Dolfan in NYC Posted August 20 Posted August 20 It did always feel weird having a thread for a whole week for one or two games... ONE TIME ONLY (IN 2024). PRE-SEASON RANKINGZ~ #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 FSU/Georgia Tech kicks off the season live on Saturday from Dublin, Ireland! Next thread after Labor Day! Woo football!
RIPPA Posted August 20 Posted August 20 Delaware St plays Hawaii in Hawaii on Saturday They were supposed to leave today but missed their flight (which is 10 1/2 hours) because they had a bus "snafu" getting to JFK airport The school is now "working on a plan" to get the team to Hawaii
Pete Posted August 20 Posted August 20 1 hour ago, RIPPA said: Delaware St plays Hawaii in Hawaii on Saturday They were supposed to leave today but missed their flight (which is 10 1/2 hours) because they had a bus "snafu" getting to JFK airport The school is now "working on a plan" to get the team to Hawaii I would be ready to strangle whoever caused the "snafu" if it cost me a trip to Hawaii. Yeesh.
Brian Fowler Posted August 21 Posted August 21 We've got a pretty open Heisman race and a completely new landscape, no Nick Saban, no Jim Harbaugh, and this new fangled full playoff thing. Gonna be weird seeing Big Ten patches on UCLA jerseys and such. 1
EVA Posted August 22 Posted August 22 LET’S GO. I have a lot of thoughts about this new season that I’m sure I’ll be blabbering about piecemeal over the next couple weeks. But to start with, I thought it would be good to check on the reigning Most Accurate predictor of who can Actually Win the National Title—Bud Elliot’s Blue Chip Ratio (spoilers for size): Spoiler SCHOOL BCR Ohio State 90% Alabama 88% Georgia 80% Texas A&M 79% Oregon 76% Oklahoma 73% Texas 72% LSU 70% Notre Dame 67% Clemson 64% Florida 63% Miami 61% Penn State 61% USC 59% Michigan 56% Auburn 53% For the past two seasons, a usurper has gotten close (TCU, Washington were non-BCR teams) but both were ultimately handily beaten by Georgia and Michigan in the end. Expansion of the playoffs to 12 teams makes it likely that more non-BCR teams will be in the mix at the end of the year…but they’ll also have to play more games against BCR teams to win it all, so weirdly I think the odds of a non-BCR team winning the natty has actually gone down. As always, what’s predictive about BCR is being over the 50% threshold (having your roster be majority players rated 5* and 4* out of high school). Having a higher percentage does *NOT* necessarily mean you have a higher chance of wining than any other BCR team (though it certainly doesn’t hurt!). Two key factors that tend to help lower ranked BCR teams make up the difference with teams at the top: 1) a star QB, and 2) having your 5* and 4* be experienced veterans. Last season, Michigan (54% BCR in 2023) checked both of those boxes and overcame quite a lot of adversity to go undefeated and win it all. If you’re looking for teams who could pull a similar trick this year, try Penn State (veterans) or Clemson (veterans, Cade Klubnik finally???).
EVA Posted August 22 Posted August 22 (edited) Oh, and if you’re trying to narrow that list down, I would feel comfortable striking Auburn, USC, Miami, Florida, and Texas A&M from the list of BCR teams that have a credible shot at it. All are in some state of disrepair and/or rebuild and are at least a year off from being a great team. And quite possibly never will be (*cough* Miami under Mario*cough*). Edited August 22 by EVA 1
Dolfan in NYC Posted August 22 Author Posted August 22 (Boy the writer sure picked a hell of an opening sentence for that article...)
Brian Fowler Posted August 22 Posted August 22 One of my favorite subplots: in this new world of giant conferences and no divisions with wildly unbalanced schedules, the two preseason favorites and top ranked teams, Georgia and Ohio State, both somehow drew games against the next three highest ranked teams in their respective conferences. And to make it even harder, of those combined six games, five of them are on the road (Ohio State gets Michigan at home.) Just a brutal top three conference games. Florida ends their season with maybe the toughest five game regular season gauntlet in college football history. Oklahoma has good opponents nearly every week. Michigan plays the three of the top four preseason ranked teams, though at least Texas and Oregon are in Ann Arbor. On the far other end, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights skip Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, and Michigan. In fact, they only have one currently ranked opponent on their schedule, USC.
RIPPA Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Quick follow-up Delaware St did indeed arrive in Hawaii It required 3 separate flights (the reason they were flying out of JFK and not Philly or Baltimore was they wanted a direct flight. So much for that idea) It appears that the "snafu" was the bus company flat out forgot to reserve the buses 2
EVA Posted August 23 Posted August 23 17 hours ago, Brian Fowler said: One of my favorite subplots: in this new world of giant conferences and no divisions with wildly unbalanced schedules, the two preseason favorites and top ranked teams, Georgia and Ohio State, both somehow drew games against the next three highest ranked teams in their respective conferences. And to make it even harder, of those combined six games, five of them are on the road (Ohio State gets Michigan at home.) Just a brutal top three conference games. Florida ends their season with maybe the toughest five game regular season gauntlet in college football history. Oklahoma has good opponents nearly every week. Michigan plays the three of the top four preseason ranked teams, though at least Texas and Oregon are in Ann Arbor. On the far other end, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights skip Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, and Michigan. In fact, they only have one currently ranked opponent on their schedule, USC. Yeah, I wish I had more time to play the schedule game and project everybody’s win totals this year (and I guess I still essentially have a week to work through that, maybe), but the scheduling idiosyncrasies this season create some potential for interesting movement up and down the conference standings. Heres an interesting one to watch: Iowa misses all the good teams in the B1G besides Ohio State. If the Buckeyes, Oregon, Penn State, and Michigan all chew each other up during the regular season, it’s entirely possible that you see 10+ win Iowa sitting in the B1G title game again, as if the B1G West never went away.
