Oh man, here we go again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just For You

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

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

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

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

Geogpraphy, Go Eat a Dick

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

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

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

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

Deep Tissue Massage and/or Analysis

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

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

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

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

Belly Expansions

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

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

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

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

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

California Nightmarin’

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

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

The G-5. It’s like that big vat of McDonald’s orange drink…

Many of the better teams have gone on to greener pastures. They have been replaced (kind of) by weaker teams from FCS. So yeah, they keep watering down the Group of Five. How far can they water it down? Groundskeeper Willie thinks we need to stop. I sort of agree with the angry Scot.

As you already know, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati left the American Conference for the Big(ger) XII. BYU joined them from the Independent ranks but the Cougs were always a weird hybrid since leaving the Mountain West. Not quite Power Five but better than Group of Five. Either way, they moved up as well.

Coming up from FCS is Sam Houston (not the wrestler) and Jacksonville State (two Gamecocks? What is this, the CFL?). Kennesaw State joins next season. All three teams will be in Conference USA. Yeah, the teams coming in don’t exactly measure up to the teams leaving.

What this does, though, is open the door for other teams to ascend to a level where they are almost always competing for the Group of Five crown. Boise State is the only program left who constantly contends for the one G-5 spot in the New Year’s Six. Tulane went last season and looks like a team that should continue that kind of success this season. UTSA, SMU, San Diego State and a few Sun Belt squads also have their eye on that singular prize. Let’s get to the conference standings and see where I believe thing will head this season.

Man, imagine the Big East was back? That conference would be…well, it would be pretty good. Not amazing. But a step above the Group of Five. Anyway…

The cream of the crop among Group of Five conferences is the AAC until further notice. The Mountain West has tried their best but it feels like that competition is over, even if Boise State does win the G-5 title. The Sun Belt is gaining but I can never see them catching the American under the current format. So let’s look at the predictions for the Kings of the G-5 followed by some marinations:

		Conference		Overall
		W	L	W	L
	Tulane	8	0	11	1
	UTSA	7	1	10	2
	Memphis	6	2	8	4
	SMU	6	2	8	4
	FAU	4	4	6	6
	East Carolina	4	4	7	5
	Navy	4	4	5	7
	North Texas	4	4	7	5
	UAB	3	5	4	8
	Tulsa	3	5	4	8
	USF	3	5	3	9
	Rice	2	6	4	8
	Temple	2	6	4	8
	Charlotte	0	8	1	11

Marinating in American Sauce

• Honestly, that sounds disgusting. I am surprised no one has created it…whatever it might end up being.
• Look, Tulane is not coming down from their perch. The schedule is, once again, in their favour and other than a huge matchup against South Alabama to start their season and their season-ending matchup with UTSA, the rest of the schedule is more than manageable. Expect the American Championship to go through New Orleans for the second straight year.
• No surprise with the Roadrunners of UTSA (I just said that in Greg Gumbel voice) being the team that will end up facing the Green Wave for the conference title. This program is seriously on the rise and could soon enough be called the premiere Group of Five team (until they are poached by the Big XII).
• Memphis and SMU will be good once again. But as has been the case, both teams will probably drop at least one game they should win and that is what will ultimately cost them the chance to upset Tulane for the league title.
• Some people are very high on Florida Atlantic with their new head coach Tom Herman. I am taking more of a wait and see approach. The same goes for North Texas as they break in a new head coach as well.
• I believe Navy will go into the Army-Navy Game needing a win for bowl eligibility. Well, you can tell by their record what I think will happen. I wonder how bowl committees will deal with this. Maybe some bowl gives them the first ever conditional bowl bid? That would actually be kind of exciting. Win and you’re in. Lose and your bid goes to James Madison.
• As for the AAC Championship, I see Tulane winning their second game against UTSA in as many weeks to be crowned the AAC champion. I don’t see the Green Wave having an easy time in either game though but they will feel lucky not to be in the Alamodome for either of these games.
• Seven projected bowl bids for a conference with fourteen teams. Not exactly great but I think it will take some time for teams like Charlotte and Rice to get acclimated to their new surroundings. Especially since they weren’t that great in the conference they came from.

I am a bit worried that I won’t be ready to do the long Saturday nights that the Mountain West (and Pac-12) give us. Don’t even mention the Hawaii Tests. And this is at a time when I am desperately trying to restrict my caffeine intake. Ugh, this could be very interesting. Maybe I’ll just drink the entire time.

This is the second year of the Mountain West deal with FOX so we won’t see nearly as many MWC games. Yes there will be at least one every week on CBS Sports Network and we get some early-season CBS affairs but with no conference games on any of the ESPN networks, it really hinders our ability as Canadians to watch this conference. Hell, we can probably watch more Conference USA this season.

OK let’s get to this season’s predictions followed by sleep deprived lunacy:

		Conference		Overall
		W	L	W	L
	Boise State	8	0	10	2
	San Diego State	6	2	8	4
	Fresno State	6	2	8	4
	Air Force	5	3	9	3
	Wyoming	5	3	7	5
	San Jose State	4	4	6	6
	UNLV	4	4	5	7
	Utah State	3	5	4	8
	Nevada	3	5	3	9
	Colorado State	2	6	3	9
	New Mexico	1	7	2	10
	Hawaii	1	7	3	10

Juuuuust a tiny bit of Sleep-Deprived Lunacy

• You will notice something different with these standings compared to all the others I have predicted in the past. No divisions! About damn time. Divisions are just useless in this day and age. And soon enough, no FBS conference will have divisions. I am certain of that.
• Reader John might not be too pleased with this but I think Boise State runs through the conference schedule with relative ease. Not saying teams like SDSU, FSU or Air Force aren’t good. It’s just that the Broncos’ schedule is so favourable you’d have to be crazy to think they don’t have a great shot not just to win the conference, but that one New Year’s Six spot. Really, their September will shape their season. Be at least 3-2 at the end of the month and they will be on their way. Less than that and the conference might just be up for grabs.
• In terms of teams just below that top tier, Wyoming should ho-hum their way into another bowl game. I can’t believe Craig Bohl has been in Laramie for almost half of the life of the Mountain West conference it self. SJSU and UNLV will be in a dogfight for a bowl spot and I could honestly see it going either way. But no, I don’t agree with that one voter who thinks the Rebels will win the conference crown. I think that person was obviously coming off a gambling-coke-and-booze fueled bender when they made that choice.
• I’ve got the Aztecs winning the tiebreaker with Fresno to get the other MWC Championship spot opposite Boise on the frigid smurf turf. I think the weather is what gives the Broncos the edge in this one as I have them winning the conference championship and then awaiting to see what happens in the rest of the Group of Five.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd we’re back down to four teams. Liberty and New Mexico State fucked off to Conference USA and BYU headed to the Big XII, leaving Notre Dame less little brothers to have to hang around with. The thing is, if you took UMass out of the equation…well, you’ll see. Let’s get right to the short set of predictions followed by some actual team-by-team analysis (which is much easier with just four teams):

		Overall
		W	L
	Notre Dame	10	2
	Army	6	6
	UConn	6	6
	UMass	1	11

Actual Team-by-Team Analysis (I wasn’t lying!)

