NCAA College Football 2019-20: Official Thread

karmajay wrote:

It's why the only thing that makes sense is a playoff that includes all conference champs and some wild cards.

Yep. 10+6 is the only fair way.

There's a reason basketball has 68 teams, and even though the extra 4 are awkward, you have to keep automatic bids. All 351 teams have a path to the championship. Sure, some would need a lot of luck, but it's possible.

Right now, half of the 129 football teams could go undefeated and still not get in the playoff. See UCF for proof. It's bullshit.

So for the most important review.. the bbq scene.

I liked Memphis BBQ, though I really only got to two places... Central BBQ which is considered one of the top in the city, and Payne's BBQ which is a hole in the wall place. Both were tasty, but Central was definitely better, and in both cases better than what I had in NC. Central we had a rack of ribs, at Payne's we had a chopped pork sandwich, that was great, and ribs.

Aside from BBQ I had fried chicken twice, once from Nashville's Hattie Bs that opened a shop in Memphis and one from another hole in the wall place, Uncle Lous. Again both were good, but a nod definitely to Hattie Bs. Makes me want to go to Nashville and try Princes.

One thing the South definitely gets right though is biscuits... both in Memphis and in NC last year, the biscuits are outstanding. We even went to just a regular local coffee house (bluff city coffee) and their biscuits were amazing.

I will say though that overall I wasn't impressed by the city (apologies to anyone who's from there). While I wasn't expecting NOLA's Bourbon Street or Austin's 6th Street, I certainly wasn't expecting the bar at Carnival Cruise when I traversed Beale street on a Thursday night. I am in my mid 40s and I was definitely below the average age on Beale with cover bands playing throughout. Maybe because it was a non-holiday Thursday night with no game going on (its right next to the Grizzlies stadium and Memphis football was on bye), but I was definitely expecting more life.

I do regret not spending more time at Oxford. First off the Grove was incredible and downtown Oxford is one of the coolest spots. Definitely bucket list material, and I just wish I spent more time there. As awesome as The Grove was, with an 11am game time, most people were telling us that this was a very low key crowd.

Also, if any of coastal liberal elite (of which I am one) has any doubts of Southern hospitality, you should put them all to rest. Everyone we spoke to was friendly and welcoming, after the game no one had anything bad to say, and thanked us for coming. In Memphis quite a few people started chatting to us in restaurants asking about Cal (we were in full regalia), talking about Ole Miss and giving us tips and pointers on getting to Oxford. I know when Ole Miss or some other perceived red state school comes to the West Coast, coastal elitism kicks in. I'm sure at least some of the nice folks we met had complete opposite political and social views that I have but we can all put that behind us when it comes to football, and that's what makes all these road trips for me so great. I know for me personally I do anything I can to be friendly when out of staters come to visit the Bay Area for football because of how I'm treated across the country.

In the next few years we have TCU and North Texas (I think Sonny Dykes did all of the scheduling) and Auburn is still on the calendar in 5 years (2024). Can't wait for these to come around.

Games I'm eyeballin' this week ...

Coastal Carolina at App State. Fun Belt season starts. Hope App isn't hung over after last week's bender in Chapel Hill. ROLL 'NEERS

UVA-Notre Dame. Wonder if the Hoos are for real? They nearly choked against ODU last week.

Ohio State at Nebraska, ABC prime-time game. Nothing's funnier than watching Nebraska getting pantsed on national TV.

Otherwise, meh. Rugby World Cup is on, and I'm going to catch up on the matches I've DVR'd.

Go App!

Cards on bye this week.

Also might check out Friday night PAC action with Cal.

This game is huge for Cal, but oddly enough, its not *that* big of a deal.. Next week's game is much more important.

Even if we lose, if we somehow beat Oregon in Eugene next week, we are in the drivers seat in the North with one win against UW.

Also if through miracles Cal wins the North despite a loss, and we win the Pac-12 championship.. course Pac-12 won't get invited the playoffs.... oh well.. wonder what that means....

Hell if you just win tomorrow, you at least have a shot at participating in a GameDay game vs Oregon next week. That environment is fun from both sides.

