Hey how did I do? Also, my updated NFL playoff predictions.

Basically, this is a post of how shitty my predictions are.  And some of them are BAD.

Let’s start with the college football portion of our show.  As I usually do, despite the fact I make my predictions public, I always assume some of them will be horrible.  But I made my choices, dammit, and I’m gonna stick with them.  Unlike some of you loser experts out there.  Alright let’s get going with this.

College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six

• OK then here we go.  This is gonna be bad, I can just feel it:
  • Alabama – Picked them #2 and they ended up #1.  Nice.  Good start for the ol’ Bossman.
  • Ohio State – I figured this was a no-brainer.  It wasn’t.  I had then #3 and they ended up at the Rose Bowl.  So not too bad as a lot of experts had them in their Top 4.
  • Oklahoma – I had them #1.  Then the first game of the season happened and I realized it wouldn’t happen.  Ended up outside the New Year’s Six and lost both quarterbacks to the transfer portal.  Not good.
  • North Carolina – What in the fuck was I thinking?  I did not bank on the O-line being possibly the worst in the country, that’s what I was thinking.  Anyway, they came oh so close to not even being bowl-eligible.  Completely gross pick on my part.
• How about my New Year’s Six picks?  Might as well go through them one-by-one as well:
  • I had Notre Dame going to the Fiesta Bowl.  Spot on!
  • Clemson to the Peach Bowl.  Ugh.  Not that Clemson had a terrible season but they were really never close to the New Year’s Six.
  • Cincinnati to the Peach Bowl.  They did better than I thought they would.  Congrats to them and for breaking the Group of Five ceiling.
  • Iowa State to the Sugar Bowl.  I honestly though ISU would finally break through and get that Sugar Bowl bid.  They hung in there but really were never in the Big XII race.
  • Texas A&M to the Sugar Bowl.  I figured after they beat Bama that they would be in this spot.  Man, was I wrong.
  • Wisconsin to the Rose Bowl.  Honestly, they were a tough loss to Minnesota away from the Big Ten Championship and then who knows what happens if they get there.
  • USC to the Rose Bowl.  Holy shit.
  • Washington to the Fiesta Bowl.  Double holy shit.  I whiffed so badly on my two Pac-12 picks.
• Other terrible predictions included Texas at #21 and going to the Alamo Bowl, TCU being #23 and heading to the Cheez-It Bowl and Nebraska going to a bowl at all.  I fall for it every year it seems.
• I had Georgia, Coastal Carolina and Oregon being just on the outside of the NY6 looking in.  Georgia was a huge miss on my part.  Oregon ended up pretty much right where I thought they would.  Coastal Carolina wasn’t as good but still won double-digit games.  So I would call those not so bad picks.

Heisman Trophy

• I had Spencer Rattler and Sam Howell as my #1 and #2.  Well this is a great start.
• OK this isn’t bad.  I had Bryce Young at #5.  I wondered if he could come out from under Mac Jones’ shadow and he did more than that for sure, especially in the SEC Championship where he clinched the trophy.
• Let’s look at some of the rest of my Top 10:
  • D.J. Uiagalelei at #3.  Ouch.  Despite the fact Clemson still did pretty good this season, D.J. was mediocre for much of it.
  • J.T. Daniels at #7.  Oh my.  Georgia fans are very happy that Stetson Bennett, the former walk-on, came through for them to win the title.
  • Kedon Slovis at #8.  OK then.  He’s now in the transfer portal which says all you need to know about how his season went.
  • D’Eriq King at #10.  Alright, I’m done here.

Coaching Hot Seat

I usually do pretty well with this.  Let’s see.

• Normally I do pretty well with the coaches on Almost Guaranteed Shitcanning section.  Not so this season.  Only Walt Bell was fired on this list with Jeff Brohm and Dino Babers possibly saving their jobs well into 2022.  Even the things I do well at I’m not doing well at.
• The next section I predicted better.  Two out of three.  Saying that, Jonathan Smith almost did a good enough job to be considered for other coaching openings.
• I should apologize to Jim Harbaugh though.  I shouldn’t have even put him on the list and I did in the Possible Shitcanning section.  Stupid me.  He had the best season he’s had in Ann Arbor and may end up back in the NFL in 2022.
• Honestly, most of the coaches did not get fired on my list and some actually did quite a bit better than most thought.  My excuse?  Look at how the season was.  It was insane!  How was I to know it would be this crazy?

Just A Bunch of Predictions, Good and Bad

Let’s be honest: it’s probably mostly bad but let’s go through this exercise anyway.

• Most of the teams I had with good records (at least 10 wins) did well if you don’t include North Carolina, Washington and USC, which I mentioned earlier.
• I predicted a fair amount of games on TSN during the regular season.  Boy, was I wrong.  It was very weird since TSN totally dropped the ball during the regular season.  Then come bowl season, TSN went nuts and broadcast almost every game.  They did more college games during the past few weeks then they had during the three-plus months before it.  Just bizarre.  So, in the end, I wish they would balance it out a bit more but they didn’t do too badly, I guess.
• Hey look who got the UTSA conference title win correct?  This guy…I’m pointing at myself.  They may be building something big in San Antonio with the Roadrunners.  I mean it’s in Texas, a big city with only one pro team and they are joining the best Group of Five conference, the American, for 2023.  Things are looking up for this quite new football team.
• Boise State.  Talk about being overshadowed in the Mountain West.  They haven’t looked this average in a long, loooooooong time.  I figured they would win the Mountain West, like they usually do, and it ended up they didn’t even get to the title game and had five teams legitimately better than them during the season.
• I shouldn’t have gone all-in with Oklahoma.  I think I bought the Spencer Rattler hype.  OK, I know I did.  I should have remembered him in that QB1 series.  He’s a dick.
• It still seems like no one can win at Kansas.  It looks like Lance Leipold is on the right track, especially with a win over Texas, but I nailed the pick (almost) and know it will take at least another year to get all the kinks out of the program so that Leipold can put his stamp on it.  I hope he gets that chance.
• Who did I get right in the Pac-12?  Almost none of the teams.   I had Oregon winning 10 games, Utah winning 9 and Arizona State winning 9.  Not bad.  I also had Washington winning 11 (ugh), Oregon State winning 3 (yikes) and Washington State winning 4 (oops).
• I got all 7 teams in the SEC West going bowling.  I’ll give myself a light pat on the back for that because it wasn’t a huge stretch to think that would happen.  I will say, though, that South Carolina was quite a bit better than I thought they would be.  Same with Tennessee.  Florida?  Yeah that was a surprise.  Same with the Dan Mullen firing.  Didn’t see that coming…back in July.
• Maybe I overestimated how good Coastal Carolina would be.  They still won 10 games though so I wasn’t THAT far off.
• Yeah I couldn’t see all the realignment that happened just before the season commenced.  Could anyone have foreseen this?  Probably not.  I’ll go with that.
• Hey who got the AAC Championship pairing correct?  I think I may have been one of very few to nail the Houston pick (having them be second to Cincinnati).
• The Independents were, honestly, pretty easy.  Notre Dame, Liberty, Army, BYU: good.  New Mexico State, UConn, UMass: bad.  Simple.
• Ugh, my ACC predictions.  Oof, my Big Ten predictions (although I did have Iowa in the Big Ten title game).  Oh god, my MAC predictions.  Not even fucking close.  OK enough of this.

I don’t feel like doing a Stassen score to be honest with you.  I’m not as good as some of the normal prediction mags and that’s fine.  I have fun doing the predictions, even when they end up being shitty.

Now, the NFL Playoffs.  I have to revise my choices from August since some teams (COUGH*Seattle*COUGH) underperformed and others were better than advertised because the NFL season was almost as crazy as the college season.  So here goes:

Wild Card Round

Buffalo def. New England

Kansas City def. Pittsburgh

Cincinnati def. Las Vegas

LA Rams def. Arizona

San Francisco def. Dallas

Tampa Bay def. Philadelphia

Divisional Playoffs

Tennessee def. Cincinnati

Buffalo def. Kansas City

LA Rams def. Tampa Bay

Green Bay def. San Francisco

Conference Championships

Buffalo def. Tennessee (revenge for the Music City Miracle)

LA Rams def. Green Bay

Super Bowl

Buffalo def. LA Rams

So I still have the Bills winning over an NFC West team.  So not a huge change, I guess.

Now that the college football season is over it’s time for the weird all-star games they have.  Some of them have bizarre rules.  But at least it’s still a chance to see some college players before they head to the NFL or an NFL practice squad or the CFL or the XFL or the USFL.  Man, there’s a lot of leagues.  You’d think the CFL would cave and put some teams in strategic NORTHERN American cities.  It worked in Baltimore, it could work again.  Just don’t put a team in fucking Shreveport.  Anyway, here is the schedule for the crazy all-star games:

• Hula Bowl – January 15th at Noon on CBS Sports Network
• NFLPA Collegiate Bowl – January 29th on NFL Network (time TBA)
• East West Shrine Game – February 3rd at 8:00 on NFL Network
• Senior Bowl – February 5th at 2:30 on NFL Network

After those games, no more college football until late August.  Prepare for the dry season.

What will the upcoming posts be?

• Spring football?  No.  Not a chance.
• The NCAA basketball conference tournament schedules will definitely return.  Those start in a little over a month so learn about some of the teams that may try and bust your brackets.
• The NFL Draft.  How many mock drafts will I do?  I don’t know.  One for sure just before the draft.  I may do others.  I may not.  Who knows.
• I’m sure there will be a random post or two in there.  You know, when I’m bored.

So as I said before we are getting into the dead period…for college football.  A sad, sad time.  Maybe one of these years I will take the time away from watching the greatest sport on Earth (after Chess Boxing) to improve myself top to bottom.  Ah, who am I kidding.  Have a great weekend everyone!

It’s OVERREACTION time! Oh, and the Week 2 College Football TV Schedule.

Isn’t this almost the worst tradition in college football?  When college football media and fans go to ridiculous extremes after one week of college football (shut up, Week Zero).  So let’s get right to those reactions that are probably overreactions (at least at this point):

• “UCLA is gonna win the Pac-12!”  Look it’s quite a good start for the team in sissy blue.  But they still have their entire conference schedule to go through.  Could they be better than I thought (which was .500)?  Absolutely.  But to say they will win 9 or 10 games.  Let’s just pump the brakes a bit.
• “The ACC is terrible!” Yeah, no.  They aren’t.  Yes, the conference as a whole had a bad first week.  But North Carolina lost to what looks like could be a really good Virginia Tech team and Clemson lost to national title contender Georgia.  Not much else of note but give them some time.  Now if the highest ranked team in the ACC is at like #18 going into October then yes, they should start to panic.
• “Cincinnati or UCF is the Group of Five team to go to the New Year’s Six!”  Don’t book it just quite yet.  Yes, UCF’s victory over Boise State was impressive and Gus Malzahn may have brought something to the program that they slightly lost the past couple years.  And Cincy is Cincy.  But there are still a bunch of teams that have opportunities and you never know what surprise Group of Five team will be out there.
• “Oklahoma has no shot now.”  Wait, what?  First off, they won.  Yes, it was closer than it should have been and it was Tulane but they still won.  I can see their defense needs work but if they can figure it out, they have the offense to beat every team on their schedule.
• “Well, Indiana sucks again.”  One game against what looks like a seriously good Iowa team shouldn’t mar the Hoosiers’ season.  Let’s see how they do the rest of the month before saying they are coming back down to Earth a bit (yeah, like Tom Allen is going to allow that to happen).
• “Spencer Rattler and Sam Howell aren’t Heisman contenders at all.”  Howell has fallen farther than Rattler in many people’s minds but they are still near the top of the Heisman contender list.  Remember, some players really have won the Heisman in November so let’s chill here.
• “Randy Edsall is going to get shitcanned.”  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  So silly.  He quit instead.