• Of course we have to start with the team that doesn’t belong in this entire post, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It was tough going through their schedule because I don’t know how much they will improve from last year. But they have Sam Hartman. A bonafide Heisman contender at quarterback for the first time in I don’t know how many years. So my ten win prediction for them doesn’t seem too far off the mark and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were able to get to eleven either and get in the College Football Playoff converstaion.
• Hey, remember what I said about Navy earlier? That they would be playing for their bowl-eligibility lives in the Army-Navy game? Well, guess who else I think will be in the same boat. Oh yes. I think this will be, easily, the most important Army-Navy Game in a long time. I now wonder if the provisional bowl selection will be a winner-take-all type of deal. Which would be so damn awesome to see.
• Will UConn get back to a bowl game? That seems to be a huge question. And to be honest, I think bowl eligibility is almost the floor for this program. Amazing what can happen when you get the right coach in the right spot. Is Jim Mora Jr. an amazing coach? Not really. But he’s good and he landed in the perfect spot for him and the Huskies. Now they have to avoid what happened in the past even when they were somewhat decent: lose games to teams they should beat. Do that and they should be in the postseason once again.
• And finally we get to the Minutemen and yes, they will be awful. Quite possibly the worst FBS team once again. I predict them to win one game. That’s it. And it won’t be against Merrimack. I think they squeak by New Mexico and that’s all. And even then, I could see this team go winless. I’m not as huge an advocate of moving teams back down to FCS as I used to be but I do wonder if UMass just needs to drop down. There’s nothing keeping them up in FBS. No conference affiliation and no possibilities in the near future. It might be time to pull the trigger on this program’s demotion.

The Sun Belt (and MAC) are being joined by Conference USA when it comes to mid-week action this season. I will have to check but we may have football every day for over a month.

Other than that, there are less similarties than ever between the Sun Belt and the MAC or Conference USA. The Fun Belt has set themselves up pretty well as the third best Group of Five conference. They are actually closer in quality to the Mountain West than the MAC which is something that never would have been said even five years ago. Also, they seem to be pretty safe from any realignment unless some doomsday scenario comes about and college football conferences as we know it change forever. And I’m not going to say that won’t happen.

Anyway, for now, let’s get to my predictions for the eighth-best FBS conference followed by some upbeat comments:

		Conference		Overall
	East	W	L	W	L
	Appalachian State	7	1	8	4
	James Madison	6	2	8	4
	Coastal Carolina	6	2	9	3
	Marshall	5	3	7	5
	Georgia State	2	6	4	8
	Georgia Southern	2	6	5	7
	Old Dominion	0	8	1	11
	West
	South Alabama	7	1	9	3
	Troy	7	1	10	2
	Southern Miss	5	3	6	6
	Louisiana	4	4	7	5
	Arkansas State	2	6	4	8
	Texas State	2	6	3	9
	ULM	1	7	2	10

Upbeat Comments

• Well…upbeat for some teams.
• The top of each of the divisions continue to be exciting. It’s the one conference that defies my No Divisions preference. In the East, you have four legitimate contenders and you can possibly say the same for the West. Parity rules the day in the Sun Belt once again.
• App State, after an odd year that saw some pretty extreme highs and lows, should be back on top of the mountion in the East, barely beating out JMU and Coastal.
• South Alabama will finally get their shot at the Sun Belt Championship with what I believe will be a late-season win over Troy.
• As for bowl games, officially only seven of the contenders I’ve mentioned would be able to go to a bowl. But, I have a bit of a surprise for Dukes fans once I put out my bowl predictions post.
• I still say the Sun Belt champ should get a shot at an SEC team in New Orleans. Imagine how many fans they would get for that?

As I said above, the Sun Belt and Conference USA have a lot of weekday night games now. But it still isn’t MACtion. The originators to us sickos that love more and more and more football. I don’t even care about the attendance issues that these games cause. The MAC is getting their ESPN money and I am getting my football fix. Everyone wins!

Alright, predictions time followed by some points in a Midwestern accent:

		Conference		Overall
	East	W	L	W	L
	Ohio	7	1	8	4
	Miami-OH	5	3	7	5
	Buffalo	4	4	5	7
	Bowling Green	3	5	4	8
	Akron	3	5	4	8
	Kent State	0	8	1	11
	West
	Toledo	7	1	9	3
	Eastern Michigan	6	2	9	3
	Central Michigan	4	4	4	8
	Northern Illinois	3	5	5	7
	Western Michigan	3	5	3	9
	Ball State	3	5	4	8

Points with Pork Chops and Aeeeplesauce

• I mean I’m not gonna lie: I like pork chops and applesauce. I just think it’s way more of a staple in a place like Minnesota than here.
• Looks like two teams who are used to being near the top should head back to the MAC title game. Not that Toledo and Ohio won’t have their speed bump games in the MAC but I feel they have the best talent to win their respective divisions.
• Only two teams that will be with new head coaches this season and both of them are going to struggle. Lance Taylor takes over for Tim Lester at Western Michigan where Lester just couldn’t do what P.J. Fleck did there. Tall order but most were hoping he would be close and he wasn’t. As for Kent State, they lose Sean Lewis to Coach Prime and Colorado. Bring in Kenni Burns. Yes Kenni with an i. And ho boy is it going to be a long season in Kent for Mr. Burns.
• I only see four bowl-eligible teams from the MAC. I have done this before and I was wrong. I just can’t see most of these teams doing enough in their non-conference schedule to get them to a bowl game in December.
• Ford Field should see another dandy for the MAC Championship. I’ve got Ohio winning a close one over Toledo with the prize being to go back to Ford Field a few weeks later. At least the tie-in there states that they should face a Big Ten team. That’s the way it should be.

Hey remember what I used to say about Conference USA? Well, it has pretty much come to fruition. You would have to be some kind of dumb or not watch college football to know that this is now the bottom of the barrel when it comes to FBS conferences. I warned them. I’m sure others did too. And now they are stuck. Could they end up being not last place? Sure, maybe. But other than WKU and Liberty, what other teams are really pushing things here? That’s what I thought. Luckily they were able to snag a contract with ESPN to show games on weeknights in October. And when I say weeknights I mean all weeknight games. No Saturday conference games that month. I will be happy though because it means there will be college football on like four consecutive Tuesdays. Not a bad thing at all.