Berkeley is one of the schools that has never hosted Gameday so for what its worth, I'd rather not have it in Eugene, and if somehow Cal and USC keep winning that they pick that game in Berkeley for Gameday later in October.

If Oregon/Cal gets gameday there is probably zero chance they show up in Berkeley regardless our record.

Louisville hosted our first to beat down FSU and then Clemson hosted a few weeks later back in 2016.

I think you had a quarterback that was kinda good back then

Good lord, Virginia Tech. Losing at home? To Duke?!

I'm going to go out on a (very thick and stable) limb and say that UVa will win the Commonwealth Cup for the first time since 2003.

VT barely beat Furman.. not surprised.

Upset alert: Carolina* and Clemson are tied 14-all going into the fourth.

* the same team that App State beat up on last week

Well here we are less than 24 hours after Cal loses at home to Arizona State. Can't say I didn't see it coming, but this one hurts more than other...

- Obviously Cal lost a game they were favored in...

- Cal also lost its starting QB late in the 1st half when the score was tied. While the extent of the injury is yet unknown, he was in a sling on the sideline. Best case he's out for an extended period, worst case he's done for the year. Extra disappointing because between the Ole Miss game and the 1st half of this one he was starting to look like a real NCAA QB. This likely closes Chapter 60 in the History of Cal Non-Rose Bowl seasons. Technically if we win out, we win the North and as I said in my last post, beating Oregon means a lot more than beating ASU in terms of winning the Pac-12, but without a QB those prospects are grim.

Those two suck, and they hurt and I'll avoid watching college football for a week. But this is nothing new. I've sat through Mack Brown screwing us out of a Rose Bowl, the free fall of 2007, the one-win season in Sonny Dykes first year, but no matter what I'll be back season tickets in hand. My loyalty is unwavering.

What is the most devastating about this loss though was that there were more fans at Memorial than we've seen in 3 years. Hype from Cal and even throughout the Bay Area was real. Fans who never had been to Cal game, students who didn't come to games before, new families and kids all showed up for this game, and they saw a loss. How many of those would be fans for life if we pulled this one off.. more importantly how many will write off Cal Football because of this one loss. This is how west coast football, particularly Cal football is, and its a fact of life all west coast schools have to deal with. Listening to the coaches and players after the game, they knew it too. This is what hurts the most.. we had an opportunity that comes only once every decade or so at Cal, that could have had a huge boost to momentum, ticket sales, everything, and it wasn't meant to be.

So while the result was unfortunate, and a 7-5 or even 8-4 season is still probably within reach, who knows what the long term impact here will be. If we revert back to 30,000 - 35,000 crowds (capacity is 60,000), it could have a real impact on player morale, coaches willingness to stay, recruits willingness to sign, all the way down the line. I'm really hoping this was not another 2007 moment where everythign just went crashing down after a loss.

I'm not feeling great about our season thus far, but the Ags have now beaten Arky eight years in a row.

Have y'all seen this before? Visualized, your favorite team's chances of getting to X number of wins this year, based on results up to this point.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comment...

It was new to me.

Depressing, but in line with re-adjusted expectations, that Michigan's most likely outcomes are 7 wins or 8 wins, with a whole entire 0.6% chance of winning out.

So what games are of interest this week? Ags are off, and the best game I'm seeing is #10 Florida vs #7 Auburn.

Of course, the Astros are playing Saturday night.

Louisville is favored in a conference game for the first time in a while. If we can't beat the Boston College team that lost to Kansas, it's going to be a longer rebuild than I thought.

Hey we won! 41-39, crazy shootout, 1200+ yards of combined offense. But I'll take it.

Hey all, quick question re NCAAF. Manage to get to watch quite a bit over here in the UK. Can anyone explain why there are State Troopers there when both head coaches shake hands at the end of the game. Is it more a tradition thing than out of necessity?

r3idy wrote:

Hey all, quick question re NCAAF. Manage to get to watch quite a bit over here in the UK. Can anyone explain why there are State Troopers there when both head coaches shake hands at the end of the game. Is it more a tradition thing than out of necessity?