Another tradition seems to be a quite bad Week 2 schedule (on paper) that somehow gets one really good Game of the Year candidate.  Unfortunately, this is not an overreaction.  It happens damn near every year.  Oh well, if it sets us up for better weeks, then fine.

Friday

		US	Canada
Kansas at #17 Coastal Carolina	7:30 PM
North Carolina A&T at Duke	8:00 PM
North Dakota at Utah State	9:00 PM

UNDEFEATED KANSAS!  UNDEFEATED COASTAL CAROLINA!  Irresistible force, immovable object, and all that jazz.  If it’s anything like last year’s Chants game against BYU, the crowd will be rocking which is amazing since there aren’t many seats in their stadium.  There are also two other games you can watch but really, we all know what you’ll be watching.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Illinois at Virginia	11:00 AM
Western Kentucky at Army	11:30 AM
Youngstown State at Michigan State	Noon
Indiana State at Northwestern	Noon
Pittsburgh at Tennessee	Noon
South Carolina at East Carolina	Noon
Miami-OH at Minnesota	Noon
#12 Oregon at #3 Ohio State	Noon
Kennesaw State at Georgia Tech	Noon
Alabama State at #25 Auburn	Noon
#13 Florida at USF	1:00 PM
Rutgers at Syracuse	2:00 PM

Jesus Christ that is a lot of games in the Noon timeslot.  And oh man, morning football!  It’s funny: I like morning college football but early morning NFL games in London?  Not so much.  Probably because I am up until like 2 or 3 into Sunday morning and getting up like six hours or so later to watch NFL football is actually too much for me.  And yes, there is a weird start time for the game on ABC.  If you have been living under several rocks, you might not have realized that this Saturday is the 20th anniversary of 9/11.  So there will be a lot of shows on in the morning about it, which makes a lot of sense considering when that tragedy occurred.  ABC is running a special until 1:00 meaning college football is waiting a little bit to start on there.  No big deal really and to many Americans it’s a huge thing this day so we can all wait an other for a game featuring…USF?  Yeah definitely not a big deal then.

Saturday Afternoon​​

		US	Canada
Purdue at UConn	3:00 PM
Buffalo at Nebraska	3:30 PM
Air Force at Navy	3:30 PM
UAB at #2 Georgia	3:30 PM
California at TCU	3:30 PM
#5 Texas A&M vs. Colorado (in Denver)	3:30 PM
Mercer at #1 Alabama	4:00 PM
#10 Iowa at #9 Iowa State	4:30 PM
South Carolina State at #6 Clemson	5:00 PM

Here is our Game of the Year candidate, funny enough (well the second one after Oregon-tOSU earlier).  Would you ever have thought that CyHawk could be Game of the Anything?  It’s such a huge game this year that College Gameday is there as well.  You will notice that the Notre Dame home game against Toledo is not on NBC.  That’s because it’s on Peacock, the streaming app for NBC.  Meaning, I am pretty sure none of us will be able to watch it.  Slowly, these streaming platforms are getting into the sports game.  Soon enough there will be multiple big games every week on like Hulu and will be shit out of luck if you don’t have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, and whatever else is out there.  Two final things here: yes, TSN2 is showing a game featuring the Mercer Bears.  And yes, the ACC Network is doing their three-hour broadcast window thing.  Stupid, but they can’t have games starting at 10:00 pm locally so they do what they feel like they have to do.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Houston at Rice	6:30 PM
#15 Texas at Arkansas	7:00 PM
Appalachian State at #22 Miami	7:00 PM
NC State at Mississippi State	7:00 PM
Howard at Maryland	7:30 PM
Idaho at Indiana	7:30 PM
Georgia State at North Carolina	7:30 PM
Missouri at Kentucky	7:30 PM
Washington at Michigan	8:00 PM
Jacksonville State at Florida State	8:00 PM

Yeah there really isn’t much here in terms of hugely important games.  But see?  The ABC started at 1pm “issue” worked itself out and we get the normal-for-about-a-decade 8:00 start in Ann Arbor where Washington might be the underdog?  No TSN games in this timeslot which kind of sucks but it’s not like they are going to grab any ratings hits here.  Texas-Arkansas might be the most interesting game here although there could actually be a fair amount riding on Mizzou-UK as the winner could actually contend in the SEC East (as long as Georgia falters at least once inside the conference).

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Vanderbilt at Colorado State	10:00 PM
#21 Utah at BYU	10:15 PM
UNLV at #23 Arizona State	10:30 PM
Stanford at #14 USC	10:30 PM

FOX Pac-12 After Dark?  FOX Pac-12 After Dark!!!  It’s too bad that Gus Johnson will be calling the Big Noon Saturday game because Gus After Dark would have been tons of fun.  It’s unfortunate Stanford looked like shit on opening weekend but, hey, remember what I said about overreactions?  Now watch the Trojans blow them out by like 40.  Also, we have the Holy War between Utah and the soon-to-be-in-the-Big XII BYU Cougars.  TSN is smart to pick up this once since it should be a raucous crowd in Provo.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Oregon at Ohio State (Noon, FOX) – One of, surprisingly, two Game of the Year candidates.  And both teams looked, well, a bit off during Week 1.  The Ducks struggled with Fresno State and needed a late score to win and the Buckeyes took quite a long time to finally shake off Minnesota and get the victory.  This should be good and should be close.  This game has been hyped since last year when people were already looking forward to this season.  Let’s hope it matches the hype.

Iowa at Iowa State (4:30, ABC) – This has quickly become a massive game and could actually be a big part of the College Football Playoff story.  The winner here may vault into the Top 5 depending on what else happens.  The loser isn’t out of anything though and could still be in a good spot to get to a New Year’s Six bowl.  This is easily the biggest and most important version of CyHawk ever.

Utah at BYU (10:15, TSN2) – OK so it doesn’t drop off too much after the first two.  The Holy War is always a hotly contested matchup.  College football is always good when rivalries have two good teams playing.  Like if Alabama and Auburn are both good or if Michigan and Ohio State are both good.  This one is no different.  Utes are in the Top 25 and the Cougs are just outside it.  This game is in Provo which has arguably the craziest crowd in the Mountain or Pacific time zones except for the one in Salt Lake City.  As I said above, TSN was smart to pick up this one and it should be the gem of the late night window.

UAB at Georgia (3:30, specialty pack) – OK now it falls off a cliff.  Don’t me wrong.  UGA is a fantastic team and UAB has been a great story since reviving their team a few years back.  But this probably won’t be close and as the fourth-best game of the week it doesn’t really scream quality to be honest with you.

Kansas at Coastal Carolina (Friday, 7:30, TSN2) – Aw fuck it why not?  Kansas is in the Games of the Week list, BAYBEE!  Let’s be honest: the Chants will probably mop the floor with the Jayhawks.  But what if Kansas keeps it close through three quarters?  Man, that would be quite the interesting final segment and bring in a lot of viewers…way more than Kansas football is used to.

Honourable mention: Texas at Arkansas (7:00, specialty pack), Stanford at USC (10:30, FOX), Appalachian State at Miami (7:00, specialty pack).

You wanna bet?

Only the most degenerate of gamblers will bet on these Week 2 games.  I mean if it was NFL I’d for sure be doing it but not college.  I’ve told you all my reasons, I won’t rehash them here again.  Here are the picks!

Oregon over Ohio State

Iowa State over Iowa

Miami over Appalachian State

Coastal Carolina over Kansas

USC over Stanford

BYU over Utah

Texas over Arkansas

Georgia over UAB

Rice over Houston (big upset!)

Nebraska over Buffalo (Upset?  Ahahahahahahahahahahaha…no wait….really…….Upset?)

Navy over Air Force (kind of an upset)

From what I can tell, everything is up on the specialty pack.  Only thing I haven’t seen anywhere is the second BTN games at Noon and 7:30 but I’m sure that will be sorted out.  As for the Pac-12 Network, no it is not on DAZN.  Frustrating.  So I won’t be listing those games on the schedules since there is no real point to doing so.  Hopefully they scrap the current setup and then be smart and pair up with FOX or CBS and set up a proper conference network like the ACC, Big Ten and SEC have.  It would be the best thing for that conference for sure and bring in some more money.

I assume by now you’ve heard the news: the Big XII is (finally) expanding.  BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are expected to be voted in to the conference today sometime after they all sent in their applications a couple days ago.  The vote is a no-brainer.  The question will be when will the teams join and what happens to the American Conference now.  The last thing I have heard is that BYU is probably moving for next season.  The three AAC teams would then move the following year.  Whether Oklahoma and Texas will still be around by then is anybody’s guess although I’d be shocked if they weren’t in the SEC by 2023.  As for the AAC, I expect that they will look to expand.  They would be down to eight teams with not exactly a murderer’s row of football programs.  The schools that have already been bandied about include Marshall, Appalachian State, UAB and even Boise State and San Diego State (although I am sure the Mountain West will do everything they can to hold on to their new spot at the top of the Group of Five).  So yeah, realignment news isn’t going anywhere after those four teams officially join.

Once I get back home, hell yes I will be watching football the rest of the weekend (sometime near the end of the Noon timeslot).  Will I be watching football past midnight?  Does a bear shit in the woods?  I’ll catch up on sleep maybe in February.  Enjoy the games everyone!

Week 1 College Football Recap – Can we call this the greatest Week 1 ever?

“AH don’t think so” – what Mack Brown probably said.

Honestly, I do not have a dog in this hunt.  I don’t have a favourite team that I only root for and the rest of the teams can eat shit.  I just love watching college football.  Saying all that, I had selected (not too long ago and you know that since you are a faithful reader) North Carolina to go to the College Football Playoff.  I had the Tar Heels overcoming Clemson in the ACC Championship to get in.  I was dead serious about it.  So of course their O-line goes and plays like shit and Mack looked hungover most of the night and the Heels lost to a game Virginia Tech team.  The Hokies played well…on defense.  But the Heels were supposed to win this one relatively easily and they laid an egg.  I’ve had this happen before.  Years ago I picked Michigan State to get to the CFP and they were horrible all season.  Another year I picked LSU and Wisconsin upset them in Lambeau of all places to start the season.  It happens.  UNC may still get to the playoff.  Run the table and they are probably there but man it looks bad (not to mention the Sam Howell-for-Heisman takes getting a creamy dump all over them).

Enough of the bad (and it’s not even really that bad).  Let’s look at the fact that college football is back!  It feels like a real season after last year’s COVID-stained debacle.  And I have to ask the question: is this the greatest Week 1 in college football history?  Let’s recap and put the pieces together.

