go Bearkats!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

One nitpick: Fisher is still at FSU, presumably until Sunday.

Saturday's game is going to be weird.

https://twitter.com/bhofheimer_espn/status/936603172109455360?s=09

Edit: Hmm, I thought we could post tweets. Anyway, that's a humorous bit on Tennessee. No offense intended, especially to Gumbie, who I'm assuming has been black out drunk all week since he hasn't chimed in.

In less funny news, there are a couple UT rumors going around: One that their AD has been fired, which makes sense under the circumstances, although I'm not certain they are his fault at all. The second rumor is that Phil Fulmer has been sabotaging this whole process in order to effect that firing and hopefully get the AD job himself. Woof.

bighoppa wrote:

Sam Houston State is in the FCS playoffs yet again. Second round vs. South Dakota is tomorrow. Go Bearkats!

I don't often cheer for the same college football team as bighoppa, but when I do, it's the Sam Houston Bearcats!