The Land of the Undefeated 8.0

Posted on October 9, 2023 by guelphbossman

Yep. It’s that time again. It’s the eighth (EIGHTH?) edition of looking at the undefeated teams left in college football around the halfway mark of the season. Fun stuff, right? One day I should go back and see how accurate I was with these predictions. Though to be honest, I think I would be scared to do so since my predictions have been so great, right (see Tigers, Clemson). Anyway, let’s get going with this!

#1 Georgia (6-0) – The Dawgs have, at times, looked a bit shaky. Tough wins over South Carolina and Auburn made it seem like this team may struggle at some point. Then they demolish Kentucky and it feels like all is normal again. I still think there is a loss in there but they will, once again, walk to another SEC East title and a berth in the SEC Championship. Predicted record: 11-1.

#2 Michigan (6-0) – Now here is a team that has not struggled. At all. In any sense. The Wolverines are just that good. I do, however, think they will lose a game this season (I have it being a loss to Penn State although it could just as easily be Ohio State). They will still make the Big Ten Championship and throttle whichever sad sack team comes out of the Big Ten West and head to the College Football Playoff. Predicted record: 11-1.

#3 Ohio State (5-0) – Speaking of tOSU, I figure they will also lose one game. I have them losing The Game to Michigan which would knock them out of a shot at the Big Ten Championship (in what could be the most scrutinized tiebreaker ever). The Buckeyes, though, have to quit with the slow starts or otherwise some other team is going to surprise them and it will be lights out for their national championship hopes. Predicted record: 11-1.

#4 Florida State (5-0) – They may end up dropping even more if they can’t show how dominant they really are. Then again, they may not have to since I honestly believe they will be the only undefeated team at the end of the regular season (can you smell those 2007 vibes?). Predicted record: 12-0.

#5 Oklahoma (6-0) – Quite a few people are suprised Oklahoma is doing this well. I figured that they would lose against Texas but would only have that one loss against them at this point. Look, Dillon Gabriel wasn’t going to be as bad as he was last season and the defense was definitely going to be better under Captain Defense himself, Brent Venables. Will they go the rest of the way unscathed. Eh…. Predicted record: 10-2.

#6 Penn State (5-0) – PSU really doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses. They could go on a serious run, the likes which haven’t been seen in State College in quite a long time. It is Penn State, though. They are bound to lose one and I think they will to Ohio State (which would make for a fun three-way tie at 11-1). Predicted record: 11-1.

#7 Washington (5-0) – The Pac-12 is up for grabs. The worry is that the conference will cannibalize itself. I agree with that notion. Predicted record: 9-3.

#8 Oregon (5-0) – If you take out the weird Texas Tech game, the Ducks have looked awesome. They would seem to be on a fast track to the Pac-12 Championship if USC, Washington, UCLA, Oregon State and Washington State weren’t in their conference. If one Pac-12 team gets out with only one loss, I wonder if The Committee gives them a bit of a bump because of how difficult the road to get there would have been. Predicted record: 10-2.

#10 USC (6-0) – Now we get to the Trojans, the preseason Pac-12 favourites. Man, have they had a roller coaster season so far. Three close games in a row now for this team. And their defense is atrocious. If Lincoln Riley wants to stick with Alex Grinch as his defensive coordinator then so be it. It will most likely cost USC a trip to the CFP (if not also the New Year’s Six). Predicted record: 10-2.

#12 North Carolina (5-0) – Maybe this will finally be the Heels’ year. They are flying under the radar and playing really good football if you take away the game against Appalachian State where they survived in double overtime. Will they struggle with their ACC schedule? Looking at it, they probably should be 9-0 going into the Victory Bell game against Duke. Then all bets are off. Predicted record: 11-1.

#14 Louisville (6-0) – This is arguably the biggest surprise on this list. Not saying no one thought Louisville wouldn’t be good. Just not this good. I had them 4-2 at this point which is pretty good but not undefeated. I would say they now have the meat of their conference schedule remaining but realistically, if they can beat Duke, they could conceivably be 11-0 and playing Kentucky for the Governor’s Cup in late November. Sounds crazy but you never know. Predicted record: 10-2.

Air Force (5-0) – They have ascended to the top of the Group of Five pecking order…for now. They have Wyoming this weekend in what could be the biggest game of the season. Other than that, it could end up being a showdown with Boise State to end the regular season which will tell us whether the Falcons will have their first shot at the New Year’s Six or not. Predicted record: 10-2.

Liberty (5-0) – The Flames are playing….pretty good. Holding on to beat Sam Houston isn’t a good look though. They also might have the easiest schedule remaining of any team in FBS. So even if they ran the table it would probably mean nothing unless utter chaos happened. Predicted record: 10-2.

James Madison (5-0) – Now here’s a frustrating one. JMU is undefeated. Would be bowl-eligible except for the NCAA’s ridiculous rule that teams moving up from FCS must serve a two-year transition. The thing is, that is to keep teams from not having full FBS schedules from becoming bowl-eligible. The Dukes weren’t even like that last year in their first year in FBS. Hopefully someone comes to their senses and gives this team a shot at a bowl game, if not the Sun Belt Championship. Predicted record: 10-2.

14 teams left unscathed. We are in mid-October. I wouldn’t be surprised if we headed into November with only 5 or 6 undefeated teams. At least we know for sure that by early Sunday morning there will only be a maximum of 13 undefeated teams with Washington and Oregon meeting in a mega-matchup.

Tomorrow…yes, TOMORROW…is the start of the college football week. Conference USA continues their October Weekday Warrior schedule with two games. The Fun Belt adds to the mix with a game of their own. Wednesday then has two more C-USA games. Football every day folks. Gotta love it! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day!

SHUT IT DOWN! – Conference Championship Week/Other Games Played/CFP/NY6/Bowl Selection Recap

Posted on December 21, 2020 by guelphbossman

What a horrible Sunday for college football overall. I mean what we all saw was a complete fucking disaster and showed that the system isn’t just not working…it’s a god damn disaster. I have had ideas in the past on how I would do the bowl games but man, I am going to have to dig deep to figure out a better fix this time around. Time to just completely shut this down and start over fresh since this isn’t working.

First of all, there was no drama for the top four teams. So don’t take over 30 minutes to reveal them. Then almost another two hours to reveal the somewhat disappointing New Year’s Six games. Then the rest of the bowl game reveals. Jesus Fucking Christ.

It was down to Notre Dame and Texas A&M for the #4 spot and it was obvious the Irish were going to get it. What bugs me is ESPN including Cincinnati in all this. Like they had a shot! They were #9 coming in and ended up #8. They dropped a couple spots when they didn’t play. Florida lost two in a row and dropped one spot. Give me a break. That is disingenuous on ESPN’s part to even do all that. Just say it all has to do with money and be done with it. There, I cut your stupid Selection Sunday show in half (at least).

Anyway, let’s get to the conference championship recaps, along with other games that were played:

Clemson beat Notre Dame handily and it wasn’t even close. The Irish scored the first field goal and then it was all Tigers after that.
On the other end of the spectrum, Bama seemed to not be able to put away Florida. I mean I had a feeling they would win the whole time but to allow the Gators to put 46 up on them makes me think the Tide are vulnerable, at least on defense.
Ohio State beat Northwestern in a game that was in doubt for about three quarters. Like last year’s game, the Buckeyes stormed out in the second half, won the game fairly easily and secured their College Football Playoff spot.
The Big XII Championship ended up being a pretty good game between Oklahoma and Iowa State. But again, the Sooners won…their sixth straight Big XII Championship. Is any team as dominant in their conference as they have been this past decade?
The Pac-12 Championship had a no stakes attached to it. Oregon, who didn’t even win the North, won the game. Yeah. Ridiculous.
The AAC Championship was a great game, as is tradition. A back and forth affair that had Tulsa not backing down from Cincinnati in a monsoon. The Bearcats won with a walk-off field goal and climbed one spot in the rankings for their troubles.
The Conference USA Championship was a very low-scoring affair. Marshall probably wants to forget this game (and the game before it against Rice). Their poor showing allowed UAB to win the conference championship and maybe a banner? I don’t know.
The MAC Championship was actually a pretty good game. Ball State had all the answers, though, for Buffalo’s vaunted rushing attack and was able to shut down Jaret Patterson and Kevin Marks on route to their first MAC title in 24 years. They will now get a date with San Jose State during bowl season.
As for those Spartans, what a year they’ve had. Undefeated and they beat Mountain West big boy Boise State for the conference title. Huge. They look to finish off their unblemished season, as I mentioned, against Ball State. And what this will do is give Brent Brennan the opportunity at some Power Five gigs, most notably at Arizona.
The Sun Belt Championship was cancelled, unfortunately. Could have been the final push needed for Coastal Carolina to climb in the rankings but alas, it was not to be.
Texas A&M beat Tennessee by 21. So not even close. I have a feeling even if they had beaten the Vols by 50, they would have stayed at #5.
Army won the Commander’s-In-Chief Trophy by beating Air Force. I am going to be honest: I barely watched any of this game.
LSU and Ole Miss also played in an absolute downpour and it was somehow an offensive explosion. The Tigers held on to beat the Rebs 53-48 in a game that meant really nothing to either team.
Finally, Pac-12 After Dark (kind of) reared its head as Stanford and UCLA went to double overtime in a game that was bizarre at times. The Cardinal ended up winning when UCLA missed on the two-point conversion in 2OT.

The bowl selection show was a farce. I still believe Indiana should have got in and not Iowa State when it comes to the New Year’s Six. But the rest of the bowls…my god. What a joke. Army will not be bowling because they had a deal with the Independence Bowl. They accepted a bit in LATE OCTOBER. Yesterday that bowl game was cancelled due to no Pac-12 teams available. So instead of the Black Knights getting chosen elsewhere, they will be left home. Instead, teams like 2-8 South Carolina and 3-7 Tennessee will go bowling. So fucking dumb. I will talk more about it in a future post.

Anyway, today is the first damn bowl game of the year! Appalachian State and North Texas face off in the Myrtle Beach Bowl. I have App State winning. They should win big. It’s on Monday afternoon for fuck’s sake. God help us. Have a good week everyone!

Is this the end for Captain Khaki? – Week 12 College Football Recap

Posted on November 23, 2020 by guelphbossman

You all saw it. Rutgers took Michigan to three overtimes before falling to the Wolverines thanks to terrible playcalling. Yeah it wasn’t great for Michigan. And definitely not great for Jim Harbaugh. And of course Twitter, being full of very level-headed people, went crazy. I stayed out of the Harbaugh talk at the time but I have finally decided to break the silence. I know it would take a lot of money to fire Harbaugh. He is only under contract through the end of next season. The way this season has gone, it is clear Jimmy Beige Pants ain’t the answer. But here’s the issue: so what do you do then? If you do fire him (and pay out an enormous buyout fee which, in a pandemic, might not be a thing athletic directors want to do), who do you bring in to replace him? Despite the fact most people might disagree, the Michigan head coaching spot is one of the Top 10 head coaching gigs in the nation. That has not changed since the days of Bo Schembechler. Pat Fitzgerald is a name that comes up but he has already declined the NFL so I assume he would decline to coach in Ann Arbor as well. Is there another Power Five coach who could be poached? Or will the fanbase accept an up-and-coming Group of Five head coach like Luke Fickell or Bryan Harsin? No matter what happens, it is going to be a complete shitshow. Which, I will admit, is entertaining. For me, not for fans of Big Blue.

Now on to the rest of the recap.