• The game of the week was a war of attrition.  It was a slugfest from the opening bell and both Georgia and Clemson weren’t going to give an inch.  The defenses were on point all night.  The only touchdown was a pick six by UGA.  Both quarterbacks, D.J. Uiagalelei and J.T. Daniels, struggled as the defense pressured them all game.  In the end, the Dawg defense held out and look like a serious national title contender.  Not saying Clemson is done, especially after North Carolina’s loss the night before, but it’s a rough start and the offense does not look in sync at all.  It was, in the end, a close game with two contenders and a lot of fun to watch.
• How about those Washington Huskies?  Woof.  The 20th ranked possible Pac-12 favourites lost to Montana.  Montana.  And the score was 13-7.  Are you fucking kidding me?  The hype over the first game back at Husky Stadium was palpable and the team goes out and shits the bed.  An unreal start for poor Jimmy Lake who will have to turn things around fast or he will be on a most-unexpected hot seat soon enough.
• But hey, it’s not like Oregon played awesome.  They could not put Fresno State away.  The Bulldogs are obviously better than I (and many others) thought they were but the Ducks are considered the team that could bring the Pac-12 back to the CFP dance.  Instead, they looked mediocre for most of the game and pulled the game out at the end.  Not good either.  Pac-12 North struggling to start the year.  Don’t even get me started on Stanford and Washington State.
• Wisconsin and Penn State, for three quarters, was a gongshow.  Neither team seemed to want to win.  The kickers didn’t want to help matters either.  Wisconsin was inside the PSU 10, three separate times and came away with no points.  The Nittany Lions were hardly better on offense.  It felt like a classic Big Ten three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust matchup.  PSU’s defense held up and it was again, at least for the fourth quarter, a really fun game to watch that came down to the wire.  And honestly, it was nice to see Jump Around at Camp Randall once again.  Almost brought tears to my eyes.
• How about them Jayhawks?  OK look it was only South Dakota and they barely squeaked out a win.  But at least they weren’t like five other FBS teams who fell to FCS squads, including Vanderbilt getting pasted by East Tennessee State and Colorado State getting hammered by South Dakota State’s potent offense.  Also, you can say, for now, that Lance Leipold is undefeated in Lawrence.  Good times.
• Yes, Alabama beat Miami up pretty good.  Not that that was unexpected.  The way they did it, combined with the way other top teams handled their opening contests says something that was a bit unexpected, though.  That Bama is still heads above the field until we see otherwise.  Bryce Young looked great in his first start.  The rest of the Tide offense did their thing and the defense was all over D’Eriq King and the Canes all day.  Even the turnover chain didn’t feel great for Canes fans after a turnover was overturned and they had to put the chain back in the box.  Nothing went right for The U yesterday.
• Hey, maybe Chip Kelly has finally figured it out in Westwood.  UCLA looked damn good in their upset victory of LSU and should hit the rankings this week.  Maybe, just maybe, the Bruins could sneak through and win the Pac-12 South.  Wouldn’t that be a coup for this program.
• I am hereby starting a petition.  All Duke’s Mayo Bowls/Classics/Kickoffs/Whatevers need to finish with the following: the winning coach getting a big bucket of mayo dumped on them.  It is only fitting and would provide some excitement.  This also means we will see Bret Bielema beg to be in every Duke’s Mayo game from here until he stops coaching.
• At one point it looked like the Gus Bus had gone off the rails already in Orlando.  Then UCF came back and pulled out the victory over Boise State in a huge Group of Five opener.  Now Gus Malzahn is hailed as a great coach and maybe the guy who will bring the Knights back to glory.  This guy’s blood pressure either goes up and down every few minutes or is so stationary that it’s statistically impossible since I don’t know how one man can go through the roller-coaster stuff he’s gone through as a coach.
• I honestly wondered if Tulane would get blown out by Oklahoma.  Man, was I ever wrong.  The Green Wave, who couldn’t host the game in New Orleans due to the effects of Hurricane Ida, made things VERY difficult for the Sooners.  After recovering an onside kick late, they had a chance to win the game and couldn’t get it done.  What it did do is two things though: show us that Tulane might be a darkhorse contender in the American conference and that the Sooners defense is brutal which seems to be the same story every year.  This team will never win a national championship if they can’t shore up that side of the ball.
• The Labour Day ACC game was pretty bad…well for one team it was.  I mean Ole Miss played really well but Louisville is awful.  I don’t think Scott Satterfield is long for coaching in the ACC.  Is Bobby Petrino available?
• Who picked Iowa to win the Big Ten West?  That’s right, this guy….I’m pointing at myself.  The Hawkeyes looked like the northern version of Alabama as they beat the tar out of Indiana.  Sure the Hoosiers may have been a tad overrated going into this season but this was a joke from the word go.  Maybe Iowa can now get some national respect going forward this season (until they lose a game to a team they should have easily beat).
• Finally, the Sunday night game was an unreal one.  Jack Coan proved that Brian Kelly was right in having faith in him as their new starting quarterback.  And Florida State?  Well, they may finally be looking like the Florida State we all know for the first time truly since the Jameis Winston days.  Also a great tribute to Bobby Bowden at halftime and it’s always great to see the Doak rockin’ like it was in the 90s.  And how can I forget McKenzie Milton.  What a return from a guy who wasn’t even supposed to be walking ever again after that brutal leg injury almost three years ago.  Almost brought the Noles to victory in his comeback when he came in late in the game.  And let’s not talk about Brian Kelly’s callback to John McKay of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the postgame interview.

So let’s go back to the question I posed earlier.  Is this the greatest Week 1 in college football history?  I’m not sure.  We have to be careful here.  After not having a big start to last season, this felt amazing.  And yes there were quite a few important games right out of the gate and also a fair share of upsets and FCS wins over FBS teams.  But is it the very best?  I’ll say it’s one of the best.  Definitely the best since I started this blog almost a decade ago.  And a great start to the season where many are hoping that we don’t get into any kind of COVID madness.  We are still slowly getting back to normality (and have a ways to go) and some cannot afford a step back in any situation.

I will not do a Top 25 after Week 1.  This is what I’ve been doing.  I wish college football waited a while but they won’t.

Now I can hopefully get back into the swing of things.  We can get back to the normal college football schedule/NFL schedule/college football recap/rinse and repeat deal that seems to work.  The world is getting back to normal, including in my little portion of the globe.

I sincerely hope you had fun watching the games during Week 1.  I know I did.  I kind of needed it in a way.  Sounds weird to some that I need that but I did especially with my life (along with many other lives) being so topsy-turvy for about a year-and-a-half now.  Enjoy the rest of your week.

Bossman’s Shitty Heisman Ballot: A tradition unlike any other

I don’t understand myself sometimes.  Why do I put myself through this?  I guess I’m just a creature of habit.  Like a dog who knows it gets fed at 4:00 every day.  Anyway, here is my (quite probably terrible) ballot for the Heisman for the 2021 season:

My Brutally Bad Heisman Ballot

1. Spencer Rattler, Oklahoma – Rattler is pretty much everyone’s favourite to win the Heisman this season.  We know what this means: either he runs away with it with no real challengers or something happens and he falls out of the Top 10.  With how I predict Oklahoma will do this season, I have a feeling he could approach some Joe Burrow-type numbers and run (not walk) away with the Heisman.
2. Sam Howell, North Carolina – Nice to see a player from a basketball school up for the Heisman.  All kidding aside, he will be the main reason my prediction (hopefully) comes true and the Tar Heels end up in the College Football Playoff.  He will be in tough to pass Rattler in the Heisman list but if he also puts up some Joe Burrow-like numbers it could become an interesting race.  A lot will have to do with how much these players play in the fourth quarters of some games.
3. D.J. Uiagalelei, Clemson – Alright, let’s try this.  *clears throat*  Ahem…Oo-ee-un-guh-luh-lay.  Now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.  The replacement for Trevor Lawrence has huge shoes to fill but looked damn good in the game against Notre Dame last season.  So it wouldn’t be too far fetched to consider him a Heisman threat.  D.J. may need a conference championship (and of course some great performances throughout the season) to garner some true Heisman hype.
4. C.J. Stroud, Ohio State – Just like with Justin Fields a couple years ago, I am hesitant to put Stroud this high.  No real work at the college level along with a really good running game doesn’t look like Heisman material.  But with a very good Buckeyes team (again), he may get enough hype to carry him into November at the very least.
5. Bryce Young, Alabama – Yet another Bama quarterback on the Heisman watch list.  The Tide is the Tide so Young will get a lot of media play this season.  It’ll be up to him to come out from under Mac Jones’ shadow much like Mac Jones came out from under Tua Tagovailoa’s shadow.
6. Matt Corral, Ole Miss – OK hear me out.  The Rebels are going to be much better this season than they have been the past few years.  Like Top 25 good.  And nothing says the Heisman winner has to be on a team that’s Top 10.  With Lane Kiffin’s offense, the sky is almost the limit for Corral as long as he doesn’t have a 5-interception performance or something dreadful like that which kills his Heisman chances.
7. J.T. Daniels, Georgia – DJ, CJ, JT.  Part of me hopes those three are the top Heisman vote getters.  Daniels looked really good in the final few games of Georgia’s season.  He has to have a hot start to stay in the Heisman mix, even with the Dawgs opening against Clemson.
8. Kedon Slovis, USC – It feels like a prerequisite that a USC quarterback has to be at least on the Heisman preseason watch list.  Now if USC does what they did last year and continues that into this year, Slovis will probably be a big reason for it.  And despite the fact a receiver won last year, we all know the Heisman is predominantly a quarterback award.  Otherwise, Slovis might not crack the Top 10 but I have to be realistic and realize it’s not always about the best player to win the Heisman (despite the fact that’s the whole point of the fucking award but I digress).
9. Brock Purdy/Breece Hall, Iowa State – OK I am cheating a bit but does it really matter?  I don’t want to pick between these two since who knows who will have the better season.  Whoever has the better season obviously will have the better chance at the Heisman, despite the point I made above.  This also makes Hall the first non-quarterback on this list.  Congrats, I guess.
10. D’Eriq King, Miami – Back to quarterbacks (kind of).  Manny Diaz should have his best Miami team since he spurned Temple and went to South Beach.  If King can stay healthy, he may rocket up this list as he is a huge running threat along with having a good arm.

Honourable Mention

• Emory Jones, Florida
• Bijan Robinson, Texas
• Jayden Daniels, Arizona State
• D’Andre Swift, Georgia
• Casey Thompson, Texas
• Michael Penix, Indiana
• Desmond Ridder, Cincinnati
• Dillon Gabriel, UCF
• Malik Willis, Liberty

Good luck to the players on this list!  You might need it with my history with this list.  I’m not even going to bother threatening not doing this post again because I know I will.  As I stated above, I will never learn.

Guess what?  That was the final college football prediction post before the college football season begins!  Week Zero is only 20 days away.  No real huge games this year during the opening week but it’s still college football.  So I will watch it all.

I am hoping soon to get the Week Zero schedule up.  I have seen nothing from TSN although it is almost three weeks away so I got to give them a break for now.  I hope it will be up soon.  Even as I go on three years-plus doing the IPTV thing, I still plan to give out the most complete college football schedule for Canadians I can muster.  Can’t forget the roots of the blog.

So chances are I will be going with my NFL preview first.  Plenty of time before the season begins as we just had the Hall of Fame Game.  Man I’m really ahead of the game.  I shouldn’t jinx it.  Everyone have a great final day of the weekend!