Now it’s time for predictions for the new-ish Conference USA followed by some weeknight non-sitcom commentary:

		Conference		Overall
		W	L	W	L
	WKU	7	1	9	3
	Middle Tennessee	6	2	8	4
	Liberty	6	2	9	3
	UTEP	4	4	6	6
	New Mexico State	4	4	7	6
	Louisiana Tech	2	6	4	8
	Sam Houston	2	6	3	9
	Jacksonville State	2	6	3	9
	FIU	1	7	2	10

Weeknight Non-Sitcom Commentary

• Look, with Austin Reed back at QB, he may throw over 5,000 yards. They should win the regular season title pretty easily and it wouldn’t surprise me if they ended up running the table as well.
• There are some newcomers! Liberty is that one newcomer, though, that most are saying will win the conference title in their first year in C-USA. I say not so fast my friend. I don’t even see them getting to the conference title game. The Flames will most likely lose a game they should win and it will cost them that spot.
• Yes, I have NMSU making a bowl game again! Jerry Kill has really turned things around in Las Cruces and with this new conference I see them already in the middle if not near the top.
• On the other hand, Jacksonville State and Sam Houston make their FBS debut this season and it won’t be a kind one. They will struggle and need some time to find their way. Down the road, though, at least one of these programs will turn into one of the conference’s best, if not both of them. But at least they won’t be as bad as…
• FIU. Yeesh. Mike MacIntyre will be pulling his hair out by the time this season is over.
• So yeah, it’s Middle Tennessee against WKU and I don’t see it being that close but you never know. The Hilltoppers should win going away. Do you think these two teams are regretting not heading to the MAC?

We have completed the journey! Well…half of it. Next up is the Power Five conferences. Then, finally, a nice little bow to tie this whole thing together. Have a great week everyone!

SUPER MEGA HYPER OMNI POST! Version 6.0.0

I have sent out the warning before so if you know about it you can skip to the next section. But if you are new to this, here it is: this post is insanely long. Don’t read this on the toilet since I am sure you could get hemorrhoids for being on the can that long. Hell, don’t even take it into the bath with you. I don’t think your skin can wrinkle that much. You have been forewarned. So get your favourite drink, sit down and enjoy this absolute avalanche of information.

This is the sixth version of this stupidly long post; however, it’s only the second with the same format as last year’s. Longer and uncut. No recaps since I don’t do those anymore but my Top 25, bowl projections, conference championship scenarios and some other crazy crap that you may or may not have even wanted to look at. Let’s get the ball rolling with the Bossman Top 25.

#1	Georgia
#2	Ohio State
#3	TCU
#4	USC
#5	Michigan
#6	LSU
#7	Oregon
#8	Clemson
#9	Alabama
#10	Penn State
#11	Tennessee
#12	Washington
#13	Utah
#14	Kansas State
#15	Notre Dame
#16	Florida State
#17	Tulane
#18	UCLA
#19	North Carolina
#20	Oregon State
#21	Cincinnati
#22	Ole Miss
#23	Texas
#24	Coastal Carolina
#25	UCF

So nothing really happened near the top although I have adjusted my rankings a bit. I have USC in now and Michigan out. I still think Michigan’s schedule has been mostly shit this season. That will all change if they beat tOSU so really, this doesn’t matter. I think USC has put themselves in the driver’s seat to get one of the Top 4 spots. Beat Notre Dame and win the Pac-12 Championship and they are golden…I think. The Group of Five will go through the American Conference although UCF’s loss to Navy has opened the door for a trio of Sun Belt teams (Coastal Carolina, Troy and South Alabama) to still have a sliver of hope although a lot has to happen for them to even have a legitimate shot. Finally, I think the Big XII will have the lowest ranked team in the New Year’s Six because I can’t see Kansas State beating TCU for the Big XII title.

Alright so far so good. I think. I hope. Let’s get on with the second part of this massive post, the conference championship game scenarios.

Toledo has clinched the MAC West already. In the MAC East, Ohio can clinch tomorrow night with a win over Bowling Green. Now, with Buffalo’s game against Akron getting postponed and probably cancelled outright, I don’t know what happens if Ohio loses and then the Bulls beat Kent State. The Bulls would have played one less conference game and would win the division if they had been allowed to play Akron and then won. An odd scenario that may become moot if the Bobcats win.

UTSA has clinched a spot in the conference title game and will host (I had wondered if the game would be moved permanently to the Alamodome but that won’t happen now that UTSA heads to the AAC next season).

North Texas is in the driver’s seat for the other spot (remember there are no divisions in Conference USA this season thank fucking God). If the Mean Green beat Rice they are off to San Antonio. Lose then that opens the door for WKU. If they can beat FAU they will play the Roadrunners.

Coastal Carolina is already in the championship game. It’s going to be close but I have a feeling the Chants will host the game as well. The host is the highest ranked team in the CFP Poll.

Troy beat South Alabama earlier this season so if they beat Arkansas State they will win the Sun Belt West. A loss and a USA win and it’s the Jaguars who will win. Both teams are looking for their first division title.

Boise State and Fresno State punched their tickets to the conference championship game with wins this weekend.

UCF had a chance to claim one of the conference title game spots but lost against Navy. They are still in with a win in the War on I-4 against USF. If they lose then the loser of the Tulane-Cincinnati game will play…the winner of the Tulane-Cincinnati game in the championship.

This was looking like a complete shitshow going into the previous week. Things have really been clarified after the results on Saturday.

USC is already in thanks to their amazing win over UCLA in one of the best Pac-12 games in recent memory (that actually meant something). Oregon eliminated Utah by beating them two nights ago. They are in the driver’s seat for the other spot. Washington still has a chance. They must win the Apple Cup and hope Oregon loses the Civil War to go to Santa Clara.

It feels like TCU clinched about a month ago. Kansas State sits in second and just has to beat Kansas in the Sunflower Showdown to make it to JerryWorld. Most years that would be a foregone conclusion but not so this season. If the Wildcats lose, Texas can get there if they beat Baylor on the final weekend.

Clemson vs. North Carolina has been booked for a couple weeks now.

We know what it comes down to. The Game. Ohio State-Michigan. Winner is in, loser has to await their fate for the College Football Playoff. In the West, Iowa, with their horrible offense, is somehow in the lead and has the easiest path to the Big Ten Championship. Beat Nebraska on Black Friday and none of the other games matter in the Big Ten West. If they lose, it opens up a few possibilities. Purdue can win it by then beating Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket. If they also lose, well then God help us all. Illinois should handle Northwestern. Wisconsin and Minnesota play each other. It would give us a four-way tie between Purdue, Iowa, Illinois and the Minny/Wisky winner. Here’s how all this would look in terms of the head-to-head tiebreaker:

• Iowa lost to Illinois but beat Purdue, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
• Purdue beat Minnesota and Illinois and lost to Wisconsin and Iowa.
• Illinois beat Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin but lost to Purdue.
• Minnesota lost to Purdue, Illinois and Iowa and still have to face Wisconsin.
• Wisconsin still has to play Minnesota. They lost to Illinois and Iowa, but beat Purdue.