Recap

Oklahoma throttled Oklahoma State in Bedlam. The Sooners piled on 21 points in the first quarter and never looked back. It still amazes me that people say anything can happen in Bedlam. No, it can’t. Oklahoma has won over 80% of the games in this rivalry. This is the epitome of big brother beating up little brother (sorry Michigan and Michigan State fans). This now makes it so Oklahoma controls their own destiny to get to the Big XII Championship. Still probably no shot at the College Football Playoff, though. And I feel bad for Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit. Those two can’t catch a break. They rarely have good games to announce. Even when they don’t do the ABC primetime game they end up calling a shitty game. A lot like Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson over at CBS.
Tulsa beat Tulane in an absolutely insane Thursday nighter. The game was tied at 0 with 6 minutes to go in the third. Then both teams went crazy and scored a bunch of points, with the Golden Hurricane racking up 21 in the final 10 minutes of regulation. This was capped off by a 37-yard touchdown pass with no time left. Then in double overtime, Tulsa ends it on a walk-off pick six by Zaven Collins. Tulsa has comeback to beat UCF, East Carolina, SMU and now Tulane to be an improbably 5-1 and it looks like they may be heading to the AAC Championship game as long as they take care of business this coming week in Houston.
For most of the Mississippi State-Georgia game, a game I thought wouldn’t be close, it was seriously looking like a huge upset for the Bulldogs. UGA just couldn’t put them away. I mean Georgia pulled it out with a late touchdown. But man, they were playing a home game, in front of actual fans, and barely beat one of the worst teams in the SEC. I think it may be high time for Kirby Smart to take a step back and look what he has done with the program. Start with the mostly terrible decision to start Stetson Bennett over JT Daniels. I believe Daniels was injured earlier in the year but once he was ready to go, they should have given him the ball to see what he could do. Not doing so, is a failure of the coaches, namely Smart.
Oregon beat UCLA (barely) and USC did the same to Utah. So those two teams continue their march to the Pac-12 Championship. And all for the opportunity to possibly still be the #5 seed and be on the outside of the CFP looking in. This is what the Pac-12 gets for himming and hawing over starting the season. They should have just opted out completely but we all know now that money brought them back. Hell, look at the way they are doing things. No Pac-12 Network. And now non-conference games can be scheduled but must be hosted by the Pac-12 team. Everyone’s got a price (just like Ted DiBiase’s theme told us).
Man, Kansas State got absolutely BOATRACED by Iowa State. I figured the Cyclones would win but they utterly destroyed the Wildcats in that shutout win. What their win has done was put them in the driver’s seat for the Big XII Championship. At this point, if Oklahoma or Texas lose another game, the Clones are in no matter what they do. But I am sure Matt Campbell would prefer to go in the front door to JerryWorld.
What can you say about the Big Ten officiating crews other than they are awful? Purdue got jobbed Friday night against Minnesota on a phantom offensive pass interference call that negated a late touchdown. It probably would have given the Boilermakers a huge win and move them to 3-1 (and possibly into the Top 25). Instead, the Flying Flecks survive. I don’t understand how officials aren’t suspended for a game without pay for game-altering calls like that. Not saying refs should get shit for every bad call but ones of that nature, absolutely.
Cincinnati beat UCF in a very close one. For a while it looked like the Knights had the Bearcats number. Two fourth quarter touchdowns made the difference for Cincy. It also keeps Cincinnati in the catbird seat for the Group of Five. Win out and they will be, at least, in the New Year’s Six.
Alabama beat Kentucky and are still undefeated. If it hadn’t been aired on a TSN network as well as the SEC Network, I don’t think I would have watched a single minute of it.
Indiana gave Ohio State quite the scare. It would feel like tOSU would be pulling away and then Indiana came back to make it close. Make no mistake about it: these Hoosiers are for real. But they aren’t quite College Football Playoff material. Yet. The Buckeyes kept their CFP hopes alive with the slim win and might end up murdering Michigan by about 60 points this coming weekend.
Coastal Carolina beat Appalachian State to lay claim as the best Sun Belt team this season. They became the first 8-0 team in Sun Belt history (which shocks me to be honest). Will they make the College Football Playoff? Absolutely not but they may still have a path to the New Year’s Six. Keep winning and they may ascend high enough to warrant inclusion. Again, this makes it tough on the College Football Playoff Committee which always loved by me.
Penn State got destroyed by Iowa and now is sitting at 0-5 and last place in the Big Ten East. This is the worst start in Nittany Lion history and puts James Franklin in a very bad spot. It would not surprise me to see that PSU fires Franklin in the off-season due to this season and some off-field incidents that are painting him in a bad light.
Northwestern put themselves in the catbird seat in the Big Ten West with their huge win over Wisconsin in a defensive slugfest. Pat Fitzgerald also made mention of the Wildcats being a bunch of “Fighting Rece Davises.” That is from a comment by Joey Galloway earlier in the week where he said Northwestern was a bunch of Rece Davises on the field. A slap in the face to Northwestern for sure. Well they made sure to throw it back in Galloway’s face with that win. And they still have a shot at the College Football Playoff if things go their way.
Finally, to the delight of a lot of people, Liberty lost their first game of the season. In a low-scoring affair, NC State blocked a Flames field goal attempt late in the fourth quarter to lock up the win. Could this be Hugh Freeze’s final big game at Liberty before moving on? It sure seems that way as he has done a masterful job in Lynchburg. Liberty is a certified FBS team and has to be considered a tough out going forward. It might not be that way if Freeze leaves but he has certainly laid a good foundation for his successor.

We are now getting into the real important part of the season. Three more weeks of the regular season (kind of) means every week is super important. Anyway, here’s my Top 25 that, again, had some good movement:

#1	Alabama
#2	Ohio State
#3	Florida
#4	Notre Dame
#5	Cincinnati
#6	BYU
#7	Clemson
#8	Texas A&M
#9	Oregon
#10	Miami
#11	Oklahoma
#12	Georgia
#13	Northwestern
#14	Coastal Carolina
#15	Indiana
#16	Marshall
#17	USC
#18	Iowa State
#19	Auburn
#20	Wisconsin
#21	Texas
#22	Oklahoma State
#23	Louisiana
#24	Washington
#25	North Carolina

I get it. You may not be happy with Ohio State at #2. But they just beat Indiana so I think they belong there. Saying that, Notre Dame could usurp them in upcoming weeks thanks to Michigan being trash. So no need to worry my friends. Cincinnati and BYU are sitting in the weeds at #5 and #6 with the hope that something happens to at least one of the four teams above them. Indiana and Wisconsin, despite both losing, didn’t fall too far and still have (very) slim hopes and at least are in the NY6 race. Oh, and Coastal Carolina, as I mentioned above, are at the #14 spot and has a legitimate shot at the NY6 as long as they keep winning.

Alright, Monday Night Football tonight in a game that many people will probably actually watch. The Rams and Buccaneers in a huge NFC matchup. If the Rams win, then they move into a tie with Seattle at the top of the NFC West. A Bucs win puts them in a great spot, just half-a-game behind New Orleans and easily at the top of the Wild Card race.

So we usually would be heading into a MACtion night but that is not to be this week. We have no college football games the next two nights. No football at all. Yes that’s sad. But then we get Footballgasm weekend which is not as much of a huge thing this season. Thanks, 2020.

Tomorrow we got some bowl projections (which aren’t early anymore). Wednesday there will be the college football week that isn’t so shitty anymore and its TV schedule. Finally, the NFL gets the sked treatment on Thursday. Enjoy your week (and the games) everyone!

He finally has his signature win – Week 10 College Football Recap

Posted on November 9, 2020 by guelphbossman

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish outlasted the number one team in the land, Clemson, this past weekend in a 47-40 double overtime thriller. This game was a ton of fun to watch and could be the best game that has been on NBC in a long time. I mean the ACC at the top is one of the best conferences in football. The ACC mid-card is actually pretty brutal though and keeps the conference from ascending towards the top of the FBS. But back to this one. Brian Kelly has been looking for his signature win since he started as head coach of the Irish years ago. And he finally got it in Notre Dame’s first season ever in a conference. They are now in the driver’s seat to get to the ACC Championship game but still have a few potential speedbump games left with BC, North Carolina and Wake still on the schedule. But if they win out, you have to wonder if they make it to the College Football Playoff even if they lose a probably rematch with the Tigers in the ACC title game. But there’s still a month of football yet to play so don’t want them to count their chickens before they hatch or some other cliche that some other media member might come up with.

Other recap points!

Speaking of beatdowns, how about the one that Maryland laid on Penn State? The Nittany Lions are looking awful so far this season but this has to be a plus for the Terps. It will be quite amusing that if later this season Michigan is facing PSU and the loser ends up in the basement of the Big Ten East. Because that could very easily happen. Oh and I think Maryland may have finally found their quarterback. Who knew another Tagovailoa could chuck the ball like that?
It ended up being a really good World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. The fans were jacked. Brawls in the stands. A guy falling several rows because he was wasted. Good times. Also the football game was good. Anyway, the Bulldogs couldn’t seem to stop the Gators at all in this one. Kyle Trask laid waste to the Georgia defense and have really distanced themselves from the rest of the SEC East. Hopefully this will make Kirby Smart take a good hard look at his team and realize this isn’t working and that they have to go back to the drawing board and retool for another true run at the SEC title.
Pac-12 is back! And the best game was easily the Pac-12 Before Brunch contest between Arizona State and USC. The Sun Devils looked dominant for most of the game. They were up by 13 with less than three minutes to go and looked well on their way to victory. Then Kedon Slovis showed up and the Trojans completed a miraculous comeback to win their season opener. Heartbreaking for ASU but, again, it came down to recovering an onside kick which many teams, college and pro, are struggling to do for some reason this season. We are obviously very early in the Pac-12 schedule but someone is going to have to go unscathed to have a shot at the CFP so why not the Trojans?
Liberty kept rolling along…and I know people will be upset with that. Something you have to admit, though, is that this is a really good team. They were able to dice through Virginia Tech’s defense rather easily but still needed a sad sequence of events at the end to win. Liberty tried a long field goal, it was blocked and returned by the Hokies with no time left in what looked like a crazy walk-off win for VaTech. Unfortunately Justin Fuente called timeout to ice the kicker before the play. Liberty gets another shot and the kicker drills the field goal to win the game. I can see a lot of people wanting Fuente gone after that. I don’t get it. Icing the kicker has proven to not work too often, even at the college level. So why do it? I know that was a rare occurrence what happened in this game but it still makes Fuente look like a moron.
Let’s go back to the Big Ten and one of the big stories there…the Indiana Hoosiers. Yes, seriously. Wins over Penn State, Rutgers and now Michigan have put them at the top of the Big Ten East division with Ohio State. That’s a pretty big deal for this team. Really, the entire division probably comes down to their trip to Columbus in two weeks. No one thought this would be the case. Tom Allen is one of several Coach of the Year candidates but a win over the Buckeyes would put him over the top for sure. Many wondered if they would ever get over the hump and turn into a Top 10 team. That time has arrived. Now we have to see if they can sustain it.
Oh BYU? Yeah I don’t think anyone can keep them out of contention this season. They absolutely annihilated Boise State on Friday night and it really looks like they won’t lose this season. They only have two games left: North Alabama and San Diego State. So they are assured of 10-0. The question though is this: will another team step up and schedule them on an open date? And if it’s a good team, it could real interesting. One more big victory signals BYU being easily in the New Year’s Six and being a complete thorn in the side of The Committee.
This year I was not going to fall for any Nebraska hype. I learned my lesson after last season’s debacle. So it didn’t surprise me to see them lose to Northwestern. Actually the Huskers aren’t as bad as they were last year as they kept it close with a team that could end up winning the Big Ten West. Last season is starting to look like an aberration in Evanston as Pat Fitzgerald has the Wildcats back in contention once again. As for Scott Frost, you have to wonder if this may be his last year in Lincoln after all the hope he brought with him after his super successful stint at UCF.
Miami beat NC State. Barely. Slowly, but surely, the Canes are making their way back up the rankings and could sneak into the College Football Playoff if everyone falls just right for them. Especially after Clemson’s loss to Notre Dame. Other than that one bad loss The U had, they have looked pretty good and D’Eriq King is still looking like the real deal. They can’t afford any hiccups the rest of the way though and almost need to look more dominant to cement their spot at least in the New Year’s Six.
Well it was definitely ugly but Oklahoma State stays in the catbird seat in the Big XII with their close win over Kansas State. But it shouldn’t have been this way. Chris Klieman’s coaching gaffe in the second quarter is an example of coaches overthinking when to go for two. The Wildcats just went up 12-0 and decided to go for two to make it 14-0 for some reason. I guess it looks better on the scoreboard, I don’t know. Anyway, they fail on their attempt. And funny thing, OSU ended up winning by two. Chasing points at any point before the fourth quarter drives me up the wall. There is no point in it. What you are saying is either a) I don’t trust my kicker which isn’t good for the kicker’s state of mind or b) I don’t trust my defense later on which isn’t good for the defensive players’ states of mind. Dumb. So for that reason, in my opinion, KSU deserved to lose. Period.
I normally don’t talk about Rutgers games in this post unless it’s about how bad they are. Yes they lost by 22 to Ohio State. But man does this team look like a lot of fun. A few trick plays that totally fooled tOSU and it’s obvious that Greg Schiano has already put his touch on the program (again). These kids believe they are not the worst team in the Big Ten East and it shows this year as they may truly be the third or fourth best team. Sounds crazy but it’s true.
So the Air Force-Army game was cancelled due to issues surrounding COVID-19 at the Academy. And now their game next Saturday against Wyoming has also been cancelled. Yikes. I wonder what happens to the Commander’s-In-Chief Trophy. I mean it’s 2020 so they could reschedule some sort of game between Air Force and Navy to play for it in a championship style game. Who knows. I mean at this point, any idea is at least a decent idea since this season has been so screwed up.
Cincinnati beat Houston very easily. The Bearcats have the inside track on the New Year’s Six spot. All they have to do is not lose. With their remaining schedule, they could very well get to the AAC Championship unscathed and in the driver’s seat. Oh, and for people who are saying they deserve to be in the College Football Playoff, save it. A lot would have to happen above them for that to happen, starting with teams like Notre Dame and Alabama losing for one.
Don’t forget about San Jose State in the Group of Five race. No, no, no not San DIEGO State. San JOSE State. After beating the Aztecs, they are quietly at 3-0 on the season. Their game against Boise State at the end of the month is looming large as they very well could be 5-0 as they head to the blue turf in Boise.
Iowa State certainly did not look like a team that could end up in the Big XII Championship in mid-December. Yes they beat Baylor and yes it means they stay right in the thick of the race but seven point victories over the Bears don’t exactly scream conference champion, let alone NY6 team. They get a week off and then a possible tough one against Kansas State. Win that and they have one of the biggest games of the year in the Big XII against Texas. There’s a good chance the winner clinches a spot in the conference championship game.
Hey guess who holds their own destiny in the Pac-12 North? You guessed it, the Washington State Cougars. I know, it’s been one game but I wondered if they’d even win one this season. And without Max Borghi who is arguably their best player. Look it would be a lot of fun if this team was in contention in December. How ridiculous would that be? Mike Leach would be pissed off. He’d probably just blame his own players on Mississippi State.
Oklahoma just destroyed Kansas. Do not sleep on the Sooners. Don’t be surprised if they can somehow sneak into the Big XII Championship. Win out and that’s where they will be. As for the Jayhawks, Les Miles just isn’t working out. There needs to be a complete overhaul of that program. I don’t know who can bring this team out of their decade-plus long funk but nothing has worked since the late 2000s.
And more Big XII as Texas survived against West Virginia in what was certainly not your typical Big XII slugfest. Tom Herman could be doing just enough to get the Horns back to JerryWorld in a little over a month. The conference, while being a shitshow, is still an entertaining shitshow. You have to agree with that, no?