Raziel Posted August 23 Posted August 23 It's making me wonder how long the "no division" B1G and B12 Conferences last because of the schedule disparity (like I know, say, Rutgers wants to win more than 4 games a season, but they're sure as hell gonna miss the ticket sales not having UM, tOSU, and PSU hit Piscataway every other year). But, the rivalry games mean more to the conferences than spreading the games out, I suppose. The B1G Championship games would've been better since instead of a mid tier team getting blown out by UoM or tOSU, USC and Oregon are right there now.
Dolfan in NYC Posted August 23 Author Posted August 23 Miami of Ohio's coach is accusing Alabama of tampering (and "stealing") their award winning place kicker Graham Nicholson https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5717010/2024/08/22/miami-ohio-alabama-chuck-martin-graham-nicholson/ I'm not even sure how this would work any more, but technically Nicholson entered the protocol~ and moved to Bama.
EVA Posted August 23 Posted August 23 I respect his willingness to name names, as opposed to most coaches who will mealy-mouth around their portal/NIL frustrations. 1
BobbyWhioux Posted August 23 Posted August 23 eventually all the legacy powerhouses will coalesce into a new Division I and the rest of current Division I will become a new Division 2, as your Vanderbilts (et al) get squeezed out of the SEC proper to facilitate these new marquee matchups. Or they just splinter away from the NCAA entirely. Which I for one would welcome, naturally. #Pac-10VengeanceFromBeyondTheGrave Until then, may these overlarge conferences where it's impossible for everyone to play each other usher in a new golden era of "they never played us!" Disputed Championships 1
EVA Posted August 23 Posted August 23 I think most of what the Big 12 has been up to over the past year (including currently wooing Florida State and Clemson) has been to set themselves up as the obvious landing spot for the schools that get left behind in the inevitable top-end B1G/SEC/Notre Dame merger. Making themselves the clear 2nd-tier in CFB. The EFL Championship beneath the B1G/SEC/ND Premier League, basically.
Brian Fowler Posted August 23 Posted August 23 One more thought that's been playing in my mind this off-season: As you may or may not know/recall, the Big 12 TV contract runs through this season (they've already signed their new one) and Texas and Oklahoma were originally slated to have one more awkward lame duck season before finally moving to the SEC next year. Last summer, after negotiations for the early exit initially broke down they finally cut a deal that involved Michigan agreeing to swap their home and home with Texas so that Texas comes to AA this year and Michigan goes to Auburn in 2027, letting Fox keep the big marquee game this year. Texas then went out, had their best season in well over a decade, and now enter this season as a legit national title contender, the first time people have felt that way about them in a very long time. And I have to wonder, if you could get truth serum in them, if Sark, the AD, and others might not be wishing they hadn't cut that deal. They wouldn't have Georgia looming the week after the Red River Shootout, they'd be an overwhelming favorite in the conference, their potential conference championship game would be much easier on paper, and even the game against Michigan would be at home and quite possibly the first ever road start for Alex Orji. That's a team with a clear path to a first round bye and maybe the number one seed. The new format means they still have an excellent shot to get into the playoffs even with a couple losses, but damn this season is a lot tougher than it could've been.
EVA Posted August 24 Posted August 24 21 hours ago, EVA said: I think most of what the Big 12 has been up to over the past year (including currently wooing Florida State and Clemson) has been to set themselves up as the obvious landing spot for the schools that get left behind in the inevitable top-end B1G/SEC/Notre Dame merger. Making themselves the clear 2nd-tier in CFB. The EFL Championship beneath the B1G/SEC/ND Premier League, basically. To wit:
hammerva Posted August 24 Posted August 24 Florida State pulling out the Swinging Gate 2 point conversion after a TD on the first drive of the game. And just like that make no mistake about: COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS BACK 2
EVA Posted August 24 Posted August 24 Georgia Tech is not gonna play a lick of defense, but they are going to RUN THE DAMN DALL on people this year. They quietly put together their first winning season since 2018 doing just that last year, and they bring most of that offense back. They’re basically like a single wing team with Haynes King at QB.
Raziel Posted August 24 Posted August 24 4 minutes ago, EVA said: Georgia Tech is not gonna play a lick of defense, but they are going to RUN THE DAMN DALL on people this year. They quietly put together their first winning season since 2018 doing just that last year, and they bring most of that offense back. They’re basically like a single wing team with Haynes King at QB. GT's line is begging to differ. Their secondary agrees, but the line is trying.
EVA Posted August 24 Posted August 24 Good news for GT is that FSU clearly does not trust DJU to throw the ball more than 5 years downfield just yet. FSU receivers vs. GT secondary should be a big mismatch, but if the QB doesn’t let you exploit the mismatch, the talent disparity flattens out. Long way of saying “yikes.”
EVA Posted August 24 Posted August 24 GT run game is so fun to watch. 14 plays, 8 minutes off the clock, 7 points.
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