So, after all that, if there was a four-way tie and Minnesota beat Wisconsin, then Iowa, Purdue and Illinois would all be 2-1 in the head-to-head standings. Then comes divisional records where Iowa and Illinois would be tied at 4-1. The next tiebreaker is record against progressively worse teams in the division. Iowa and Illinois both beat Wisconsin and Nebraska and Northwestern. So now we go to common conference opponents. Meaning the divisional record plus any games they both played against the same teams in the East. The only team both faced was Michigan and both teams lost. This is getting insane. Next up is the cumulative conference record of their non-conference opponents and here is where it’s not really that close. Illinois’ East Division opponents have gone 13-11 in the conference going into the final week. Iowa’s opponents from the East have gone 17-7. So Iowa would get in.

If Wisconsin beats Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois would be tied at 2-1 with Purdue and Wisconsin at 1-2 in head-to-head matchups. I am not going through all the tiebreakers again but Iowa beats Illinois.

So if we get the four-way tie, no matter what, Iowa will go to face the East Division winner. Man, I hope I have that all right.

Well this will be a lot easier than the Big Ten scenarios. Georgia and LSU have already clinched their divisions and will face off in Atlanta. See? Much easier.

I’m already tired. But I will soldier on. Time for the updated bowl projections.

Fiesta Bowl	CFP #2 vs. CFP #3	Ohio State vs. TCU
Peach Bowl	CFP #1 vs. CFP #4	Georgia vs. Michigan

From my previous bowl projections two weeks ago, the Fiesta Bowl has not changed one bit. As for the Peach Bowl, Georgia is still #1. Now I have Michigan in instead of UCLA. UCLA not being in is an easy choice after they lost to USC. I see Michigan losing a close one to Ohio State. That is the first step. I also see LSU and USC losing their conference championship games. Finally, even though I think Clemson beats North Carolina in a relatively close ACC Championship, they don’t have the strength of schedule anymore to leapfrog Michigan for the #4 spot. Many will bitch and complain, much like they have when two SEC teams got in but I think this has a really good shot at happening.

Now on to the New Year’s Six which has got quite interesting over the past couple weeks.

Rose Bowl	Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1	Penn State vs. Oregon
Cotton Bowl	CFP At-large vs. G-5 #1	USC vs. UCF
Sugar Bowl	SEC #1 vs. Big XII #1	Alabama vs. Kansas State
Orange Bowl	ACC #1 vs. Big Ten/Notre Dame/SEC	Clemson vs. LSU

OK so a lot more changed here than in the CFP projections. Here we go:

• Normally the Big Ten champ would go to the Rose Bowl. With Ohio State and Michigan both in the CFP, the next best team out of the Big Ten would get this spot and that would be Penn State since it’s a long drop to whoever would be next.
• I believe Oregon beats USC in the Pac-12 Championship. This boots the Pac-12 out of the CFP and puts the Ducks in the Rose against the Nittany Lions.
• USC’s loss won’t drop them far and they should nab the only true at-large spot to go to the Cotton Bowl.
• The Trojans opponent will be UCF as I think they win their final regular season game and then the AAC Championship.
• Clemson’s victory over North Carolina gives them the ACC’s Orange Bowl spot.
• It’s a big drop from TCU to the next team and that won’t change from my last set of bowl projections until bowl selection day. I have Kansas State there and I think they will be juuuuuuust in the Top 20, making them the lowest ranked team in the NY6.
• Alabama will get the Sugar Bowl spot because Georgia is in the CFP. It could go to LSU, which would put Bama in the Orange. Honestly, they are fairly interchangeable.

Quite a bit of change there that would leave Tennessee, Washington, Utah and Florida State outside looking in. Very few would argue for those teams to get in so at least it would be, well, less controversy than normal since there’s always an argument (and if there isn’t, ESPN will find one). Alright now on to the rest of the bowl projections.

Citrus Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Ole Miss vs. Purdue
ReliaQuest Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	South Carolina vs. Iowa
Music City Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Tennessee vs. Illinois
Gator Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	Arkansas vs. North Carolina
Arizona Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	San Jose State vs. Toledo
Sun Bowl	ACC vs. Pac-12	NC State vs. Oregon State
Duke’s Mayo Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Florida vs. Wisconsin
Alamo Bowl	Big XII vs. Pac-12	Texas vs. Washington
Cheez-It Bowl	Big XII vs. ACC	Oklahoma State vs. Florida State
Pinstripe Bowl	Big Ten vs. ACC	Maryland vs. Notre Dame
Texas Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Holiday Bowl	ACC vs. Pac-12	Louisville vs. UCLA
Liberty Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Miami* vs. Oklahoma
Military Bowl	ACC vs. AAC	Wake Forest vs. Cincinnati
Guaranteed Rate Bowl	Big Ten vs. Big XII	Minnesota vs. Kansas
Birmingham Bowl	SEC vs. AAC/ACC/C-USA	Liberty* vs. Duke
First Responder Bowl	2 of AAC, Big XII, C-USA, Sun Belt, MWC	Texas Tech vs. Memphis
Camellia Bowl	Sun Belt vs. MAC/C-USA	South Alabama vs. UTSA
Quick Lane Bowl	Big Ten vs. MAC	UConn* vs. Eastern Michigan
Hawaii Bowl	BYU/AAC/C-USA vs. MWC	BYU vs. Wyoming
Independence Bowl	AAC vs. Army	Tulane vs. Army
Gasparilla Bowl	2 of AAC, ACC, SEC, Pac-12	Pittsburgh vs. East Carolina
Armed Forces Bowl	2 of Big XII, C-USA, AAC	SMU vs. Middle Tennessee
New Orleans Bowl	Sun Belt vs. C-USA	Troy vs. WKU
Boca Raton Bowl	2 of AAC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Marshall vs. Bowling Green
Idaho Potato Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	San Diego State vs. Ohio
Myrtle Beach Bowl	2 of AAC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Appalachian State vs. Miami-OH
Frisco Bowl	2 of AAC, MWC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Fresno State vs. Southern Miss
Las Vegas Bowl	SEC vs. Pac-12	Kentucky vs. Washington State
LendingTree Bowl	Sun Belt vs. MAC/C-USA	Coastal Carolina vs. UTEP
LA Bowl	Pac-12 vs. MWC	Utah vs. Boise State
New Mexico Bowl	MWC vs. AAC/C-USA/MAC	Utah State vs. UAB
Fenway Bowl	ACC vs. AAC	Syracuse vs. Houston
Cure Bowl	2 of AAC, MWC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Air Force vs. Louisiana
Bahamas Bowl	C-USA vs. MAC	Florida Atlantic vs. Buffalo

There are just enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all the bowl spots; however, the SEC and Big Ten will fall short of fulfilling all their tie-ins. This has to do with more teams in the CFP and NY6 than other conferences. Miami, Liberty and UConn will fill in there (as noted by an asterisk). The ACC actually has more bowl-eligible teams than tie-ins so Miami gets slotted into the Liberty Bowl to face Oklahoma in a game straight out of the 80s. Liberty and UConn technically have to wait until all other bowl-eligible teams get their spots before they can find out where they go. With exactly two bowl games not having two teams, they go there (Liberty to the Birmingham and UConn to the Quick Lane). Finally, despite the fact North Texas won six games, in my scenario they lose the Conference USA Championship and fall to 6-7. If there weren’t enough teams available they would get a waiver to compete. Unfortunately for them there are no spots available to them so they will be home for the holidays.