That was a fun weekend of college football. Now for the Bossman Top 25!

#1	Alabama
#2	Notre Dame
#3	Florida
#4	Ohio State
#5	BYU
#6	Cincinnati
#7	Clemson
#8	Miami
#9	Texas A&M
#10	Oklahoma State
#11	Oregon
#12	Wisconsin
#13	Indiana
#14	Georgia
#15	Coastal Carolina
#16	Marshall
#17	SMU
#18	Iowa State
#19	Oklahoma
#20	USC
#21	Auburn
#22	Texas
#23	North Carolina
#24	Louisiana
#25	Liberty

Yes I have Clemson at #7 behind BYU and Cincinnati. If the Tigers win their final three games of the season they will be up in the Top 4 no matter what. Indiana I have not really moving, still at #13. Don’t worry Hoosiers fans: win out and there’s no way you’re out of the CFP either. Miami is at #8 and there’s a good chance they will be left out of the ACC Championship. Georgia didn’t fall too far considering who they lost to. Also, watch out for Marshall. They are severely underrated and could sneak it’s way up the chain and be looking at a New Year’s Six spot. Sounds crazy but it is still technically possible.

OK it’s that time of year folks! MACtion Tuesdays. And MACtion Wednesdays! Tomorrow night will see Akron face Ohio, Kent State head to Bowling Green, and the top of the MAC East, Buffalo, hosting Miami-OH. Akron-Ohio is on CBSSN and the other two games, unfortunately, won’t be seen up here. Wednesday also sees three games, with one on CBS Sports Network, that one being Eastern Michigan at Ball State.

Anyway, tomorrow I will have my first bowl projections post and man is it ever a doozy. Because I have no fucking idea what will end up happening because all teams are bowl-eligible. I will explain more in the post. Have a great week everyone.

SUPER MEGA HYPER OMNI POST! V3.0

Posted on November 26, 2019 by guelphbossman

I have done this two times before. Let’s go for number three here. Warning: this post is seriously fucking long. So grab a drink (caffeinated would be a good idea) and settle in.
Instead of doing a full recap and then a full bowl projections post, I figured I would combine them into one insanely long post! Why? I am going to tell myself it’s a great way to save time and not have to do two posts. That is completely erroneous to be truthful but I will keep telling myself that little fib. It was a fairly good weekend of college football which had two major upsets. We are headed into an exciting finish to the season. Also this post is different and exciting to commemorate the 150th anniversary of when Rutgers could be considered a top team in college football.

Let’s start with recapping the week that was. Some fun stuff happened and I was totally sleep deprived for Sunday. A Fall tradition.

The only ranked-on-ranked game of the week had Ohio State outlast Penn State. The difference here was basically one guy: Chase Young. His return from his stupid suspension was a boon for the Buckeye defense as he was all over the Nittany Lion backfield. He is a lot like Ndamukong Suh was at Nebraska; the best player in the nation who won’t get true Heisman hype. The tOSU offense did just enough as Justin Fields, who is the second best player on the team, may have booked his trip to New York City in December. In the end, though, it won’t mean nearly as much if they can’t extend their winning streak against The Team Up North this Saturday.
LSU beat Arkansas easily. Alabama beat Western Carolina even easier during SEC Sleepwalk Saturday. The Tide have to be rooting for the Tigers to win this Saturday and at the SEC Championship and hopefully win big both times. It’s Bama’s best chance to get in if the Fighting Orgerons look like a dominant #1 team (or at least something to include in the argument for them to be included in the CFP).
You all saw it I’m sure. The students from Harvard and Yale doing a protest just before the second half was to begin in the annual game between the two Ivy League stalwarts. I can honestly say this is something I have never seen before during a game. And of course Twitter, being full of very level-headed people, went crazy. People aligned themselves on one side or the other which is what happens in situations like this nowadays. Here is my take on this. Are protests a fabric of both the United States and Canada? I believe they are. Saying people can’t protest makes us a lot more like China than the countries we are. Does this also do a disservice to the people involved in the football game? Absolutely. Both of these things are, and can be, true. If these students truly understood the issues surrounding climate change and Harvard and Yale’s role in it, then great. It’s very rare that this is the case as I have seen many protests in this country where many really have no idea what they are truly protesting and just want to be loud and want to belong. I think the police did as good a job as they could and didn’t let it become something violent. I do wish the students that wouldn’t leave unless they were arrested just left. Being arrested will probably just be something they can yell and scream about when in reality, no one gives a shit because the protest is over at that point. On top of all this, the game was played at the Yale Bowl which does not have lights and after an hour-plus delay, went to double overtime. If it had gone any farther the game probably would have had to end in a tie since darkness was quickly settling in. Just a bizarre day in college football to say the least.
Georgia’s offense basically took the day off on Saturday. If it wasn’t for hipster kicker Rodrigo Blankenship, the Dawgs may have blown it against Texas A&M. A 19-13 victory over the Aggies doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the team going into the SEC Championship. They play like this and LSU will put a 50-burger on them and the game will essentially be over by 5:00 Eastern.
Oregon blew it against Arizona State. I guess they didn’t play to win the game. This is bad, not just for the Ducks but for Utah as well (and the Pac-12 as a whole). Now Utah beating Oregon will not be them beating a Top 10 team. Chances are Oregon will be a Top 15 team which makes a difference. It’s also what is needed for the Bama backers who desperately want their team in the College Football Playoff.
The other huge upset of the day was FIU beating Miami. Yes this isn’t the Canes of early this century but good God is this team not very good. And in a pretty bad ACC. And now they lose to former head coach Butch Davis on the field that was built on the old Orange Bowl grounds. Yeah this is about as bad as it gets for The U. Manny Diaz will be on a seriously hot seat to start next season and now some have to look back and take back their thoughts of basically poaching him from Temple as the Owls are doing great under Rod Carey while Miami struggles.
Some would include Colorado’s victory over Washington as an upset as well. I do not. This is easily Chris Petersen’s worst team in all his years of coaching college football. Mel Tucker has brought the Buffs back to, at least, respectability. They now have a chance to go bowling. All they have to do is *checks the schedule* beat Utah. Aw man. Sorry guys.
Cincinnati beat Temple in a very close one. It all turned on one play. Temple had an extra point blocked and returned for two points. So a three point swing on one play. The Bearcats ended up winning by 2 and seem to be sharing the Group of Five seat with Memphis at the moment.
If you missed it, there was an absolutely bonkers Pac-12 After Dark affair up in eastern Washington. It was on the Pac-12 Network (or DAZN up here) so very few would have watched it but it was fantastic. A back and forth affair where Oregon State scored 29 points in the fourth quarter and LOST! Wazzu pulled out with a touchdown with 2 seconds left to win 54-53. So now Oregon State has to *checks the schedule* beat Oregon in the Civil War to become bowl-eligible. Ugh. Washington State is now bowl-eligible again and Mike Leach in the postseason is always fun.
Oklahoma is going to the Big XII Championship! They clinched their spot by BARELY getting by TCU. I’m sorry but the Sooners will struggle with Baylor if they play like that (the Bears beat Texas handily). Then again, if Boomer Sooner wins, do you really want them in the CFP? I don’t know.
Wisconsin and Minnesota both won so they are slated to play for the Big Ten West this weekend. And College Gameday is heading to Minneapolis (finally). So it is going to be a huge day for the Golden Gophers and if they win they basically clinch no worse than the Rose Bowl in my opinion.
What a great way to have the Bud Foster send-off. Virginia Tech whitewashed Pitt and were dominant on defense. Awesome for Foster’s final game at Lane Stadium.
Great story of the weekend? Charlotte becoming bowl-eligible for the first time. Will Healy did wonders at Austin Peay which was such a terrible FCS program they went almost four years without winning a game and he arrives and they almost go to the playoffs. Now he does amazing things in his first year in North Carolina and gets the 49ers to the promised land (probably). Watch them get picked up by the American Conference in a few years to replace UConn.

Now let’s move on to how the conference championships are shaping up as we are down to the ultimate week of the regular season.

It’s the second annual Sun Belt Championship game and I honestly believe Mountain Dew or Peterbilt or something like that should sponsor it. This is set. Appalachian State and Louisiana have won their respective divisions and will face off in the championship game at the home of the Mountaineers in Boone, North Carolina.

Conference USA is going to have an exciting race towards the end of the season in the West. In the East, Florida Atlantic has clinched their spot in the title game. As for the West, it’s between UAB, Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss and it’s messy. So on Saturday:

If all three teams win, Southern Miss wins the division. Same thing if all three teams lose.
If Louisiana Tech wins and UAB loses, Louisiana Tech wins the division.
If UAB and Southern Miss win, Southern Miss wins the division.
If only one of the three teams wins, that winning team obviously wins the division.

Good lord. But at least it means it will be a fun final Saturday for this oft-ignored conference.

The MAC title tilt is halfway set. Miami-OH has already clinched the MAC East. The MAC West could be finished off tonight. If Western Michigan beats Northern Illinois, they will go to Detroit to face the Redhawks. If they lose then Central Michigan has a chance to clinch on Black Friday in their Noon game against Toledo.

This is easy. Boise State clinched with their crushing of Utah State and then a bit of a shock as Hawaii clinched the West Division as they beat San Diego State in an low-scoring affair. The game will be on the blue turf in Boise.

Alright Cincinnati is already in. The West is also easy. Memphis beats Cincy in the season finale they will have a rematch against the Bearcats also at home. If they don’t win, and then Navy defeats Houston on Saturday night, the Middies will be heading to Cincinnati. If both teams lose, Memphis will go to southern Ohio and play Cincinnati quite possibly for the Cotton Bowl spot.

It’s Clemson up against the winner of the Commonwealth Cup. This is the most important game in the battle for Virginia possibly ever.

This has been set. The surprising Baylor Bears get their chance at revenge on Oklahoma at JerryWorld.