Four? Eight? Twelve? Sixteen?

I’m sure some would love to go to 24 teams like FCS.  Honestly?  Fuck that.  But expansion is coming and we know it.  Could be here as early as the 2023 season so the graphic above will only make sense for this season and possibly next and that’s it, that’s all.  The new era of college football truly begins (regardless of what happens in realignment).

But for now we stick with the way things are meaning it’s bowl projection time!  I can now take all I’ve done over the past few weeks and wrap it up in a nice, neat, little package.  OK maybe neat is too strong a word.  I’m sure it will be somewhat messy.  And you won’t agree with all the choices.  Oh well, it is what it is.

Let’s get right to it and start with the College Football Playoff matchups.  If you read all the conference preview posts (every single one, right?) you have a good idea who’s here.  Remember, the rankings I have here are the rankings I believe these teams will be going into the bowl season.  Most of the time I have hit pretty well on these picks although I have had some real stinkers like picking Michigan State when they went 3-9.  So yeah it’s not all good for ol’ Bossman:

December 31st	Orange Bowl	#2 Alabama	#3 Ohio State
December 31st	Cotton Bowl	#1 Oklahoma	#4 North Carolina

First of all, ugh.  New Year’s Eve semi-final games.  I’m sure most will hate this.  Bama was an easy pick as everyone would have them #1 for the season but with one loss they would get in at #2.  Most have Oklahoma as well and I have them running the table to this point so makes sense to have them #1.  Ohio State should outlast their Big Ten foes and with only one loss as well they should easily slot in to #3 and a huge matchup with the Tide out in Miami.  And at #4….not Clemson!  This is probably the Tar Heels’ best shot at winning the ACC.  Clemson has a new quarterback and UNC has a Heisman hopeful in Sam Howell.  Despite the Tigers running the table and heading into the conference championships at #1, their loss would do enough to harm them and move them down the rankings.  Plus it would look really shitty on The Committee if they kept Clemson above Mack Brown’s boys after a conference title game loss.  North Carolina should be #5 going into the ACC Championship and I think The Committee will do the right thing after a Heels win.  Yes, Clemson fans will scream bloody murder but to no avail.  It’s about time they learn how to lose (somewhat) again after so many years at the top.

Now we get the New Year’s Six with three of those four games actually on New Year’s Day (why couldn’t the other one have been on New Year’s Eve?):

January 1st	Sugar Bowl	#11 Texas A&M	#9 Iowa State
January 1st	Rose Bowl	#14 Wisconsin	#8 USC
January 1st	Fiesta Bowl	#6 Notre Dame	#10 Washington
December 30th	Peach Bowl	#5 Clemson	#7 Cincinnati

Cue the debates.  As is usually the case, the top 11 ranked teams will head to the CFP or NY6.  Georgia will not get in after, once again, losing the SEC Championship to Alabama.  I see Georgia falling to #12, just below the Aggies, who will sneak into the New Year’s Six, still probably seething from Texas coming to the SEC.  Cincinnati actually won’t be the undefeated Group of Five team this season.  Coastal Carolina will be but the Bearcats’ schedule is quite difficult whereas the Chanticleers’ schedule, not so much.  Therefore, it’s an easy choice for Cincy to be well in the Top 10 and heading to Atlanta.  Notre Dame has, yet again, a brutal schedule but will navigate enough of it to be clearly a Top 10 team and have their shot out in the desert to win a New Year’s Six bowl game.  Iowa State finishes at #9 and could end up with their best finish ever (again) with a win over the Aggies in New Orleans.  USC and Washington will both get in probably no matter the result of the Pac-12 Championship.

And then we have the Big Ten runner-up, the 14th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers.  The Big Ten is contractually obligated to send a team to the Rose Bowl unless the Rose is a College Football Playoff semi-final.  The Badgers luck out with Iowa and Georgia losing in their respective conference championships as Wisky sits at home and watches.  Let’s be honest: this isn’t all that bad.  Better than having a team that’s ranked like #20 getting into a prestigious bowl game because of stupid bowl tie-ins.  That issue goes away for the most part with the 12-team playoff but then a different problem comes up.  You think being #13 or #14 and missing out on the New Year’s Six rankles the fans?   Wait until the #13 team misses out on the CFP.  Their fans will be livid for sure.  Good times.

Now for the rest of my predicted bowl matchups:

January 4th	Texas Bowl	#12 Georgia	Iowa
January 1st	Citrus Bowl	#19 Florida	#16 Penn State
January 1st	Outback Bowl	Auburn	Indiana
December 31st	Sun Bowl	Virginia Tech	#22 Utah
December 31st	Gator Bowl	#24 Ole Miss	#17 Miami
December 30th	Las Vegas Bowl	#25 Northwestern	#15 Oregon
December 30th	Arizona Bowl	Boise State	Ball State
December 30th	Redbox Bowl	Nebraska	#20 Arizona State
December 30th	Music City Bowl	#18 LSU	Michigan
December 30th	Duke’s Mayo Bowl	Kentucky	Wake Forest
December 29th	Alamo Bowl	#21 Texas	UCLA
December 29th	Cheez-It Bowl	#23 TCU	Boston College
December 29th	Pinstripe Bowl	Minnesota	Pittsburgh
December 29th	Fenway Bowl	UTSA	Memphis
December 28th	Guaranteed Rate Bowl	Tennessee	Oklahoma State
December 28th	Holiday Bowl	NC State	California
December 28th	Liberty Bowl	Missouri	West Virginia
December 28th	First Responder Bowl	Houston	Liberty
December 28th	Birmingham Bowl	Arkansas	UCF
December 27th	Military Bowl	Florida State	Eastern Michigan
December 27th	Quick Lane Bowl	Rice	Ohio
December 25th	Camellia Bowl	Louisiana	Buffalo
December 24th	Hawaii Bowl	Tulsa	Hawaii
December 23rd	Union Home Mortgage Bowl	Mississippi State	SMU
December 22nd	Armed Forces Bowl	Army	Baylor
December 21st	Frisco Bowl	Air Force	Texas State
December 21st	Idaho Potato Bowl	San Jose State	Toledo
December 20th	Myrtle Beach Bowl	Western Michigan	#13 Coastal Carolina
December 18th	New Orleans Bowl	Appalachian State	Florida Atlantic
December 18th	LA Bowl	Stanford	Nevada
December 18th	LendingTree Bowl	Kansas State	Central Michigan
December 18th	Independence Bowl	BYU	UAB
December 18th	New Mexico Bowl	Wyoming	Louisiana Tech
December 18th	Boca Raton Bowl	San Diego State	Southern Miss
December 17th	Cure Bowl	New Mexico	FIU
December 17th	Bahamas Bowl	Marshall	Kent State

Fenway Bowl!  LA Bowl!!! And they added the Myrtle Beach Bowl last year.  And now with the new 12-team playoff on the horizon there may be downsizing.  Hilarious.  At least Canadians can see most of the bowl games as per usual.  Well, as long as the specialty packs cooperate.  Here’s some notes on the wacky fun-time bowl season predictions:

• I have three games predicted between ranked teams: Florida-Penn State in the Citrus, Ole Miss-Miami in the Gator, & Northwestern-Oregon in the Las Vegas.  Really good games that you honestly would rarely get to see.  This is really what bowl season always used to be about (at least on the field).
• I’m not even bothering with showing you which tie-ins couldn’t be satisfied or which bowls have teams with 5-7 records (there are a few).  Trying to decipher how bowl season will shape up is difficult as is going into December.  Imagine how difficult (or near impossble) it is to do now.  Showing you all that info doesn’t matter much to be honest.
• Some of the better matchups include:
  • the three ranked-on-ranked matchups mentioned above
  • Auburn-Indy in the Outback Bowl
  • Georgia-Iowa in the Texas Bowl
  • BYU-UAB in the Independence Bowl
  • Louisiana-Buffalo in the Camellia Bowl
  • Texas-UCLA in the Alamo Bowl
  • Virginia Tech-Utah in the Sun Bowl
• Now, the naming rights to the Arizona Bowl has gone to Barstool Sports.  Interesting and not totally surprising.  What is surprising is that it won’t air on regular television as far as I know.  It will, as of this point, air on Barstool Sports’ website (which you would need to pay to see the game I believe).  That’s the weird part and I wonder what kind of viewership they will get.  Then again it is the Arizona Bowl so it’s not like they were getting a ton of viewers to begin with having it air on CBS Sports Network in the past.

The College Football Playoff semi-final games should actually both be good for once.  Bama-tOSU should be a classic with the Tide pulling out the win.  The other one should also be relatively close but the Sooners will finally get their semi-final win and their first berth in the national championship in the playoff era.  But the winning streak will end in the national championship as I have Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide winning their second straight championship and their third in five seasons.

Next up is the post where I actually make some pretty good predictions: the Coaching Hot Seat Report.  After that is a post I always do horrifically bad at for some reason, the Heisman Predictions.  After that I might as well do some NFL predictions which are also historically kinda bad.  We are 26 days away from the start of the college football season but at least now we have some actual football on the horizon to get us in the football watching mood…not that I usually need that but watching live football is gonna feel great after over six months of none.  And soon enough I will have a schedule up for Week Zero.  Will be interesting to see what ends up going to the specialty pack and if the specialty pack even starts that day.  Wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t.  Why?  Because fuck you that’s why.  Enjoy your Civic Holiday if you are actually celebrating it (by being civic-minded I guess).

Is it time for the Return of the Mack?

No, not THAT Return of the Mack (although that is honestly one of my all-time favourite songs).

Mack Brown has already done amazing things in his second stint in Chapel Hill.  But he has one more hill to climb, at least when it comes to the ACC.  And man is it ever a huge hill.  An escarpment.  Maybe even consider it a small mountain.

Clemson is never ready to relinquish their crown, the same crown they’ve had for years now since Florida State decided it didn’t want to be good at football for a while.  Almost like they said “You know what?  We’ve won so much for over two decades.  Let’s give another team a chance.”  And now Clemson is the same way.  When will they fall from their perch?  Who the hell knows.  Dabo Swinney is not known for sharing the ACC sandbox.