Hey let’s continue! Time to look at various postseason scenarios. I will not use the AP Poll for some of these. I will use where I think teams will end up going into bowl season (my end-of-season rankings) for the first two.

12-Team College Football Playoff

This is the playoff format that’s coming soon. And if that pesky Rose Bowl can fall in line, it could be as early as 2024. Crazy to think but this is the case. So, if we had that this year, this is what it would look like:

Remember, only conference champions can get a first-round bye in this soon-to-be new format. That’s why Oregon replaces Michigan at #4. Where these teams would play I would leave out other than the first round games which are at the home field of the higher seed. Is it too much? Probably, but it’s college football so I will watch it and hope it works out properly (which no postseason format has been able to do every time but I digress).

6-Team College Football Playoff

This is what I started advocating for even though I had also pushed for just one new playoff team for a while. That dream is gone but here is what it would look like at the end of this season:

Pretty self-explanatory. They would still use bowl games for this. For this year, I think it would be the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl for the first round since the Rose and Sugar, being on January 1st, would not give enough time for the playoffs to be done before the middle of the month. The semis would remain the Fiesta and Peach Bowls.

Poll-and-Bowl

Let’s go back to a simpler time. When the talk of a playoff or a plus-one was just that: talk. The only committees we knew were the bowl committees that went to all sorts of games in November to figure out which teams to select. Now let’s see what that might look like with the better teams in the polls. As I did last year when I did this exercise I have to take some liberty with bowl tie-ins. Also for this I will use current AP Poll listings for variety’s sake:

• Rose Bowl (Big Ten Champ vs. Pac-12 Champ): #2 Ohio State vs. #5 USC
• Sugar Bowl (SEC Champ vs. Big XII Champ): #1 Georgia vs. #4 TCU
• Cotton Bowl (Big XII #2 vs. Pac-12 #2): #15 Kansas State vs. #10 Oregon
• Orange Bowl (ACC Champ vs. SEC #2): #7 Clemson vs. #6 LSU
• Peach Bowl (ACC #2 vs. at-large): #16 Florida State vs. #3 Michigan
• Citrus Bowl (SEC #3 vs. Big Ten #2): #8 Alabama vs. #11 Penn State
• Fiesta Bowl (Big XII #3 vs. at-large): #24 Texas vs. #9 Tennessee

I’ll stop there as I have the top ten teams. Maybe there would be more at-large teams involved (say in the Cotton or Orange Bowls) but realistically this is what you would see in and around New Year’s Day. Sure there are some lopsided bowl matchups (see the Fiesta Bowl) but I think it’s that way to an extent anyway. Really this would come down to three games: the Sugar, Rose and Peach Bowls. Georgia wins they are the champ. Only way that doesn’t happen is if UGA barely beats TCU and Ohio State drops the hammer on USC. If the Dawgs lose and tOSU win, they are the champs. If both those teams lose, then Michigan could win it all in the Peach Bowl. If the top three teams lose, it will come down to TCU and USC and might end up being who looked better in the bowl game (or won by a larger margin). It would make things interesting that is for sure. Better? Debatable.

24-Team College Football Playoff

Oh god, why am I doing this to myself. Maybe I’m trying to prove some point. Well, to be fair, I have hammered this point home before. The longer the tournament, the more it becomes a war of attrition. The winning team, in the end, becomes the healthiest one, not necessarily the best one. It’s been seen often in FCS football, even with some of those North Dakota State teams that won it all. So….*deep breath*, let’s look at how at 24-team playoff would work (I’ll just use AP rankings again):

OK that’s a lot. To me this feels like WAY too much. Overkill. When the 24th-ranked team, Texas, has a chance to win the national championship, college football, at least at the FBS level, has lost a lot of what makes it special. Some want to go even farther and I say to that, put down the crackpipe.

Done. No more. I can’t do it. It’s so much information. But there it is. Read it, do with it what you will. Then in about a week’s time we can forget all of it since it will change…in some cases a lot.

Tomorrow, it’s time for the super American Thanksgiving schedule so prepare for a lot more reading but at least this you can use the rest of the week through late Saturday night. Have a great week, everyone!

SUPER MEGA HYPER OMNI POST! V3.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Has anything changed in the New Year’s Six?

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

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

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

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

A few notes for your perusal:

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

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

A couple of quick Canadian football notes:

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

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

SUPER MEGA HYPER OMNI POST! V2.0

Hey remember this post last year?  It was insanely long.  This one will probably be longer.  Crazy right?  And I don’t care.  So crack open a cold one (unless it’s before like 11:00 in the morning) and sit back and I will tell you a tale of what was, what is, and what might be.

Let’s start with the recap portion of the show since it was, I guess, an alright week in college football.  Not a lot of super crazy stuff but there’s always something.  Oh there’s always something.