Oregon is in for the game which starts at 5 local time yet again. The Pac-12 has, by far, the shittiest set of TV contracts for the Power Five. This is atrocious. Now, if Utah wins they face Oregon but if Colorado pulls off the upset then it will be USC, of all teams, going against the Ducks.

Ohio State clinched a tough Big Ten East and will await the Wisconsin-Minnesota winner in Indianapolis.

LSU and Georgia. No Bama. The way things are going, though, UGA is going to get boatraced by the Tigers.

So there you go. Coming up later in the week, we have the massive American Thanksgiving post which is, you guessed it, massive.

Alright, on to my bowl projections as of this today:

Fiesta Bowl	CFP Poll #2 vs. CFP Poll #3	Clemson vs. Ohio State
Peach Bowl	CFP Poll #1 vs. CFP Poll #4	LSU vs. Utah

No changes here. Utah’s resume took a hit with Oregon’s loss but I still see them holding on to this spot (which means I will probably be wrong).

Has anything changed in the New Year’s Six?

Sugar Bowl	SEC #1 vs. Big XII #1	Alabama vs Baylor
Rose Bowl	Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1	Michigan vs. Oregon
Orange Bowl	ACC #1 vs. SEC #2/Big Ten #2/Notre Dame/G-5 #1	Wake Forest vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl	CFP At-Large vs. CFP At-Large/G-5 #1	Oklahoma vs. Boise State

One change. I’ve put Michigan in the Rose Bowl, replacing Penn State which I am sure no one will bat an eye at, right OK let’s move on. A LOT could very well change on this section this coming week and I kind of expect it to but I have to go with my gut at this point. The Orange Bowl spot for the ACC champ is still hilariously sad and I think that might be the big change during the next CFP contract and not a move to expand to eight teams (although a move to five would be fine by me to be honest).

Now the rest of bowl season which is a gongshow because even bowl tie-ins mean nothing anymore but not in a good way.

Mobile Bowl	MAC vs. Sun Belt	Miami-OH vs. Arkansas State
Armed Forces Bowl	Big Ten vs. MWC	Indiana vs. Utah State
Idaho Potato Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	Nevada vs. Ohio
Gator Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Tennessee vs. Minnesota
Birmingham Bowl	SEC/ACC vs. American/ACC	Liberty* vs. Memphis
Outback Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Auburn vs. Penn State
Citrus Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Florida vs. Wisconsin
Alamo Bowl	Big XII vs. Pac-12	Iowa State vs. USC
Arizona Bowl	MWC vs. Sun Belt	San Diego State vs. Arkansas State
Liberty Bowl	SEC/American vs. Big XII/American	Mississippi State vs. Oklahoma State
Sun Bowl	Pac-12 vs. ACC	California vs. Notre Dame
Belk Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	Texas A&M vs. Virginia
Redbox Bowl	Big Ten vs. Pac-12	Illinois vs. Arizona State
Music City Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	Kentucky vs. Virginia Tech
First Responder Bowl	Big XII vs. C-USA	Kansas State vs. Florida Atlantic
Camping World Bowl	Big XII vs. ACC	Texas vs. Miami
Cheez-It Bowl	Big XII/MWC vs. Pac-12/MWC	Hawaii vs. Southern Miss*
Holiday Bowl	Big Ten vs. Pac-12	Iowa vs. Washington State
Texas Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Missouri vs. TCU
Pinstripe Bowl	Big Ten vs. ACC	Nebraska vs. Pittsburgh
Military Bowl	ACC vs. American	Louisville vs. Navy
Quick Lane Bowl	Big Ten/MAC vs. ACC/MAC	Western Michigan vs. Florida State
Independence Bowl	SEC/C-USA vs. ACC/American	Marshall vs. Cincinnati
Hawaii Bowl	BYU vs. American/MWC	BYU vs. Wyoming
Gasparilla Bowl	American/ACC vs. C-USA/ACC	UCF vs. UAB
New Orleans Bowl	C-USA vs. Sun Belt	Louisiana Tech vs. Louisiana
Las Vegas Bowl	Pac-12 vs. MWC	Washington vs. Air Force
Camellia Bowl	MAC vs. Sun Belt	Central Michigan vs. Georgia Southern
Boca Raton Bowl	American vs. MAC	SMU vs. Buffalo
Cure Bowl	American vs. Sun Belt	Temple vs. Georgia State
New Mexico Bowl	MWC vs. C-USA	Army* vs. Western Kentucky
Frisco Bowl	American vs. MAC/C-USA	Tulane vs. Eastern Michigan
Bahamas Bowl	MAC vs. C-USA	Toledo vs. Charlotte

A few notes for your perusal:

No 5-7 teams. And no teams left out at 6-6. Everything fits perfectly like a puzzle with all the pieces actually in the box. We all know what will happen right? Certainly not this.
I am sticking with the tie-ins as best I can. I don’t know why though since the bowls don’t seem to care themselves sometimes.
Hawaii, as far as I know, is not locked in to the Hawaii Bowl now that they are bowl-eligible. Still a good chance they end up there but I have this feeling they will hit the mainland for their bowl game this season.
Look at Charlotte! I have them kicking off the bowl season by going to the Bahamas! Talk about a great season for those players and staff.
As for tie-ins that don’t work, I have Army filing in to the New Mexico Bowl thanks to Boise State going to the Cotton Bowl, Southern Miss going to the Cheez-It Bowl because the Big XII and Pac-12 don’t have enough eligible teams (thanks to me putting Utah in the CFP) and Liberty heading to the Birmingham Bowl due to the SEC and ACC not having enough eligible teams. These split tie-ins are so weird and even dumber when they don’t even work out. When two conferences can’t fill a single bowl slot you know there’s an issue.

Other than those few items, not much to talk about specifically about the bowl projections. Nothing much changed except some of my opinions. That might change starting tonight. Ohio has a chance to become bowl-eligible and, at the same time, Akron could be the only winless team this season in the FBS. The game is on ESPN+ so none of us can see it. The other game, between WMU and NIU, is important for the Broncos as a win there clinches a trip to beautiful Detroit for the MAC Championship which isn’t on Friday night this season. Then Wednesday, take a deep breath. There is no football at all. Don’t drink too much but maybe take the time to do something around the house. Go out. Catch up on some Netflix. Something. Because you will need the rest to prepare for FOOTBALLGASM 2019!

A couple of quick Canadian football notes:

The Grey Cup occurred this past Sunday. I am a bit sad that Hamilton lost but at least it was to Winnipeg who had an even longer Grey Cup drought at 29 years! Plus, a fan who said, in 1990, he wouldn’t wear pants until the next time the Blue Bombers won the Cup again, can wear pants again! Which is good in Winnipeg since it is seriously fucking freezing there.
The Vanier Cup occurred. I have no idea where it was on. I think CBC online? Ridiculous.

Alright that is it. No more. A seriously long post is complete. American Thanksgiving Footballgasm post will show up later this week along with the NFL sked post. Have a good week everyone!

How about a little OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVERTIME and a Week 2 recap?

Posted on September 9, 2019 by guelphbossman

I love college football. You know that. So what’s better than a bunch of games going into overtime, eh? Let’s recap those games right off the hop OK sounds good let’s go.

Michigan 24 Army 21 (2OT) – What a game this was….for Army. Michigan did not play well at all and it kind of felt like they had no idea what to do with Army’s triple option. Even so, Shea Patterson stunk and the playcalling was puzzling at times. Michigan lucks out by getting a strip sack in double overtime to stay in the Top 10. As for Army, watch out for them if no teams end up undefeated this season.
Colorado 34 Nebraska 31 (OT) – A classic Big 8 matchup that was a barnburner. It looked like the Huskers were going to destroy the Buffs until a late game comeback by Colorado put them into overtime. A missed field goal clinched the game and now I am starting to feel kind of stupid for drinking the Nebraska Koolaid (which was obviously cherry-flavoured).
Kent State 26 Kennesaw State 23 (OT) – The earlier women’s field hockey game was stopped in double overtime so that this game could start on time. Absolutely crazy. And then we almost see Kennesaw State pull the FCS-over-FBS upset. Kent State escapes and continues to be known for bad things, one much, MUCH worse than the rest.
Florida State 45 ULM 44 (OT) – Good god Willie Taggart. What is going on in Tallahassee? Most of the fans had left by the time this game ended. And for a while it looked like the Warhawks would win in regulation. Instead, FSU tied it up and then won the game thanks to a ULM missed extra point. Yeesh. Not a good look for the Noles who may have hit a bit of a rock bottom.
BYU 29 Tennessee 26 (2OT) – Since we are talking about once-proud teams who have fallen far, let us check in on the University of Tennessee Volunteers football program. Gross. They could not put BYU away. And to top it off they have a coverage breakdown and allow BYU to go more than half the field with under 15 seconds to play to get the tying field goal just to make it to overtime. Expect Jeremy Pruitt to now be on every hot seat list in the country.
Minnesota 38 Fresno State 35 (2OT) – College football this past weekend conspired to not allow me to go to bed at a reasonable time…and when I say reasonable time I mean 2 in the morning. A great back-and-forth game which ended on a great Antoine Winfield Jr. interception in double overtime. Maybe other Big Ten teams should take note and not make trips to the West Coast.

This week of college football really had a dearth of marquee games, as is somewhat usual for Week 2. However, the action this week was damn good. A fun Saturday of college football was had by all (who watched). Let’s go through the week that was!

Let’s take a trip out to Seattle for a game that didn’t start until 1:30 in the morning. I am not joking. Thanks to some severe weather they had to delay the game by almost three hours. I did not stay up to stay updated on this game and I missed a great one of course. Washington did not play well at all and let Cal stick around for far too long. This led to the Golden Bears winning on a last-minute field goal and furthering the Pac-12’s overall misery.
Kansas lost a game…at home…to Coastal Carolina. So yeah it is going to take quite a long time for Les Miles to turn this thing around.
Clemson made relatively easy work of Texas A&M. Yes they only won by 14 but it never felt like the Aggies were in this one. So the Tigers beat yet another SEC team. I think they need to stop this whole “Oh yeah well Clemson doesn’t have an SEC schedule” horseshit. They are damn good, plain and simple. And they are still the favourite to win the whole thing in January.
Don’t look know but there might be a new contender in the ACC Coastal. Step right up Mack Brown! The Tar Heels looked good against Miami and won the game late in front of a raucous home crowd in Chapel Hill. Yes, the same team that almost beat Florida in one of the worst college football games of the year so far. Considering the state of the ACC Coastal beyond Virginia, don’t be surprised if North Carolina isn’t at least bowl-eligible by the end of the year which would be a huge complement to Mack Brown’s coaching ability.
Breaking news! West Virginia is awful. No wonder Dana Holgorsen left for a Group of Five team. Neal Brown is going to have a tough go here in 2019. I sincerely hope that the Mountaineer faithful are patient with this as this will not be a fun season in Morgantown, that’s for sure.
Maryland blew Syracuse out of the water on Saturday, winning by 43. No that is not a misprint and no it’s not a joke. The toughest division in college football just got a lot tougher as the Terps are looking seriously good this season so far. As for the ACC, Virginia will replace Syracuse in the Top 25 but will more than two teams ever get into the rankings? It doesn’t look good for the conference.
On Friday night, Boise State beat Marshall but it sure wasn’t convincing. 14-7 doesn’t exactly speak dominance and the fact that freshman quarterback Hank Bachmeier was average at best in this one…let’s just say I am still not convinced the Broncos will be the Group of Five representative in the New Year’s Six if this keeps up.
Joe Burrow was absolutely fantastic in the primetime ABC game as he threw for the second-most yards in LSU history. The Tigers beat Texas but Texas also hung around as well. Both teams need to play better defense as the season wears on but these two offenses may be two of the best in college football this year. And Burrow may force himself into the Heisman conversation whether people like it or not.
Ohio State shutout Cincinnati in Luke Fickell’s return to Columbus. I don’t know, it feels like Ohio State is going to look really good at least into October and then they will lay an egg or three and we will wonder what kind of team they really are. You know, like almost every other season they have had.
Everyone was wondering how Kedon Slovis would play against Stanford. Well, Clay Travis can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief as Slovis was excellent, the Trojans played a nearly flawless game, and we continue the narrative that no one really wants to win the Pac-12. Except maybe Utah.
I don’t think Charlie Strong is long for this 2019 season. Another loss, this time to a rebuilding Georgia Tech team, puts the Bulls at 0-2 to start the season and at eight straight losses stretching back to last year. For a team that not too long ago was battling with UCF to be the big-time team in this conference, this is a stunning fall and Strong is going to be the scapegoat for it, rightly or wrongly (mostly rightly).
Oh and how could I forget UCLA? They lost again, this time to San Diego State. UCLA was behind most of the game and never really seemed in it. I don’t know if it’s just Chip Kelly not having the right personnel to run his offense or what. But for a team that many (including myself) thought would at least be going bowling this season, it’s not a good look, for the Bruins or for Kelly himself.

