Oh man, here we go again

Posted on August 1, 2023 by guelphbossman

It felt like things were calm. We were all lulled into this. It was just the eye of the storm. Sure the wind wasn’t moving but about 200 metres away, a cow just went flying headlong into a barn.

What am I talking about? Realignment, of course! Another shoe has dropped…OK let me use a different analogy. Sorry Deion. We have another big move as Colorado will be going back to the Big XII starting next season. And that probably won’t be all. The rumours have at least one of Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Oregon or Washington following the Buffaloes. Or, if no other schools leave the Pac-12, the Big XII is more than willing to dip into the American Conference (hello SMU, Memphis, Tulane) or even way out east…yes, UConn! And maybe once the Pac-12 (or more like Pac-9) gets their act together, they can start bringing in teams from the Group of Five. The same teams from the American would be in play, especially SMU. Also, the Mountain West would be watching closely as San Diego State, Boise State and perhaps Colorado State and UNLV could be looked at. There will be a lot of meetings in the next month or so to determine where this all leads.

For now let’s focus on what this post was supposed to be (and still will be). It’s time for the Power Five conference predictions. This will give a better indication on how I think things will go during this season. So let’s dive right in!

Changes are coming soon for the Ess Ee Cee. Texas and Oklahoma join the conference next season. Also, no more SEC on CBS after this year. Everything moves to ABC and ESPN. And finally, no divisions. Halle-fucking-lujah.

As for this year, all the talk is about Georgia and doing something no team has done (fully) in the AP Poll era: win three national championships in a row. It’s not like they will fall apart, despite the fact they lost their starting quarterback and a bunch of other players in the NFL Draft. Then again, I’m sure Kirby Smart has looked them all dead in the eye and told them “Everyone thinks you are going to go 5-7 and lose to Vanderbilt. Prove them wrong!” And they will believe it because college football head coaches are just a notch-and-a-half below cult leaders in the pecking order of how much they can make their “followers” drink their Kool-Aid.

Remember, though, there are other teams in the conference as well. Like those lovable underdogs from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and the team that just reeks of success (in the classroom and on the baseball diamond), Vanderbilt. And eleven other teams. Want to find out how I think they will do? OK. I will do that. Just for you.

	Conference		Overall
East	W	L	W	L
Georgia	7	1	11	1
Tennessee	6	2	10	2
South Carolina	5	3	8	4
Kentucky	3	5	6	6
Missouri	2	6	5	7
Florida	2	6	5	7
Vanderbilt	1	7	4	8
West
Alabama	8	0	12	0
LSU	6	2	9	3
Ole Miss	4	4	8	4
Texas A&M	4	4	8	4
Arkansas	3	5	7	5
Auburn	3	5	7	5
Mississippi State	2	6	6	6

Just For You

You might think I am crazy for having UGA not run the table. I do think they will lose a regular season game and it will be to those upstart Tennessee Volunteers. It won’t keep them from winning the division though as you can see I have those same Vols losing two conference games during the regular season.
As for the SEC West, though, Bama will once again rule the roost….as long as they figure out their quarterback situation. I am thinking they will and will go undefeated and be #1 in the nation going into conference championship weekend. If they don’t get their QB situation settled…well, maybe they lose two games? Three? It’s not like they will fall to 6-6.
I could see South Carolina or last year’s SEC West champs, LSU, making a bit of a run this time around. They have the top two quarterbacks in the SEC and could each put up piles of points. Watch for the Cocks’ game against Georgia early on in the season and LSU’s post-Halloween trip to Bryant-Denny to face the Tide. Upsets in either of those games will seriously upset the apple cart.
Look, the Gators were barely .500 with who I think may be one of the most overhyped quarterbacks in recent memory. I don’t think Anthony Richardson was that great. And now they don’t even have him. Unless every other part of the roster improved (it didn’t), how do people expect this team to bounce back and all of a sudden become an eight or nine win team? Spoiler alert: they won’t.
I have Mississippi State at 6-6. They will do just enough to get a bowl game. I wonder how tough it will be after the loss of Mike Leach but I can see them straightening things out just in time late in the season.
As for the SEC Championship, SURPRISE! I have the Dawgs beating the Tide and creating a massive clusterfuck in the final College Football Playoff rankings. Fun times!
Eleven bowl teams from the SEC with two juuuuuust on the outside. That’s insane and I don’t think I will be that far off with this prediction. Next year could be even crazier with Texas and Oklahoma joining the conference that just means more.

Man have things really changed in terms of where you will see Big Ten games this season. Gone are ABC and ESPN. In is NBC and CBS. This is gonna feel weird the first time I see it. And maybe the next few times as well. I will get used to it at some point. Now if you want the opportunity to watch every Big Ten game, better find a way to get FOX Sports One and Peacock otherwise you will be shit out of luck to watch potential bangers like Northwestern-Purdue and Indiana-Rutgers (if they end up there and not the Big Ten Network).

Alright, let’s get into the final conference predictions before the B1G gives a big Fuck You to geography and brings in USC and UCLA.

	Conference		Overall
East	W	L	W	L
Michigan	8	1	11	1
Penn State	8	1	11	1
Ohio State	8	1	10	2
Michigan State	5	4	7	5
Maryland	5	4	8	4
Indiana	1	8	3	9
Rutgers	1	8	4	8
West
Minnesota	6	3	8	4
Wisconsin	6	3	9	3
Iowa	6	3	9	3
Illinois	5	4	7	5
Nebraska	2	7	5	7
Purdue	2	7	5	7
Northwestern	0	9	2	10

Geogpraphy, Go Eat a Dick

Look, I know some might look at the Big Ten East standings and think I am a bit crazy. I am not. Although that is what a crazy person would tell you. Yep, a three-way tie at the top at 8-1 between Big Blue, tOSU and PSU. Because each team will be 1-1 against the other two, the CFP Rankings will decide the winner. I believe the Wolverines will somehow win that. And yes, I think Ohio State also loses to Notre Dame. O-H! I-No.
If Sparty doesn’t make it to a bowl game, they may end up giving Mel Tucker the Herm Edwards treatment and fire him before he can leave the playing surface one game. I get they have a tough division but they should be able to do well enough against the rest of their schedule to get back in the postseason after last year’s debacle.
No, I don’t have Wisconsin winning the West division. Meaning I am different than almost every expert out there. Also, there’s the fact I’m not an expert but I digress. Again I have a damn three-way tie but no need to look at the rankings for this one as I believe the Gophers will Row the Fucking Boat all the way to Indianapolis after beating both Wisky and the high-octane Iowa Hawkeyes. See what I did there? Yeah, I don’t care that the Hawkeyes have a new quarterback in town. Until Kirk tells his son to do better, Iowa will be pushing for some 7-6 victories. Sorry. 8-6. Two field goals and a late safety to win.
Nebraska will be better but I think the Huskers are a season away from getting back to the top of the West…just in time for the West to just not exist anymore.
As for Northwestern…man. What a shitshow. Look, I played a lot of sports earlier in my life and did so at the university level. Are there fun little pranks and stupid things the rookies have to do? Sometimes. But it’s usually harmless. Carrying bags, standing up during a team dinner to get embarrassed by singing some Mariah Carey song, dumb things like that. Not getting fucking dry humped in some cultish fashion by weirdos in robes. What the fuck is wrong with that school? And yes, it’s not just the football program. Sounds like at least half the teams there have serious issues. Ugh.
Now let’s get crazy. Yeah! The Big Ten Championship will…OK who am I kidding. It won’t be close. I have Michigan plowing through Minny to clinch their spot, yet again, in the College Football Playoff.

Might as well call this the Stable Conference…for now. Just nothing happening here which is just fine for most of the teams in the ACC. Status quo isn’t a bad thing. There are some changes with where you will see games. The CW…yes, the C-Fucking-W, will have an ACC game during most of the weeks of the season. You can take the ACC out of Jefferson-Pilot (or Raycom) but you can’t take the Jefferson-Pilot (or Raycom) out of the ACC. Or something like that.

So before this conference possibly gets pillaged by the Big Ten and SEC, let’s get to the predictions followed by some deep tissue massage and/or analysis.

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
Clemson	8	0	12	10
Florida State	7	1	11	1
North Carolina	6	2	9	3
Pittsburgh	5	3	8	4
Louisville	5	3	8	4
Duke	4	4	8	4
Wake Forest	4	4	7	5
NC State	4	4	7	5
Miami	4	4	7	5
Syracuse	3	5	6	6
Boston College	2	6	5	7
Virginia	2	6	4	8
Georgia Tech	2	6	4	8
Virginia Tech	0	8	1	11

Deep Tissue Massage and/or Analysis

I should book a massage. My back is in horrible shape.
Some may scoff at me having Clemson going undefeated this season. They have the schedule to do it and if Cade Klubnik is as good as he can be this could relatively easily happen. If Klubnik struggles…well then this entire set of standings might need to be scrubbed from existence.
Reader Gord will like where I have Florida State. This team could be scary good. And at the very least, they will be near the top of the ACC standings this season. Mike Norvell has done a great job getting this team back to what it was like during the Jimbo Fisher days. I had my doubts about him but I have to admit he has been the right guy to right the ship in Tallahassee.
Hey did you notice? NO DIVISIONS! I love it.
Don’t be surprised that if Clemson or FSU stumbles that there are no shortage of teams that could get one of the two ACC title game slots. A list of seven teams could pull off a couple of upsets and be at the top and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. A slight surprise sure. Maybe a slightly bigger surprise if it was Miami or NC State. But not a massive surprise.
Poor Virginia Tech. I think this will be their worst team since before Frank Beamer graced Blacksburg. It feels like it has been forever since the Hokies were contenders. It was only seven years ago when they were in the ACC Championship and almost upset the eventual national champions, Clemson. This team is pretty bad in almost every aspect of the game and the schedule will not be helpful to them. Other than Old Dominion I don’t see them winning any other game and the Monarchs have given VT all sorts of fits the past few years.
Look for a tiny bit of a bounce back from Virginia. Just them taking the field after what happened last year is a win in my books.
For that ACC title game, how about another game that will turn everything on its head. Yep, I think the Noles will get revenge for a regular season loss by inching out the Tigers. Chaos!

OK it’s about time the Big XII rebrands. They will have at least thirteen teams by the time the 2024 season starts and it may be as high as sixteen. So change the fucking name. They have the rights to the Big Fourteen and Big Sixteen so use one of those. It would be easy. Find a graphic design student at Kansas and have them do a new logo. Easy peasy. Why do I have to come up with everything?

Where was I? Oh that’s right, predictions. Let’s see if this conference will go all Pac-12 and cannibalize itself or if they can see a team get to the CFP once again. Also, Texas and Oklahoma will be trying their best to leave the conference on a high note much to the chagrin of the rest of the schools in the conference. So here are the Big XII standings predictions, followed by Belly Expansions.

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
Texas	8	1	10	2
Kansas State	7	2	10	2
Baylor	6	3	8	4
TCU	6	3	9	3
Oklahoma	6	3	9	3
Texas Tech	5	4	8	4
Oklahoma State	5	4	8	4
Kansas	4	5	7	5
UCF	4	5	7	5
BYU	3	6	5	7
Cincinnati	3	6	5	7
Houston	2	7	4	8
Iowa State	2	7	4	8
West Virginia	2	7	3	9

Belly Expansions

No I don’t mean pregnancy. I mean eating a big meal and having to loosen the ol’ belt or just unbuckle the pants altogether. Funny enough, people in the restaurant don’t appreciate that.
Let’s start at the bottom. There won’t be one truly bad team. There will be a bunch of below-average ones. West Virginia, Iowa State, Houston, Cincinnati and BYU could all finish last and I am sure no one would bat an eye.
I see the Longhorns making their final Big XII season a special one. They have the team, the schedule and the head coach (I think) to be the top team in this conference this season. The only question will be can Quinn Ewers hold off Arch Manning. Will one of them transfer in the offseason? Remember, when you have two starting quarterbacks, you have none. I think.
How about this lukewarm take: Kansas State will be good again. Yeah really going out on a limb there Bossman. This team has become so steady-as-she-goes it’s almost boring. The people in the Little Apple are fine with this.
I do think one of the newcomers will make a bowl game and that team will be UCF. I think they are the most prepared of the newbies coming into this conference. But make no mistake about it: all four teams will be good at various points over the next few years.
I can’t see Oklahoma taking enough of a leap to get to the Big XII Championship. Nor do I think the Horned Frogs of TCU have the, uh, toads? to make it back to the conference title game. Good seasons for both, yes, but not great.
The Longhorns should win the conference title game in their final season in the Big XII. Will this get them into the CFP or will it “relegate” them to the New Year’s Six? I think you can tell from my predictions so far but you will know for sure in a different post.

So where are we going to be able to watch Pac-12 games in the future? Who the hell knows. My money is on PBS.

But seriously, the Pac-12 is quickly dropping from the Conference of Champions to almost a Group of Five conference. They are losing USC and UCLA next year to the Big Ten. They knew that already. The bombshell of Colorado leaving now has them at nine teams starting the 2024 season. And it may not end there. The only schools I haven’t heard potentially leaving are Oregon State and Washington State. That’s not to say all these rumours will be correct but I will be pretty surprised if no more teams leave for the Big XII before next season. It’s sad for a conference that really started their slide once Pete Carroll left USC for the NFL. Thanks a bunch, Peter.

Prediction time! No divisions which is one thing they are ahead of the game with, starting that last year. Let’s get to those divisionless predictions followed by some California Nightmarin’.

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
USC	8	1	10	2
Utah	7	2	9	3
Oregon	7	2	9	3
Oregon State	7	2	10	2
Washington State	6	3	8	4
Washington	6	3	9	3
UCLA	5	4	8	4
Colorado	3	6	4	8
California	2	7	4	8
Arizona	2	7	4	8
Arizona State	1	8	3	9
Stanford	0	9	2	10

California Nightmarin’

No state will have it better this year in the Pac-12 than the state of Oregon. Both the Ducks and the Beavers look to be serious contenders and only need the ball to bounce their way one extra time to maybe get to the Pac-12 Championship. And considering the way that title game has gone, who knows what may happen after that.
The strongest team, though, should be USC. They have Caleb Williams coming back to try and do what no one other than some guy named Archie has ever done, and that’s win two Heisman Trophies. The hope there is that the sting of the two season-ending losses will motivate them to push themselves that final step into the CFP.
OK look, I know you see Washington in sixth place and you are wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. This is another case where the schedule is just flat-out against them. A slightly easier schedule and I might put this team at eleven or even, dare I say it, twelve wins. It will be that close at the top of the conference.
On the other hand, I am sure no will think I’m crazy for putting Stanford in last place. It’s been a long time since the Cardinal have been this bad and it doesn’t look like they will be ready for bowl action for another year at least.
I think I was fair putting Colorado at 4-8 for this season and playing fairly meaningful football going into November. There seems to be two schools of thought with this team. One section thinks Coach Prime has done wonders and with all the fresh faces in the lineup it will push the team over the line and into bowl-eligibility territory. The other section thinks the entire program is overhyped and they will win maybe two games. I am in the middle on this. This team won’t go bowling this year. That would be too much of a leap. But they should win more games than they did last year. If not, what the hell was all this hoopla for?
As for the Pac-12 title game, USC gets the Pac-12 Championship they probably should have won last year. Problem is that by this point there will be a lot of teams in the mix for those four College Football Playoff spots and in typical Pac-12 fashion, the league will have cannabilized itself again and missed out on the CFP again.