OK let’s get right to the predictions followed by some sweet, smoky Carolina BBQ thoughts:

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

Sweet & Smoky Carolina BBQ Thoughts

• I always love watching the ongoing battle between different parts of the U.S. claiming they have the best barbecue.  Honestly, barbecue has got close to the spot where pizza occupies: very rarely is it so bad you can’t eat it.  Most barbecue is probably very good.  Unfortunately it’s not like we have very many barbecue spots up here or any sort of barbecue tradition.
• Clemson is still the best team in the conference, despite their loss of Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne.  D.J. Uiagalelei (I always wonder where the n sound comes in) looked great against Notre Dame last year so there shouldn’t be a huge drop-off but there will be some.  The defense will pick up the slack and be the backbone of the team that will fairly easily walk to the Atlantic Division title.
• The Coastal might not have Coastal Chaos this season.  I know, I know, hard to believe.  But UNC is pulling slightly away from the field, especially with one of the Heisman favourites, Sam Howell, at QB.  Miami is good but need a full, healthy season from D’Eriq King or there’s no chance they will push for the division crown.  Expect a bounceback season from Virginia Tech which could give Justin Fuente an extension as the fans in Blacksburg are getting a little antsy based on the past few years on the field for the Hokies.
• Florida State truly starts their climb this year.  I absolutely believe it.  This is Mike Norvell’s chance to put his stamp on the program.  If he can’t at least get this program to a bowl game this year, I think his days are numbered in Tallahassee.
• It’s going to be quite the battle…for the basement of the ACC.  I have five teams all within one game of each other at the bottom (in terms of overall record).  Georgia Tech, Duke, UVA, Louisville and Syracuse all have a claim to being the worst team in the conference.  If I had to choose, I would go with Syracuse.  I fear that time’s almost up for Dino Babers in western New York.  He had one great season but other than that the train went off the rails there and things aren’t looking a whole lot better for the near future either, forget this season.
• The bloom has also come off the rose for Scott Satterfield.  Cards fans sure turned on him quick and I can’t see him turning it around right away.  If Bobby Petrino is available, I’m sure the Louisville brass would look at him and this is not a joke.
• I predict nine bowl teams from the ACC.  And if bowls have to dip into the 5-7 pool of teams, don’t look at this conference…there won’t be any.
• Oh baby, ready for the bombshell?  OK here it is.  I have the Tar Heels beating Clemson to wrest the ACC title from the Tigers.  Yeah, there.  I said it.  OK more like I typed it.  I have this feeling hardly anyone, outside of most Tar Heel fans, think this could happen.  I believe in the Mack and believe in the Heels this year.  Now watch them lose six games and I look like a fucking idiot.

That’s it for the ACC.  Three conferences in.  Next up will be the teams with no conference to call home, the Independents.  Have a great Sunday everyone!  Remember, we are a mere 41 days away from the start of the college football season!  Soon enough we will be down to single digits.

Most Important Games of the 2021 College Football Season – Let’s Go For Two!

I hate what they have done to college football overtime.  I was fine when they said you had to start going for two starting with the third overtime.  Would I prefer they make the teams start at the 30 or the 35 rather than the 25?  Yes but I am OK with the way that is.  Now it has become a two-point conversion shootout starting with the fifth overtime.  Why?  Because one stupidly awesome game went to seven overtimes and it was a classic?  Seems like a serious overreaction to me (and probably many others).  It has got to the point that maybe the NFL overtime is starting to look a bit better.  I never would have said that even a couple of years ago but here we are.

So normally, I do the first post of this series and a day or two later more schedule updates appear changing my original guesses already.  It would make me feel a bit dumb.  This year?  The same fucking thing happened!  God damn when will I ever learn?  Anyway, it was the mother of all schedule dumps.  Like a crazy amount of games were set.  Let’s look at what has changed with the first post in this series:

• Penn State-Wisconsin I had right in terms of it being on FOX.  But it’s not on at 4:00.  It’s the BIG NOON SATURDAY game for Week One.
• Now here’s a headscratcher.  Iowa-Indiana is not the BIG NOON SATURDAY game on FOX.  It’s not even on FOX.  It’s on BTN.  BTN!  At 3:30 in the afternoon.  It has to be due to the amount of appearances that one or both of these teams are perceived to have later on in the season on BTN since all Big Ten teams must have a minimum of two BTN appearances on the season with one of those appearances being a conference game.  That’s the only thing I can think of since this is FOX or ESPN/ABC worthy in my opinion.
• I was sooooooo close with LSU-UCLA.  It’s on FOX.  In primetime.  But not at 8:00.  It’s at 8:30.  To me that seems like a weird time but I guess FOX is fine with the game ending probably around midnight if not a little later.  Not like they have anything other than TMZ and infomercials to show afterwards on most of their affiliates.
• Again, so close with one.  Boise State-UCF is on at 7:00, not 7:30.  My guess is it will be on at least one TSN station.
• Oregon State-Purdue is now on FS1 in primetime.  Big deal.
• ABC nabbed CyHawk for their afternoon game.
• Liberty-Troy has moved to primetime.  But it’s still on ESPN+.  So in the end it doesn’t matter anyway.
• I totally forgot about how the ACC Network does Week 2.  They show four games, starting at 11 in the morning to fit them all in so they don’t have to send a bunch to a regional FOX Sports Network (hmmm…should I call them Bally’s now?) or, even worse, ACC Network Extra which they are loathe to do.  Anyway, it’s not at noon, it’s at 2:00 and should be on the specialty pack.
• Cincinnati-Indiana has been picked up by ESPN/ABC.  It will probably air on ABC and is definitely scheduled for Noon.
• Oklahoma State-Boise State will be on FOX Sports One.  But now it’s at 9:00.  In the evening.  Why?  Because there is a game at 12:30 Sunday morning!  Yep, for you crazies that can watch this game, San Jose State and Hawaii kick off after midnight and won’t end until about 4 in the morning.  That’s crazy.  I will watch at least three quarters of that.
• Hey Coastal Carolina-Buffalo isn’t being relegated to ESPN+!  It’s on at Noon, probably on the specialty pack here.  Good to see some respect for these two schools.
• Speaking of respect, let’s look at the absolute lack of respect ESPN/ABC has for the Kansas Jayhawks football program.  Like no respect at all.  They aren’t the Thursday night ESPN game.  They aren’t even available to Canadians.  Hell, it isn’t even available to most Americans.  It’s on at 3:30, Saturday afternoon…on ESPN+.  Yeah.  That’s sad.  But understandable.

I will probably make this same mistake next year because I’m an idiot who never learns..  Let’s just get to the second part of this series.

Week 4

Game of the Week: Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin (in Chicago) (Noon, FOX) – This kind of tells you what kind of weekend this will be, on paper.  Not saying these aren’t two good teams because they are.  But the Badgers are always juuuuuust on the outside looking in and don’t feel like an elite team.  And the Irish are considered an elite team more often than they actually are.  Not saying I wouldn’t be surprised if either team is in contention for the College Football Playoff late in the season but this being the game of the week means we aren’t looking at a ton of great games.  Now watch this one go to like four overtimes and be an instant classic.

Other Really Important Games: West Virginia at Oklahoma (7:30, ABC) – Will the Sooners finally get over the top now with Spencer Rattler in his second year at quarterback?  That is the question for Boomer Sooner this season as they could be in for a special two-season stretch (before Rattler goes to the NFL as a high first round pick).  Unless they can get yet another great QB, this may be the best two-year stretch possibility for Lincoln Riley’s boys (before Riley gets an offer from the Dallas Cowboys that he can’t refuse).  As for the Mountaineers, they have Dana Holgorsen.  That’s fun enough since you are assured of him going off on the refs or his players or his coaches or the other team’s coaches or the other team’s players or the fans at least once a game.  That’s what happens when you down six Red Bulls by lunch.

Clemson at NC State (3:30, ABC) – I could see this moving to primetime but it really has more to do with how many Big XII game would appear on ABC in the primetime timeslot all season (or at least how many they believe will appear there).  The first three games listed this week cover the top three timeslots so you can kind of figure out where all the hype will be.  This could be Dave Doeren’s final chance to get his program-defining win.  Pull this off and he will never have to pay for another drink in Raleigh again.  It also puts the entire conference in an interesting spot as Clemson is their hope for the CFP until another team steps up.  Most believe it will be NC State’s interstate rivals, North Carolina, but the Wolfpack are known for their upsets over the past two decades.  Just ask Florida State.

Tennessee at Florida (3:30, CBS) – Can Tennessee just be back already?  It took so damn long for Texas to be back and now they aren’t quite back again so who knows if the college football media will be asking that question (that I will not type here) all season.  Luckily for the fans (and haters) of Texas, that question is no longer asked.  For Vol fans, it’s becoming the conversation every day in Knoxville.  Until this team truly competes in the SEC East (and no, being third doesn’t count as competing) this may be the most annoying, pathetic fanbase in college football.  So maybe, just maybe, they can pull this off and look like the program that everyone on Rocky Top desperately wants them to be.  Now watch them lose this one by 40 and we wonder if they can beat a down Vanderbilt squad.

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: Nebraska at Michigan State (3:30, BTN) – You are looking LIVE…at two programs who are struggling, one more than the other.  The Huskers feel like an afterthought now that they have been in the Big Ten for a while and for good reason.  Their fans long for even the days of the Big XII, forget the Big Eight.  And let’s be honest: other than the one year where Sparty went to the College Football Playoff, it’s not like they have been setting the college football world on fire the past couple of decades.  This could be a very good game that could propel one of these programs back into prominence.  This will almost assuredly go to the Big Ten Network.

Best Group of Five Game: Marshall at Appalachian State (Thursday, 7:30, specialty pack) – Two of the Group of Five’s stalwarts meet here in a much deserved Thursday night ESPN spot.  Both teams had weird years this past season but that’s to be expected since the whole damn season was kind of weird.  Expect both of these programs to at least flirt with the Top 25 most of the season.  This should be an early Group of Five New Year’s Six elimination game as I am sure both teams will come into this undefeated (or in App State’s case, maybe a close loss to Miami early on).

Worst Power Five Game: Kansas at Duke (Noon, specialty pack) – Good god.  You have to be some kind of masochist to want to watch more than maybe a few minutes of this game.  Kansas is Kansas and Duke is nowhere near the heights they got to a few years back.  You can easily avoid this one.  I wouldn’t be surprised if doesn’t even go to the ACC Network and gets relegated to ACC Network Extra even if they have a timeslot available for them.

Week 5

Game of the Week: Ole Miss at Alabama (Noon, TSN5) – I have this game on ESPN2.  Seriously.  Look, there is a limit as to how many times a team can appear on the SEC on CBS.  Otherwise Bama would appear like 8 times every season (the max is five by the way).  This could still move to ESPN or even CBS so who knows.  Ole Miss is expected to start the season either just inside or just outside the Top 25 and besides, it’s Lane Kiffin getting another shot at Nick Saban.  He would be a God in Oxford if the Rebels can win this game.

Other Really Important Games: Cincinnati at Notre Dame (2:30, NBC) – I’m honestly confused as to why some Irish on NBC games are on at 2:30 and why some are on at 3:30.  There is really no rhyme or reason as to why these happen the way they do.  Maybe they anticipate a hot newscast on this night.  Anyway, this game is ripe for an upset…kind of.  If Cincy upset Notre Dame would it be considered an upset?  If it was up to me, I would have put this game on in primetime.  Unfortunately for the Bearcats, they don’t draw so that would be a no go.

Indiana at Penn State (Noon, ABC/TSN1/TSN4) – This does not feel like a Noon Big Ten Game.  At all.  This is the kind of game that is usually on ABC in primetime.  Or should be especially after last year’s amazing finish.  I can honestly say that maybe, just maybe, it’s the Hoosiers, not Penn State (or Michigan or Michigan State) that will be the team that will finally knock Ohio State off their perch atop the Big Ten East.  Seeing the Hoosiers win this game and run the table into November would be great because it would make some TV executives at Disney a trifle nervous.

Michigan at Wisconsin (Noon, FOX) – Is Jim Harbaugh still special enough to warrant a BIG NOON SATURDAY timeslot?  I could see this being moved, especially if the brass at FOX decides that the Big XII has a game they could show instead here.  Or maybe they do another Pac-12 morning kickoff like they did with Arizona State-USC last year.  This has to be a bounce-back season for the Wolverines.  If not, what happens to Kaptain Khaki?  Could he be fired?  For the first time during his tenure in Ann Arbor, it would make sense to at least consider it, especially after last season’s disastrous season.