Recap complete! Considering the schedule was one of the worst I have seen (beyond the top two games) it was a super fun weekend to watch college football. The lesson? Never assume when it comes to this sport. Some great schedules create horrible weeks (in terms of quality of the actual games played) and some shitty schedules produce some of the most historic weeks. You never know. Anyway, here’s the return of the Bossman Top 25:

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

As per usual I am close to the current polls but have a few differences. And yes, I have LSU leapfrogging Alabama for #2. Bama ain’t played nobody and LSU just beat Texas so I have to give them the nod here. I don’t have USC in the Top 25, yet. Not entirely convinced that they belong there but if they win next week they will be there. Other than that I am confident that this is the perfect Top 25. You all agree, right? Don’t answer that.

Another recap done. Hurricane Dorian was devastating to the Bahamas. The States were mostly spared from the destruction. So for now, we can safely say there will not be games added during conference championship week. If you have read this blog before, you know my thoughts on these games. Now they are at the peak of hurricane system so as long as they can get through the next few weeks unscathed there shouldn’t be any scheduling issues and, most importantly, no more damage to people and their property.

Same old, same old with the college football schedule Thursday and the NFL schedule Friday. We are back in football season, ladies and gentlemen and it feels oh so good. Enjoy your week everyone.

Ranking the Bowl Games from First to Worst – 2018-19 Edition

Posted on January 17, 2019 by guelphbossman

Alright well that was not nearly as good as last year’s set of bowl games. Remember those? The double-overtime semi-final (the greatest CFP semi ever)? The national championship with Tua’s introduction out to the college football world? Wake and TAMU going toe-to-toe and each putting up fifty-burgers? Army’s crazy final minute win over San Diego State? Yeah nothing like that. It was kind of disappointing to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, it was football so I watched at least a bit of every game save the Holiday Bowl which we Canadians weren’t privy to. But still, this was, overall one of the worst seasons of college football in recent memory. Still had some great moments but was…lacking a bit. 2019 should be better no? This all comes off as first-world problems. Even worse. Guy bitching about an already-awesome sport that just wasn’t awesome enough for him. So yeah, I’ll be that guy. I know there’s more out there.

Let’s get to the avalanche of text that is the bowl rankings after the bowls have been played. Be prepared to actually remember games that happened that you tried so desperately to get out of your head:

Alamo Bowl (Washington State 28 Iowa State 26) – Does this tell you how not-so-good bowl season was? The best game wasn’t the national championship or one of the semi-finals. It was the Alamo Bowl. But damn was it ever a good game. The Alamo Bowl is always exciting. Funny thing is Wazzu being in the most exciting bowl game even though they couldn’t crack 30 points. Like it was Bizarro Mike Leach at the helm of the Bizarro Cougs.
Cheez-It Bowl (TCU 10 California 7 (OT)) – Should I make this number one? I don’t think I can. Objectively it was honestly not a very good game. A lot of turnovers but actually some pretty good defense as well. It just seemed so hilarious. Plus the broadcast team of Jason Benetti and Kelly Stouffer were great on it as they felt like the rest of us asking the world “What the hell just happened there?” multiple times. This would have been number one if, for the winning field goal, Benetti had uttered the line “For ALL the Cheez-Its!”
Liberty Bowl (Oklahoma State 38 Missouri 33) – This felt like an old Big XII game. I kind of wish Mizzou would head back to the Big XII but leaving the SEC would make no sense whatsoever. Anyway, more than 1100 yards of offense, a close game, quite a few points and Mike Gundy? Sounds like a good time to me.
Citrus Bowl (Kentucky 27 Penn State 24) – Seeing the Wildcats look like they were going to throttle Penn State was fun to watch. Mostly because it’s Kentucky and they’re almost never THAT good at football. That seems to have changed. Now they just need to go find the next Benny Snell and everything will be alright yet again in Lexington. That’s easy, no?
Birmingham Bowl (Wake Forest 37 Memphis 34) – Wake Forest has a penchant for exciting bowl games. I actually usually look forward to seeing the Deacs in a bowl game because they always bring the fun. So there’s a lesson for you, bowl committees: Invite Wake Forest. You can thank me later.
Texas Bowl (Baylor 45 Vanderbilt 38) – Over 1200 yards of offense. One of the better college football games of the year, period. Nice to see Vandy keep up with a Big XII offense. And let’s give Matt Rhule some credit here. This team was in the shitter after the Art Briles fiasco and it took him only two seasons to turn things around. I’d expect Baylor to maybe make things very difficult for the top teams of the Big XII in 2019.
Military Bowl (Cincinnati 35 Virginia Tech 31) – Talk about FOOTBAW WEATHER! The Bearcats and Hokies played fairly well, amazingly enough, in really bad weather and it came down to the end. What more can you ask for really?
Camellia Bowl (Georgia Southern 23 Eastern Michigan 21) – Even though it was two Group of Five teams this turned out to be one of the biggest barnburners of the season. A walk-off field goal to end this, the Eagles’ players and fans going nuts and Chad Lunsford just letting all the emotions out is what put this in the top 10 bowl games.
Rose Bowl (Ohio State 28 Washington 23) – If we had been talking about the first three quarters then this game would have been near the bottom. The Huskies actually made us believe they could complete the comeback of comebacks and destroy Urban Meyer Day in Pasadena. In the end, though, Meyer’s team won and he went off into retirement…no wait, he’s just not coaching. He’s assistant AD or something like that. And let’s be honest: none of us would be surprised if in 2020 we hear serious rumours about Urban showing up on a Power Five campus somewhere.
Outback Bowl (Iowa 27 Mississippi State 22) – OK I will admit when I was wrong. I figured the Hawkeyes had no chance but this turned into quite the competitive game. Too bad it was overshadowed (probably) by two other bowl games in pretty much the same spot (something I am not a fan of, even if it is “New Year’s Day tradition.”
Bahamas Bowl (FIU 35 Toledo 32) – I still hate the timeslot this game is in and probably always will. Friday, around Noon, in the week BEFORE Christmas? Get the fuck outta here. Anyway, this game’s score doesn’t tell the whole story as Toledo scored a very late touchdown to make it respectable. This is the eleventh-best bowl of the season. That really says it all.
Arizona Bowl (Nevada 16 Arkansas State 13 (OT)) – This wasn’t the sexiest matchup of bowl season. Actually it was probably the least sexy matchup. Funny thing is, I pretty much stuck with this game despite the fact the Cotton Bowl started when this game was in the fourth quarter. Wasn’t the best played game and the lack of offense hurts it. The Cheez-It Bowl this was not. But it went into overtime so it has to be in the top half of this list.
Fiesta Bowl (LSU 40 UCF 32) – With all the LSU players not playing and McKenzie Milton obviously not playing for UCF, there will always be excuses for the final score. But at least now we can move on from UCF calling themselves the national champions. At first it kind of made sense in a roundabout way. Then it was just funny as they kept going on about it. Then it got annoying.
Sugar Bowl (Texas 28 Georgia 21) – Texas is BACK! I think we can say this and not sound like we are making fun of all the media pundits about this. Tom Herman has done a good job getting the Horns back to prominence. But this game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Texas seemed to dominate until late. There was a bit of suspense as the Dawgs had an onside kick to try and get the ball back but other than that, it felt like a Texas whipping.
Dollar General Bowl (Troy 42 Buffalo 32) – I was really looking forward to this game as it had two powerful Group of Five teams going head-to-head. For about 50+ minutes, this game was super exciting. Troy pulled away at the end so it wasn’t as close as it could have been but has to be considered in the top half for having a good first three quarters. Plus it was Neal Brown’s final game at Troy even though we didn’t know it at the time.
Sun Bowl (Stanford 14 Pittsburgh 13) – Basically this game was close. That’s about it. It was kind of sloppily played and it felt like neither team could get momentum. If it wasn’t for it being close this game would have rocketed down the list.
Orange Bowl (Alabama 45 Oklahoma 34) – After Bama came out guns a-blazin’ in the first quarter, this felt like a 50-point win for the Tide. But they couldn’t put away the Sooners. Oklahoma held on like that piece of snot that just won’t come out of your nose when you have a cold. In the end though, the Tide rolled (pun very intended).
Holiday Bowl (Northwestern 31 Utah 20) – The only game we couldn’t watch in Canada. And it looked like an interesting game as Utah went up big in the first half and then just dissolved under the pressure. I know this from the highlights I finally found. Can we just get FS1 up here already?
Camping World Bowl (Syracuse 34 West Virginia 18) – No Will Grier pushed this game down no matter what. And Cuse ran away with this game at the end. So it’s average…at least in terms of this year’s bowl season.
Las Vegas Bowl (Fresno State 31 Arizona State 20) – Not exciting. Not terrible. Kind of in the middle. Which is where it ranks.
Gasparilla Bowl (Marshall 38 USF 20) – This game was pretty much over by halftime. This was my first loss in my bowl pick’em pool. It would rate lower but I am giving the people organizing this bowl credit for moving it from the shithole known as the Trop to Raymond James Stadium. The less anything at the Trop the better.
Hawaii Bowl (Louisiana Tech 31 Hawaii 14) – This wasn’t on Christmas Eve. It started at 10:30 and ended around 2 in the morning. I mean I watched the whole thing because…well, I don’t know why but it can’t be healthy. I’m fine with this kind of thing during the regular season. Bowl games ending after 1 in the morning though…not so good.
Cure Bowl (Tulane 41 Louisiana 24) – Somehow two Louisiana teams ended up playing in Florida instead of in Louisiana for bowl season. OK then. This was on when other bowl games were on so it got very little viewing from yours truly.
Redbox Bowl (Oregon 7 Michigan State 6) – This game was close. It was the only reason to keep watching it since the quality of play was terrible. And this is #24 on the list. Let that sink in.
Peach Bowl (Florida 41 Michigan 15) – Another game that seemed not bad in the first half. Then everything went to shit. The Wolverines were boatraced by Florida in the second half and honestly, it was mostly Michigan looking bad than Florida looking amazing.
Boca Raton Bowl (UAB 37 Northern Illinois 13) – UAB wins a bowl game! WOOHOO! If it wasn’t for this story, this would be lower on the list as Northern Illinois looked like a terrible representative for the MAC as their champion in this bowl game.
National Championship – (Clemson 44 Alabama 16) – This was a thoroughly dominating performance by the Tigers. It was actually a little shocking to see Bama get thoroughly whacked in this one. But after a while the actual game felt a bit boring and it was a bit of a crappy ending to the season.
Quick Lane Bowl (Minnesota 34 Georgia Tech 10) – Thanks to Bell and Rogers (or maybe ESPN, who knows) fucking things up, no one could see this game. Minnesota decided to Row the damn Boat and destroy Paul Johnson’s farewell as head man at Georgia Tech by putting up over 250 yards rushing on offense.
Independence Bowl (Duke 56 Temple 27) – Yet another game that was close at halftime. Then Duke ran away with it. This seems like a running joke now.
Idaho Potato Bowl (BYU 49 Western Michigan 18) – Zach Wilson was perfect on this day. 18-for-18. It really was the only exciting thing about this game…to see if he would get an incompletion. Otherwise, a complete blowout.
Gator Bowl (Texas A&M 52 NC State 13) – I will be completely honest…after the first half I watched very little of this game. Fast forwarded through, noticed the Aggies were handling this game pretty easily, and felt good about my decision.
Cotton Bowl (Clemson 30 Notre Dame 3) – Was there really anything good about this game? Everyone saying Notre Dame shouldn’t have been there have another argument in their pocket now (despite the fact they did deserve to be there and that Clemson is freakin’ awesome).
New Mexico Bowl (Utah State 52 North Texas 13) – The only intriguing part of this game was how the Aggies were going to fare with Matt Wells leaving for Texas Tech before the bowl game. Well, it didn’t matter obviously since they crushed the (not so) Mean Green.
Armed Forces Bowl (Army 70 Houston 14) – I actually enjoyed watching this even though the quality of the actual game was bad. Army went in dry on the Cougars in this one and did not let up one bit. Tied the bowl record for points scored. That means ANY bowl. If Major Applewhite wasn’t going to be shitcanned before that game, he sure was afterwards (and lo and behold, he was!).
Pinstripe Bowl (Wisconsin 35 Miami 3) – This was pretty boring. Not competitive at all. But the fact this ended up being Mark Richt’s last game keeps it from falling even further (even though there isn’t far to fall from here).
New Orleans Bowl (Appalachian State 45 Middle Tennessee 13) – Maybe the Blue Raiders were honestly that crushed with losing the Conference USA title game. This was pretty non-competitive but remember, App State is one of the better Group of Five teams despite being in the Sun Belt.
Music City Bowl (Auburn 63 Purdue 14) – How many blowouts were there this bowl season? I count 14. That’s brutal.
Belk Bowl (Virginia 28 South Carolina 0) – This should have been a better game. Two underrated teams from hotbed football states and this is what happened. It’s too bad since a) it was on ABC and b) the Belk Bowl has the most hilarious bowl Twitter account. But even that couldn’t save this mess of a game.
Frisco Bowl (Ohio 27 San Diego State 0) – Hey remember what I said about the Frisco Bowl before? Forget all that. This was shit. It would be the worst bowl game this season if it wasn’t for good ol’ Mother Nature.
First Responder Bowl (Boise State vs. Boston College) – This game was cancelled after about 10 minutes of play due to storms in the area that did not die down for quite a few hours. Kind of shitty that these players and coaches are away for Christmas and have this cancelled. Same with the fans that showed up. Brutal. I mean at least the schools were refunded the ticket costs to everyone but that doesn’t make up for the other costs and the time lost (which is probably the most important thing here). This may be one of the big arguments for the “too many bowl games” crowd.