There you go! You now have a complete set of Bossman conference predictions. Next up, is kind of the wrap-up post where I put everything in a nice, neat little ball and let you know who I believe will win the whole damn deal. Have a great week everyone!

Hey let’s storm the field (and give you the Week 9 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on October 26, 2022 by guelphbossman

First off, remember this classic? It was awesome. So the powers that be decided to quash the possibility of it ever happening again. Instead, we get a nine-overtime affair that made me want to pour bleach into my eyes.

Anyway, as you can see from the pic, the Aggie faithful stormed the field after the win. It was a big win. An exhausting one, even for the fans who were there for over five hours. Now, rushing the field like this is now fined by certain conferences. And the fines can be hefty. LSU was just fined a quarter of a million dollars for their fans rushing the field after the Tigers thoroughly destroyed previously undefeated Ole Miss. It was a big win.

Here’s the dilemma from what I see: seeing fans rush the field can be, most of the time, an amazing visual. They are just so happy their team pulled off the victory. Can there be dangers to it? Absolutely. And there can be altercations. Look at that asshole Jermaine Burton who punched a female Tennessee fan after the Vols’ win over Bama. He said he was scared. Bullshit. He could have punched any fan and chose her. Funny he didn’t choose a bigger guy who might have taken offense to it and retaliated. Look, my point is this…I don’t think rushing the field should be fined. At all. That sounds crazy but I believe it. Now, if something happens when the fans rush the field, then the school should be punished (as long as it was not someone from the opposing team doing something wrong). And the fines should be hefty. Forget $250,000. Start at $500K and go up from there. And if students cause issues at games when they storm the field? Guess what? Pack your shit and fuck off to another university. Instead, we have these blanket fines that do nothing really except move money from one coffer to another coffer. Dumb.

Alright, let’s get down to some schedules, shall we?

Thursday

		US	Canada
Virginia Tech at #24 NC State	7:30 PM
Louisiana at Southern Miss	7:30 PM
#14 Utah at Washington State	10:00 PM

Two pretty important games here. NC State has to win here to have any chance to move back up the rankings and perhaps sneak into the New Year’s Six. Utah has the same issue going for them although they are closer to the Top 10 which basically guarantees a spot. OK make it three important games since Louisiana has to keep pace with Troy and South Alabama in the Sun Belt West.

Friday

		US	Canada
Yale at Columbia	6:30 PM
Louisiana Tech at FIU	8:00 PM
East Carolina at BYU	8:00 PM

Kind of a lacklustre night to be honest. I guess you could see some importance in the Cougs’ game since a loss might actually have them struggling to make a bowl game this season.

Saturday Early

Massive early game in State College. You could still consider it a Game of the Year candidate. This is a prove-it game for Penn State. Win this and it puts all the tough games they’ve had behind them and puts them in a great spot to make the College Football Playoff. A tOSU win means it comes down to them and Michigan for any Big Ten CFP possibilities.

If you had told me that Toledo and Eastern Michigan would be facing off in late October, essentially, for the MAC West championship I would have thought you were on some great drugs. But that is the case. EMU has shocked a lot of people this year. Chris Creighton has done a great job in Ypsilanti. It also helps that every other team in the division (other than these two) has looked below-average at best.

Syracuse has a potential speed bump game to get back on track as they host the Irish and honestly it feels weird to see Oklahoma face Iowa State where neither team is ranked.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Rutgers at Minnesota	2:30 PM
#17 Illinois at Nebraska	3:30 PM
#10 Wake Forest at Louisville	3:30 PM
Florida vs. #1 Georgia (in Jacksonville)	3:30 PM
Temple at Navy	3:30 PM
#20 Cincinnati at UCF	3:30 PM
Northwestern at Iowa	3:30 PM
#9 Oklahoma State at #22 Kansas State	3:30 PM
#8 Oregon at California	3:30 PM
South Alabama at Arkansas State	4:00 PM
Missouri at #25 South Carolina	4:00 PM

No huge games but a lot of games of importance in this timeslot. OK fine you can say Oklahoma State-Kansas State is huge but there are still a lot of things that could happen in the Big XII with one possibility being that the conference cannibalizes itself and no one makes it to the College Football Playoff.

Illinois is actually on ABC! And they are the reason they are there! Bert doing a great job in Champaign and a win here puts them into a showdown with Purdue for the Big Ten West as long as no other screwy things happen…meaning something will happen. Yes there is an odd start for the Big Ten Network game and no, I don’t know why although I haven’t taken too hard a look to find that out.

Some are saying Georgia may be looking past Florida. I know I would if I was Georgia. I can’t see the Gators doing anything here but you never know as the Cocktail Party can get weird some years. Finally, South Alabama is in a nationally televised game on Saturday probably for the first time ever. They should easily beat ASU in this one. Maybe they are a dark horse for the NY6.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
UAB at Florida Atlantic	7:00 PM
#19 Kentucky at #3 Tennessee	7:00 PM
Colorado State at Boise State	7:00 PM
Coastal Carolina at Marshall	7:00 PM
#10 USC at Arizona	7:00 PM
Michigan State at #4 Michigan	7:30 PM
Baylor at Texas Tech	7:30 PM
Arizona State at Colorado	7:30 PM
#15 Ole Miss at Texas A&M	7:30 PM
Pittsburgh at #21 North Carolina	8:00 PM

In almost any week of any season, UK-UT is the SEC on CBS Game of the Week (and potentially the primetime choice). But with the Cocktail Party this week, they are “relegated” to the primetime ESPN game. Still a good slot. Plus, this game is an elimination game. Winner has a shot at the SEC East and the loser has to hope to make up ground to get a nice January bowl game.

Speaking of relegation, USC is on the Pac-12 Network this week. OK, they are at Arizona who, while improved, is still not that good a team. But when you see that Arizona State and Colorado are on ESPNU (which is slightly better if you ask me), it makes you scratch your head a bit. I know the Trojans were picked for the P12N to fulfill their contracted amount of appearances on the network and this game was as good as any to put there. Still…it feels odd to see a Top 10 team on a conference network, especially the worst conference network around.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Nevada at San Jose State	10:30 PM
Stanford at #12 UCLA	10:30 PM
San Diego State at Fresno State	10:30 PM

The Spartans actually have a big game here. By the time the calendar turns, they might be the favourites to represent the West Division in the Mountain West Championship. Also, the Bruins look to bounce back and maybe get back into the Top 10 against the Cardinal who may have a tough decision with David Shaw ahead. Not saying Shaw will be fired this season (or even in the offseason) but something has to give here as the team has been pretty bad for a few years now.

Big Games O’ The Week

Ohio State at Penn State (Noon, FOX) – Just a reminder that this game is at Beaver Stadium so it gives the Nittany Lions more of a chance than if it was at the Horseshoe. This might not be exactly easy for the Fighting Ryan Days but a win here will put them into a one-game showdown in a month against Michigan for the Big Ten East and may put them at #1 in the first College Football Playoff poll on Tuesday.

Kentucky at Tennessee (7:00, specialty pack) – I’m sure there are many who wished this game would have been on TSN instead of the Michigan State-Michigan game but yeah, a good Big Ten game will almost always rate higher for TSN than a game from any other conference. As I said above, this is an SEC East elimination game so the stakes are high. It will be interesting to see if the Vols have a letdown after their big win over Alabama a couple weeks ago or if the Cats can get up for this game, dealing with a loud Knoxville crowd.

Oklahoma State at Kansas State (3:30, FOX) – FOX has quite the lineup this week. I know some marvel when I say that but it honestly doesn’t happen often. It probably helps that it’s only two games this week that lead into the World Series which starts after this game. This is part of the Big XII gauntlet that is happening before our eyes that involves more than half the conference (and maybe not even Oklahoma). FOX is probably hoping this game doesn’t go to a bunch of overtimes since we know it would be moved to like FOX Business Network or some channel no one in the world gets.

Notre Dame at Syracuse (Noon, ABC/TSN5) – The Cuse looks to rebound from their tough loss to Clemson. Meanwhile, Notre Dame continues their roller coaster first season under Marcus Freeman. A win by Syracuse here still keeps them in the hunt for…something. A New Year’s Six at-large spot perhaps? The Irish are just trying to make their season feel like it’s less of a failure than it has been and one where 2023 looks optimistic.

Cincinnati at UCF (3:30, specialty pack) – It feels like most years this is a battle between the top two teams in the American. I would have said Houston at the start of the season but yeah I whiffed on that one pretty hard. Tulane may have something to say about that first sentence and they may get their shot in the AAC Championship if they can keep playing as well as they are. Until then, this feels like the winner is in the driver’s seat for the Cotton Bowl spot.

Psycho Game of the Week

Arizona State at Colorado (7:30, specialty pack) – You have got to be some sort of masochist to spend more than one minute watching this one. I guess maybe hoping for some weird score like 5-3 could get you interested in this but otherwise, it is so easy to avoid this abomination.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Georgia Tech at Florida State (Noon, specialty pack) – This might seem like a bit of a surprise but I have this feeling that the Noles will come into this one a bit angry and ready to beat the absolute shit out of whoever they face. The Ramblin’ Wreck are playing better not under Geoff Collins but at some point their lack of talent will come to the forefront. This is the game that will happen.

Fun-Time Stats of the Week

Last time UAB traveled to Boca Raton to face FAU they were embarrassed 49-6.
This is the first time in four years that Ole Miss has had to play back-to-back road games.
NC State has lost five straight to the Hokies.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

For some reason I can delve into picking NFL games (which I still do from time to time on top of fantasy football) but when it comes to college football I draw a blank. I can’t seem to come up with a way to pick games other than just pick them off the top of my head for the most part. That’s something I would never say when my late night betting show commences. I wonder what the most ridiculous channel to put that on would be. OMNI?

Louisiana (+1) over Southern Miss (and the outright win…why is Southern Miss even favoured here?)
Louisiana Tech (-6.5) over FIU
Toledo (-7) over Eastern Michigan
Boston College (-7.5) over UConn (only 7.5? Who is making these odds?)
Oklahoma (-1) over Iowa State
Minnesota (-14) over Rutgers
Navy (-13.5) over Temple
Louisville (+3.5) over Wake Forest (big upset pick!)
Florida (+22.5) over Georgia (UGA will cover but the Gators will make things interesting for about three quarters)
Kentucky (+12.5) over Tennessee (the Vols will win a tight one)
Coastal Carolina (+2.5) over Marshall (and they will win outright)
Ole Miss (-2.5) over Texas A&M
UCLA (-16.5) over Stanford (only 16.5? Yeah I’m not getting some of these)

Let’s see how much of a tool I look like with these picks. Anyway, I will be on the Twitter machine for most of the day (I think) so catch me there if you want. Hey, I got a secret for ya. Come closer….

There’s football every day between tomorrow and November 22nd!

Oh. Hell. YEAH! Enjoy the games everyone!

All Aboard the Coaching Carousel! (and the Week 6 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on October 5, 2022 by guelphbossman

The fun-time coaching carousel has been filling up a bit earlier this year. None of us are used to this many coaches being shitcanned this early on. We are just into October and many of the good horses (or the one cool love seat thing that seems to be on every carousel) are going fast. And the tickets are EXPENSIVE.

This week it started with Karl Dorrell getting fired at Colorado which is no surprise because Colorado is easily the worst Power Five team out there. No team is close to their ineptitude so far this season. But the real bombshell came later the same day when Paul Chryst, he of the 67-26 record, seven straight winning seasons before this year, six bowl victories, and two New Year’s Six triumphs, was fired by Wisconsin. I knew he might be in a bit of trouble but that was shocking. And his buyout? Remember I talked about the tickets on this carousel being expensive? Yeah, his cost is around $11 million. My god. These buyout clauses are just completely absurd now and mean nothing to these schools anymore.

Anyway, this actually may be strategic on Wisky’s part. Jim Leonhard is the interim head coach and the prevailing sentiment is that they want to see what he can do over the final seven games of the season. If he can turn the ship around, there’s a good chance he will be named the permanent replacement. If not, well he had more than half a season and that would be enough of a barometer to know they have to send a Brinks truck to Lance Leipold’s house as soon as possible after the season ends.

I know, the coaching carousel is interesting. I wouldn’t call it fun. That would be a bit morbid. But enough of that; it’s schedule time and it starts on Wednesday this week and it’s not MACtion!

Wednesday

		US	Canada
SMU at UCF	7:00 PM

Tonight, we only have the one game. Technically this is a Week 5 game but the Mustangs and Knights both have this week as a bye week so you can all it a Week 6 game if you want. This is rescheduled because of Hurricane Ian.

Friday

		US	Canada
Harvard at Cornell	7:00 PM
Nebraska at Rutgers	7:00 PM
Houston at Memphis	7:30 PM
Colorado State at Nevada	10:00 PM
UNLV at San Jose State	10:30 PM

Is the highlight here the Nebraska-Rutgers game? Sure, I guess. The Huskers could be in the first in the Big Ten West for about 17 hours if they win this one. Speaking of that game, it’s the first of a doubleheader with three-hour fucking windows. Stupid FS1. I hope the early game goes to 16 overtimes now.

Dana Holgorsen might be on the hot seat if the Cougs don’t beat Memphis, Jay Norvell is hating life in Fort Collins and UNLV continues to try to look like a contender in the Mountain West! Makes up for the night before where there is no college football. It’s like they don’t want to compete with the NFL anymore. I mean it’s not a bad idea.

Saturday Early

A couple of good ones here with UT-LSU and Gameday going to Lawrence before TCU plays Kansas. It’s too bad they decided to go to that football hotbed of Bloomington, Indiana for Big Noon Saturday rather than Kansas. What the hell was FOX thinking? Oh that’s right…they’re hard for the Big Ten.

How about the Red River Shootout having both teams come in unranked? I’m sure if I went to ESPN’s website it would tell me the last time this happened but I have a feeling it was a looooooooooooooooooong time ago. We also have a couple potential sneaky-good games with Arkansas-MSU and Purdue-Maryland. So a relatively loaded start to the day.

Saturday Afternoon

For some reason the ABC afternoon game starts at 4:00. I don’t remember the last time that has happened. I mean it all comes out in the wash anyway but it’s odd this has happened this weekend for no rhyme or reason. CBS was hoping Auburn would have won last week to set up the AU-UGA game with both teams ranked. Alas, it was not to be and I have this feeling this will be an absolute drubbing.

