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NCAA 2022 - WEEK THIRTEEN


Dolfan in NYC

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The least rivalry-ish games this week

Leaving Big 12 aside since there’s a reason why Bedlam isn’t played one week before their title game..

Tulane vs Cincy and Fresno State vs Wyoming on Friday.

Georgia State/Marshall, Coastal Carolina/James Madison, Western Kentucky/Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee State/Florida International, Old Dominion/South Alabama, Troy/Arkansas State, UAB/Louisiana Tech, Memphis/SMU, Southern Miss/LA Monroe, Texas State/LA Lafayette, App State/GA Southern

Cincy is about to go to the Big 12 so maybe they get to play WV in Rivalry Week soon. Not sure if Tulane has a natural rival aside from apathy. In the future, Rice/Tulane in a rivalry of schools that used to be much more prestigious in football.

I think the closest school to Wyoming in the MWC is Colorado State. CSU is playing New Mexico this week. There’s 12 Mountain West teams, 8 are playing within their divisions and the rest is Fresno/Wyoming and SDSU/Air Force

The Sun Belt is on here over and over. The naturalish geographic rivalries appear to be: South Alabama/Troy, Georgia State/Georgia Southern, James Madison/Old Dominion, LA Lafayette/LA Monroe, then the other 6 are on their own to figure things out (Coastal, App State, Marshall, Southern Miss, Texas State, Arkansas State)

Conference USA is about to lose half the conference. I guess out of the 2023 lineup, Western Kentucky is closest to Middle Tennessee State. Florida Atlantic is leaving. Florida International has no 2023 rivalry partner. Not sure if they’re gonna act like UTEP/Sam Houston is a late November kind of game. North Texas/UTSA makes sense as a 2023 game in the American. Or UTSA/Rice and North Texas/SMU. Or maybe Memphis/Tulane if we’re inventing rivalries based on the quality of local food/music. For all we know, CUSA won’t exist for football soon.

Of future moves, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Liberty Fightin Falwells jump from CUSA quickly. There’s probably good reasons why they didn’t go Sun Belt. But who’s their rival anyways?

I guess we could get Charlotte/ECU late in the season soon. UAB in the American isn’t actually close to other conference members. Temple is sorta on their own island as long as someone insists they keep playing FBS football.

Now that being covered… complaints about which games are being played on Saturday as opposed to Friday. (Kidding)

Although the whole “stacking the weekend after Thanksgiving with rivalry games” concept isn’t as old as it seems because if you look at old schedules, you’ll see examples of current rivalry games played on different weeks, and maybe conference title games reign in some of the temptation to play Hawaii in non-conference on the first Saturday of December.

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App State vs. Georgia Southern is actually a huge rivalry dating back to their years in FCS together. They HATE each other.

Tulane’s primary rival used to be Southern Miss, but that ended when Tulane jumped to the AAC. They still play intermittently, as they did this year when USM handed them a shocking loss.

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I actually remember when the Iron Bowl was played on the weekend before Thanksgiving, and it was considered a really big deal when it moved (because other SEC teams believed it gave Bama and Auburn an unfair bye week prior to the new SEC championship game). People were worried it would ruin Thanksgiving for families with split loyalties because tensions would be running hot ahead of the game.

Edited by EVA
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I still give the B1G credit for at least semi-successfully manufacturing a Michigan State/Penn State rivalry out of thin air when PSU joined in the mid-90's. Based on, of all things, being two of the first land grant colleges in America.

They've played it enough times on rivalry week that it just kinda feels right now.

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1 hour ago, EVA said:

I actually remember when the Iron Bowl was played on the weekend before Thanksgiving

The Iron Bowl was played between November 26th and December 4th from 1948 to 1992. So the SEC title game directly got that game bumped up. Then it got bumped to 4th Saturday in 2007.

Reading Wikipedia, there was a period of time when the Border War was played outside of November once the Big 12 started (like in 1997 when the Border War was played on September 13th so that Mizzou closed the year with Baylor and KU closed with Texas) but it drifted back to November by 2004/2006.

Army/Navy was being played on the same day as other games for awhile, the last November Army/Navy game was 1983 in Pasadena and it moved from first Saturday to 2nd Saturday in 2009.

Looking at the 'Official Collegiate Football Guide' for 1972 ( https://archive.org/details/official-collegiate-football-guide-1972-c ) and here's how the schedule broke down back in the old days

On Thanksgiving: Nebraska/Oklahoma, Texas/Texas A&M

Last Saturday of November: Arizona/Arizona State, Clemson/SC, Florida/LSU, Harvard/Yale, Iowa/Illinois, Miami/Maryland, Egg Bowl, Border War, UNC/East Carolina, Ohio State/Michigan, Oklahoma State/Iowa State, Penn State/Pitt, Purdue/Indiana, Rice/TCU, SMU/Baylor, Tennessee/Kentucky, Texas Tech/Arkansas, Wisconsin/Minnesota

Then the first Saturday of December: Iron Bowl, Baylor/Rice, Boston College/Holy Cross, Florida/Miami, Georgia/Georgia Tech, Hawaii/Stanford, Army/Navy, Bedlam, San Diego State/Iowa State, USC/Notre Dame, TCU/SMU, Tulane/LSU, and Vandy/Tennessee.

With a Florida/UNC game scheduled for December 9th, 1972 in Jacksonville for some reason.