So in the end, not many really good bowl games. Let’s hope 2019, in all, brings us better college football. This weekend is the East-West Shrine Game on the NFL Network. It starts at 3:00 on Saturday so if you’re still itching for some college football (kind of) and/or are interested in the upcoming draft then this game is good to watch.

Your very short NFL schedule will be coming your way tomorrow. Have a great Thursday everyone! Oh and by the way, I changed my Twitter handle from @LikeABauce1978 to @TheBauceman. So if you want to find me (for whatever reason) I am there now.

Ranking the Bowl Games from First to Worst – 2017-18 Edition

Posted on January 17, 2018 by guelphbossman

First off, holy shit with that game on Sunday. First walk-off touchdown in playoff history EVER. Poor Marcus Williams will never live that down despite the fact he is a key reason that a) the Saints were still in the game to begin with and b) the Saints were even in the playoffs this season. Either way, other than in New Orleans, he will get shit on forever. Ask Scott Norwood (who is still revered in Western New York and treated like a goat (and not the good kind of goat) everywhere else). So now we have Case Keenum vs. Nick Foles in a conference championship game. What a time to be alive!

Alright it’s time to rank the bowl games after they have been played for, I believe, the second year in a row. This is such a text heavy blog and I know it will probably look like shit (i.e. an absolute wall of words) so if you read the whole thing then congratulations. I mean you don’t get a prize but that shows how focused you can be which is good in real life, correct? Let’s begin.

National Championship (Alabama 26 Georgia 23 (OT)) – Jesus Christ this was an amazing game. And that final touchdown throw in overtime: it was a thing of beauty. Tua can really chuck the ball. I see Jalen Hurts transferring soon enough although he will still try to win the starting job for the 2018 season. It was a great way to end the season and gives us something to cling to (even you absolute despise Bama) for the next seven months or so. OK I am getting sad already. Somebody hold me (a female preferably).
Rose Bowl (Georgia 54 Oklahoma 48 (2OT)) – Should I make this number one? Part of me thinks it should be but when the national title game is an all-time classic you almost have to put it number one right? Anyway, this made last year’s Rose Bowl (one of the best ever) look like a mediocre game. This game had almost everything and you couldn’t look away. I think I needed a smoke after it was done and I don’t smoke. Also, there was no Baker Mayfield crotch-grabbing so it was definitely a win-win…unless you’re a Sooners fan.
Belk Bowl (Wake Forest 55 Texas A&M 52) – Until the College Football Playoff again this stood a chance at being the best bowl game of the season. Wake and the Aggies (this sounds like a horrible band name) decided “Fuck Defense” and put on an arena football-like performance for the ages. The fact the Deacs could hang with TAMU shows that the ACC has really narrowed the gap recently on the field.
Alamo Bowl (TCU 37 Stanford 35) – Don’t bet against TCU when they play in San Antonio. If TCU wants to schedule a series against your team and at least one of the games will be in San Antonio, DO NOT DO IT! It’s a trick! Gary Patterson owns the Alamodome. Period. No matter what colour shirt he wears.
Birmingham Bowl (USF 38 Texas Tech 34) – If this was based on everything up until early in the fourth quarter this game would be WAY down the list. But Quentin Flowers went all Quentin Flowers and willed the Bulls to a victory over Texas Tech who had to reaffirm that, yes, Kute Kliff Kingsbury is safe and his job is not in jeopardy…until the first weekend of the college football season when we begin the serious hot seat discussions.
Armed Forces Bowl (Army 42 San Diego State 35) – Don’t let the final score fool you: this game was MUCH closer than that. It was old-school football at its finest. Running the ball a boatload of times to set up a few big passes. It was glorious to watch. The Black Knights scored with 18 seconds left to tie the game up, went for two, got it, then got a scoop n’ score on the final play of the game. And even with all that, the Aztecs’ Rashaad Penny was a sight to watch. Ran for over two bills and four touchdowns. Unreal.
Arizona Bowl (New Mexico State 26 Utah State 20 (OT)) – And now for the game almost no one watched but should have. The Aggies winning their first bowl game appearance in 57 years pushed this into the top ten although it was a damn good game in the fourth quarter. This is why these bowls need at least partial national spotlights. So they get their moment in the sun that’s not overshadowed by another bowl game at the same time.
Foster Farms Bowl (Purdue 38 Arizona 35) – Even though there was no GUS JOHNSON in this one and the better game on paper looked to be the Holiday Bowl, we lucked out when this one ended up on the main FOX network. Quite a few lead changes in this one from two teams that almost no one expected to be bowling this season.
Citrus Bowl (Notre Dame 21 LSU 17) – That ridiculous catch-and-run in the final minute put this game into the top ten. Otherwise it might have dropped into the 20s and maybe even farther considering the field was in atrocious condition thanks to all the rain (although it could have been worse *COUGH*Outback Bowl*COUGH*). Expect Brian Kelly to sign that 12-year contract extension any day now.
Peach Bowl (UCF 34 Auburn 27) – True national champions? Meh, I don’t think so but UCF was the only unbeaten (and untied LOL) team in FBS. Scott Frost finishing what he started should be a reminder to almost all coaches to do the same before getting on the first private jet to your new destination. Not just from a PR standpoint but also from a “Don’t be an Asshole” standpoint.
TaxSlayer Bowl (Mississippi State 31 Louisville 27) – If this wasn’t on at the same time as two other bowl games, I might have watched more of it (and may have moved it up a slot or two. Lamar Jackson was good not great in his last college game (probably) but the story here was the Bulldogs. Lose their coach to Florida. Lose their quarterback a month prior due to a horrific injury on national television. And what do they do? Come back and win a bowl game against a good Cardinals squad.
Liberty Bowl (Iowa State 21 Memphis 20) – From the massive crowd at Liberty Bowl Stadium to the noise to the quality of football, this felt like a big-time bowl game; something completely lost from all non-New Year’s Six games (and non-College Football Playoff games also although this should be obvious). The only thing that kept this from going up the list is the lack of points from two teams we figured would shoot the lights out in a potential pew-pew game.
Pinstripe Bowl (Iowa 27 Boston College 20) – A game that most people, including myself, figured would be a bit of a bore. It wasn’t. On the frozen tundra of Yankee Stadium, we witnessed slippin’ and slidin’ and more slippin’ and slidin’. Part of me thinks it’s complete stupidity to put a game on this kind of field. The other part of me thinks this is fucking fantastic and we need more of this!
Music City Bowl (Northwestern 24 Kentucky 23) – This will forever be known as the Benny Snell game for Snell being thrown out for…what I don’t really know. Basically the ref was being a dick and took it out on this kid. Both coaches said it was one of the worst officiated games they had ever seen. I tend to agree. From what I watched it was piss-poor which is saying something since bowl season was rife with terrible officiating. Too bad since this was a close game that came down to the wire.
Hawaii Bowl (Fresno State 33 Houston 27) – For the first time in what feels like forever, these two teams made the annual “Finish up Wrapping Presents and Put this on in the Background” Bowl exciting. I had to actually watch the entire second half since it was that good. Fresno State finished up a remarkable turnaround year with this victory. Oh and Ed Oliver will be a beast on Sundays. Bank on it.
Outback Bowl (South Carolina 26 Michigan 19) – First off, the field conditions were atrocious. The Bucs played a late afternoon game the day before this game which started at Noon. And it rained a lot. So yeah, not fun for the players. Secondly, Michigan had the fate of the Big Ten’s ridiculous perfect bowl record on the line. They couldn’t close out the Cocks and now they have the scorn of an entire conference and Big Jim Harbaugh on a Big Hot Seat next season.
Fiesta Bowl (Penn State 35 Washington 28) – No matter how close the Huskies tried to make this, it always felt like the Nittany Lions were at least a couple steps ahead. Which meant I felt just a bit dirty after watching it since the hype didn’t match the actual game despite the score saying it was close when it really wasn’t. Ugh.
Orange Bowl (Wisconsin 34 Miami 24) – The New Year’s Six itself, I would say, was underwhelming. Some great storylines coming in but the games didn’t match the hype. I was kind of hoping this would have been closer, especially once Mark Richt went fucking crazy on the sidelines before halftime. Having him lose his shit again late in the game would have pushed this possibly into Top Ten territory.
New Mexico Bowl (Marshall 31 Colorado State 28) – Hey this wasn’t a bad bowl at all. Too bad it was lumped in with a few bowl games on at the same time. When that happens you really have to stand out to be high in these rankings.
Camping World Bowl (Oklahoma State 30 Virginia Tech 21) – Here is where things start to fall off a cliff. I was really hoping and expecting this game to be good. It was OK at times but there weren’t enough huge defensive plays or big offensive shootouts going on in this one. It was just there. At least we still had Mike Gundy’s mullet to keep us entertained.
Camellia Bowl (Middle Tennessee 35 Arkansas State 30) – A misleading final score as ASU wasn’t really in this one. It did have a few bizarre plays that only bowl games seem to unearth.
Sugar Bowl (Alabama 24 Clemson 6) – This game suffered from it not being really close for a game that started at 8:50 on the night before many of us had to go back to work. The other thing was it came on after that crazy Rose Bowl. Not enviable at all.
Cure Bowl (Georgia State 27 Western Kentucky 17) – This was the game that ruined my chance at bowl perfection. Yes, I know it was only like the fourth game of bowl season, leave me alone.
Texas Bowl (Texas 33 Missouri 16) – The punter was the MVP of this game. Let that sink in.
Cactus Bowl (Kansas State 35 UCLA 17) – There were a lot of questions about the Rosen One (or Chosen Rosen which sounds infinitely worse but whatever) before this game. He ended up not playing. The first half had UCLA out to a lead and I thought this would be a good game. It wasn’t KSU blew them out in the second half and I’m being kind.
Las Vegas Bowl (Boise State 38 Oregon 28) – Boise State did everything in their power to keep Oregon in this game. Oregon was terrible. TERRIBLE! It should have been 49-0. That it was a ten-point game is a testament to college football getting wacky at times.
Heart of Dallas Bowl (Utah 30 West Virginia 14) – It was so depressing watching this game seeing the Cotton Bowl with barely any people in it. It doesn’t look like the most, um, stable stadium I guess is the term I am looking for. What a difference between that and the Red River Shootout.
Sun Bowl (NC State 52 Arizona State 31) – This was never close. And it was on at the same time as a few other, better bowl games. And it doesn’t include an SEC team on the network that has the SEC.
Cotton Bowl (Ohio State 24 USC 7) – For a New Year’s Six game, this was brutal. Not fun to watch. And it was the first NY6 game this season. It gave everyone a bit of anxiety hoping that the rest of the games wouldn’t be this way. They weren’t thankfully.
Quick Lane Bowl (Duke 36 Northern Illinois 14) – I will be completely honest…after the first half I watched very little of this game. Fast forwarded through, noticed Duke was handling this game pretty easily, and felt good about my decision.
New Orleans Bowl (Troy 50 North Texas 30) – Only good thing about this one was that there were a lot of points. I mean it was close for the first half but that was about it.
Idaho Potato Bowl (Wyoming 37 Central Michigan 14) – Did you know Josh Allen is a TOP-NOTCH quarterback that should be taken high in the first round? If not, then you didn’t watch this game. I don’t think the announcers were relatives of Allen but it sure felt like it.
Independence Bowl (Florida State 42 Southern Miss 13) – This had a certain car crash quality to it. Would the Noles crash and burn and end one of their worst seasons in recent memory on a terrible note? Or would they rise to the occasion and show everyone why this game shouldn’t be close. It was definitely the latter which kind of made it more boring than the first option would have been.
Bahamas Bowl (Ohio 41 UAB 6) – I honestly hate this bowl game. I don’t want to. But it’s on at a horrible time every year (during the day on a weekday before Christmas). So other than that one year with the ridiculous Central Michigan comeback with the crazy final touchdown and they still lost by 1, it hasn’t impressed me at all. I guess the players get to go to Bahamas so that’s fun. And UAB was there. It was a fun story to talk about…during the first quarter. After that? Blah.
Gasparilla Bowl (Temple 28 FIU 3) – I was more in awe of the absolutely stupidly massive Bad Boy Mowers dog inflatable mascot than anything. That thing was huge! They really should have just had mower races. I think the St. Pete crowd would have been more appreciative. And I still think the Trop is a fucking dump even if they do have slightly nicer turf now.
Holiday Bowl (Michigan State 42 Washington State 17) – This may tell you how bad the worst five bowl games are. I rated this game, a blowout that no Canadian could watch live, better than those ones. Yeah.
Dollar General Bowl (Appalachian State 34 Toledo 0) – This should have been a better game. Two Group of Five conference champs going toe-to-toe. It was anything but. The only interesting thing was if the Mountaineers would hold on to get the goose egg. They did.
Boca Raton Bowl (Florida Atlantic 50 Akron 3) – A fair amount of Lane Kiffin talk and John Franklin acting like a douchebag and dropping the ball before the goal line on a long touchdown run are the only highlights here.
Military Bowl (Navy 49 Virginia 7) – At least the Hoos celebrated their first decent season in a long time with an opening kickoff return for a touchdown. After that this game suck-diddly-ucked.
Frisco Bowl (Louisiana Tech 51 SMU 10) – New location, same shitty bowl game. Other than the Memphis-BYU brawl a few years back the Miami Beach-turned-Frisco Bowl has been horrendous. The game they had in Frisco recently (the FCS Championship) was tons better and might have had two better teams competing.