I find it odd that Utah-UCLA, a game between two very good teams, is the FOX afternoon game which is basically the third best game most of the time in the FOX tripleheader. I would have thought it was heading to ABC in primetime. Again, the Pac-12 seems to be getting shafted and if things don’t change, we may have to get used to less coverage from that conference in this area.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Wyoming at New Mexico	7:00 PM
Air Force at Utah State	7:00 PM
James Madison at Arkansas State	7:00 PM
#5 Clemson at Boston College	7:30 PM
Iowa at Illinois	7:30 PM
#20 Kansas State at Iowa State	7:30 PM
Washington State at #6 USC	7:30 PM
#16 BYU vs. Notre Dame (in Las Vegas)	7:30 PM
South Carolina at #13 Kentucky	7:30 PM
Florida State at #14 NC State	8:00 PM
Texas A&M at #1 Alabama	8:00 PM

Not as big as the early sked but still pretty darn good. This is the one primetime game the SEC on CBS has and it’s….well, not as good as CBS had hoped for. The Aggies have been a major disappointment and the Tide are dominant. This could be over by 10:00.

BYU has a massive game in Vegas. A must-win for them. Lose this and it’s pretty much the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve. Win and they stay alive for a New Year’s Six spot. Clemson-BC is a special game in Boston as it’s the Red Bandana Game. It’s in honour of Welles Crowther, a former BC lacrosse player who headed a rescue effort on 9/11 and got a lot of people rescued. He was known for wearing a red bandana and that’s what one of the people who were saved that day saw from the guy heading up the building when everyone was escaping down. Good to see this game in a huge national spotlight.

Finally, James Madison has a national game. Sure it’s the NFL Network but the Dukes are undefeated in their first FBS season. They really need to get rid of that archaic rule that says teams can’t qualify for a bowl game in their first season in FBS, transitioning up from FCS.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#12 Oregon at Arizona	9:00 PM
Fresno State at Boise State	9:45 PM
Hawaii at San Diego State	10:30 PM
Oregon State at Stanford	11:00 PM

This is….not a good late night schedule. Which means something wacky is coming our way. That’s the way it works in college football. I don’t make the rules.

TSN has their first quadrupleheader of the season which is always nice to see, especially for the non-specialty pack people. And let’s discuss the ESPN schedule this week. Early game. VERY late game. Nothing in between. What are they showing? Ah, that’s right. They have the Wild Card games in baseball this season. So as long as the second Wild Card game doesn’t go too far into extra innings, the Beavers-Cardinal game will start precisely at…11:00 eastern. This is almost as crazy as the Hawaii Test.

Big Games O’ The Week

Utah at UCLA (3:30, FOX) – Ya know, some people are going to bristle at this choice for top game of the week. Here are the facts: Utah is ranked #11 and is still the favourite to win the Pac-12 South. UCLA is ranked #18 and is undefeated. The winner here faces USC later in the season for the de facto Pac-12 South championship and, potentially a New Year’s Six or, dare I say it, College Football Playoff spot. So yeah, this is huge.

Tennessee at LSU (Noon, TSN3/TSN5) – Are the Vols for real (I refuse to ask if they are back…aw shit, I just did)? This is a big chance for them to prove it as the Tigers have started to claw their way back after a seriously shaky start under new head coach Jim Bob Brian Kelly. Tennessee can move up towards the Top 4 with a win here and an eventual showdown with Georgia. Maybe, LSU could put a scare in some teams…even…Bama? Wouldn’t that be something…that Saban would hate.

TCU at Kansas (Noon, FOX Sports One) – In your wildest imagination, did you think this could be one of the games of the week when this season started? No. No one did. Even TCU and Kansas fans thought that would be ridiculous. But here we are. Early October. Ranked TCU. Ranked Kansas. College Gameday in Lawrence. Its put up or shut up time for both teams. And man, if the Jayhawks pull this one out, they will be safely in the Top 15 and looking at heights that haven’t been seen around those parts since the magical 2007 season.

Florida State at NC State (8:00, specialty pack) – I’m sure many feel this is a game the Wolfpack will easily win to get back on track. This isn’t the Noles of the past five or six years though. These guys can play. I have a feeling this could very close. The ACC Network with a bit of a coup getting this one at this point of the season.

Washington State at USC (7:30, FOX) – A tiny bit surprised this didn’t end up on either ABC or ESPN but FOX gets a good primetime game here that actually will match up well with CBS’s offering. USC is on a roll and it feels like nothing will stop them. That’s why this is such a speed bump game for the Trojans. Win here and their game against Utah is probably one of the Games of the Year the following week.

Psycho Game of the Week

Wisconsin at Northwestern (3:30, Big Ten Network) – Another game where, at the start of the season, I never would have thought it would end up in this particular spot in the blog post. Northwestern is thankful that Colorado exists and Wisconsin has been a shell of its former self. Should be a fun one! And by fun, I mean horribly painful to watch.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Auburn at Georgia (3:30, CBS) – I have a feeling that this is going to get really bad, really fast for the Tigers. I also have a feeling that Bryan Harsin will not be fired after this one since everyone expects Auburn to get boatraced Between The Hedges.

Fun-Time Stats of the Week

Rutgers has lost all five of their meetings with Nebraska but every game the margin of victory has decreased. Last time they met, they only lost by 7.
Washington has lost the last seven times they traveled to Tempe to face Arizona State.
New Mexico has more wins over Wyoming than any other Mountain West team. They have beat the Cowboys 36 times.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

I made some picks last week. Some were good. I picked Illinois to cover the spread against Wisconsin. As for the rest don’t bother since I was horrible. Let’s just move on to this week’s picks that people should only use at Gamblers Anonymous meetings.

Nebraska (-3) over Rutgers
UNLV (+7) over San Jose State (SJSU will win in a close one)
Eastern Michigan (+5) over Western Michigan (WMU will win the battle for Directional Michigan though)
Oklahoma (+7) over Texas (and the outright victory)
Tennessee (-3) over LSU
Wisconsin (-10) over Northwestern
UCLA (+4.5) over Utah (but the Utes will win a very close affair)
Michigan State (+26.5) over Ohio State (but tOSU will win by approximately three touchdowns just to make it feel close for gamblers)
James Madison (-11.5) over Arkansas State
Wyoming (-3.5) over New Mexico
Iowa (+3.5) over Illinois (and the outright win)
Washington State (+13) over USC (Trojans win)
Oregon (-13) over Arizona

Alright we have the rare October Wednesday night game that doesn’t involve Sun Belt teams, nothing tomorrow night and then things really get into action on Friday. And it’s Thanksgiving this weekend! So enjoy the games and enjoy the turkey (or ham, if you don’t like turkey).

Alright let’s wrap this up in a nice, neat little package

Posted on August 21, 2022 by guelphbossman

Oh man did you actually believe that? LITTLE? Have you not noticed what I’ve been doing the last little while? Oh this will not be a little package I assure you; but it will be an important package of information that you, the college football fan, would like to see (I hope).

So yes, you will see what I believe the College Football Playoff and the New Year’s Six will look like. You will get bowl projections from yours truly. You will also get my Heisman ballot which is usually a big steaming pile of horseshit. And you will get my coaching hot seat list which, honestly, is usually pretty good if I say so myself.

Let’s get right to it with the top of the pyramid (scheme)…the College Football Playoff predictions. You probably have a good idea from the conference predictions as to who will end up here and you also know that there is a good chance I will fail miserably with one of these picks:

December 31st	Fiesta Bowl	#2 Ohio State	#3 Georgia
December 31st	Peach Bowl	#1 Alabama	#4 Clemson

New Year’s Eve semi-finals. Will they never learn? Anyway, Bama is the easy call here as I see them running the table and then beating UGA in what may be the biggest SEC Championship ever (and that’s saying a lot). This also means that Georgia is probably a fairly easy call as well. Sure, they will lose to the Tide but if they go in at #2 (which I expect them to) and lose to #1 (which I assume Bama would be) then a drop to #3 is as far as they will go. No way they are leaving out a one-loss Big Ten champ so tOSU gets in and takes advantage of one of Alabama or Georgia having to lose to get to the #2 spot. OK take advantage is a strong phrase since being #2 means very little other than avoiding #1 until, potentially, the title game. Clemson ends up beating out Texas A&M, Michigan and NC State, all one-loss teams who didn’t win their division, rather easily to grab the final semi-final spot. Oregon would have their shot at the Pac-12 Championship but lose to Utah making The Committee’s job (at least for these two games) rather straightforward.

Now we will go to the New Year’s Six bowl games where, thanks to the NFL, none of them are on New Year’s Day. Eat shit, Rose Bowl.

January 2nd	Rose Bowl	#6 Michigan	#10 Utah
January 2nd	Cotton Bowl	#11 Oregon	#8 Houston
December 31st	Sugar Bowl	#5 Texas A&M	#9 Baylor
December 30th	Orange Bowl	#7 NC State	#12 Notre Dame

As always, it’s debate time. Every year which is fine as long as the debates devolve into some stupid Twitter spat. Only one conference championship loser is getting in here and that’s Oregon. They’ll be high enough in the rankings (potentially in the Top 4) going into Conference Championship weekend that there is no way they drop out of a NY6 bowl. Houston won’t be this year’s Cincinnati but they will be this year’s Group of Five representative in the New Year’s Six and they will coast to get here. Michigan is going to have another good year but they have the audacity to be in the same division as Ohio State. Assholes. This will be enough to keep them out of the CFP. Same goes for TAMU and NC State. What were they thinking being in a division with other good schools. And you wonder why I hate divisions. We could have a tOSU-UM rematch and a Clemson-NCST rematch for conference championships. Talk about a lot more being on the line and a hell of a lot more intrigue.

Utah, with their win over Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship, gets the other Rose Bowl spot opposite Michigan. Luckily, they should ascend to somewhere around the #10 ranking that I have them in so they will look like they belong. Baylor also gets the benefit of a good bowl tie-in and I have them facing their old Southwest Conference foe, the Aggies of Texas A&M. Just like Utah, the Bears will be good enough to belong here and not spark any crazy debate about bowl tie-ins. The only debate will be for the final spot. Look, it’s Notre Dame. If the Irish go 10-2, they are not being left out of this group of bowl games. As much as some of you want that to be the case, it never will be (until the CFP structure changes). They beat out UCLA, Oklahoma and Marshall. Very few, other than those schools’ fans, will be super upset they were left out.

Now it’s time for the rest of BOWL SZN. At least I know these bowls won’t be cancelled…I hope.

January 2nd	Citrus Bowl	#17 Tennessee	#18 Michigan State
January 2nd	ReliaQuest Bowl	Florida	#20 Minnesota
December 31st	Music City Bowl	Ole Miss	#22 Purdue
December 30th	Gator Bowl	Arkansas	#19 Pittsburgh
December 30th	Arizona Bowl	Boise State	Northern Illinois
December 30th	Sun Bowl	Louisville	Oregon State
December 30th	Duke’s Mayo Bowl	Kentucky	Penn State
December 29th	Alamo Bowl	#15 Oklahoma	#13 UCLA
December 29th	Cheez-It Bowl	Iowa State	Miami
December 29th	Pinstripe Bowl	Iowa	Florida State
December 28th	Texas Bowl	LSU	#21 Texas
December 28th	Holiday Bowl	Virginia Tech	#24 USC
December 28th	Liberty Bowl	South Carolina	#23 Oklahoma State
December 28th	Military Bowl	Wake Forest	#16 UCF
December 27th	Guaranteed Rate Bowl	Nebraska	Kansas State
December 27th	Birmingham Bowl	Auburn	#25 Cincinnati
December 27th	First Responder Bowl	Colorado State	Troy
December 27th	Camellia Bowl	Coastal Carolina	UAB
December 26th	Quick Lane Bowl	Maryland	Miami-OH
December 24th	Hawaii Bowl	BYU	Fresno State
December 23rd	Independence Bowl	Memphis	Army
December 23rd	Gasparilla Bowl	Boston College	Tulsa
December 22nd	Armed Forces Bowl	TCU	UTEP
December 21st	New Orleans Bowl	#14 Marshall	UTSA
December 20th	Boca Raton Bowl	Appalachian State	Florida Atlantic
December 20th	Idaho Potato Bowl	San Diego State	Toledo
December 19th	Myrtle Beach Bowl	Georgia State	Liberty
December 17th	Frisco Bowl	San Jose State	South Alabama
December 17th	Las Vegas Bowl	Mississippi State	Arizona State
December 17th	LendingTree Bowl	Louisiana	Kent State
December 17th	LA Bowl	Washington	Air Force
December 17th	New Mexico Bowl	Utah State	Western Michigan
December 17th	Fenway Bowl	North Carolina	SMU
December 16th	Cure Bowl	East Carolina	UNLV
December 16th	Bahamas Bowl	WKU	Central Michigan

More bowl games! Honestly, I don’t care nearly as much as I used to. It’s more football at this point. Once the 12-team playoff (or whatever it ends up being) comes to fruition, I will be interested to see what happens to some of the lower-level bowl games. Hey, as long as Canadians can see most of these games on TSN then there’s no real problem. Let’s look at a few points from that long table of information I just posted:

Only two games between ranked teams? Good lord. UT-MSU at the Citrus and Oklahoma-UCLA at the Alamo and that’s it. Those two bowls are used to having fairly big matchups. It would probably be more of a shock if the Bahamas Bowl had a Top 25 matchup (although it would definitely intrigue me that’s for sure).
I’m not bothering with listing bowl tie-ins and or conferences that couldn’t fill their bowl quota or even 5-7 teams that I have in to fill the bowl games that don’t have two teams.
Some of the other good matchups after the Citrus and Alamo:
- Ole Miss-Purdue in Nashville
- Arkansas-Pitt at the Gator
- Iowa-Florida State playing in the cold of the Bronx
- Wake-UCF in the Military Bowl
- LSU going into Longhorn country (kind of) to play Texas
- Marshall-UTSA in Nawlins
- Nebraska-Kansas State in a Big Eight matchup in Tempe
The Husker one is very interesting because they have the longest Big Ten bowl drought. Can you fucking believe it? I would have bet money that it was Rutgers or…Rutgers. Nope. The Huskers went to the Music City Bowl in late 2016 and haven’t gone back to a bowl game since. Wow.

History states at least one of the CFP semi-final games will not be that good. I hate to do this to the Tigers but sorry, Bama should win that one easy. The Buckeyes will have big problems with the Dawgs but in the end, they will punch their ticket to the national title game to lose to the Tide who will be back on top once again. No real surprises here.

So now that COVID is…well not behind us but it is not nearly as serious as it was, we can really get back to normality. That means that the college football head coaches are getting shorter leashes again, folks! The shitcanning season will be upon us at some point this Fall!

And when I mean short leashes I mean seriously short. Like maybe a foot long. Some athletic directors are now realizing that the college football world is pretty much fully back to normal and they have some time to make up. Some coaches received reprieves in the past two seasons thanks to the pandemic but that leeway is fucking gone now.

Look I don’t want to toot my own horn but I usually do fairly well with this list. So let’s just get right down to it, shall we? If you recall, the order is from most likely to be fired to most likely to keep their job. They are also categorized in a few different sections. Let’s go!