Texas at TCU (6:30, FOX Sports One) – Again, don’t be surprised if this, among almost every game this week, gets moved from where I have it.  The Big XII has quickly become the major conference that Canadians rarely see.  Not that they care down there if Canadians get to see their conference or not but it’s the same in the States.  With no conference network, they are being left out in the cold.  And their expansion blunder of a few years back is still being felt.  They’ve already gone to Disney to look for a contract extension and ESPN/ABC said no.  The contract ends after the 2025 season and with other TV contracts also ending around that time, realignment talk will heat up yet again.  The conference is in trouble and really hinges on what Texas and Oklahoma decide to do.  Expect a lot of changes in the next few years.

Florida at Kentucky (Noon, specialty pack) – Remember when the Wildcats were SEC East contenders?  It wasn’t too long ago.  Kentucky could be primed for another breakthrough and the fans in Lexington are chomping at the bit to see that happen.  At some point, some team has to break the Florida-Georgia stranglehold in the division and what better year than this one?  Right now, I have this on the SEC Network because I honestly had no idea where to put it once other better timeslots started filling up.  I could see this somehow getting to ESPN or ESPN2 though since I have the SEC Network with four games during this week.

Arizona State at UCLA (3:30, specialty pack) – It feels like we are getting less and less late night games that are any good.  I mean it won’t stop me from watching them but I’m used to a few each year at least.  This is supposed to be the season where we finally see what Chip Kelly can do in Westwood.  A good Bruins team is always welcome in college football.  The Sun Devils are also expected to be quite good so maybe we will see a logjam at the top of the Pac-12 South.  Not like that hasn’t happened before, am I right?  Guys?  Hello?

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: Tennessee at Missouri (Noon, specialty pack) – No, we aren’t looking at two amazing teams.  Or even one.  But man, for such a good week, there are a lot of games (outside of the ones I listed above) that look like they won’t be close at all.  I’d love to call this a SEC East eliminator game.  But it’s not.  With two teams so closely matched, though, it should be fun to watch and could be the surprise game of the early timeslot (if not the whole week).

Best Group of Five Game: Nevada at Boise State (10:00, FOX Sports One) – Could FS1, of all channels, have one of the best lineups this week?  Look there were a few choices I could have put here instead of this one.  Houston-Tulsa and Liberty-UAB fit the bill as well but neither really scream “Top Group of Five game.”  Plus I am a bit fascinated with FOX’s foray into the Mountain West, mostly because I can see all the games now.  This could end up being very lucrative for the conference as long as FOX continues to invest heavily into college football.

Worst Power Five Game: Pittsburgh at Georgia Tech (Noon, specialty pack) – I mean it’s not a bad game per se.  But with the rest of the Noon options (and there are a lot of them), I can’t see this game getting many eyeballs.

Week 6

Game of the Week: Alabama at Texas A&M (8:00, CBS) – God damn this could be a MASSIVE game this season.  Jimbo Fisher has guaranteed a win over Bama (not the smartest idea in the world but hey, gotta shot your shot).  Even with the loss of Kellen Mond, this could be the Aggies year to get into the College Football Playoff.  And now with probably a full house in College Station, the 100,000 plus members of the 12th Man will make life very difficult for the Tide.  CBS has chosen this week to be the SEC doubleheader with the primetime game so it’s almost assured that this will be the pick.

Other Really Important Games:  Oklahoma vs. Texas (in Dallas) (Noon, FOX) – Back where this belongs…almost.  Depending on how the Aggies look early on, this could be considered the true GOTW.  I’m still waiting for the day the Cotton Bowl collapses during the Red River Shootout.  It’s going to happen and it’s going to be a tragedy that could be avoided by either fixing the fucking place or moving this game to JerryWorld.  There’s almost no doubt in my mind this ends up being the BIG NOON SATURDAY pick by FOX.

Georgia at Auburn (3:30, CBS) – Wow, does CBS ever get an amazing doubleheader this season.  Saying that, the Tigers aren’t the Tigers they have been in the past.  Unless Bo Nix all of a sudden figures things out, Auburn will be middle of the pack, at best, in the SEC West.  Still a good team but not close to contending in the always extremely tough SEC West.  I just wish they would do away with divisions.  Don’t get me wrong, the SEC East champ is usually good but who wouldn’t have enjoyed Bama playing LSU or TAMU playing Mississippi State or Ole Miss playing Auburn or any one of those combinations in Atlanta in December?

Maryland at Ohio State (Noon, TSN4) – This is guaranteed for Noon and almost a shoo-in to be on ESPN.  Will this be close?  Eh, who knows.  OK I am pretty positive it won’t be.  But if there’s any year where Ohio State could be vulnerable, it is this one.  If the Terps can’t keep it close this time around they may never do so.  I’m sure there are many who long to be back in the ACC, regardless of TV money.

Florida State at North Carolina (Noon, ABC/TSN2) – No, this isn’t here because it’s the Noles.  I probably don’t have to say that anymore and it is sad that FSU just can’t seem to get over the hump and get back to the way they were.  You never know, though.  They beat the Heels here, it’s massive and could lead to huge things for this squad.  North Carolina is in New Year’s Six or Bust mode this season as the NY6 is their floor.  Anything less would be a disappointment with Sam Howell a serious Heisman contender.

Sneaky-Good Underrated Game: LSU at Kentucky (Noon, TSN1) – No, I’m not joking with this.  The Tigers will be close to the bottom spot of the Top 25 and the Cats will be just outside looking in, at least at the start of the season.  This is probably a bigger game for Kentucky than it is for LSU as there is no way that Ed Orgeron’s guys will be competing for the SEC West this season.

Best Group of Five Game: Boise State at BYU (10:30, specialty pack) – Is this considered a Group of Five game?  I’m going to say it is.  BYU seems to be in this no-man’s land when it comes to where they belong.  I know they want to be Power Five and they should be Power Five but they aren’t quite there yet and until they are invited into a conference or get closer in reputation to Notre Dame, they won’t be.  It is usually a lot of fun when these two teams meet.  I am looking forward to Provo After Dark which sounds like a show on at Midnight on Vision TV or some other religious network where they do nasty things like drink coffee or say “fuck.”

Worst Power Five Game: Georgia Tech at Duke (12:30, specialty pack) – Two straight weeks for the Ramblin’ Wreck in this spot.  The thing is they aren’t even that bad.  But last week was a pretty good schedule, at least in the Power Five and this week the next worse choice would be Wake Forest-Syracuse which isn’t nearly as bad as this.

We are almost halfway through the season now (with these posts).  With only thirteen weeks this season I had to have one longer post because of it.  It will be the final one.  The final two posts are usually the most difficult since almost none of the games are scheduled this far out, at least from a Power Five perspective.  So the chances of me getting many of these predictions wrong are quite good.  Just letting you know in advance.

It’s getting close to College Football Preview magazine season.  Or maybe it has already started and I just don’t know about it.  I have an Athlon subscription now so I am just waiting for that one to come in the mail.  If there are others available I will check Indigo to see if I can get it.  As for the Phil Steele magazine, I am going back and forth whether to order it or get the online version (if they have it this year).  I love the magazine, don’t get me wrong.  It’s an awesome read and has a shit-ton of information.  Problem is, it shows up sometime in late July at the earliest which doesn’t help me at all with my predictions and makes it tough to read before the season begins (yes I am one of those insane people who try to read that magazine front-to-back).  So we shall see.  Anyway, have a great upcoming week and let’s hope the warm weather is here to stay and that we can forget what it was like on Friday.

The Coaching Hot Seat Report, My Heisman Ballot and whatever the Big Ten is doing all in one post!

That’s what this is: a god damned dumpster fire.

Alright I am going to leave the Big Ten stuff to the end as I don’t want this to go off the rails so early.  First up will be the HOT SEAT REPORT!  My most accurate predictions of all.  This year, though I have no clue.  Let’s get right to it and as it is every year, this is ordered from most likely to be fired to least likely (NOW with Big Ten coaches!).  Let us begin:

Almost Guaranteed Shitcanning

1. Dana Dimel (UTEP) – Things are looking terrible for UTEP football right now.  All the rest of the teams seem to be leaving the Miners in their dust except for Old Dominion but that’s because they aren’t playing this Fall.  And with most teams having smaller non-conference schedules, this doesn’t look like UTEP’s time to improve.  Needed to keep his job – UTEP to be competitive in most of their conference games.  Prediction – Will be gone before the end of the season as UTEP will struggle to get more than two wins.
2. Derek Mason (Vanderbilt) – Vanderbilt has been an SEC also-ran for most of their time in the conference other than the James Franklin years.  Unfortunately, Mason hasn’t improved things in Nashville in his stint here.  It is tough because he’s a great coach and a great interview but you have to wonder if he is just better as a defensive coordinator somewhere, especially at the Power Five level.  Needed to keep his job – Bowl eligibility at the very least.  Prediction – He will be gone with either one or two games to go and will become a defensive coordinator somewhere at a lower level in the next year or two.
3. Will Muschamp (South Carolina) – At the time, the hiring of Muschamp looked like a good one even though he had been fairly mediocre at Florida.  But he hasn’t been able to make a dent in the SEC and is 2-13 against ranked teams, something that will keep him near the bottom of the division.  Needed to keep his job – Play meaningful football in late November and beat a ranked team or two.  Prediction – He will probably be fired with one or two games left but be the lame duck coach and finish out the string.

Probable Shitcanning

4. Philip Montgomery (Tulsa) – Tulsa has struggled for most of Montgomery’s reign here except for one great season.  He was a can’t miss coaching prospect who so far has missed badly.  I think the Golden Hurricane is going to be worse this season so it may signal the end for him in Oklahoma (the state, not the school).  Needed to keep his job – Battling for .500 late in the season.  Prediction – One win and a coaching search to start shortly after the season ends.
5. Lovie Smith (Illinois) – Being successful this past season may have actually been the worst thing for Lovie’s coaching future in Champaign.  Now the expectations will be higher and with Northwestern improving, I can’t see the Illini going bowling once they get back to playing in October.  Needed to keep his job – To be in contention for bowl-eligibility late into the season.  Prediction – I think they end up winning three or four games but won’t be enough to go bowling and will probably cost him his job but who knows with Illinois.

Possible Shitcanning

6. Manny Diaz (Miami) – Let’s just say the Manny Diaz era did not get off to a great start after he left Temple (after a few weeks) for his dream job.  But things are looking up with transfer quarterback D’Eriq King under centre (well, in the shotgun because no one goes under centre these days).  His status will fully depend on the improvement the Canes show on the field.  Needed to keep his job – At least 7 wins but preferably at least 8 and looking at a possible conference championship berth.  Prediction – I see The U at the 8-win mark so that should placate the fans in south Florida.
7. Scott Frost (Nebraska) – Look, I drank the Nebraska Koolaid last year.  I admit it.  But the bloom is off the rose now in Lincoln and anything short of at least .500 and a bowl game could spell the end for the guy that was supposed to lead the Huskers back to prominence.  Needed to keep his job – .500 record.  Prediction – I see them being around that mark so he might not be fired but it will be a huge discussion in the off-season about his future.
8. Steve Campbell (South Alabama) – It was looking like the Jaguars were going to have a 2-0 start and it probably would have kept Campbell off this list.  But their collapse against Tulane makes it so his job is at least in some jeopardy.  With the opening of their brand-new stadium, I am sure the brass were hoping for a team that could maybe even contend in the Sun Belt West.  With Louisiana in the division that won’t happen but maybe a bowl game for them?  The other thing is, if they let Campbell go, who would be up to replace him?  Not like this is a sought-after job.  Needed to keep his job – For USA to win close to five games.  Prediction – I have the Jaguars winning four games so at the very least, Campbell is looking at a hotter seat for next season.