So a lot of good and a lot of not-so-good. It was college football but some of the not-so-good games were tough to watch. Tomorrow (or Friday depending on time) I will have the conference championship schedule up (all two games of it!). Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

Week 3 College Football Recap – Champions of Life Edition

Posted on September 18, 2017 by guelphbossman

Yeah that picture says it all about the ending of the Tennessee-Florida game. OK actually it says a hell of a lot more than that but we will leave that for now. What an amazing finish to what was arguably one of the worst SEC conference games I have ever seen. It was awful to watch. So much so that I watched very little of the first 50 minutes of the game. But man was I ever glued to the last part of the game. That was a massive throw by Felipe Franks and it was the longest Hail Mary to finish an FBS game in a long time. It was the cherry on top of a great college football day.

Remember when I said last weekend had been kind of blah with the games. It really had been. And when you compare it to this past Saturday you understand why. Such a crazy day full of Hail Marys and upsets and crazy finishes. It was what college football is meant to be and it shows, yet again, why college football is light years ahead of the NFL in terms of excitement and entertainment.

So let’s get to the recap since there is a lot to talk about.

Fun-Time Recap!

Will Butch Jones be fired during the season? I honestly think he won’t be but they can probably lose more than one or two more games this season or else Jonesy can take his Champions of Life title belt and take it somewhere else.
Clemson destroyed Louisville. It was kind of boring. Insert Bobby Petrino Motorcycle Accident pic here.
Let’s say it: Texas is back. Yes they lost to USC in an amazing double overtime game (which means FOX had a better game than ABC…let the Primetime college football wars truly begin) but they showed that they belonged. Also, this means we won’t have to replay Vince Young’s run against USC back in the 2006 National Championship in the Rose Bowl. Also, I will say this as well: this was not revenge. The game was over 11 years ago. For some people it’s ancient history.
Hey how did my Upset of the Week pick do? My god, Pitt. Couldn’t you have kept it at least somewhat close? Maybe Oklahoma State is the real deal after all. Bedlam is going to be REALLY fun this year.
Oh LSU. That was awful. Don’t want to take anything away from Mississippi State but the Tigers looked terrible. And now we will hear a bunch of “Ed Orgeron is on the Hot Seat” hot takes for at least the next week or so. I don’t think there should be any worry on his part but this is college football and programs have fired Bo Pelini, Les Miles (ironic), Earle Bruce, Ron Zook (at Florida), and Philip Fulmer after better results.
Uh, is Vandy for real? They just completely shut down Kansas State and is now 3-0. All of a sudden, next week’s game at home against Alabama may become a huge opportunity for the Dores. I mean they won’t win but I could see their defense shutting down the Tide for large swaths of time.
How about San Diego State? Huge upset of Stanford and now they are the 1B to USF’s 1A (and Memphis’s 1C) for the Group of Five spot in the New Year’s Six. Maybe for once there will be some real drama and intrigue near the end of the season since it hasn’t been since the College Football Playoff was implemented.
Speaking of Memphis, how about that win over UCLA? That really dulled the shine on Josh Rosen’s season so far that’s for sure. And now Memphis could be a true contender to USF. It would be great if they both made it to the AAC Championship Game undefeated. Gives The Committee some more headaches (which will require more booze no matter what they say).
How about Nebraska….losing to Northern Illinois at home. Cue the Fire Mike Riley talk from Husker fans. But hey, look at the bright side: now they can truly say they are a Big Ten team now that they have had their “lose to a MAC team at home” cherry popped (as is B1G tradition).
We didn’t end up getting Kansas-Ohio on the specialty pack. We got Baylor-Duke instead. A good game with Duke winning and the Bears still looking for their first win. As for the former, Kansas should be relegated to Conference USA.
We can’t call them Purdon’t this season (so far at least). Purdue dominated Missouri and go to 3-0. Now they get Michigan in a nationally televised game on FOX. This is the big time, something this program hasn’t seen in years. Let’s see what they do with it.
Um I have this feeling Josh Allen will not be the #1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft.
Two more surprises: Cal and Kentucky are both 3-0. And they haven’t played three cupcakes. This season is slowly marching towards chaos. Let’s embrace this.

So yeah it was a fun day of watching college football. That’s what I’m talking about. We need more of that. More chaos! Now, let’s take a look at the Bossman Top 25:

#1	Alabama
#2	Clemson

Oh man, I am so tempted to put Clemson #1. I really am. Pretty easy wins over Auburn and Louisville, both who are in the Top 25, should probably put them there. But I can’t………………wait, a minute. Of course I can! Behold the revised Bossman Top 25:

#1	Clemson
#2	Alabama
#3	USC
#4	Oklahoma
#5	Penn State
#6	Michigan
#7	Washington
#8	Wisconsin
#9	Oklahoma State
#10	Ohio State
#11	Florida State
#12	Virginia Tech
#13	Georgia
#14	Auburn
#15	Miami
#16	Louisville
#17	Washington State
#18	USF
#19	TCU
#20	Mississippi State
#21	Florida
#22	LSU
#23	Oregon
#24	Colorado
#25	San Diego State

Ah, that feels better. In the end it doesn’t matter since if both teams win out they get to the College Football Playoff and won’t face each other in the semi-finals meaning we would be on a collision course for Bama-Clemson III: Back in Training. I don’t see that happening but honestly it also wouldn’t surprise me if this ended up being the case.

As for the rest of the rankings, nothing really that shocking. Mississippi State moves into the Top 25 with their impressive shellacking of LSU. San Diego State also gets in thanks to their fun upset of Stanford. On the outside looking in I have Maryland, Vanderbilt, Cal, West Virginia, and Notre Dame. Another win this coming weekend and these teams are probably up in my official rankings.

Same old schedule for the rest of the week: tomorrow with the NFL recap, Thursday with the college football schedule, Friday with the NFL schedule. At some point I will throw in an extra post on a Wednesday if I have nothing to do and just feel I need to post something.

Man did we ever need that – the Week 1 College Football Recap

Posted on September 5, 2017 by guelphbossman

Getting that fix of college football. It just felt so right.

What a first true week of college football we had. Upsets, huge comebacks, big games. Unfortunately we also had some significant injuries. So without further adieu, it’s the first college football recap for the season. Sorry if this sucks, I’m a little rusty. Here we go!

Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Washington started off our week by looking quite bad early on in their games and then pulling away in the second half. For the optimist, it shows that these teams can still blow inferior squads out of the water. For the pessimist, this means that these teams are O-VER-RA-TED (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap). Indiana fans will rue the day they chanted that towards the Buckeyes.
As for arguably the biggest opening week game ever, Alabama ended up winning. Not surprising. The thing is, the win was good for Bama but they didn’t look dominating. If it wasn’t for special teams gaffes by Florida State that game ends up being a lot closer in the end. Also, Deondre Francois’ season-ending knee injury probably destroys any Seminole chance of making the CFP. Sad to see that happen early in the season but these things do happen. An unfortunate by-product of football in general.
An awesome moment in the USC-Western Michigan game. Blind long snapper Jake Olson got a chance to finally appear in a football game after losing his sight eight years ago. A very touching moment. I didn’t realize there was that much dust on my desk as my eyes started to water. The game was much closer than it probably should have been (see tOSU, Wisky, Washington above) with USC scoring late to pull away.
Michigan-Florida was as weird and wacky as everyone probably thought it would be. Two pick sixes by the losing team. Joe Tess on the call. Neither offense really getting anything going until the second half and that offense wore maize….a LOT of maize. Like a yellow highlighter. It was basically everything you want to see in college football and more. The only thing missing is that it wasn’t as close as I would have liked.
I thought FOX got the short end of the stick with UTEP-Oklahoma followed by Louisville-Purdue. Well thankfully I was wrong about the later game. The Boilermakers took the Cardinals to the limit in a fantastic game in Indianapolis. I would have loved to have seen the Boilers pull off the upset but it wasn’t meant to be. And the close game all overshadowed a very good performance by Lamar Jackson. I smell a theme here…
Hey how about them Longhorns? Not the start Tom Herman wanted. I think, despite the prognostications of several experts, this year will be the speed bump year for them. I still think they will make a bowl game and may even improve a couple of wins from the previous season but for them to return to glory (for lack of a better term) it will be next year at the earliest.
How bad was BYU’s offense against LSU? BYU didn’t even hit 100 yards of total offense for the entire game. It didn’t even feel that they got into field goal range at any point during the affair. It was total domination on the part of the Tigers’ defense. I don’t know if it was BYU just isn’t as good as anyone thinks or LSU is better than anyone thinks. Usually in these cases it’s the former and not the latter.
Uh folks, South Carolina could be a contender in the SEC East this season. Just sayin. They played really well against a NC State team that is supposed to possibly break the Big Three stranglehold in the ACC Atlantic division and with no other SEC East teams looking really good Week One, I may have to reconsider my pick of them not even being bowl-eligible.
As for the SEC East, how about the Volunteers? They squeaked out a great 42-41 double overtime victory over Georgia Tech in a game where it looked like the Yellow Jackets were so close to pulling away only for Tennessee to get back within striking distance. Butch Jones has given himself another few weeks with that win. This year may be his best chance to at least get to the SEC Championship.
The Black Diamond Trophy was a great game. So great I watched most of it and didn’t switch off of it until late in the game (more on that in a bit). West Virginia is much better than I figured they would be and the Hokies proved they can pull out the wins when they need to which they will need to win their division again.
That other game on Sunday night was Texas A&M-UCLA. It was 44-10 for A&M early on in the third quarter. To 10. Yes. So I figured it was over. And every so often I would see the ticker below saying, yes, UCLA did score again. And again. And again. Once the Bruins got within six I figured I had to go over to that game. And the Bruins pulled it out in the end. The second biggest comeback in college football history. And the start of perhaps Josh Rosen’s somewhat-unexpected Heisman run as he looked unreal in that second half. Also, Kevin Sumlin is as good as gone as the Aggies head coach. That much is certain.
Liberty went into Baylor and pulled the huge upset on the Bears. It would have been a tough one to watch if we could get FOX Sports TWO up here. Not One. Yeah. Anyway, Baylor is Baylor so it’s tough to cheer for them anyway. And their former AD, Ian McCaw, is now the AD at Liberty. So yeah. I like close football but it’s like picking between a rotten apple and a rotten banana. Both are rotten.
Finally here is some breaking news: UNLV is really bad. Like REALLY bad. Howard, pulled off the biggest upset (based on point spreads) in college football history with their win over the Rebels Saturday night. That’s sad. Full marks to Howard for the win but they are a middle-of-the-road HBCU school who should have had no business beating UNLV. Maybe that’s the oddsmakers fault but who knows. Either way, college football folks!