Almost Guaranteed Shitcanning

Geoff Collins (Georgia Tech) – This should be a surprise to absolutely no one. The experiment to move away from the option to more of a pro-style offense has failed spectacularly in the ATL. I honestly see no possible improvement here and a possible in-season firing. Needed to keep his job – Get into the final few weeks of the season with at least a mathematical possibility of going bowling. Prediction – He’s going to get shitcanned some time in November in the midst of a ten-loss season for the Rambling Wreck.
Karl Dorrell (Colorado) – Can we say that weird 2020 season was an aberration? I think we can as the Buffaloes are dropping down the ladder once again in the Pac-12 as realignment goes wild everywhere. Needed to keep his job – Have a shot at bowl eligibility going into the final two games. Prediction – A whole lot of frustration for Dorrell, the Buffaloes, the other coaches, alumni and current students. And no job for Dorrell…he may end up not coaching the final game of the season.
Neal Brown (West Virginia) – Brown’s first year in Morgantown was considered a success. Last year’s, not so much. And with an improving Big XII around them, I see them falling even farther in Brown’s third year when he has most of his recruits in. Not looking good for a guy who was a big up-and-comer not too long ago. Needed to keep his job – Not continue the downward slide. Prediction – I remember going to Wet n’ Wild as a kid. It doesn’t exist anymore. But it had some cool waterslides. That is how ol’ Neal is going to feel this season. He’ll end the season on the unemployment line.
Mike Bloomgren (Rice) – No one is really expecting Rice to be a power player in football. Saying that, they had to the American Conference next season and I can’t see Bloomgren being the head coach. Other than a couple of good seasons, he’s done very little in the Houston area and has fallen FAR behind their neighbour. Needed to keep his job – Something more than what I feel they will do this year. Prediction – The bloom has come off the rose (ha ha) and he will be looking for a new school to coach at for 2023.
Herm Edwards (Arizona State) – It feels inevitable that, at the very best, Herm will be done at the end of the season. Their recruiting issues are well known and it may end up being the NCAA coming down hard on ASU (and, eventually, Herm himself). It won’t help his cause that the Sun Devils won’t be as good as they were last year. Needed to keep his job – I don’t know if there is anything short of a Pac-12 title that would save his job (and even then). Prediction – Herm is shown the door before the last game of the season as the powers that be in Tempe decide it’s time to rebuild again.

Probable Shitcanning

Dino Babers (Syracuse) – How long has Dino been on the hot seat? Everything was looking golden in 2018 for Babers but since then…yeesh. I’m not saying Syracuse is a destination spot for coaching but you know things are getting tense within the athletic department with this. Needed to keep his job – The Orange to recapture at least some of that 2018 magic. Prediction – Dino will be a coordinator somewhere next year.
Scot Loeffler (Bowling Green) – I’m sure there are times where Scotty (Scoty?) would love to be back at any of the schools he used to be at. This is his first head coaching gig and it has been a rough one to be honest. Even though Bowling Green isn’t exactly a hotspot in college football, at some point the athletic director will be done with the team not performing. 7-22 isn’t exactly the type of record that keeps a job. Needed to keep his job – 4 or 5 wins and look competitive inside the MAC. Prediction – Double-digit losses and a pink slip.
Danny Gonzales (New Mexico) – Speaking of tough places to coach, here are the Lobos looking at potentially another coaching change on the horizon. Definitely a spot a younger coach in the West would maybe take a shot at. Beware though: the last time UNM won at least ten games was four decades ago. Unfortunately between them and NMSU, the state is a dead spot for college football. Needed to keep his job – Close to bowl eligibility. Prediction – Three wins and a tough decision to be made from the higher ups.

Possible Shitcanning

Seth Littrell (North Texas) – Littrell hasn’t done bad in Denton. Five bowls in his six seasons there is pretty darn good for a team in Conference USA. Problem is he has lost every single one. It truly does feel like they are kind of stuck in the middle of the conference and that’s getting some people antsy. Needed to keep his job – At least 5 wins and competing for bowl eligibility near the end of the season. Prediction – That’s exactly where I have the Mean Green. I think he probably survives the season but the leash will be extremely short going forward.
Bryan Harsin (Auburn) – This was considered a coup when the Tigers plucked him from Boise State. His first season on the Plains was…rocky to put it mildly. There was an attempt to get him ousted after last season ended. Obviously it didn’t work but there are some thinking maybe he just doesn’t fit at Auburn (or the SEC for that matter). Needed to keep his job – A winning record and better recruiting. Prediction – I got the Tigers winning 7 to stay out of the basement of the SEC West. That should be enough to save him at least into ‘crootin season. That’s where he needs to improve or otherwise he may not see the 2023 season on the field at Jordan-Hare.
Ken Niumatalolo (Navy) – It is tough putting Ken on this list, I’m not going to lie. Problem is, Navy has been pretty bad for three of the past four seasons. That 2019 season where they won 11 games seems like a fluke, almost. I’m sure it would take a lot to fire Niumatalolo but another season like the previous two and who knows. Needed to keep his job – At least 6 wins. Prediction – I have the Middies only winning three so this could be a very interesting offseason in Annapolis.
Terry Bowden (ULM) – I might get some flak for this one. I know he’s only been in Monroe for a season. I do think this year the Warhawks are going to be one of the worst teams in the FBS. Maybe there is someone on his staff who will take over for him next year so that ULM brass will feel OK to fire him? I don’t know but this doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere in a much-improved Sun Belt Conference. Needed to keep his job – Improvement from the previous season. Prediction – As I said, they won’t be good. I have them predicted at 1-11. I can see this being done relatively quietly in the offseason (Terry’s shitcanning that is).
Rick Stockstill (Middle Tennessee) – Stockstill has been at Middle for what seems like forever. And it doesn’t feel like anything would happen because of that. Saying that, the Blue Raiders need to do something since they have been mediocre most of the last few seasons. They also turned down a (possible?) invitation to the MAC so this is their chance to become the best of a not-so-good bunch. Will Rick lead them through that though? Needed to keep his job – Got to be bowl eligibility really. Prediction – I got MTSU winning 5 games which will make for some very interesting offseason chatter in Murfreesboro.
Greg Schiano (Rutgers) – This isn’t the Schiano that went 56-33 in his final seven seasons during his first run in Piscataway. That was in the Big East and Rutgers is…well, they definitely aren’t in a conference like that anymore. Still, fans were hoping for something a bit more from a guy who runs blitzes during kneel down plays. Unfortunately, I think this won’t be that year. Needed to keep his job – Real bowl eligibility, not the 5-7 you are a smart school kind. Prediction – I have the Scarlet Knights regressing a bit this year. Whether Schiano returns has a lot to do with whether they think they’ve truly bottomed out and if they believe they can get a good coach in.
Jake Spavital (Texas State) – Has anyone ever expected the Bobcats to do anything of significance on the football field? Really, that lack of winning culture could be the one thing that gives Spavital one more season at the helm. Needed to keep his job – 5 wins and some meaningful November football. Prediction – 4 wins and a short leash into 2023.

Doubtful Shitcanning (although it still could happen)

Jeff Scott (USF) – Not a whole lot has gone well for the former Clemson coordinator down in Tampa. Remember when the Bulls were #2 in the nation? Not even Pepperidge Farms remembers that I don’t think. What it does say, though, is that you can win at this school. Now it’s just a matter of how long the USF athletic department will give Scott to truly turn things around. Needed to keep his job – Stay out of the American Conference basement. Prediction – They aren’t going to a bowl game but expect them to win around four games and be quite clear of the bottom rung of the AAC.
Scott Frost (Nebraska) – It has become a difficult job to recruit players to Lincoln. I think Frost has finally figured it out and the Huskers, at the very least, should be back bowling this season. Now watch them completely tank. Needed to keep his job – Bowl-eligibility at the very least. Prediction – No Kool-Aid this time but I have the Huskers winning eight games. Don’t laugh.
David Shaw (Stanford) – I remember when Shaw was getting Stanford to bowl games and contending in the Pac-12 on a consistent basis. Make no bones about it, he’s still a great head coach. Give him time and he will have the Cardinal back on top of what will be the Pac-10 going forward. Needed to keep his job – Look better than the 2021 season. Prediction – I have Stanford winning 4 games but the bottom of the Pac-12 North is crowded so an upset or two isn’t out of the realm of possibility for this team. Shaw is safe for another season at the very least.
Mike Norvell (Florida State) – Things are finally looking up in Tallahassee. For real this time. It would have to get really bad for the Noles this season for Norvell to be let go. Needed to keep his job – Bowl eligibility at the very least. Prediction – Eight wins and a new lease on life. Teams won’t have it easy against this team this season.
Tom Allen (Indiana) – I would put Tom farther up this list as Indiana was BAD last year and won’t be a whole lot better this season. Thing is, his buyout is huge so unless the Hoosiers absolutely have to fire him, he won’t be let go. Needed to keep his job – Don’t do something illegal or unethical. Prediction – Other than punching the coach of the opposing team, I can’t see Allen doing anything bad. Yes I only have them winning three games this season but that doesn’t really matter here in the grand scheme of things.

One of these days I have to go back and see how truly successful I have been at this hot seat list. I still think the numbers will back me up.

Now from a normally good section (for me) to a notoriously horrible section (for me). My Heisman ballot is back. And I don’t know if it can be any worse than what I have done for the past few years. But, I always give it my all so here’s another edition of Bossman’s Heisman Trophy Ballot If He Got a Vote (which he most certainly should not):

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Heisman Ballot

C.J. Stroud, Ohio State – Last year’s ballot was horrifically bad but I did have Stroud in at #4 (and Bryce Young at #5). So it wasn’t all bad (but mostly it was). I have the Buckeyes getting to the National Championship and he will be the main reason why. It will be a close race this year, I believe, but Stroud will put up the numbers and get the big victories that put him over the top.
Bryce Young, Alabama – Yes, I do have the Tide winning the national title this year. It still won’t be enough to not join the list of players who had a shot at pulling an Archie Griffin and came up short. Unlike everyone else on the list, he won’t make it easy on the other contenders. The only thing holding him back is how many other Heisman candidates this team has. They are loaded.
Caleb Williams, USC – It was a huge coup for Lincoln Riley to convince Williams to follow him from Oklahoma to USC. Among the contenders, Williams may have the toughest job helping turn around a 4-8 team so quickly. This is one of the few instances where a team only being so good might end up costing a player during a Heisman campaign.
Will Anderson Jr., Alabama – I believe Anderson is the best defensive player in the country and it’s really not even close. He’s also one small part of the reason that I think Bryce Young won’t win the Heisman. He will take some of the votes that would have been thrown Young’s way. It could work in reverse as well. Anderson could be primed to be the first defensive player in a long time to win the Heisman Trophy but all the good Bama players, including Young, makes it a bit more difficult for him.
D.J. Uiagalelei, Clemson – Should we try this again? Why not. *clears throat* Ahem…Oo-ee-un-guh-luh-lay. Just like last year. And just like last year I have him #5 in my Heisman rankings. He will have to show some serious improvement and I am betting he will. It will help that he will have a better team around him that will be competing fort he College Football Playoff. I think we will have a good idea what kind of season he will have once September ends.
Tyler Van Dyke, Miami – This guy looked like the real deal down the stretch last season and could have been considered the best ACC player the last few weeks of the regular season. The Canes will be better but, as per usual, doing better will help a lot. If the Canes can somehow win the ACC title, Van Dyke’s chances might soar.
Dillon Gabriel, Oklahoma – A fantastic quarterback at UCF. And thanks to TransferPortalMania, he ends up in Norman, replacing Caleb Williams (and, sure, Spencer Rattler). Being the quarterback for the Sooners is always a pressure situation but the pressure should be a lot less this season which may allow Gabriel to thrive.
Bijan Robinson, Texas – Running backs still get shafted, to an extent, when it comes to Heisman voting. It takes a phenomenal year for one to win it and you have to pair it with no outstanding quarterbacks. An uphill battle for sure. But if there’s one running back who could break through this season, it could be the new king of dijon mustard, Bijan Robinson. He will be the guy who makes the Texas offense go so if they win even 9 games this year, look for him to get a lot of attention from voters.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State – Hey, how about the guy who had a breakout game for the ages at the Rose Bowl? He will have arguably the best quarterback in the country throwing to him. As we know, that’s a plus and a minus when it comes to the Heisman. At the very least, he is the highest rated receiver coming into the season so that counts for something.
Hendon Hooker, Tennessee – This may feel to some like an out-of-nowhere kind of pick. Hooker showed what he could do running a decent Vols offense. With Tennessee having a lot more talent on that side of the ball this season, he may have some crazy stats. If Tennessee somehow gets to a New Year’s Six bowl, he will get a ton of hype.

Honourable Mention

TreVeyon Henderson, Ohio State
Jahmyr Gibbs, Alabama
Braelon Allen, Wisconsin
Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss
Quinn Ewers, Texas
Spencer Rattler, South Carolina
Grayson McCall, Coastal Carolina
Jordan Addison, USC
Devin Leary, NC State

I am going to wish the players on this list good luck since there is a chance the winner is nowhere to be found here. Because I am terrible at this.

All the predictions I have are now complete! In about five months or so I will find out how poorly I did.

Next up will be…hold on let me check my notes…yes….YES……YEEEEEES! College football is back! Week Zero! I mean it’s just Week Zero but still….WEEK ZERO! I will have the schedule up at some point early in the week. I’ve already been asked about the specialty packs as it pertains to this coming Saturday. My guess is they won’t show anything since normally they don’t because…who knows but I will chalk it up to some sort of incompetence since what they (Bell and Rogers) tell me makes no sense. I will keep everyone updated. Have a great rest of the weekend everyone!

Man, this Realignment Coaster just never ends

Posted on July 4, 2022 by guelphbossman

Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC. OK.

USC and UCLA to the Big Ten. Oh my.

A bunch of Group of Five teams change conferences. Alright then.

Ready for the next one? It has been reported that the Big XII is making a move. After getting Cincinnati, Houston, UCF and BYU to join, it looks like they will also be inviting Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado. So once Texas and Oklahoma leave the conference, that would put the Big XII at 16 teams. Maybe they will finally change their name to the Big XVI (since I believe they have the rights to that name if they want to use it).

So now what? Look, the next domino, whether they or their fans like it or not, is Notre Dame. And it will all come down to TV contracts. The Irish, as I’ve mentioned before, have a great deal with NBC. To give that up would be asinine. Saying that, who knows what the long game could be. When this contract is up, will they get another one on par (at least) with what they are getting now? Maybe not if there are three mega-conferences and Notre Dame is not in any of them.

The other part is that these conference expansion plans tend to involve “partners.” A school comes along with another school (their partner) as kind of a package. There is the possibility that Notre Dame and Stanford could partner up and move to the Big Ten. As much as people would say the Cardinal should be partners with Cal, well, Cal is a mess and their athletic department isn’t doing so well. I could see them being left behind if this is the way things turn out.

As much as some experts are saying Oregon and Washington might be left out of the fun for now, there is a feeling that eventually the Big Ten will pick them up as well. They aren’t as valuable, as a whole, as USC or UCLA but they are still valuable schools to have and to just allow the Big XII to scoop them up (which they might try and do anyway) would make no sense.