Doubtful Shitcanning (although it still could happen)

9. Dino Babers (Syracuse) – Dino needs to get some slack here.  There were some injuries last year and a lot of underperforming.  Saying that, with only one great season under his belt, this season will have to at least look like an improvement over last year or he may be jettisoned.  Needed to keep his job – Battling for bowl eligibility late in the season.  Prediction – I have the Orange winning 4 so they need an upset to go bowling, if not two.  No bowl game means Babers will have at least a molten lava hot seat going into next season.
10. Matt Viator (ULM) – Things were looking good in Monroe.  Then the Ragin’ Cajuns down in Lafayette burned some rubber and left them in their dust.  Now they will be battling South Alabama and Texas State to stay out of the bottom of the Sun Belt West division.  Needed to keep his job –  Honestly?  Just don’t finish last in the division.  Prediction – Ummmm….well….I do have them finishing last so this could get interesting.
11. Tom Herman (Texas) – Herman hasn’t exactly set the Big XII on fire in Austin.  The fans at UT want to be in the Big XII Championship (OK they want to win the Big XII but baby steps).  Not getting there this year would put Herman on a bit of a hot seat going into 2021.  Needed to keep his job – Like keep his job for sure and maybe get an extension?  A trip to the Big XII Championship game.  Prediction – Losing to Oklahoma State to be left out of the title game and a lot of grumblings in Longhorn land.

Yes a much shorter list.  Blame COVID.

Now I will post my (shorter) Heisman ballot.  This is usually less accurate but at least I am on par with many so-called experts since many frosh and sophomores are in contention and it’s tough to figure them out compared to the juniors and seniors.  Alright here we go:

My Usually Awful Heisman Ballot

1. Trevor Lawrence, Clemson – Alright I had Lawrence winning it last year and he came up well short.  This year he is one of the favourites to win it so I am picking him yet again.  Maybe this time he won’t let me down…and the team.  Most importantly the team.  And the fanbase.  But me too.
2. Justin Fields, Ohio State – I feel a bit hesitant to put Fields this high.  This time it is because the Big Ten is starting later and he will have to be in Heisman form from the beginning.  I haven’t even done Big Ten predictions yet but I assume Ohio State will be favoured in all their games.  So as long as the Buckeyes aren’t upset along the way and Fields has a bad game or two, he should be in the Heisman conversation.
3. Spencer Rattler, Oklahoma – The streak ended last year.  Jalen Hurts had a good season but it wasn’t enough to bag the Sooners their third straight Heisman winner (who was also a transfer quarterback).  Rattler is a Lincoln Riley recruit so this is a little different than what we are used to with OU.  I still predict Oklahoma to get to the College Football Playoff which probably will mean Rattler will have had a great season so that puts him here.
4. D’Eriq King, Miami – This is the big transfer of the off-season and he could be the guy that saves Manny Diaz his job (and may get him an extension).  It was a bit of a shock that he first decided to redshirt at Houston and then transfer to Miami but here we are.  I think the Canes are going to be in New Year’s Six contention all season so the dual threat King will be a big part of that.
5. Chuba Hubbard, Oklahoma State – Hubbard for some reason came back for his senior year.  What it does is sets Hubbard up to become the next big running back to come out of Oklahoma State after Barry Sanders.  It also could make him the first Canadian to win the Heisman.  That would be cool.  He will actually need to run for more yards than he did last year so it may be difficult but if he does it, he will be at least the best running back in college football and a surefire first round pick in the 2021 draft.
6. Ian Book, Notre Dame – I know people will be upset at this.  Slow your roll and check your Notre Dame hate at the door.  The Irish are in a conference for the first time ever and are a contender to make their first-ever conference championship.  And if that does come to fruition, Book will be the biggest reason why.  And he could be a hero in South Bend forever if they somehow get to the College Football Playoff and don’t count them out of that.
7. Sam Ehlinger, Texas – For the second straight year, Ehlinger might be the second best quarterback in the Big XII.  Now if he somehow gets the Longhorns to the conference championship then he might rocket up this list.
8. Bo Nix, Auburn – The son of former Auburn star Patrick Nix plays in the toughest division in college football.  And if the Tigers have any thoughts of going to the New Year’s Six (if not the CFP), it will have to ride on his strong arm.  With a lot of new quarterbacks in the SEC, he could end up getting the lion’s share of the attention at the position which could be good for him to move up this list.

Honourable Mention

• Travis Etienne, Clemson
• Spencer Sanders, Oklahoma State
• Myles Brennan, LSU
• Zamir White, Georgia
• Najee Harris, Alabama
• Adrian Martinez, Nebraska
• Sam Howell, North Carolina

OK now we get to the Big Ten insanity.  Remember when they decided they weren’t going to have a Fall season and there was a huge uproar because three of the five Power Five conferences decided to plow ahead with a season anyway?  Pepperidge Farms (and all of us) remembers.  Now the Big Ten has decided to reverse course.  They plan on having a nine-week conference season.  It will start on October 24th and go through to December 19th when the Big Ten Championship will occur.  But that’s not all!  They will also have a kind of East vs. West challenge that week where the 2nd place team from the East faces the 2nd place team from the West, 3rd place against 3rd place, etc. all the way down to the last place teams in both divisions.  Just crazy.  This conference is a shitshow.  But money and FOMO ruled the day with the announcement.  Now the Pac-12 is the only P5 conference sitting out and that will be, unfortunately, horrible for the conference going into 2021.  College football, everybody!

Alright a slight change for this week’s posts.  I will be posting the NFL schedule on Thursday and the college sked on Friday since there are no college games on Thursday night.  I will do that for any other weeks this happens but as of this point, I can only see it happening maybe once more.  Anyway, hope you have had a great hump day!

BAH GAWD, IS THAT NOTRE DAME’S MUSIC???

Notre Dame.  In a conference.  I honestly wouldn’t have believed it.  But it has happened!

With the pandemic happening and some FBS teams shutting it down, the Irish had to make a decision.  Do what they have done forever and go it alone or see what the ACC is doing.  Well it was made easy for them when the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided not to go ahead with the season.  There goes nearly half of Notre Dame’s schedule.  At least in the ACC they have a chance at playing for a conference title and an “easier” road to the College Football Playoff than they normally would have.  Now to deal with those pesky Tigers down in Clemson…

How about I just get right to the predictions for the ACC followed by Touchdown Jesus Prophecies:

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

Touchdown Jesus Prophecies

• Hey have you noticed?  No divisions!  The way God intends it.  Right?  I don’t know.  I just like this better.  It also assures the best two regular season teams face off for the conference championship.  I mean who cares if it’s a rematch.  The Big XII has done that for a few years now and there have been some good games.
• Clemson is still the best team in the conference despite their losses to the NFL.  Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne and the offense should be even better than last season, when I thought it would be even better than the previous season and it wasn’t.  It was actually something I had to think about when I predicted them running the table in the conference.  That’s how much a few teams have caught up to the Tigers.  Finally.
• Look who is nipping on the heels of the Tigers.  Mack Brown’s North Carolina Tar Heels and, yes, Notre Dame.  I don’t think Notre Dame will play for the ACC Championship but I wouldn’t mind seeing just to see the college football media go crazy for a week.
• Florida State SHOULD be better this year.  Mike Norvell had a rough start in his first offseason as Noles coach but he has quickly turned things around and FSU looks like a team many might have to watch out for in the Fall.  An upset or two would put them squarely in the New Year’s Six mix.
• Expect Boston College and Duke to struggle although there really won’t be any horrible teams in the conference.  But one team has to be at the bottom.  It will be either of those two teams or Georgia Tech, who, with the loss of spring practices, will struggle with the continuing change from the option to more of a pro-style offense.
• Yes it is a weird season but the hot seat doesn’t stop for anyone.  Expect Dave Doeren to be squarely on it this season and if the Wolfpack have the kind of season I think they will have, he will be on the unemployment line with me.
• If my idea of five wins makes a team bowl-eligible, then the ACC would have nine teams going bowling.  Pretty impressive.  What those bowls will be is anyone’s guess.
• In the end, I have Clemson (like everyone else) winning the ACC Championship over a really good North Carolina squad (with dark horse Heisman contender Sam Howell at quarterback) which will undoubtedly put them in the College Football Playoff.  Where the Heels end up?  You will have to wait to find out.

We are almost done.  Next up is the Independents.  That shouldn’t take long.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Ranking the Bowl Games from First to Worst – 2019-20 Edition

Hey how did you think the bowl games went?  There was definitely some good and definitely some bad.  We will get to that in the rankings but overall, 2019’s college football season was much better than the 2018 season.  Less disappointment that is for sure.  Don’t get me wrong, I watched a bit of every game.  Every single, fucking one.  No matter how “useless” the game appeared to be (on paper at least).  Not to the players and coaches and fans.  Those games mean a shit-ton to them.  And that sometimes lends to the games as the atmosphere can be great in a bowl game with a stadium that seems barely half-full.

Alright, time for reading, folks.  An absolute deluge of text about bowl season.  Now you can remember games that you really did not want to remember anymore.  You’re welcome.