• Ohio State survived at Maryland.  They really shouldn’t have.  Tyrell Pigrome had a receiver open on the two-point conversion in overtime and threw it wide.  Tough day for the Terps who did everything they could to beat the Buckeyes and still couldn’t.  Also, Urban Cam was getting out of hand.  Watching Meyer clutch his head in agony all the time was not fun.  I guess he has a cyst on the brain or something like that.  It’s causing him some pain.  A game like that will not help that much.  Anyway, this means The Game is HUGE (Michigan survived against Indiana) so College Gameday should be starting in about two hours.
• Clemson beat Duke easily.  Notre Dame beat Syracuse even easier in what was supposed to be the game of the week.  Both teams are one rivalry game against a team not doing that well from probably going to the College Football Playoff.  Clemson has the ACC title game against Pitt but I digress.
• The Citadel (THE CITADEL!) was tied at 10 with Bama at the half.  So of course Twitter exploded.  The Citadel Twitter account went nuts.  It was fun times.  We knew it would all end.  I am sure some people had a pool to see who would have the closest time in the third quarter when, definitively, this game would be over.  It wasn’t UMBC over Virginia in the NCAA Basketball Tournament but it was fun for a bit.
• In the biggest off the field news, Les Miles has been hired to be the next head coach at Kansas.  Yes, that Kansas.  You know what this means?  Memorial Stadium in Lawrence will have to install natural grass and soon since I am sure eating artificial turf is not good for your insides and definitely not for your colon.
• Washington State put up 55 points in the first half against Arizona.  Yes it’s just Arizona but still.  Wazzu means business.  Who knows how high they will go in the CFP Rankings if they beat Washington on Black Friday.
• The big upset of the day once tOSU handled their business (kind of) was Oklahoma State beating West Virginia with a late touchdown.  The Mountaineers were a dark horse for the College Football Playoff if there was some chaos above them.  That dream is gone although they can still get to the Big XII Championship with a win over Oklahoma on Black Friday.
• Speaking of Oklahoma, Kyler Murray would be almost a shoo-in in any year’s Heisman race.  He will have a tough time beating Tua Tagovailoa barring a disaster against Auburn.  But the Oklahoma defense is, well, not that good.  Giving up 40 points to Kansas before Les Miles starts to coach there?  Not a good sign.
• UCF had no problem with Cincinnati and is set for the showdown with USF to stay undefeated.  A loss either there or in the AAC Championship would have a ripple effect that isn’t quite known right now as there are a few Mountain West contenders lurking.
• Texas beat Iowa State and it was viewed by probably about 5,000 people, all in Texas.
• Florida State came back to beat Boston College and how have a shot to go to a bowl game.  It’s their rivalry game against Florida coming up and they have dominated it recently.
• Utah State also played a game in relative obscurity.  They beat Colorado State on AT&T Sportsnet out west (in the U.S.) in a game that ended on a Hail Mary that wasn’t.  CSU looked like it had scored the upset but the receiver stepped out of bounds on their own meaning they could not be the first one to touch the ball when they came back in bounds.  They did so it negated a crazy finish.

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

It’s the first Sun Belt Championship game and we still don’t know what’s going on.  In the East, Appalachian State hosts Troy.  Winner goes to the conference championship and hosts it.  In the West, Louisiana controls its own destiny.  Beat ULM in Monroe this Saturday and they win the division.  Lose and Arkansas State can clinch with a victory in San Marcos over Texas State.  If both Louisiana and Arkansas State lose then the last team standing will be ULM.  And you will see none of this because it’s all on ESPN3.

How about dem UAB Blazers?  Second season back and they are undefeated in conference play.  They have already won the West Division.  Now the East…that’s a different story:

• If FIU beats Marshall, it’s in.
• If FIU loses to Marshall, and Middle Tennessee loses to UAB, FIU is also in.
• If FIU loses, and Middle wins, Middle goes.

Marshall, despite the fact it could be tied with FIU and MTSU, cannot win the division title.

The MAC title tilt is halfway set.  Northern Illinois has already clinched the MAC West.  The MAC East comes down to Black Friday.  If Buffalo beats Bowling Green, they will go to Detroit to face the Huskies.  If they lose and Ohio beats Akron, the Bobcats win the division.  If both teams loses, it’s Buffalo’s division.

This is easy.  Fresno State is already in.  The winner of Boise State-Utah State will join them.  The only question will be where it is.  Right now, I would bet on it being in either Boise or Logan, Utah.

OK say UCF is already in.  Duh.  The West is also easy.  The Memphis-Houston winner will go to Orlando to play the Knights.  Tulane and SMU cannot win the division since they can’t win any of the tiebreaking procedures.

It’s Clemson vs. Pitt.  I’ve said this before, either Pitt keeps this close or they lose by like 40.

If Oklahoma wins they go to JerryWorld.  That’s the easy part.  The rest…not so much:

• If Oklahoma loses to West Virginia and Texas beats Kansas, then it’s Texas vs. West Virginia.
• Texas is automatically in to face Oklahoma if they beat Kansas and Oklahoma wins.
• The Mountaineers are in with a win over Oklahoma obviously.  But if they lose they can still get in with a Texas loss AND an Iowa State loss to Kansas State (for some reason).

Utah is in for the game which starts at 5 local time.  Poor Pac-12.  Why they would agree to a championship game on Friday night is beyond me.  Anyway, the Pac-12 North comes down to the Apple Cup.  Winner proceeds.

Northwestern was one of the first teams to clinch their division this year.  This feels wrong but I am fine with it.  The winner of The Game will face them in Indy.

Georgia and Alabama.  Ho hum.  Hopefully it’s a really good game though.  Not just for me and all the other college football fans.  But for poor Brad Nessler as well.

So there you go.  Later on in the week (probably tomorrow) I will do the normal massive American Thanksgiving weekend post and discuss all this and much more and which games are important and which games, quite frankly, aren’t.

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

Cotton Bowl	CFP Poll #2 vs. CFP Poll #3	Clemson vs. Notre Dame
Orange Bowl	CFP Poll #1 vs. CFP Poll #4	Alabama vs. Ohio State

No changes here.  Nothing happened to this over the past weekend.  A lot COULD happen this coming weekend but that’s a different story.

Has anything changed in the New Year’s Six?

Sugar Bowl	SEC #1 vs. Big XII #1	Georgia vs. Texas
Rose Bowl	Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1	Michigan vs. Utah
Fiesta Bowl	CFP At-Large vs. CFP At-Large	Oklahoma vs. Washington State
Peach Bowl	CFP At-Large vs. CFP At-Large	UCF vs. West Virginia

All the same teams.  Nothing changed.  Kind of boring.  But as I said above, a lot could happen this coming week to change all this.  I kind of hope something changes otherwise it would be almost a full month of relatively pedestrian college football (as compared to most other months of college football).

And of course now the rest of the bowl projections which is always a shitshow, nowadays more than ever.