Then does the Big XII raid the Pac-12 or does the Pac-12 raid the Big XII? The Pac-12 is the bigger name brand but the Big XII is in a better position at this point, at least when it comes to college football. Or does the Pac-12 just start backfilling with Mountain West members? That seems unlikely but you never know as this has gone from a kind of wait-and-see type atmosphere to full-blown panic mode and moves have to be thought out much quicker.

And again, how does this affect the Group of Five? I’m sure there will be at least cursory looks at the American Conference and anything that happens there will have a trickle-down effect to the rest of the conferences, even the MAC which doesn’t seem to want to change at all.

We could be looking at a wild week here in college football. The kind of week we really haven’t seen many of during the entire history of this sport. Buckle up, this could get even more interesting or weird or crazy or any of the above.

As for now, I am done talking about realignment. I could go into detail into what I think the conferences will look like in a couple years but I’m not ready to get into that now. I am trying to focus on getting my season predictions ready to go so I can get started on those posts. Plus, I have network specific posts that I may condense into a couple of posts instead (like I did with the games lists posts). We’ll see. Anyway, have a great week everyone.

The Bearcats are the real deal and the rest of the Week 5 College Football Recap

Posted on October 4, 2021 by guelphbossman

If you didn’t watch the Cincinnati-Notre Dame game this past weekend you missed the coming out party of, I would say, the best Group of Five team in the College Football Playoff era. The Bearcats showed they are for real as the 24-13 score doesn’t show how lopsided this game really was. If it wasn’t for the Bearcats kicking game, they would have won by probably 20 or so. Desmond Ridder may have even kickstarted his Heisman campaign with his performance. And Notre Dame is still a heavy favourite to go to the New Year’s Six so that will look damn good on the Bearcats’ resume. They do have to hope Indiana ends up doing well the rest of the way and they have to beat most of the teams on their conference schedule pretty easily. But this team is primed to do what no Group of Five team has really had a chance to do before: be a legitimate threat for the College Football Playoff. If they do what they need to do, then we have to see what kind of help they will get. The way this season has gone, it’s pretty much a given that at least a few more Top 10 teams will falter the rest of the way. As of this point, 32 ranked teams have lost games. That’s an average of over 6 a week. That is absurd. I can’t see that rate continuing all season but if it comes close then this will be a ridiculous season where it would make sense for a G-5 team to break through the glass ceiling. I’ve mentioned it before but I don’t have a favourite school but it would be a lot of fun to see what Cincy could do in the CFP, right?

Other than that, it was a pretty fun weekend if you weren’t fans of Ole Miss or Arkansas. Both teams looked completely outmatched against Alabama and Georgia, respectively. Let’s be honest here: the Tide and Dawgs are easily the top two teams in college football and every other program is at least a tier below them. I know it feels like we will be heading towards the inevitable Bama-UGA national championship game but the season has already been crazy so who knows.

BYU continues their undefeated march as they also have some pretty high aspirations for this season. Utah State is a pretty good team in the Mountain West this year and looked like nothing special against the Cougs. BYU is now in the Top 10 of the AP Poll and just keep plugging along. What will The Committee do with the Cougs (not to mention Cincy)? BYU still has Boise State, Baylor and USC left on their schedule and have to take care of business on their end. Even one loss would probably push them to the brink of the New Year’s Six, especially with no automatic in that the best Group of Five team gets. Much like Cincinnati, they have to take care of business and then hope the chips fall in their favour around them.

Clemson survived Boston College. The Tigers looked to be in a bit of trouble all game and were lucky that Boston College had to play their backup quarterback. Their time at the top of the ACC may be coming to an end. D.J. Uiagalelei has not been good at all which has been a massive shock to many people, especially Tiger fans. As for the rest of the ACC, it honestly doesn’t look too good but there is still…

Wake Forest! Huge victory over an improved Louisville team. They are 5-0 just like everyone thought they would be, right? Well, I had them starting 5-0 so there had to have been others. Actually, I have them getting to 8-0 and undefeated going into November. Not saying the ACC’s hopes lie with the Demon Deacons but they really do lie with the Demon Deacons. In a completely crazy season (so far), Dave Clawson has done a masterful job at Wake and it will be interesting to see what bigger Power Five team will try to poach him in the offseason.

A game that shouldn’t have been close but was went down on The Farm. Oregon played horrible for much of their game against Stanford but still had a chance to win at the end. A controversial PI call allowed Stanford one untimed down to score a touchdown to tie it and send it to overtime and they did. The Cardinal finished off the #3 team in the land in overtime and now the Pac-12 has no unbeaten teams. We are four days into October. Yikes.

Florida goes down to Kentucky! I don’t know what it is about Mark Stoops but the Gators do not like playing against that man. The Wildcats could be an interesting team this season. Picking up Wan’Dale Robinson from Nebraska could end up being the thing that pushes them up the ladder in the SEC East. I mean it still comes down to Florida having to beat Georgia in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party to even give the Cats a chance but man wouldn’t that be something.

Oklahoma could be one of the worst 5-0 teams I have ever seen. They are barely winning most of their games and not looking the true contender I (and many in the actual college football media) thought they would be. Really you can’t blame this on Spencer Rattler this time since he played well but their defense still leaves a lot to be desired. They now have the Red River Shootout to deal with and this is always a weird game so we will see how the Sooners pull this one out.

So is Jimbo going to get another contract extension? The Aggies looked dreadful at times and Will Rogers picked them apart as they drop to 3-2 and out of the Top 25. Their game against Auburn at the start of November could be to stay out of last place in the SEC West. Auburn has made it so they are not at the bottom after Bo Nix went all Johnny Manziel and willed the Tigers to a huge victory in hostile territory. Normally I don’t like the 9:00 start times for ESPN games but this was fine with very little in the late night window. A fun game that came down to the end and now Ed Orgeron is on the hot seat, yet again. It’s funny how some schools would never think of firing a successful coach even after a mediocre season or two. Then there are some schools that give not a single solitary squirt of shit about that and want to win RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

Oh, UCF. That was a tough one. The Gus Bus really never kept it on the road against a Navy team that was winless up until this point. Now I am sure people will start griping about Gus Malzahn but they have struggled with injuries and really aren’t that team that will challenge Cincinnati this season. They should still be bowl-eligible and at the very least, it assures Malzahn can’t just grab a Power Five head coaching opportunity after this season.

Did anyone pass the Hawaii Test? Well, yours truly did! Stayed up to see a great game in front of no fans in a high school stadium in Honolulu. I might have some serious problems. Anyway, Fresno State’s loss to the Rainbow Warriors has pretty much sealed the Mountain West’s NY6 fate this season.

Let’s take a look at how the seasons are going at Pittsburgh and Tennessee. They met three weeks ago in a barnburner and none of us could have known that these two teams would, for the most part, be playing very good ball at this point of the season. The Vols are 3-2 with a probable win over South Carolina next weekend. The Panthers are even better, 4-1, with a baffling loss to Western Michigan their only defeat. It wouldn’t be a shock to see both teams with at least 8 wins and causing some havoc in their conferences later on in the season.

Does the Big XII deserve a bit more respect? Baylor and Oklahoma State played in a back-and-forth affair that many people probably avoided watching because the Big XII seems like Power Five cooties to a lot of people. People would rather watch the Pac-12…yeah, I said it. Saying all that, the conference would get the last laugh if Oklahoma and the Pokes are undefeated and play in late November in Bedlam in one of the biggest games of the season.

Hey, how about The U? Ugh. A chance to beat the Fighting Mendenhalls on a chip-shot walk-off field goal and doinks it off the upright. Miami is 2-3 and looking a whole lot worse than most expected. Manny Diaz might not be able to escape the hot seat which is essentially lava now.

Finally, did you watch the game of the week? If not, it was a great one with a walk-off field goal. I, of course, am talking about UConn and Vanderbilt! As sad as it sounds, this was a really good game with a fun finish and Vandy is now at 2 wins which may be more than many thought they would get. UConn is still winless but will have a chance to rectify that in the GAME OF THE CENTURY when they face UMass.

Alright enough recappin’. Time for the Bossman Top 25. Let’s do this!

#1	Alabama
#2	Georgia
#3	Cincinnati
#4	Oklahoma
#5	Penn State
#6	Iowa
#7	Ohio State
#8	BYU
#9	Oregon
#10	Arkansas
#11	Notre Dame
#12	Michigan
#13	Coastal Carolina
#14	Michigan State
#15	Oklahoma State
#16	Auburn
#17	Kentucky
#18	Ole Miss
#19	Florida
#20	Wake Forest
#21	NC State
#22	Texas
#23	Clemson
#24	Arizona State
#25	Oregon State

Yep, I have Alabama over Georgia although I took my time with that decision. I believe the difference between the two teams is razor thin. I would say the Dawgs’ win over Arkansas was a bit more impressive than the Tide’s victory over Ole Miss but not by much. Every week there has been so much change that the next two weeks could have a completely different top two. The amount of ranked teams that have lost, as I stated earlier, is absurd. And yes I have Cincy in the #3 spot. They may not hold on to it depending on what other teams do but for now I think they deserve it. The Pac-12 and ACC are inhabiting the bottom part of the Top 25 so don’t be shocked if one or two of those teams sneaks up and somehow gets to the Top 10 by the final weekend. It’s been that kind of year.

See you back on Wednesday for the college football TV schedule. Until then, enjoy your week everyone!

So…..what now? (The Pac-12 Predictions)

Posted on July 28, 2021 by guelphbossman

confused-o

Yeah you could say a lot has happened lately in the college football world. With none of it having to do with the Pac-12. They watched Texas and Oklahoma not join their conference instead going to the SEC, possibly as early as 2022. They have to know that ESPN probably had a lot to do with the Texahoma Four (UT, OU, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State) not going to the Pac-12 years ago and a lot to do with the Horns (Down) and Sooners heading to the SEC. So the Pac-12’s question is….what now?

They have some options, none of them amazing. They could probably pillage some of the teams from the Wreck of the Edmund FitzBig12. They almost certainly wouldn’t get Kansas and their lucrative basketball program. But those few teams would push them into the Central Time Zone which isn’t all bad. Or they could bring in a Mountain West team or two *COUGH* Boise State *COUGH*. I’m sure the Pac will not back BYU, no matter how much they claim religious bias. Or they could take a combination from the two conferences. Or they could stand pat (for now) at twelve teams. Again, do any of these options sound amazing? No. But they should be on the horn with FOX and probably CBS (or even NBC as well) and determine what their potential TV contract options are since it sounds like it’s the networks, mainly ESPN, that drive all this realignment. So might as well go straight to the source(s).

A lot will happen even in the next month. There will be more rumours for sure. Hell, there is one out there that says all eight remaining Big XII teams are considering merging with the Pac-12. That sounds insane to me but you never know. We are headed for a whole new world. I just hope this new college football world doesn’t contain divisions.

A perfect lead-in to the Pac-12 predictions (which contains divisions unfortunately). I will follow these with some Mystery Musings:

	Conference		Overall
North	W	L	W	L
Washington	8	1	11	1
Oregon	7	2	10	2
Stanford	5	4	7	5
California	5	4	6	6
Washington State	2	7	4	8
Oregon State	0	9	3	9
South
USC	8	1	10	2
Utah	7	2	9	3
Arizona State	6	3	9	3
UCLA	4	5	6	6
Colorado	2	7	4	8
Arizona	0	9	1	11

Mystery Musings

Is Arizona really that bad? Look, Jedd Fisch steps into a horrific situation in Tucson. This team could potentially lay claim to the title of Worst Power Five team for 2021. It is going to take a lot for them to get more than one win this season. Luckily they have Northern Arizona on their schedule. And at home.
The South Division could be very close…again. Arizona State could surprise everyone, including myself, and be even better than I predicted but man it’s a mess down there (what in the fuck is wrong with college football in the state of Arizona). I still think USC is the class team of the Pac-12 South and should outlast the Utes for the division crown.
Are the Cardinal back? Wait…Is the Cardinal back? That also doesn’t sound right. Anyway, Stanford is slowly making their way back up the North Division ladder. This won’t be the year they get to the top and to the Pac-12 Championship game but they are trending in the right direction yet again.
As for the top of the North Division, I am going against the grain and saying Washington will beat Oregon in their meeting at Husky Stadium and claim the division title. Most have Oregon as a Top 10 team and I see them just outside looking in.
Oregon State was getting oh so close to getting back to a bowl game. I see them taking a step back unfortunately as they don’t have the horses to compete with the top 4 in the division. Poor Beaver fans.
So for the Pac-12 title game I have USC defeating Washington. Meaning the Pac-12 would, yet again, miss out on the College Football Playoff. I am sure they cannot wait until the 12-team playoff begins.
I see the Pac-12 getting eight bowl teams. I think I say that pretty much every year and they almost never hit that mark. Maybe one day I’ll learn.

We are more than three-quarters done the conference prediction posts. Next is the conference that may be R’ing In P soon, the Big XII. I almost feel sorry for them but this is the way college football is headed.

So we are exactly one month away from the start of the college football season. I get it: Week Zero isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea and I fully understand. I get way too excited for it only because it’s the start of the season, not because it has amazing matchups because it almost never does. As for where these games will go, there are two games on ESPN that day. Still no word on any semblance of a TSN schedule for the college football season so it wouldn’t surprise me if these go to the specialty pack. Or if Bell, Rogers, Eastlink and any other cable company with a college football specialty pack of some sort decides they can’t start showing those games because they start their schedule Week 1, then these will appear nowhere in Canada. Oh well, we can’t win ’em all. Have a great rest of the week everyone!

ARE….YOU……..READY? – Week 14 College Football TV Schedule

Posted on November 28, 2019 by guelphbossman

Footballgasm 2019 has arrived! There is so much god damn football between American Thanksgiving and the end of the weekend. I freakin’ love it! Pretty damn sweet if you ask me. I wish Canadians would do this as well but I can’t see them corresponding Thanksgiving with football unless it’s like two CFL games. Definitely no college football that is for sure.

The schedule will be done in the annual Thanksgiving Footballgasm style. Every game is not important but everything gets its own section. Yeah. I know. Crazy, right? And if you don’t remember, first logo is the American network and the second logo is where you can see the game in Canada. You should know that by now though. Let’s get started!

Thursday

Ole Miss at Mississippi State

7:30 PM

Ole Miss will not be going bowling this year again but this time it’s because of their record, not being under some sort of sanctions. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, need this Egg Bowl win to be bowl-eligible. A Rebels win would make the season a success for many Rebels fans.

Friday

#24 Virginia Tech at Virginia

Noon

Winner of the Commonwealth Cup gets their opportunity at the ACC Goliath, Clemson. There’s also a decent chance that the winner here will get the Orange Bowl slot no matter what happens in the ACC Championship.

Texas Tech at Texas

Noon

Big game here…haha, just kidding. This means absolutely nothing as Texas is bowl-eligible and Texas Tech can’t qualify for the postseason. Poor choice by FOX but I have a feeling they were very limited here. You have to wonder about Tom Herman’s future in Austin after this season that is a huge disappointment.