Crowd control and protection for the head coaches. The troopers are assigned to the HC for the entire game, they are just a little more visible at the end of the game

Thanks, @Ego Man

Good and bad weekend for the ducks. They beat Cal but didn’t really look impressive doing so. Both Auburn and Washington lost which is going to make it difficult to get to the playoffs even if they do end up winning out.

App State* plays at UL on Wednesday night. Turns out it's the only D-1 college football being played Wednesday. The MAC can have Tuesday, but the Fun Belt has claimed Hump Day.

* Undefeated and ranked 28th in both polls, mind you

pizzaddict wrote:

Good and bad weekend for the ducks. They beat Cal but didn’t really look impressive doing so. Both Auburn and Washington lost which is going to make it difficult to get to the playoffs even if they do end up winning out.

You should have asked the ducks to throw the game. That would have put Cal in the drivers seat for the Pac-12 North and we gladly would take the Rose Bowl that you don't seem to think is that important.

In fantasy land I'm starting the petition the year Cal goes undefeated to decline the invite to the playoffs to go to the Rose Bowl.

Good news for Louisville at Wake: Dave Clawson 0-6 after bye week.

Enix wrote:

App State* plays at UL on Wednesday night. Turns out it's the only D-1 college football being played Wednesday. The MAC can have Tuesday, but the Fun Belt has claimed Hump Day.

* Undefeated and ranked 28th in both polls, mind you

Way more of a nail-biter than I wanted, but we'll take the W to stay undefeated. I'm not smart enough to understand why we needed to run on nearly every play in quarters 2, 3, and 4 with them stacking the box most of the game and squashing our efforts, maybe it had something to do with the looks/play of their secondary? A frustrating game to watch, but impressed with our defense.

Go Apps.

Yeah, the App State D was terrific. I guess maybe the Fire Ted Roof crowd will STFU for a second.

The O? Eh, I dunno. Not many fireworks. But that 58-play drive, 6* quarter drive at the end of the game was pretty epic.

My only concern is that App had Wed night all to itself -- lots of folks on my twitter were paying attention -- and a 17-7 win against a directional school** probably isn't sexy enough to vault App into the top 25. 35-10 would have helped the cause a little more.

* Might have been 8 quarters. Might still be going on, in fact.

** In any other state, UL would be the flagship state U But LSU is much bigger and much better known, and the "hyphen Lafayette" after the UL is the tell. No one cares about the directional schools unless they come to your campus and beat the hell out of you, like App did to one Carolina already this year and is poised to do to another Carolina in about a month.

Enix wrote:

I guess maybe the Fire Ted Roof crowd will STFU for a second.

I'll own up to being one of them. We were a Top D last year and the first 2 games they couldn't stop a flea. We're better now, clearly, but while the line/linebacker play has been tremendous, our DBs are still Swiss cheese with bad technique.

If the line doesn't get home or they run west-coast O, teams could seemingly throw on us all day long. Miracle we didn't have a PI called on Davis-Gaither on their promising drive toward the end.

I love the results but hoo boy I hope the secondary makes some strides the rest of the way.

After shutting down Carolina (more or less), I thought App State's D had made a breakthrough. Then came the Coastal game and 37 more points. UL had been putting up some huge numbers on offense, so, no, I wasn't expecting App to hold UL to 7 (!) on their home field.

I'm figuring App is going through the usual growing pains on both sides of the ball -- Drink and Roof, etc., are putting their systems in place with the guys Satterfield recruited. Most coaches are wedded to their schemes and their systems -- it's what got 'em there, after all -- and there's usually a lot of square peg/round hole kind of stuff for a season or two.

Calling for someone's head after two games is weird. But if App is giving up 40+ points to Fun Belt teams in 2021, clear me a space on the Fire Ted Roof Bandwagon!

OK, now to talk about some other schools. I'll start.

Apparently Kyle Field at Texas A&M is overrun with bats.

Also, too, Google says this is a long-running issue. C'mon, Fed, explain this thing.