Citrus Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten/ACC	Florida vs. Northwestern
Outback Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Kentucky vs. Michigan State
Gator Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	LSU vs. Wisconsin
Holiday Bowl	Big Ten vs. Pac-12	Penn State vs. Stanford
Liberty Bowl	Big XII vs. SEC	Virginia Tech* vs. Missouri
Redbox Bowl	Big Ten vs. Pac-12	Iowa vs. Oregon
Military Bowl	ACC vs. American	Virginia vs. Temple
Sun Bowl	Pac-12 vs. ACC	Arizona vs. Georgia Tech
Arizona Bowl	MWC vs. Sun Belt	Fresno State vs. Arkansas State
Belk Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	South Carolina vs. NC State
Alamo Bowl	Pac-12 vs. Big XII	Washington vs. Iowa State
Camping World Bowl	Big XII vs. ACC	Baylor vs. Pittsburgh
Music City Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	Mississippi State vs. Boston College
Texas Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma State
Pinstripe Bowl	Big Ten vs. ACC	Purdue vs. Syracuse
Independence Bowl	SEC/C-USA vs. ACC/C-USA	Auburn vs. Duke
Cheez-It Bowl	Pac-12/MWC vs. Big XII/MWC	California vs. Nevada
Quick Lane Bowl	Big Ten/MAC vs. ACC/MAC	Buffalo vs. Miami
First Responders Bowl	Big Ten vs. C-USA	Florida State* vs. UAB
Hawaii Bowl	MWC vs. C-USA	Hawaii vs. Marshall
Dollar General Bowl	MAC vs. Sun Belt	Northern Illinois vs. Troy
Armed Forces Bowl	Big XII vs. American	Army* vs. Houston
Birmingham Bowl	SEC/ACC vs. American/ACC	Tennessee vs. Memphis
Idaho Potato Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	Utah State vs. Toledo
Bahamas Bowl	American vs. C-USA	Cincinnati vs. Middle Tennessee
Gasparilla Bowl	American/ACC vs. C-USA/ACC	USF vs. FIU
Frisco Bowl	American/C-USA vs. MAC/C-USA	SMU vs. Eastern Michigan
Boca Raton Bowl	MAC vs. C-USA	Ohio vs. Southern Miss
New Orleans Bowl	C-USA vs. Sun Belt	Louisiana Tech vs. Appalachian State
Camellia Bowl	MAC vs. Sun Belt	Miami-OH vs. ULM
Las Vegas Bowl	Pac-12 vs. MWC	Arizona State vs. Boise State
Cure Bowl	American/Liberty vs. Sun Belt/Liberty	Liberty vs. Georgia Southern
New Mexico Bowl	MWC vs. C-USA	San Diego State vs. North Texas

A few notes for your perusal:

• No 5-7 teams.  Actually five teams would be left out at 6-6.  BYU, Wyoming, Western Michigan, Florida Atlantic and Louisiana would all be bowl-eligible but left out of the fun.  Can’t see that going over too well with Cougar fans.
• I have tried to stick to the tie-ins but I know that sometimes those get thrown out the window.  So why have them?  I have gone over this a few times so won’t re-hash it here.
• Hawaii, after their victory this past weekend over UNLV, becomes bowl-eligible and is the first team to lock in a bowl spot.  They automatically go to the Hawaii Bowl if they are bowl-eligible (which they are) unless they are the Mountain West champion (which they won’t be).
• I don’t quite know how the Liberty situation works.  They would be bowl-eligible and they have a tie-in (kind of) with the Cure Bowl.  The thing is I do remember something said at the start of the season that stated that Liberty would only get a bowl bid if there were no other teams available.  There are (the five mentioned above) so I don’t know if they would take priority over Liberty.  If that is the case, expect the Cure Bowl to select either Florida Atlantic or BYU to fill that spot.

Other than those few items, not much to talk about specifically about the bowl projections.  It honestly felt like a bit of a week off.  That could change very quickly come tonight.  Northern Illinois-Western Michigan is on the specialty pack tomorrow night at 7:00 (Ball State-Miami-OH also on but it’s ESPN+).  Then Wednesday, brace yourselves…there is no football.  I know, I know.  Calm down.  We will need the breather thanks to the FOOTBALLGASM of American Thanksgiving!  My hope is that I can post the schedule by tomorrow evening to fully prepare you for the few days to come.

A few other odds and ends from both the pros and college level:

• Did you see the Harvard player flip the bird to the Yale defender just before he crossed the goal line for a touchdown?  It negated the touchdown.  Hilarious!  That’s some good Ivy League football right there.
• The Nathan Peterman Experience has come to an end as the Bills released one of the worst quarterbacks in modern NFL history.  Thank god.
• How about that game last night?  Holy shit!  The Rams and Chiefs both went off.  And still, there was some sweet defensive plays.  It was honestly one of the best regular season games ever.  It had a bit of everything!  So we all know that one of these teams won’t make it to the Super Bowl because, well, they just won’t.  There will be an upset of sorts and we will get the fucking Patriots or the Bears or some shit like that.  Ugh.
• I tried watching some of the CFL Division Finals but for the most part, they weren’t very good.  The Western Final wasn’t bad actually but the Eastern Final was atrocious.  Game was over about halfway through the second quarter.  Totally non-competitive.  I look forward, though, to balanced divisions in 2020, which I believe is the year the Atlantic Schooners begin play.
• Both USports semi-finals were jokes.  Western pulled away from Saskatchewan in the third and never looked back.  Laval absolutely destroyed St. FX.  To be honest, not good for the entire association as a whole.  The Vanier Cup better be good for USports’ sake.

Ok I have hit the end.  Such a long post.  But a good one (in my honest opinion).  College football schedule coming up sometime in the next two days and in the usual American Thanksgiving format.  Have a good week everyone!

Where we are headed in college football: Part 1

First of all, this is about the college football landscape five to ten years from now.  It’s a series since there is way too much to put in one post that even I would have trouble reading it all and I am writing the damn post.

Before I begin, I will talk a tiny bit about the Baylor situation.  This is about the best way to show the environment that college football lives in.  The fact that this type of thing happens at all in 2016 shows that many programs have become too strong for their own good.  Like a strong union that will back workers who are complete pieces of shit because hey, we’re a union and we protect everyone.  College football is kind of like that.  They try to circle the wagons a lot.  We need to have some powerful figures inside college football that have actual dignity to call out others on their bullshit.  Not easy to do since it seems like half the head coaches cover up something or other on a regular basis.  Most of it is minor.  This certainly was not.

My opinion is that not only should Art Briles have been fired, but most of the other coaches as well.  There is no way a few other coaches didn’t know what was going on.  Phil Bennett is going to be the interim?  Why?  He probably is almost as guilty as Art is.  (Update: They hired Jim Grobe instead to be the interim head coach.  Very good choice.)  They have this excuse that firing multiple coaches this close to the season would be detrimental to the team.  Well, this cover up is hurting college football in general.  I will get to this in later posts but this will all but guarantee that Baylor will not be invited to sit with the big boys when big changes come to the structure of college football.  Not that they were rock solid before but this is the proverbial nail in the coffin.  Anyway…

On to the work at hand.  College realignment.  We know something big will happen in the next decade.  It’s just a matter of when.  My guess is the dominoes will start to fall sometime between 2021 and 2026.  I know this is a big range but a lot has to do with Grants of Rights and TV contracts.  Some conferences don’t have much in terms of future GOR or TV contracts past 2020 whereas the ACC seems to have “locked down” everyone through the 2026-2027 academic year.  What this means is that whatever happens will be pretty much complete by 2026.

There are various ways this has been looked at.  I will look at four relatively different scenarios and the implications of all of them.