Miami-OH at Ball State

Noon

Ball State is playing for pride since the best they can do is go 5-7. Miami-OH clinched the MAC East last week so they are just looking for momentum in this one going into the MAC Championship.

Toledo at Central Michigan

Noon

A Central Michigan win here clinches the MAC West crown A loss and Western Michigan will represent the MAC West in Detroit despite their loss earlier this week to Northern Illinois.

#17 Iowa at Nebraska

2:30 PM

This game means everything for the Huskers as a win has them bowl-eligible. They will have a tough time here at Faux Farmageddon against a tough Hawkeyes team who really doesn’t have a shot at the New Year’s Six despite sitting at #17 in the CFP Rankings.

Missouri at Arkansas

2:30 PM

So after posting the bowl projections I find out that the NCAA upheld Missouri’s postseason ban. So this means 1) I have to change my bowl projections and 2) this game means nothing. Who knows what will happen with Barry Odom after the season but I can pretty much guarantee that he won’t get the Bret Bielema treatment that Bielema got two years ago after this very same game.

#19 Cincinnati at #18 Memphis

3:30 PM

Game of the year for the Group of Five. The winner here is way out in front for the Cotton Bowl bid. Also if the Tigers win, they clinch the AAC West title aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand a rematch with Cincinnati back in Memphis. A Cincinnati win here, coupled with a Navy win over Houston and the Middies complete their incredible comeback from last year’s disastrous season and will head to Cincy for the AAC Championship although probably not a Cotton Bowl bid (although they still have a chance if a few other things happen). If it’s anything like a couple of the important American Conference games of the past few years, it should be a wild one.

#20 Boise State at Colorado State

3:30 PM

Boise State is hoping that the winner of the previous game will end up losing the conference championship game as that would leave the Broncos as, probably, the team going to the Cotton Bowl. That’s if they can get by Colorado State who will not be going bowling this year but at least improved on last season.

Washington State at Washington

4:00 PM

For the first time in a long time, this game means nothing. Both teams sit at 6-5, are going bowling, and have no chance in the Pac-12 North. FOX is 0-for-2 today with their selections.

West Virginia at TCU

4:15 PM

TCU needs this one as they are at five wins. The Mountaineers are at four so will be home for the holidays. So it really is all about the Horned Frogs and if they can slip into bowl season.

UCF at USF

8:00 PM

In the past this had been one of the games of the weekend. This year, instead, we get a game that has no bearing on anything. UCF is going bowling; USF is not. Charlie Strong might be out as Bulls head coach after this one so that will be discussed a mere ten thousand times during the telecast. This is part of the doubleheader on TSN2 on Black Friday which constitutes the only games on TSN on Black Friday.

Saturday Early

#4 Georgia at Georgia Tech

Noon

This tends to be the issue with this weekend of college football. Games that have very little stakes end up on big-time networks like ABC or FOX or ESPN because of contracts with the conferences. My guess is this is the case here. Georgia needs to win but probably will anyway but their spot in the College Football Playoff hinges more on the SEC Championship game against LSU. Also, with The Game at Noon as well, no point in putting a huge matchup here on ABC.

#1 Ohio State at #13 Michigan

Noon

This is a massive game (as it has been recently) with a lot of different scenarios in play. An Ohio State win almost guarantees that they would be in the CFP no matter what happens in the Big Ten Championship. It also makes it so TTUN has no chance of being in the NY6. A Wolverine win may put Michigan into the New Year’s Six and may knock the Buckeyes down to the NY6. tOSU has won the Big Ten East already so they may still end up in the CFP even with a loss here. So much riding on this game. This is arguably FOX’s Game of the Year and, of course, in the Noon timeslot. I am surprised College Gameday hasn’t started already although since it’s in Minneapolis they will probably just do the normal three hours.

Indiana at Purdue

Noon

This game means nothing except that it’s for the Old Oaken Bucket. Purdue is out, Indiana is in. INdiana if you will. Otherwise there’s no other stakes here.

#3 Clemson at South Carolina

Noon

TSN with a really weak schedule considering what they have done in the previous few years. This sucks for people that don’t have the specialty pack. South Carolina is strictly playing for pride here. They beat Clemson here and they have state supremacy and make it so Clemson has no chance at the College Football Playoff. Clemson has to win out no matter what.

FIU at Marshall

Noon

Both of these teams are bowl-eligible but will not go to the conference championship game. There are better options at this timeslot unless this game is close late.

Tulsa at East Carolina

Noon

Sweet Jesus. Both teams are home for the holidays. I wouldn’t bother. I mean I will end up somehow watching at least three minutes of it but I don’t recommend it to anyone.

Louisville at Kentucky

Noon

Again, another game that means very little except state pride. Nice to see the Cards playing well again as Scott Satterfield has to be considered a Coach of the Year candidate.

Northwestern at Illinois

Noon

How the tables have turned. This time around it’s the Illini that are bowl-eligible and the Wildcats who are out of the fun. I wonder if Pat Fitzgerald is now on the hot seat in Evanston, a sentence I didn’t think I would ever say.

Wake Forest at Syracuse

12:30 PM

Wake needs the win here to have any chance of getting into the New Year’s Six in the Orange Bowl spot. Syracuse was a massive disappointment and are not bowling this season. Don’t see this game up yet but it should show up on the specialty pack soon enough.

Saturday Afternoon

UConn at Temple

3:00 PM

Good God really? Temple is in, UConn is most definitely not. Look elsewhere.

#12 Wisconsin at #8 Minnesota

3:30 PM

This is for the Big Ten West. College Gameday is in Minneapolis. This really is the biggest game in Minnesota Golden Gophers history (unless they win and it will be next week’s game). The loser of this game is probably eliminated from the New Year’s Six as well. Minny needs this for any shot at the College Football Playoff.

#5 Alabama at #15 Auburn

3:30 PM

I kind of hope the Tigers can keep things close here just so CBS has a good game to air. Auburn winning means they have a good chance at the New Year’s Six. A Bama win has to be convincing since it is their last game before whatever bowl they go to. It’s their only chance (other than chaos above them) at the CFP.

Miami at Duke

3:30 PM

Man a lot of these games mean nothing. This is another one. Unless there is another eight-lateral-kickoff-return-touchdown at the end, this may not be your best option.

#9 Baylor at Kansas

3:30 PM

Baylor’s last regular season game and a must-win to keep their slim College Football Playoff hopes alive. Kansas, despite improvement, is not bowl-eligible.

Rutgers at #10 Penn State

3:30 PM

A Penn State win here probably clinches a bid to either the Rose Bowl or Orange Bowl. Rutgers is Rutgers.

Boston College at Pittsburgh

3:30 PM

Hey a game that actually means something, at least for one team. The Eagles need a win or else they do not play in a bowl game and it might be the end of Steve Addazio in Chestnut Hill. Pitt has nothing to play for and at least they aren’t going to the ACC Championship somehow.

Maryland at Michigan State

3:30 PM

For the first time in a long time, the Spartans are fighting for their bowl lives on the final weekend of the season. Maryland, who was in the Top 25 at one point this season, will finish 3-9 with a loss.

Southern Miss at Florida Atlantic

3:30 PM

The Conference USA West Division title hinges quite a bit on this game (but not all of it). FAU is already going to the Conference USA Championship for the second time in three seasons. But Southern Miss has to win this and hope Louisiana Tech loses. If that happens, they will replay this game the following weekend. If they lose, LaTech and UAB both have a chance to win the division title where the tiebreaker is probably a game of rock, paper, scissors.

Tulane at SMU

4:00 PM

Both teams here are bowl-eligible. SMU, despite their breakout season, will not be going to the AAC Championship. Neither will Tulane obviously as improvement is slow-going in New Orleans.

#16 Notre Dame at Stanford

4:00 PM

Do the Irish have a chance to go to the New Year’s Six? Yes but it’s slim. A huge win over Stanford here would help. The Cardinal are home for bowl season for the first time in quite a few years. Actually it has never happened under David Shaw and it was way back during Jim Harbaugh’s second season on The Farm.

Vanderbilt at Tennessee

4:00 PM

Tennessee could end up 7-5. That feels wrong. But they have done well under Jeremy Pruitt and they may have finally found their way back up to the top of the SEC East. Vandy will have to make a decision on Derek Mason after the season is over.

Oregon State at #14 Oregon

4:00 PM

The Civil War! On Pac-12 Network. Alright then. The Beavs have to be heartbroken after last Saturday’s loss to Washington State. But they can make up for it with a win here that would make them bowl-eligible and they would do it against their state rival. Oregon doesn’t need a win here, per se, but it would basically guarantee them the Rose Bowl spot.

Saturday Primetime & Late Night

North Carolina at NC State

7:00 PM

This game means everything to the Tar Heels. Win and they are going bowling which is a huge turnaround from the last two years of Larry Fedora’s term as head coach. Mack Brown has done wonders with the program and infused it with a sense of confidence not seen in a long time. The Wolfpack will try to play spoiler as they have seriously disappointed this year and will not be going to a bowl game.

Texas A&M at #2 LSU

7:00 PM

Chances are LSU romps in this one. No way it will be the 74-72 slugfest of last year and not only because the overtime rules have changed. Who am I kidding, there’s always a chance. But it’s a very slim one as the Aggie defense has to stop the potent LSU offense in what will probably end up being a tune-up for the Tigers on their way to Atlanta for the SEC Championship.

Navy at Houston

7:00 PM

This could be massive…if Memphis loses to Cincinnati on Black Friday. Otherwise it means nothing has Navy and Houston are going in opposite directions this season.

#23 Iowa State at Kansas State

7:00 PM

Two 7-4 teams playing in weather that will be frigid at best. There’s a chance for footbaw weather and if that’s the case would probably be a fun watch.

ULM at Louisiana

7:30 PM

The one time Louisiana gets a primetime national spot and it’s for a game that means little. They have clinched the Sun Belt West division and will meet Appalachian State in the Sun Belt Championship. For ULM it’s a big deal since a win means bowl eligibility as they continue to improve under Matt Viator.

Florida State at #11 Florida

7:30 PM

Wow. If you had told me that Florida State and Florida would end up on the SEC Network on the final weekend of the season I would have thought you were trying to troll the fans of those two schools. But here we are. Game means little except for pride and perhaps the final push for Odell Haggins to keep the head coaching position on a permanent basis.

Colorado at #6 Utah

7:30 PM

Colorado must win this game to become bowl-eligible. Of all games, this one. Up against Utah who has dreams of the College Football Playoff dancing in their heads. Can’t see a bump up from #6 unless something happens above them (or the Utes throttle the Buffs) so really it all comes down to next Friday night’s Pac-12 Championship game. Win that and, in my opinion, they have to garner serious consideration for the Top 4. No guarantees though.

#7 Oklahoma at #21 Oklahoma State

8:00 PM

FOX has done a lot better with their games today than on Black Friday that is for sure. The Sooners need this win badly if they want to have any chance at the College Football Playoff. Hell, a loss here even hurts their New Year’s Six chances so a lot on the line here for them. For the Pokes, it’s spoilin’ time.

BYU at San Diego State

9:00 PM

So for like the fourth straight year, CBS Sports Network shows college basketball after their afternoon game and then goes to this odd timeslot in the evening. And they have always been unlucky with it as everyone of those games have been unimportant. This one is no different as both teams are bowling anyway with the Cougs already slotted into the Hawaii Bowl.

Arizona at Arizona State

10:00 PM

Usually the Territorial Cup has something to it other than bragging rights. Like a broken record, I will reiterate that this game is really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

Fresno State at San Jose State

10:30 PM

Both teams are not going bowling so not much in terms of stakes here. Not that people have other great options so if it’s close it will get some eyeballs.

California at UCLA

10:30 PM

Man I know the end of this day is usually a mild ending but this is ridiculous. There’s like no games that mean anything but I guess it does allow people to get to bed after all that football they have watched.

Army at Hawaii

12:30 AM

Uh, check the starting time. 12:30 in the morning. AFTER midnight! Wow. If you stay up and watch this you are a true college football fan. I’ll see if my body can handle doing this since that means being up until almost 4 in the morning.

Some gambling fun and games

No point in having the Games of the Week section since I went through every game that could be televised above. With the amount of games that do have stakes this post would be so ridiculously long, even longer than my last post that was long on purpose. I called the Navy win over SMU last week which I am proud of but goofed on the Texas over Baylor pick. Hey, you can’t win em all right? This is a special few days so you get more picks from the Bossman. Here we go.

Mississippi State over Ole Miss

Virginia over Virginia Tech

Toledo over Central Michigan

Nebraska over Iowa (upset!)

Memphis over Cincinnati

Boise State over Colorado State

TCU over West Virginia

Georgia over Georgia Tech

Michigan over Ohio State (yes, I am going out on a massive limb here)

Clemson over South Carolina

Wake Forest over Syracuse

Wisconsin over Minnesota

Alabama over Auburn

Baylor over Kansas

Penn State over Rutgers

Pittsburgh over Boston College

Michigan State over Maryland

Florida Atlantic over Southern Miss

Notre Dame over Stanford

Oregon over Oregon State

NC State over North Carolina

LSU over Texas A&M

Navy over Houston

Louisiana over ULM

Utah over Colorado

Oklahoma over Oklahoma State

Army over Hawaii

Plan your days accordingly. Otherwise you will get nothing done. In the end though…FOOTBAW!

NFL Turkey Day games are here as well! Here are your details of these three games today:

Chicago at Detroit (12:30, FOX, CTV2, TSN4/5)
Buffalo at Dallas (4:00, CBS, CTV2, TSN4/5)
New Orleans at Atlanta (8:00, NBC, CTV2, TSN4/5)

I am so damn excited for all this football. Hope you are too. Enjoy the games everyone!

PONY UP! – Week 6 College Football Recap

Posted on October 7, 2019 by guelphbossman

It’s like 1982 all over again!

If you don’t know much about the history of SMU and the Southwest Conference, then let’s take a trip down memory lane. Back to the early to mid-80s. The days of Eric Dickerson (who definitely didn’t know about any improprieties…sure), hooker killer Craig James and a merry band of insane boosters. The days when the Mustangs of Southern Methodist University were the toast of the Southwest Conference (along with Texas of course). Then came the NCAA and they came down hard on the school giving them the only football death penalty ever given. What it did to the football program was catastrophic. It has taken them over three decades to return to being a contender of sorts. But it finally has come. They came into their home game with Tulsa ranked in the Top 25 for the first time since 1982. So how did they start? By going down 30-9 after three quarters to an average-at-best Golden Hurricane team. Ouch.

Then one of the best comebacks in recent memory occurred. The Mustangs scored three straight touchdowns to force overtime. Both teams scored touchdowns in the first overtime. Then SMU fumbled and Tulsa recovered. All they had to do was get a field goal and they win. Instead they fail to gain a yard and a kicker who had never kicked a field goal in a college football game missed just wide left to send the game to triple overtime. There, Tulsa was stopped again and James Proche caught a Shane Buechele pass in the corner of the end zone for the TD and to finish the wild comeback. Things are hopping in Dallas right now and there is some serious New Year’s Six chatter following this team. Good to see a team who has struggled for decades finally put it all together.