Conference title games probably condensed the end of year rivalry games into the last weekend of November instead of having some of them bleed over to December 2nd.

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USC/UCLA was in December from 2004-2008 but was in November before that. With USC/Notre Dames in LA taking the last weekend every other year.

UCLA not playing football until 1919 means that there have been more Central/Western Michigan games than USC/UCLA, same for New Mexico State/UTEP.

We're a few years from finding out if Oklahoma/Texas going to the SEC means that we get Texas/A&M back, and if Oklahoma gets to play LSU or smoke Mizzou after Thanksgiving every year. Depends on how much people actually value Arkansas/Mizzou. Obviously nothing will match Border War for the sheer amount of edgy chuds using Civil War references to talk about the games.

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3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

thanks to the ESPN scroll, I am now aware that Ed McCaffrey was the coach at Northern Colorado (he was fired today)

That jerkwad once blocked a 3-point shot attempt of mine in a Broncos vs Faculty basketball game back when I was a teacher. 

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Speaking of former NFL wide receivers who coach college teams, my... Is it still your alma mater if you didn't finish? Anyway, Alma College is hosting a second round playoff game Saturday against Aurora who is coached by Don Beebe.

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So I was listening to Split Zone Duo’s Coaching SZN show yesterday, and they had some interesting insight/conjecture regarding the Kiffin leak Monday night:

Basically, what they KNOW is that Auburn is pretty far down the road with Kiffin, but that new AD Cohen has some concerns about him and wants to thoroughly vet him before a deal is officially offered. However, this process is moving much more slowly than the pro-Kiffin Auburn boosters would like. Most want the new coach in place after the Iron Bowl.

The IMPLICATION is that the story about Kiffin resigning after the Egg Bowl was leaked by the pro-Kiffin Auburn boosters in an attempt to put pressure on the parties involved to speed up the process.

The important note that makes all that hang together is that the Mississippi journalist who broke the Kiffin story also broke the news of Cohen being hired as AD. So there’s definitely reason to believe this journalist is an Auburn media asset.

I’ve felt like Kiffin was most likely the hire from the start, and I still think he’ll be the guy in the end. Probably as soon as this weekend. But Kiffin is mercurial and Cohen has a reputation for being…a little odd, so it’ll be interesting to see if this leak has the opposite effect of its intention.

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For me, it feels like Kiffin or bust, but it also feels like the BoT are determined to get the flashiest hire possible this time. I'm not in love with any other options to the point that I could be talked into the Cadillac Williams experiment if Kiffin says no.

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The SZD guys definitely think that it’s Kiffin or bust right now. If that deal falls through, they will likely reset the search. The only other comparable name they’ve heard coming up consistently with Auburn is Sonny Dykes, and obviously they would have to wait at least another week to talk to him, if not more depending on if TCU makes the playoffs.

And, really, that seems to be the zeitgeist right now, after last year’s run of USC, LSU, and Miami poaching sitting head coaches of major programs. If you’re a big-time program (and Auburn is), the feeling is you should be making waves and snatching big-time coaches to reinforce your bonafides.

That said…If the search has to go past Kiffin, I think it has the potential to get real weird. Just look at Cohen’s two football hires at Mississippi State. A definite outside-the-box thinker.

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Well, I’ll say this: Kiffin is a great hire for Auburn on the field. He will have them competing at the level they want in a hurry.

However, I do think there are some things with Kiffin personality-wise that could cause some friction at a place like Auburn. Chief among them: he has a pathological need to feel wanted. All the time. So, while Auburn is a great job that most people wouldn’t consider leaving (has anyone ever left of their own accord? Certainly not in modern times), you can bet your ass that he’s going to have his name in every major CFB job that comes open, and probably some NFL jobs, too.

And I think, over time, that has the potential to start rubbing a lot of people at Auburn the wrong way. Because Auburn—more so than any other CFB program of comparable stature—REALLY needs to feel like their coach believes in Auburn and loves it as much as they do. If you want to understand why Harsin was being ousted after one middling season, that’s why. If you want to understand why the Auburn Family has gone multi-orgasmic over Cadillac eeking out a win over a horrible A&M team and besting a CUSA opponent, that’s why. One makes them believe and one didn’t.

When you take the Auburn HC job, whether you realize it or not, you’re signing up to be both their ball coach and their pastor.

And that is not who Kiffin is.

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wait Ole Miss is in the Jimbo Fisher sweepstakes?   First of all get in line because half of the state of West Virginia is begging for him and there will be opening in about 4 days.  more importantly expect for his 1st 4 or 5 years at Florida State he has been extremely mid

Edited by hammerva
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Unrelated to coaching searches: I get that they were blown out in both their losses, and that the South Carolina one in particular was awful... But if I were Tennessee I would be pissed to look at the CFP rankings and see a team with the same record as me, that I beat head to head, ranked 3 spots ahead of me, and I would be PISSED to see a team with the same record as me, that I beat in their building by 27 points ranked five spots ahead of me.

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4 hours ago, hammerva said:

wait Ole Miss is in the Jimbo Fisher sweepstakes?   First of all get in line because half of the state of West Virginia is begging for him and there will be opening in about 4 days.  more importantly expect for his 1st 4 or 5 years at Florida State he has been extremely mid

No they’re saying that Kirin is going to be the next Jimbo, overpaid and underachieving 

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