For scenario number one, I will begin with a model brought forth by Stewart Mandel of FOX Sports.  What he did was winnow the current Power 5 conference teams down to 24.  The best of the best.  This way, as he mentioned, almost every game would matter.  It would also mean that these 24 teams (and ONLY these 24 teams) would have an opportunity to play for the national championship.  The idea is intriguing and it would return college football to what it was like in the 60s through the 90s basically when only about that many teams had any legitimate shot at the championship (BYU in 1984 would be the odd team out when it comes to that).

I will take this and take it a bit further.  I think 24 teams would be too elitist.  I believe 32 teams would work in this scenario.  Using Sagarin ratings from 1998 until now (so about 20 years’ worth of data), I would start with the top 24 Power 5 teams overall:

Oklahoma	Ohio State	Florida State	Alabama
USC	Florida	LSU	Oregon
Texas	Georgia	Virginia Tech	Miami
Wisconsin	Nebraska	Auburn	Michigan
Tennessee	Clemson	Kansas State	TCU
Notre Dame	Arkansas	Penn State	Texas A&M

 

So these 24 teams would be automatically in.  The other 8 added in wouldn’t be solely based on Sagarin ratings but also fan base, market, and what they have brought historically to college football.  All these are subjective but I have a feeling it would be difficult to argue that one of the teams not in would be a shoo-in over one of the teams I have in here.  Those eight would be: Michigan State, Stanford, Georgia Tech, UCLA, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, and Iowa.  Sorry Boise State, Utah, Ole Miss, Texas Tech, South Carolina, Missouri and a few others.  We have to stop at some point.

So now we put these teams into four quadrants or divisions or conferences or whatever you want to call them:

West	Midwest	Atlantic	Southeast
USC	Oklahoma	Virginia Tech	Florida State
Oregon	Wisconsin	Tennessee	Alabama
Stanford	Nebraska	Clemson	Florida
UCLA	Kansas State	Penn State	LSU
Arizona State	Notre Dame	West Virginia	Georgia
Texas	Arkansas	Michigan	Miami
TCU	Oklahoma State	Michigan State	Auburn
Texas A&M	Iowa	Ohio State	Georgia Tech

 

There really isn’t a conference there that is weak at all.  Every program’s schedule would look like this:

• Each team plays the seven other teams in their conference
• They play a game against one team in each of the three other conferences
• Two non-top division games against the next tier down (i.e. the Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State)

Basically almost every game would be very important.  The winner of each conference automatically goes to the playoffs.  Since we are heading for an 8-team playoff (don’t deny it, we know it is bound to happen), the next four teams would be the highest ranked four remaining teams.  This way we won’t get a 7-5 team in a conference getting in as an 8-seed.  Certain bowls would have to be kept for some of the other good teams that didn’t make the playoffs as showcase games (kind of like what they do now).  So this is what we would have seen using last year’s results:

Orange Bowl: #1 Clemson vs. #8 Notre Dame

Sugar Bowl: #2 Alabama vs. #7 Ohio State

Rose Bowl: #3 Michigan State vs. #6 Stanford

Cotton Bowl: #4 Oklahoma vs. #5 Iowa

As for who broadcasts what, here is what I envision:

• CBS would get the top game from the Southeast conference. My guess is they would add another game of the week, also involving a Southeast team.
• ABC would get the best game available not involving a Southeast team for their 8:00 broadcast. The Noon and 3:30 games would still exist but would be picked from the remaining games available.
• FOX would get the top game involving a West or Midwest team for their primetime game. They would also receive another game for a late afternoon broadcast.
• ESPN would get the top game from the Atlantic for their 3:30 broadcast. They would also get the best pick of the remaining games for the Noon and 7:00 broadcasts.  They would also get the best game involving a West team after FOX makes their selections for their late night game.
• ESPN2, ESPNU and FOX Sports One would each get up to three games a week.

That would satisfy all the major broadcasters.  Unless NBC does something crazy, I think they may lose the Notre Dame broadcast.  Either that or they keep it and add something else (Atlantic teams perhaps).

For us here in Canada, no real change although getting FOX Sports One might become more of an issue.  Saying that, we would all get most of the games since BTN and the SEC Network would not exist in their current form and wouldn’t be needed nearly as much as they are now.

All this means that football would have to be treated differently than basketball and other sports when it came to conferences.  The reason for this is that the teams that did not “make it” into the top 32 would be relegated (for lack of a better word) to the lower division.  The structure could look something like this:

SEC	Big Ten	Pac-12	ACC	Big XII
Missouri	Minnesota	Utah	Louisville	Texas Tech
South Carolina	Purdue	Oregon State	Boston College	Iowa State
Ole Miss	Northwestern	Washington	NC State	Baylor
Mississippi State	Illinois	California	Virginia	Kansas
Kentucky	Rutgers	Arizona	North Carolina	Houston
Vanderbilt	Indiana	Colorado	Pittsburgh	North Dakota State
Marshall	Navy	Washington State	Maryland	BYU
Southern Miss	Toledo	Boise State	Syracuse	Louisiana Tech
USF	Northern Illinois	San Diego State	Wake Forest	Tulsa
UCF	Bowling Green	Air Force	Duke
		Fresno State	Cincinnati
		Colorado State	East Carolina
Mountain West	American	MAC	Conference USA
Nevada	Connecticut	Northern Iowa	Troy
Hawaii	Georgia Southern	Western Michigan	UAB
Montana	Appalachian State	Miami-Ohio	Western Kentucky
Wyoming	Memphis	Ohio	Arkansas State
New Mexico	Rice	Central Michigan	UL-Lafayette
Utah State	Temple	Ball State	North Texas
San Jose State	Villanova	Akron	South Alabama
South Dakota State	SMU	Kent State	ULM
UNLV	Tulane	Buffalo	Florida Atlantic
UTEP	Massachusetts	Eastern Michigan	Old Dominion
New Mexico State	Army		FIU
UTSA	Middle Tennessee		Texas State
			Georgia State
			Charlotte

As you can see, a few FCS teams will have moved up that belong there like North Dakota State.  Most of the rest have been kept in their current conferences and filled up with from teams with lower conferences, pretty much how realignment has worked.  And also, no more Sun Belt (sorry guys).

I truly believe that we will see this group of teams have a playoff for some sort of championship.  Call if FBS, new FCS, whatever.  It will truly be a consolation prize now since none of these programs will have a hope of moving up into the top tier if it is this exclusive.  I say that now and watch ten years later that exact thing happens and 40 years from now we are back where we started.  The top five conferences would get automatic berths into the new 16-team playoff and the other 11 teams would be selected at-large.

Alright, so that’s that.  Three more scenarios to go all probably as realistic as the others.  College football is “only” 87 days away…well it is for Americans who get FOX Sports One.  For people here who get the specialty pack it’s 88 days since you will get the FCS Opening Day game.  For the rest of you, it’s 93 days until opening Thursday.