As for the rest of the weekend it was…technically college football. A couple more really good games but for the most part it wasn’t the greatest week of college football I have watched. Closer to the worst to be honest. Let’s get down to recapping all this shall we?

And now for the rest of the recap

A great game down in Gainesville this past weekend. Florida won over Auburn in a game many would call an upset. I would kind of agree since up until this point the Tigers looked like a great team and Florida looked like a very overrated Top 10 team. Instead the Gators gutted out a win and now their Cocktail Party game against Georgia could have massive implications. As for the ol’ Gus Bus, it was a flat tire for sure. The bus needs some work and wasn’t roadworthy on Saturday. They have a fairly difficult rest of the schedule so games like that can’t be repeated if they are looking at a NY6 spot.
Another kinda sorta upset type of thing on Friday night. Cincinnati held on to beat UCF in front of a raucous home crowd. For a while it looked like the Knights would pull away and get back to being in the New Year’s Six conversation. Problem is, the Fighting Fickells wouldn’t go away. If it wasn’t for UC’s defense (in the second half) and the running of Michael Warren II, the Bearcats probably wouldn’t have been close. I was right with my pick so now I wonder if UCF can even get back into the NY6 talk. I say no.
How about that game down in south Florida? Miami was way down to Virginia Tech, 28-7 going into the second half. They came all the way back only to gack the game away in the end. The ACC Coastal is a mess, let’s be honest. Other than Virginia, no team seems to want to be on top. So knowing how things are going, we can expect Pitt to somehow win the division.
Speaking of Pitt, they almost allowed Duke to come back from down 23 points in the third quarter. It felt like the Pittening was about to happen. The Panthers were able to hold on as they continue to confound media pundits who can’t get a true read on this team.
Louisville beat Boston College. Seriously. I watched none of it since I couldn’t find the ending of the damn game. Louisville could be good again. That seems shocking. Also, I think the end of the line is coming for Mister Dudes Being Dudes, Steve Addazio. The fanbase is fine with winning seven games every year and not coming close to contending for a division title. But winning four games is unacceptable goddamit.
Let history show that the Tennessee football Volunteers led Georgia 14-13 in a game in 2019. I know that UGA scored the last thirty points of the game but for a bit, the Vols were competitive. It was nice to see. Now we have to wonder if Jeremy Pruitt will survive to the next decade. I’m skeptical. Good ol’ Rocky Bottom.
I thought Michigan State could keep it close. I really did. This Buckeyes team looks like it could be more dominant than any of Urban Meyer’s squads. Justin Fields has pushed his way into the Heisman conversation and the whole offense just looks overwhelming. I mean don’t get me wrong: I could probably coach this team to bowl eligibility. But Ryan Day is doing something special in Columbus and it could lead to a spot in the College Football Playoff if things keep going this way.
Texas kind of struggled with the Mountaineers of West Virginia. Not a good look for the Longhorns that’s for sure. Whether anyone can even approach the Sooners in the Big XII (they beat Kansas pretty thoroughly) is up in the air but it doesn’t look to be the case. The Big XII has basically become Oklahoma and nine other teams.
For a while, the Cal-Oregon game was resembling last year’s Cheez-It Bowl. A hilariously poor showing of football in all facets. I mean Oregon pulled it out in the end but geez they didn’t actually look that great. The Pac-12 is a bit of a dumpster fire at this point.
P.J. Fleck is Rowing That God Damn Boat in Minneapolis. The Gophers are 5-0 and look like they will probably be 8-0 when they get into November. I find it interesting that this team is STILL not in the Top 25 and are getting no CFP chatter. This team could be one of the most underrated teams in recent memory and they may shock a few teams along the way.
In yet another upset, Texas Tech PEW! PEW! PEWed their way over Oklahoma State. It was a fun game that had no shortage of offense and shows that the Big XII mid-card is rather strong.
What is Washington’s deal with Stanford? They looked great last week against USC and then can’t do anything against an average Cardinal team. It’s yet another nail in the Pac-12’s CFP coffin. And it’s early October. Good lord.
Back to speaking about games that resembled the Cheez-It Bowl. Michigan beat Iowa 10-3 in an absolute snoozer…unless you love punting. If you love punting this was the game for you. This was so awful to watch and really does not show either team in a good light going forward. One of these teams is going to somehow end up in the New Year’s Six, I just know it.
USF’s game against UConn was moved to Noon thanks to a mosquito-borne infection of sorts in the Hartford/Storrs area. Only at UConn. Anyway, it was supposed to be live on CBS Sports Network at 7:00 and instead went to the website with a tape delayed broadcast at 7. How many people watched this rebroadcast? Did it even hit triple digits? They should have just ran a long version of their highlights show, Inside College Football.
Finally, Tulane took down Army. So now you have to include the Green Wave (of all teams) in the Group of Five conversation. Who knows if they can actually crack the top tier but Willie Fritz has to be commended for taking what was mostly a woebegone program and has steered it in the right direction.

Not the most amazing weekend, not gonna lie. We need a seriously crazy weekend of college football so even at 2 in the morning I am still wide awake because I can’t believe what has happened in the previous 14 hours.

Alright, let’s now look at the Bossman Top 25:

#1	Alabama
#2	Ohio State
#3	Georgia
#4	Florida
#5	Clemson
#6	LSU
#7	Notre Dame
#8	Oklahoma
#9	Wisconsin
#10	Penn State
#11	Texas
#12	Auburn
#13	Michigan
#14	Oregon
#15	Boise State
#16	Utah
#17	Virginia
#18	Iowa
#19	Arizona State
#20	Wake Forest
#21	Texas A&M
#22	SMU
#23	Baylor
#24	Missouri
#25	Minnesota

Yes there are some differences between my rankings and the AP Poll. I have Ohio State at #2 and Clemson down at #5. Clemson will definitely move up as at least one of the teams above them lose. As for #6 through #9, pick the teams out of a hat to figure out the order. A lot can happen the rest of the way and at this point, no one team is that much better than another. Yes I have Minnesota at #25. I know the AP Poll doesn’t have them in there but man they deserve to be there in my humble opinion. Also, yes I have Missouri at #24. It sounds like they won’t be bowling this year but still, they are playing well. Of course this year, of all years, they are under sanctions. Bad luck.

Hey guess what we have? FUN BELT! Yes, weekday Sun Belt action is back and it starts on Wednesday night. 8:00 but only on the specialty pack. And it’s a big one. Appalachian State and Louisiana. I love weekday football. Honestly, and I know I rail on the NFL being on Thursday but between late August and early January, the more football the better. Have a good week everyone!

You know what time it is? WEEK 1 OVERREACTION TIME! Oh and the Week 2 TV Schedule as well.

Posted on September 5, 2019 by guelphbossman

Who saw that coming for Tennessee last Saturday? What’s Jeremy Pruitt’s future with the team? Should people dump garbage on his lawn because they are upset? Overreaction? Absolutely! But some people think that and are serious about it. Week 1 of the college football season is always chock full of these tasty nuggets. Like these:

UCLA will lose almost every game this season. Not so fast. One game against one of the better Group of Five teams does not a season make. Now if the Bruins lose to San Diego State this Saturday then yeah maybe you can start to panic.
The SEC is terrible! The SEC is a lot like many of the Power Five conferences: the top three-to-six teams are good to great and the rest are mediocre to trash. No difference here.
Boise State has clinched the New Year’s Six spot. Uh, no. I will admit the Broncos are a great contender but UCF is still the favourite and I still have Memphis as my choice.
The Pac-12 has no chance at going to the College Football Playoff. Um, Oregon is not the only good team in the Pac-12. Now apologize to Utah and Washington THIS INSTANT!

Alright Week 1 is in the books and it’s time for Week 2’s schedule and yeah, it’s pretty bad. Sorry guys.

Friday

		US	Canada
WIlliam & Mary at Virginia	8:00 PM
Wake Forest at Rice	8:00 PM
Marshall at #24 Boise State	9:00 PM

A huge Group of Five game starts the week as two New Year’s Six contenders clash on the blue turf of Boise. Still got to favour Boise State in this one but you never know as they always struggle at least once year when they shouldn’t. The Deacs are playing Rice in one of those not-so-odd-anymore Power Five at Group of Five games as well. And yes, there is no Thursday college football. Don’t want to compete with opening night in the NFL since no one would watch the college game (I hate to say that but it’s true).

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Ohio at Pittsburgh	11:00 AM
Cincinnati at #5 Ohio State	Noon
Vanderbilt at Purdue	Noon
UAB at Akron	Noon
#21 Syracuse at Maryland	Noon
West Virginia at Missouri	Noon
Old Dominion at Virginia Tech	Noon
Army at #7 Michigan	Noon
Charleston Southern at South Carolina	Noon
Western Carolina at NC State	12:30 PM

As per usual, a boatload of games in the early timeslot. And yes, one game starts at 11 in the morning. You can thank the ACC Network going with stupid three hour windows in their second week of existence. Ridiculous. So if you are an ACC fan you will miss the first quarter of multiple games almost guaranteed. A few good ones early on with UC-tOSU and Army-UM the two biggest (although the over/under for Cuse-UMD could be seriously high). I am going out on a limb and saying Western Carolina-NC State will appear on the specialty pack although I see nothing yet in any of the guides.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
USF at Georgia Tech	2:00 PM
#12 Texas A&M at #1 Clemson	3:30 PM
Central Michigan at #17 Wisconsin	3:30 PM
Eastern Illinois at Indiana	3:30 PM
Illinois at UConn	3:30 PM
Southern Miss at Mississippi State	3:30 PM
#25 Nebraska at Colorado	3:30 PM
Grambling at Louisiana Tech	3:30 PM
Murray State at #3 Georgia	4:00 PM
New Mexico State at #2 Alabama	4:00 PM
ULM at Florida State	5:00 PM

One of the games of the year right here in this timeslot. The Aggies will make a massive statement and upset the college football apple cart if they can somehow beat Clemson. Here you see the continuation of the weird ACC Network times. If you are using a PVR this may get frustrating but I know it’s because there are so many ACC non-conference games this week, more than any other week by a country mile. The rest of the games are technically college football games so let’s all hope they are at least close going into the fourth quarter. Also we have the debut of the NFL Network as they will be broadcasting Conference USA games this season. Interesting contract but hey, it could work for the conference as they need some sort of quasi-national audience so they don’t fall behind the rest of the Group of Five conferences.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
#18 UCF at Florida Atlantic	7:00 PM
BYU at Tennessee	7:00 PM
#6 LSU at #9 Texas	7:30 PM
Western Michigan at #19 Michigan State	7:30 PM
Tulane at #10 Auburn	7:30 PM
UT-Martin at #11 Florida	7:30 PM
Buffalo at #15 Penn State	7:30 PM
Eastern Michigan at Kentucky	7:30 PM
Arkansas at Ole Miss	7:30 PM
Miami at North Carolina	8:00 PM

Not exactly stacked but this does contain another potential Game of the Year as LSU travels to Austin to play the Longhorns. Again, don’t need to belabour the point but this could lead to College Football Playoff chatter (along with New Year’s Six chatter). Yes, Miami-UNC could be good considering how the Tar Heels have already looked impressive and Miami…not so much. Also the Cougars of BYU travel to Knoxville to face a team with the most frustrated fanbase in college football. Other than that there are a few decent games and some dreck. Can’t win ’em all.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Minnesota at Fresno State	10:30 PM
#23 Stanford at USC	10:30 PM

Not much of a late night sked but two pretty good games, at least on paper. Clay Helton better pray his new quarterback, true freshman Kedon Slovis, figures things out quick or Helton’s days may be numbered…and by numbered I mean single digits. The other game should be close as Minnesota looked shitty against South Dakota State and should be better against a good Mountain West team in the Bulldogs.

Games to set your eyeballs on

LSU at Texas (7:30, ABC/TSN2) – This is the only game on TSN this week and it’s the game of the week. Honestly this isn’t a huge deal since there is only one other game that could warrant GOTW status. But we know what happens on weeks like this. Usually absolute chaos and/or some fantastic finishes. Anyway, we have to say that this is a huge game that could shape both teams’ seasons. The winner has a leg up on hopefully getting to the College Football Playoff whereas the loser almost has to look at the New Year’s Six (unless more chaos happens later on in the season).

Texas A&M at Clemson (3:30, ABC) – Survive this game and the Tigers don’t have much to stop them from winning the ACC Atlantic Division. Before I continue, can they either make the divisions make more sense geographically or get rid of divisions altogether? That would be great. Don’t think this will be an easy one for the Dangerous Dabos since TAMU might be improved from last year when they took Clemson to the limit. I still think this would be a monumental upset, though, if the Aggies can pull it out.

Cincinnati at Ohio State (Noon, ABC) – Man, does this ever drop off after the first two. But ABC does have the top three games of the week officially. Time to celebrate? I’d say no. Honestly I can’t see this game being close but it does mark the return of Luke Fickell to Columbus. And now the Bearcats are actually a good team. Still though. I won’t regret putting this game on the list since there isn’t much to pick from.

Army at Michigan (Noon, FOX) – Hey, finally a non-ABC game. Fantastic. I hope FOX really doesn’t care about this week since this is not good as their best game. Saying that, remember what the Black Knights did in Oklahoma last season. They almost pulled off the monumental upset of the Sooners. Now if they can somehow finish things off this year it would do two things: have everyone saying Michigan still sucks and putting Army squarely in the New Year’s Six conversation. Actually there will be a third thing. Jimmy Harbaugh will go back to the hot seat list which he is almost never off of anyway.

Stanford at USC (10:30, specialty pack) – Look, USC is an interesting story so far this season. And now they have lost their starting quarterback for the season and will have to start a true freshman. But this is USC so you know they always have a chance. Plus, the Cardinal didn’t exactly look like world-beaters against Northwestern last week. Don’t be surprised if around 1:30 in the morning, many eyeballs are on this game because it’s close.

Honourable mention: Buffalo at Penn State (7:30, FOX); Syracuse at Maryland (Noon, specialty pack); Marshall at Boise State (Friday, 9:00, specialty pack)

Some gambling fun and games

Like last year at this very same time, I will say that Florida State losing wasn’t a bad pick on my part since they should have won. Picking Oregon was also not a bad pick since that was a great again against Auburn. Other than that I did amazing last week. So let’s get to another week of fantastic (or not fantastic) picks that are straight up and not against the spread:

Boise State over Marshall

Penn State over Buffalo

Texas over LSU (upset pick!)

Clemson over Texas A&M

Michigan over Army

Ohio State over Cincinnati

Syracuse over Maryland

USC over Stanford (another upset pick!)

Tennessee over BYU

Arkansas State over UNLV

Wisconsin over Central Michigan

As of now I see nothing on the guide for the specialty pack. Nothing. I know the games are coming but don’t see them yet. Frustrating. Maybe that will change by the time the games start tomorrow. I wonder if it’s due to nothing on tonight for college football. Who the fuck knows. Either way, the schedule I have above (less the one game on FOX Sports Network) should appear as I have said it will.