1. Hawaii Bowl (Hawaii 38 BYU 34) – I don’t think this has ever happened before but yes, the Christmas Eve tradition was the best bowl game.  Damn was it ever fun to watch.  The Hawaii Bowl is rarely this exciting.  It felt like an old school WAC game.  The closest thing to a really good boxing match where both boxers traded haymakers for most of the match.
2. Belk Bowl (Kentucky 37 Virginia Tech 30) – Should I make this number one?  It’s a tough call.  It was the only walkoff touchdown of bowl season which is fun (not so much for gamblers).  A great back-and-forth affair in Bud Foster’s final game at VaTech.  Another great game to watch.  Lynn Bowden Jr. going off and cementing his draft status.  Also, it’s the final Belk Bowl.  So it was a bit bittersweet as well.  Everything a bowl game should be.
3. Fiesta Bowl (Clemson 29 Ohio State 23) – Now this is the kind of semi-final game we kind of want all the time.  This kind of proves that no matter what conference you are in, if you are a good team, you are a good team, period.  Anyway, big plays, drama, ref issues, controversy.  Sounds like a good time to me.
4. Rose Bowl (Oregon 28 Wisconsin 27) – Seeing the Badgers piss this one away was like a trainwreck: you couldn’t look away.  The Ducks were absolutely dominated in this one.  But they did enough off the Wisky turnovers to pull out the victory.  We also found out that Justin Herbert has some wheels.
5. Outback Bowl (Minnesota 31 Auburn 24) – Considering Michigan and Alabama were playing at the exact same time, this is a good thing for both programs, especially the Gophers.  Minnesota has brought the fun all season and P.J. Fleck’s energy can be infectious so I definitely look forward to seeing them play.  This also showed that maybe, just maybe, Minnesota has arrived in the college football world.  Also, I assume the Fire Gus rumblings will prevail well into August yet again.  Poor guy.
6. Frisco Bowl (Kent State 51 Utah State 41) – Over 1000 yards of offense.  One of the better college football games of the year, period.  Nice to see the underdog Golden Flashes keep up with USU.  And let’s give Sean Lewis some credit here.  This team has done almost nothing for, well, the entire time the program has been around.  And now Lewis, a young head coach (younger than me at least), comes along and is already turning this program around.  The MAC is pretty wide open so don’t be surprised if Kent State is a conference contender next season.  We also might have to get used to seeing Jordan Love on Sundays because that guy was special in this one.  Too bad his defense wasn’t.
7. Liberty Bowl (Navy 20 Kansas State 17) – Talk about a close game!  The Midshipmen and Wildcats played a tight game that wasn’t high on offense.  Navy put together a Navy-like drive to set up the game-winning field goal which felt fitting in this one.
8. Quick Lane Bowl (Pittsburgh 34 Eastern Michigan 30) – One of the barnburners of the season and it was very unexpected.  Basically what ended up being a walkoff punch by Eastern Michigan’s quarterback ended a very exciting (and surprisingly so) Quick Lane Bowl, a bowl that is usually forgotten about.
9. Cotton Bowl (Penn State 53 Memphis 39) – Yet again, the Group of Five representative in the New Year’s Six brought their A Game.  But man Penn State was something else.  In the end, Penn State’s passing game was better than Memphis’s running game and pulled away for the win.  It helped that there was a terrible bowl game on at the same time as the eyeballs stayed here.
10. Orange Bowl (Florida 36 Virginia 28) – OK I will admit when I was wrong.  I figured the Hoos had no chance but this turned into quite the competitive game.  I mean Florida had control of the game most of the time but Bryce Perkins made it so you thought maybe, just maybe, the Cavaliers could pull this out.  In the end, the Fighting Mullens were too much.
11. Texas Bowl (Texas A&M 24 Oklahoma State 21) – Thrilling?  Not exactly.  It felt like the Pokes were going to run away with this one, much to the chagrin of the many Aggie fans in attendance.  Anyway, this game’s score doesn’t tell the whole story as other than early and very late, Texas A&M controlled the pace of the game.  But it was close.  So there’s that.
12. Gator Bowl (Tennessee 23 Indiana 22) – I thought this was a pretty sexy matchup for bowl season.  A resurgent Vols team against an up-and-coming Hoosiers team.  Normally the games after New Year’s aren’t watched (other than the National Championship) but this was one fantastic.  It was kind of painful to watch Indiana blow this game that they really did have in the bag.  Now I await Tennessee’s inclusion in the preseason Top 25 for next season.
13. First Responder Bowl (Western Kentucky 23 Western Michigan 20) – Is it First Responder or First Responders?  Anyway, this had a crazy finish to a rather mundane game.  Western Michigan was flagged for too many men on the field on a WKU Hail Mary on the last play of the game.  The Hilltoppers then decided to go for the 52-yard field goal and hit it to walk it off.  I think many are just glad that this bowl game was actually played after last year’s cancellation.
14. Camellia Bowl (Arkansas State 34 FIU 27) – Surprisingly fun to watch!  The Panthers made it quite the game with their late comeback (that came up just short).  Not much else to say about a bowl that is historically ignored and poorly attended.
15. Pinstripe Bowl (Michigan State 27 Wake Forest 21) – I was really looking forward to this game as it had two teams that, for some reason, can bring it during bowl season.  Honestly, most thought this would be boring and they were part-correct.  It wasn’t super exciting but it was close and it was a game you had to watch to the end.  Now the Mark Dantonio watch begins as the rumours are swirling on his status in East Lansing.
16. National Championship (LSU 42 Clemson 25) – This was a pretty damn good game for about 2.5 quarters.  Then Joe Burrow.  That’s it.  Can we call it the greatest season by a player in college football history?  It’s easily Top 10 for sure.
17. Peach Bowl (LSU 63 Oklahoma 28) – Basically this game was over early.  If it wasn’t for the fact it was a semi-final and Joe Burrow going crazy in the first half it would have been unwatchable.  Oklahoma might just want to decline their invite next year if they are selected for the College Football Playoff.
18. Sun Bowl (Arizona State 20 Florida State 14) – This game looked like the Redbox Bowl from last year for over a half.  It was like neither team really wanted to win.  It did lead to a fairly wild finish though which is one of the things we like as college football fans.  I am sure Noles fans want to put James Blackman into a cannon and fire him straight into the transfer portal after his performance.  Also, nice touch with Herm Edwards getting the Frosted Flakes dumped on him at the end.  This needs to continue even during the regular season.
19. Cheez-It Bowl (Air Force 31 Washington State 21) – Ah, the hilarious Cheez-It Bowl.  This year’s edition was much less hilarious and much less exciting.  I mean Wazzu made it close early in the fourth quarter but the Falcons’ rushing offense ground the Cougs defense into dust, as most of us thought would happen.  Realistically though, the final score doesn’t portray how much Air Force dominated this.
20. Music City Bowl (Louisville 38 Mississippi State 28) – No real stars in this one didn’t help this bowl game but it was another case of a game where the score does not indicate how not close this game was.  Louisville looked dominant most of this one.  If it wasn’t for the Joe Moorhead rumours (which turned out to be true) this game might have gone down a few notches.
21. Cure Bowl (Liberty 23 Georgia Southern 16) – Not exciting.  Not terrible.  Kind of in the middle.  Which is where it ranks.  Nice to see Liberty win their first bowl game ever, I guess.
22. Sugar Bowl (Georgia 26 Baylor 14) – Look this went exactly as most people thought it would go, no offense to Baylor.  Really it was not very memorable and, to be honest, it was so late on New Year’s Day that I was getting tired (plus I had to work the next day).
23. Boca Raton Bowl (Florida Atlantic 52 SMU 28) – This was set up to be one of the better bowl games between the two great Power Five teams.  So good that it was being aired on ABC.  I thought it would be really close and it ended up being anything but.  Plus all the Lane Kiffin talk really got to be too much by the second half.  We get it: he left the Owls.  Let’s move on.
24. Holiday Bowl (Iowa 49 USC 24) – Everything was going great for this game until Kedon Slovis got injured.  Then it went to shit for the Trojans and the fans watching at home.  The only good thing is that we were able to actually see this game in Canada despite it being on FOX Sports One.
25. Mobile Bowl (Louisiana 27 Miami-OH 17) – This game was the final bowl game before the national championship.  The only reason to watch is if you weren’t bowled out yet and kind of missed Monday Night Football.  I have to get the game credit since a botched snap near the goal line for the Redhawks was all that separated this from moving up the chain.  Also, I guess this is now called the LendingTree Bowl.  Ugh.
26. Citrus Bowl (Alabama 35 Michigan 16) – Michigan was in this exact same spot last year.  And they scored one more point than last year’s bowl game.  The Wolverines were boatraced by Bama in the second half, just like last year’s game against Florida.  The Outback Bowl, on at the same time, was a much more satisfying game to watch and so that’s where I spent most of my time.
27. Redbox Bowl (California 35 Illinois 20) – I was hoping for Lovie Smith to pick up a bowl win but hey, the Illini just getting to a bowl game is huge enough.  If it wasn’t for this possibility, this may have gone farther down the list as Cal never seemed to be out of control of the game.
28. Gasparilla Bowl (UCF 48 Marshall 25) – I guess it’s good this game isn’t at Tropicana Field anymore.  Otherwise, this game was over early.
29. New Orleans Bowl (Appalachian State 31 UAB 17) – All UAB early, All App State late.  Hell, the Mountaineers even almost covered the spread.  They didn’t though (considering the spread was like 16.5).
30. Idaho Potato Bowl (Ohio 30 Nevada 21) – The score makes it seem like it might have been close.  It wasn’t.  The only exciting thing about this game, other than how much Ohio might win by, is Frank Solich getting showered in french fries after the bowl win.
31. Armed Forces Bowl (Tulane 30 Southern Miss 13) – I will be completely honest…after the first half I watched very little of this game.  Came back with about half the fourth quarter to play, saw Tulane was handily in front, and felt good about my decision.  I guess sometimes morning football isn’t that great.
32. Military Bowl (North Carolina 55 Temple 13) – Was there really anything good about this game?  Now we have got a lot of people on the North Carolina bandwagon for 2020.  Sam Howell could end up being a darkhorse Heisman contender if the Heels contend in the ACC.
33. Las Vegas Bowl (Washington 38 Boise State 7) – The only intriguing part of this game is seeing how Washington would fare in the Chris Petersen farewell game.  Looks like they did well.
34. New Mexico Bowl (San Diego State 48 Central Michigan 11) – The normally first FBS bowl game of the year was a dud.  Maybe because they weren’t the first bowl game of the season.  Either way it was not exciting after about the 12 minute mark of the first quarter.  Jimmy Mac’s great season in Mount Pleasant ends in a dud.  And, shock of all shocks, Rocky Long retired so that was his last game as well.
35. Bahamas Bowl (Buffalo 31 Charlotte 9) – This was the first bowl game of the season, on a Friday afternoon.  So I barely watched any of this one.  But the fact this is Charlotte’s first bowl game and Buffalo’s first bowl win ever keeps it from falling even further (even though there isn’t far to fall from here).
36. Alamo Bowl (Texas 38 Utah 10) – Maybe the Utes were honestly that crushed with losing the Pac-12 title game and their chance at the College Football Playoff.  This was pretty non-competitive and now I am sure we will hear about Texas being in the preseason Top 25 like almost every year.  Let’s not give in to the media peer pressure folks!
37. Camping World Bowl (Notre Dame 33 Iowa State 9) – God this was awful.  Notre Dame is that weird team that is probably better than playing in any bowl game except when it gets to the New Year’s Six where they play terrible and are “exposed” as a not-so-good team.
38. Independence Bowl (Louisiana Tech 14 Miami 0) – This should have been a better game.  Miami, who is usually at least not too bad and LaTech who is a good Group of Five team.  This ended up being a mess of a game and showed how bad Miami really is.  The entire program will be under the microscope for the next season.
39. Birmingham Bowl (Cincinnati 38 Boston College 6) – Hey remember what the Birmingham Bowl has been like in recent years?  Forget all that.  This was shit.  It would be the worst bowl game this season if it wasn’t for the next horrific, forgettable game.
40. Arizona Bowl (Wyoming 38 Georgia State 17) – On CBS Sports Network.  When other bowl games were on.  And it was boring.  It’s the bowl game shitfest trifecta.  I think I watched one minute of this.

So in the end, better than last bowl season but not awesome by any stretch of the imagination.  This weekend we have some college all-star games.  The East-West Shrine Game and the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl are on the NFL Network on Saturday at 2:00 and 6:00 respectively.  Yes they tend to have some weird rules but it’s still college football (technically).

Your very short NFL schedule will be coming your way either tomorrow or Friday.  Have a great hump day everyone!