Alright, not a super long recap but decently long. This isn’t my bread and butter and I think it shows so I try to avoid overkill here.

In future editions I will include my personal Top 25 and some other info as well.

Same as last year, next week’s college football schedule will be out Thursday (and hopefully everything is set in stone by then) and the NFL schedule will be Fridays which will be a real hoot to do with all this time-shifting fun. Should be interesting. Hope you all enjoyed the games the past five days. College football is back BAYBEE!!!!!

The Game…did anything else happen this past weekend? – Week 13 College Football Recap

Posted on November 28, 2016 by guelphbossman

Yes tOSU fans were pretty happy afterward

If you had believed College GameDay, there was nothing else on that day. Oh, maybe a couple coaching changes. That’s it. Nothing else. That 5-hour GameDay was absurdly long. They could have gone with 4 and it would have been plenty. Worst part is, The Game was awesome. So the hype kind of justified it. So expect longer GameDays in the future for bigger games. Speaking of The Game, did I mention it was amazing? Double overtime. Two missed field goals in regulation. Controversy over a spot in double overtime. Curtis Samuel running about 50 yards to gain a little over ten to be just short that set up the fourth down that had that controversial spot. Crazy. And so good. It’s why we watch college football: for games like these. I do think it would have been better as the 8:00 ABC game but I understand tradition has it at Noon on ABC. Remember, realignment and money has robbed the game of a lot of traditions so let’s not quibble over this one. It did make it tough to get through the rest of the day thought I will say that. Energy was an issue later on.

Warning: this post will be long. Viewer discretion strongly advised.

Tuesday

The week started on Tuesday with some MACtion. Ohio clinched the MAC East with their win over Akron. Then Miami-OH completed the most incredible in-season turnaround ever. They had started the season 0-6. With their win Tuesday night over Ball State they finished 6-6 and became bowl eligible. Very impressive.

Thursday

LSU beat Texas A&M on American Thanksgiving night and that was the secondary story. Ed Orgeron was the main story all night. Whether LSU was going to take the interim tag off or hire someone else. The intrigue would last into Saturday morning. We will get to that in a bit.

Friday

NC State ruined North Carolina’s chances of going to the ACC Championship and made the Commonwealth Cup the next day meaningless with their win over the Heels. Other than a skirmish in the middle of the game, nothing much of note here. The Wolfpack became bowl eligible much to the chagrin of the 5-7 crew.

Memphis with the mild upset of Houston. Again nothing really of note except the constant reminder that Tom Herman was probably coaching his last game on the Cougar sideline.

Missouri beat Arkansas in front of, well, a lot less than a sell-out. I kind of wonder if Mizzou fans long for the days of the Big Eight. Not the Big XII, the Big Eight.

Northern Illinois beat Kent State to go to 5-7 and start the slew of conversations about which teams had better APRs and how many spots would be available after all eligible teams were selected. I love college football, I really do. But this APR nonsense is stupid. A few less bowl games, that’s all I ask.

The Apple Cup was so incredibly non-competitive. Did Mike Leach realize it was a big game? Washington clinched their spot in the Pac-12 Championship and come very close to clinching one of the coveted four College Football Playoff spots.

Western Michigan continued their dream season, beating Toledo and clinching the MAC West title. They go into the MAC Championship undefeated and as big favourites to get the Group of Five spot in the New Year’s Six. However, we do know that the MAC Title game has been rife with upsets since it began so don’t rule anything out.

Texas played awful, again. Poor Charlie Strong.

Iowa laid a beating on Nebraska, guaranteeing Wisconsin the Big Ten West crown. At least Wisconsin’s game the next day still had meaning since Wisky is still in the hunt for a CFP spot.

Texas Tech beat Baylor and the Bears’ season will end in a whimper. Many were wishing that they didn’t become bowl eligible at all. Many should be thankful The Committee didn’t have to make any sort of decision on them. Also, Patrick Mahomes plays video game football. He should play on Sundays. Maybe the Browns need a…you know what, don’t bother.

Boise State loses inexplicably to Air Force. This means another game on Saturday, this one the Wyoming-New Mexico affair, means nothing now. Black Friday college football not helping Saturday college football any.

All Arizona State needed was a win to go bowling again. The Fighting RichRods beat them pretty handily and won the Territorial Cup. Also, one Sun Devil fan wasn’t impressed with me over Twitter. That surprises me so much since Twitter is such a bastion of friendliness and great debate that never goes over the line or gets personal. Notice the italics.

Southern Miss also pulled an upset, beating Louisiana Tech meaning they would become bowl eligible. The APR spots were dwindling FAST.

Oh and Tubs is as good as done in Cincinnati. Can’t see the Bearcats retaining Tuberville after their loss to Tulsa who came back from quite a ways down to force overtime and then win.

Saturday REALLY Early

Five hour GameDay and The Game. Oh and some coaching carousel fun. Luckily for our sanity, Charlie Strong was fired early on by Texas (no surprise). It sounds like Tom Herman was demanding around $6 million a season (or more like his agents were demanding this). LSU balked and refused to wait for any counter-offer. So they went ahead and removed the interim tag from Ed Orgeron and made him the permanent head coach. Then Texas hired Tom Herman to the surprise of no one either.

Saturday Early

The Game was good. I mentioned it above. Forgot to mention Jim Harbaugh’s rant on the officiating after the game. Epic. And will cost him some money. However, there were other games on Saturday. No really!

Rutgers lost. Again. Which made Maryland bowl eligible. The APR schools are decreasing more and more. Actually made me a smile a bit.

How about those Kentucky Wildcats? What a game against Louisville and they pull it out with a last-minute FG to upset the Cardinals. Mark Stoops has done a great job building the program in Lexington. Also, this pretty much makes it so the Fighting Petrinos will not be in a New Year’s Six bowl. Also, I don’t think Lamar Jackson is a shoo-in anymore for the Heisman. Three straight weeks of less-than-Heisman performance and some good performances by other great players has made this a race again.

Another meaningless game but considering it’s a rivalry game, it does feel somewhat important. I’m talking about Clean, Old Fashioned Hate. Georgia and Georgia Tech. And the Ramblin’ Wreck spoiled yet another COFH game by beating Georgia Between the Hedges again. Bulldog fans already wondering if Kirby Smart is the right guy for the job.

Pittsburgh beat Syracuse 76-61…in football. It shattered the previous mark for points in a regulation game by almost 20. Every time I turned back to the game, someone else had scored. It was the only reason I was watching this game. Such a defense-optional game to the extreme.

Indiana and Northwestern did what they had to do: win to become bowl eligible in their rivalry games. To be honest, I am sure very few people watched these two games.

Saturday Afternoon

What the hell is up with Notre Dame? The program is in shambles. Brian Kelly is now actually looking for other coaching possibilities despite the fact the AD hasn’t fired him or doesn’t seem to want to. One of Kelly’s captains had two egregious personal fouls that were missed and should have necessitated him being kicked out of the game. A complete mess. Worst part is, the Irish have the talent to have at least gone bowling. They need to start over and it starts with shitcanning Kelly soon. Oh and USC is good. Adoree Jackson is REALLY good.

The Iron Bowl was more of a Tin Foil Bowl. Nothing much to see. Bama won. Auburn was close for almost three quarters despite the fact they played terrible. It is obvious to anyone that after the Tide, there is no team in that conference that is even close to elite. They will have the worst New Year’s Six representative (unless Florida upsets Alabama in the SEC Championship…which I highly doubt).

In Canadian university football, Laval won the Vanier Cup again. In front of what looked like less than 10,000 fans. Not a good look for the newly rechristened U Sports. We can put part of the blame on Rogers for their piss-poor coverage up until the week of the game. Not surprising at all.

Ole Miss had a shot to go bowling but came up with egg on their face (see what I did there). They lost the Egg Bowl to Mississippi State. And by lost, I mean got destroyed. The Bulldogs now become a potential APR bowl team.

Navy put a whole whack of points up on SMU. Along with the Middies, Pitt (as I mentioned above), and Middle Tennessee all put up 70+ points on the day. Crazy.

Penn State clinched the Big Ten East by beating Michigan State easily. They are probably the worst of the three top Big Ten East teams (PSU, tOSU, Michigan) but thanks to their improbable upset of Ohio State earlier in the year, they get a chance to win the Big Ten title and put a MASSIVE monkey wrench in the College Football Playoff rankings.

Boston College is bowl eligible after beating Wake Forest. Both teams aren’t that great but were helped with soft schedules. I will say Dave Clawson has done a good job in Winston-Salem whereas Steve Addazio, not so much. I think it’s time to let him go and start fresh, especially with a lot of good head coaching candidates out there.

Saturday Primetime

Clemson laid a beating on South Carolina to win the battle of the Palmetto state. Clemson is one win away from the CFP. WILL MUSCHAMP! has done a great job in Columbia with that many freshmen and sophomores. The Gamecocks will be a LOT better next season.

Your winner….and NEW Champion of Life….the Vanderbilt Commodores! Derek Mason’s squad pulls off the upset of Tennessee and is going bowling the right way (not through the back door as many said they would). I think Butch Jones is another guy who should be fired. Whether he is or not, I don’t know. Many crowned the Vols this season’s SEC East champs back in the pre-season. I didn’t fall for it. Then again I picked Georgia. Yeah.

UCLA lost to fall to 4-8. How is Jim Mora getting no heat? This has to be one of the most disappointing seasons in college football this season.

Colorado beat Utah to clinch the Pac-12 South, meaning USC would not have a chance to beat Washington twice this season. The Buffs could also put a huge wrench in the CFP if they beat Washington on Friday.

Western Kentucky destroyed Marshall and is a very underrated Group of Five team…again. Marshall has fallen from grace fast. Doc Holliday should have pushed for another job last season when he was a hot commodity. Too late now.

It took Florida State a while but they were able to pull away and beat Florida. If they could have erased either the loss to Louisville or the loss to Clemson they would have been almost a shoo-in for a NY6 bowl. Not anymore.

Saturday Late Night

I don’t know what Wyoming and San Diego State were thinking. They still had an outside shot at the Group of Five New Year’s Six spot if they both won tonight. But they both looked awful. Worse than awful. New Mexico ran all over the Cowboys and Colorado State put 63 on the board against the Aztecs. This means the Mountain West is officially out of the G-5 race. Boise State is now kicking themselves after losing to Air Force the previous day.

Alright after a mostly great day of college football, it is clear Alabama will go to the College Football Playoff. Even if they somehow lose to Florida in the SEC Championship, they will still hold a spot. Clemson and Washington, I believe will also go with wins in their respective conference championships. It’s that number four spot. I will be doing a post later this week on what is really my final bowl projections before Conference Championship week. I honestly believe that Ohio State will end up being #4, no matter if Wisconsin or Penn State wins the Big Ten Championship. Is it right? That is up for debate. I think there will be a lot of debate this season on who the #4 team should be. This all basically goes to shit if Clemson and Washington lose. So having that happen would be a lot of fun. It means The Committee would earn their money…which is none.

Tomorrow I will have my NFL recap and then the aforementioned rankings/bowl projections post on Wednesday. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Bossman's Blog

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

Tag Archives: double overtime

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