The reason no college football tonight? The NFL is back baybee! The opening game for this season (which is the NFL’s 100th season) is the Packers and the Bears. We will get a good idea of if Aaron Rodgers can co-exist with new head coach Matt Lafleur. Also we will get a good idea of Vic Fangio was the reason for the Bears’ success last season. The game is on NBC, CTV2 and all the TSNs except TSNs 2 and 5.

I will be on the Twitter machine again this weekend. I made it to the end last Saturday. I felt very proud of myself. It means I know I’m ready for the season. Now I have to hope a late night game doesn’t go to like five overtimes otherwise I will be a brain-dead idiot on Sunday. Enjoy the games everyone!

Most Important Games of the 2019 College Football Season – Part I

Posted on May 29, 2019 by guelphbossman

I can finally seriously post about college football again! Not draft stuff: actual college football blog posts. It feels almost cathartic to me to be honest. Schedules are now pretty much out although games will change days as we go along. FBSchedules has started to release their popular (to me at least) helmet schedules. And I ordered my Phil Steele College Football Preview magazine. AND I am also looking to when other preview mags will appear in stores. So yeah, I am starting to think about college football.

Starting a lot earlier with the posts this year as well. And by a lot earlier I mean one day earlier. As for accuracy, do not take these lists as gospel. As the season goes on, it may turn out that some teams are way better than I thought and vice versa. It happens. For example, FOX has made it so the best games will definitely be the Noon games on their broadcast network this season. Not that we needed proof since this is what happened last year as well at least half the time. But let’s say that, for reasons that would always be unclear, FOX moved The Game (Ohio State vs. Michigan for the uneducated college football fan) to the 4:00 EST time slot and put, oh, Northwestern-Illinois in at Noon instead. One of two things would have had to have happened:

Northwestern is Northwestern and Lovie Smith somehow made Illinois a Top 25 team, or
To the pure joy of almost every non-Big Ten fan (and every fan outside Ann Arbor and Columbus), Ohio State and Michigan both suck.

So at this point I feel safe putting The Game there instead of the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk, uh, I mean, um *checks Wikipedia* the Land of Lincoln Trophy. Seriously? That sounds so boring.

Disclaimer: Just so you know, some of the broadcast info may change between now and the time I do my network-specific posts. I said it above and I have to say it again. And I understand that. Bear with me. Or don’t. I don’t care. (Note: this disclaimer has been entered in this post every year since the beginning of Bossman’s Blog time…since I am sure people might gripe about my non-accurate information)

For the second year in a row, the Important Games list will be broken down week-by-week and then as per the following:

Game of the Week – This is my opinion of the game of the week. It may differ from your opinion. That is OK. Because the next part is…
Other Really Important Games – See? One of these games might be your game of the week choice.
Sneaky-Good Underrated Game – Some games are underrated. I will try to find one each week that could fulfill that criterion.
Best Group of Five Game – Pretty self-explanatory but has to have TWO G5 teams involved.
Worst Power Five Game – Just like above, except the opposite (with two P5 teams involved).

The “Other Really Important Games” section is the one section where the number of games I include may vary. In some weeks you will only see one or two. Others there may be like seven. We pretty much know which weeks will have better games and which ones won’t so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Let us begin the way I always begin this ordeal/exercise: the weekly rankings. Normally it is the same every year but, lo and behold, this year we see something different. Interesting… (remember, I list the week and the date that corresponds to the Saturday of that week):

Week 14 (November 30 – American Thanksgiving)
Week 7 (October 12)
Week 9 (October 26)
Week 12 (November 16)
Week 8 (October 19)
Week 4 (September 21)
Week 11 (November 9)
Week 6 (October 5)
Week 5 (September 28)
Week 13 (November 23)
Week 3 (September 14)
Week 1 (August 31)
Week 10 (November 2)
Week 2 (September 7)

First off, 14 weeks instead of 13. More college football? Sounds good to me. A couple of years back when Week 1 was huge, many wondered if it was a harbinger of things to come. Not so. This year’s Week 1 doesn’t have many huge games at all. To be completely honest, Week Zero has, arguably, one of the games of the year with Florida and Miami facing off. American Thanksgiving is back on top, beating out the second-best week (Week 7) by a good margin. Not to say Week 7 isn’t good. It is (along with Weeks 9, 12 and 8). But here’s the craziest thing. SEC Shitbreak Week is not the worst week though this season. Not even close! It is only the fifth-worst week. It may have got to the point that I can’t make fun of the SEC (and any other conference) playing FCS teams that week…oh come on I will still do that but I have to tone it down a bit. For the second consecutive year, Week 2 is the worst and it is the worst by a mile. I would honestly even rate Week Zero higher just because of the one good game. Problem is, they have two potential games of the year. Then the week falls off a steep cliff. It’s the secondary games that are making it look seriously bad. But it’s still college football so I will watch of course. I am sure Bell and Rogers will not show Week Zero games so fingers crossed the UF-Miami game ends up on a TSN station or two.

Now it’s time for the weekly breakdowns. I will be guessing with quite a few of them, especially when it comes to TSN coverage. I will be using last year’s schedule as a basis for this but I know it won’t be fully accurate. Keep that in mind. At least the lists of games I will be presenting should, for the most part, be important games throughout the 2019 college football season. Let’s go!

Week 1

Game of the Week: Auburn vs. Oregon (in Arlington) (7:30, ABC/TSN3) – So I see ABC has moved to all 7:30 start times for it’s primetime games. Not that it matters to me since I am up until like 2 in the morning anyway but for many people, to have the game done around 11 is huge. By the way, this game is the biggest by a fair bit for Week 1. Means that the emphasis is back off opening week, somewhat. And what we have here is two dark horse contenders for the national title. A loss here is a huge blow to their CFP chances.

Other Really Important Games: Georgia Tech at Clemson (Thursday, 8:00, specialty pack) – The ACC Network starts out with a bang as they scored this game for opening Thursday. Been a while since two teams that were this good played on opening night. It’s a lock that the Tigers will be a great team again this year despite all the losses on defense. It will be interesting to see how Georgia Tech fares in their first game under new coach Geoff Collins. The Ramblin’ Wreck could throw an insanely huge monkey wrench into the season right off the hop with an upset here.

Houston at Oklahoma (Sunday, 7:30, ABC) – Glad to see ABC continuing to do the Labour Day Sunday games still. Always nice to have some football on a day where there will be, well, nothing but perhaps drinking. I am very curious as to how the Dana Holgorsen experiment will go in H-Town. And I am sure the broadcasters will mention it a few thousand times as well. I can’t see an upset here but Houston is notoriously a tough out for most teams.

Northwestern at Stanford (7:00, absolutely fucking nowhere up here) – I am taking a guess here with this one as I have it on FOX Sports One which means Canadians would, for the most part, not be able to see it. FOX might decide to put this in either the 3:30 or 7:30 timeslot, however, considering that this week is weak. Stanford has no excuses now about jetlag and their body clocks being earlier since this would be an afternoon game most likely.

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: Boise State vs. Florida State (in Jacksonville) (7:00, TSN2) – This is going to be an interesting year for the Seminoles. They have had two bad seasons (in FSU terms) in a row. This is the kind of high-profile game they need to win. On the other side of the field, Boise State gonna Boise State. A win here and they take the early lead in the Group of Five spot in the New Year’s Six.

Best Group of Five Game: FIU at Tulane (Thursday, 8:00, CBS Sports Network) – Hear me out here. Both of these teams could end up being good, in a G5 sense. Butch Davis and Willie Fritz have done nice jobs here and hope to continue their ascent (and potentially a new Power Five job down the line). Also, this is probably the only time you will see FIU or Tulane in this list so enjoy!

Worst Power Five Game: Oklahoma State at Oregon State (Friday, 10:30, specialty pack) – Oregon State is here again in the Week 1 WGOTW (Worst Game of the Week). So it’s OSU Bowl II: Mulletmania this time around. The thing is this is better than the Best G5 game which pretty much never happens. Anyway, this will probably end up being late Friday night in the middle of the Labour Day Weekend-Plus Footballgasm so I can see it being easily missed. I mean I will watch it but that’s not saying much.

Week 2

Game of the Week: Texas A&M at Clemson (3:30, ABC) – Funny that this is the worst week of the college football season by far yet has two great games. I picked this one juuuuust over the next one. After last year’s game, this year’s one should get a lot of hype and who knows what Jimbo will cook up for his Aggies when they head to Death Valley. A TAMU win here blows the national championship conversation wide open.

Other Really Important Games: LSU at Texas (7:30, ABC) – I honestly thought FOX would try to snatch this one up. I guess they are looking at other games instead. Plus, their assertion that the best games will be on in the Noon timeslot means this may not have fit (and it would have been disgustingly hot in Austin for an 11:00 am kickoff). Anyway, this is another huge early matchup with College Football Playoff implications. Consider these two teams dark horses who could do serious damage to their more accomplished counterparts (Alabama and Oklahoma, respectively). The winner here gets an early jump on all the national championship hype. The loser will have their coach on an undeserved hot seat for a bit.

Stanford at USC (8:00, FOX) – USC should be back in the mix this season. And Stanford has David Shaw at the helm, still, so they will be good as well. It wouldn’t surprise me to see either team win here and take the early catbird seat in the Pac-12. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Clay Helton was put on a scorching hot seat by the local fanbase if the Trojans can’t win this one at the Coliseum.

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: West Virginia at Missouri (19:00, specialty pack) – See what I mean? After Tigers-Longhorns, the game quality falls off a steep cliff with only Stanford-USC an important enough game to list. I had to choose between this game and the San Diego State-UCLA possible late-night thriller but went this way instead. The Mountaineers will not be nearly as good as they were last year. Losing Will Grier isn’t something you just shrug your shoulders and yell “NEXT!” to the next QB in line. You could say the same thing for Missouri and Drew Lock. So there is a possibility that a game that last year would have been like a 60-57 shootout with no overtimes will be a 17-14 defensive battle this time around. Either way it should be close.

Best Group of Five Game: Marshall at Boise State (Friday, 9:00, specialty pack) – This game was actually moved to Friday night to get a national audience. And rightfully so. A win for the Herd on the blue turf would be massive for a conference that has yet to put a team in the New Year’s Six. After this game is over, we will know if Boise is a NY6 contender or not.

Worst Power Five Game: Arkansas at Ole Miss (3:30, specialty pack) – With the CBS announcement of gametimes for the SEC Game of the Week this season, it looks like the ESPN sublicensing arrangement is over. So CBS, for whatever reason, will not have games for Weeks One and Two. I guess they have too much rodeo and dirtbiking to show on the main network. I guess it saves them from having to send an entire crew for this game.

Week 3

Game of the Week: Clemson at Syracuse (7:30, ABC) – This could potentially have national championship implications. No seriously. Clemson has a tough schedule to start the season. Syracuse is not a pushover anymore thanks to Dino Babers. And when was the last time Syracuse hosted an ABC primetime game? I haven’t done any research on this but I am going to say never. After actual research, I found out they played Notre Dame at MetLife Stadium five years ago in primetime on ABC. Other than that, I was correct. A pat on the back for me.

Other Really Important Games: Alabama at South Carolina (3:30, CBS) – If you don’t think the Tigers-Orange game in (not quite) Western New York isn’t the game of the week, maybe you are looking at this one. The only way this ends up possibly matching any potential hype is for the Cocks to keep it close and keep at least some viewers glued to it. At the very least it should be an amazing atmosphere as the South Carolina faithful are raucous for SEC games.

Oklahoma at UCLA (3:30, ABC) – If UCLA is better in Year Two under Chip Kelly, this could end up being quite the barnburner out at the Rose Bowl. If this game was in Norman I don’t even know if this would make the list to be honest. There are many possibilities as to where this could end up. Right now I am leaning ABC but FOX could pick it up. My thoughts are, though, that since FOX wants the best game to be on in the Noon timeslot, it effectively makes it so the Big Ten and Big XII are bigger gets for FOX (in their mind) than the Pac-12.

Florida at Kentucky (7:00, specialty pack) – I had pegged this as the SEC Game of the Week on CBS until it was just announced that Bama-SC would be getting that spot. Oh well this should still be good. You could make an argument that this might be the most important SEC game of the day (unless South Carolina pulls off an earlier upset). Nothing like seeing a great head coach named Stoops on the sideline. Mark? Oh yes. Bob? Absolutely. Mike? Um let’s move on.

Stanford at UCF (Noon, ABC/TSN5) – Will UCF be the Group of Five darling again? I’m just glad they aren’t claiming another national championship after last year’s bowl loss. But, until someone else steps like perhaps Boise State, they continue to lead the pack. This can be another program-defining win if they can pull this one off against the Cardinal. And we all remember what Stanford is like in Noon EST/9am PST starts right?

Florida State at Virginia (7:30, specialty pack) – Yet another appearance of a game on the ACC Network! Nice! The new network is getting a lot of good games early on which is probably key to their growth. And yes, both of these teams SHOULD be good. The Noles won’t be nearly as bad as they were last year and the Hoos will probably win some big games early on and be bowl-eligible again. This game is probably bigger for UVA since the Coastal Division is a bit more wide open than the Atlantic and the Clemson juggernaut. And by a bit, I mean a lot.

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: Iowa at Iowa State (Noon, FOX Sports One aw damn) – Cy-Hawk! I can honestly see this game moving to FOX or being picked up by ESPN but for now I have stuck it here barring any new announcements. I wonder how long of an extension Kirk Ferentz will get if the Hawkeyes can win this one. I put the over/under at 11 years.

Best Group of Five Game: Miami-OH at Cincinnati (Noon, specialty pack) – To be honest, the early season doesn’t usually give us a bunch of good G5-on-G5 violence. The previous week has a huge Marshall-Boise matchup. The first week got FIU and Tulane of all teams. We definitely get something more like the latter this week. Miami-OH in a Game of the anything is a rarity. I mean Cincy could be scary good and will challenge UCF for the AAC East crown but this feels like it could be a blowout in the making.

Worst Power Five Game: North Carolina at Wake Forest (Friday, 6:00, TSN2) – Such an odd time for an early-season college football game. I can see it moving to the specialty pack so that TSN can show Sportscentre and probably Fishing with Italo Labignan. This is the weird non-conference affair between two conference foes that was scheduled a while back. This is the way some of the Power Five teams will get around the rule of having to play a certain amount of Power Five teams or something like that. And as we have noticed, not a single other program has gone this route since. Don’t want to say it’s a dumb idea but it honestly makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.

There you go. The first three weeks are complete. And it’s the first official blog post by yours truly for the 2019 college football season. We are getting close, friends. Only….87 days left? Ugh. That’s way too long. Have a great hump day everyone.

Bossman's Blog

A lot of college football (and perhaps a bit of miscellaneous crap that I think warrants a post)

Tag Archives: Cardinal

Hey let’s storm the field (and give you the Week 9 College Football TV Schedule)

Thursday

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

All Aboard the Coaching Carousel! (and the Week 6 College Football TV Schedule)

Wednesday

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

So…..what now? (The Pac-12 Predictions)