College Football 2016

[Dereich]

Honestly I don't know too much outside the ACC and SEC, but it turns out I have a lot to say on the ACC.

ACC:

Atlantic:

Clemson continues to be amazing. They're returning enough on offense, including Watson, to make winning out for them seem almost like a fait accompli. Almost. With what they've lost Clemson this year strikes me as the sort of team that really really can't afford any injuries, especially on their defense. Of course, the risk there is going 11-1 or 10-2 at the worst.

It may be the homer in me talking but I'm buying FSU this year. We return just about as much as Louisville (almost everybody) and getting a year older should improve FSU's biggest offensive sticking points at OL and QB, whether Maguire or Francois end up getting the job. Personally I think Francois is going to end up with the job and while he probably won't be another Jameis he should be much better than what we had last year. Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and say FSU will be the more together team on week 1 and that'll put us over Ole Miss, which should be another great game.

Louisville should do well; with their coach and what they're returning there's no way they wouldn't be good. However, I just don't think they have the raw talent that FSU or Clemson do and won't get their problems sorted out in time to actually have a chance of winning the division.

As for the rest, I think Syracuse is underrated. They played better than their Win/Loss ratio last year and they're returning a lot as well. Plus, their new coach Dino Babers is really good and fun. I never know anything about NC State; they're not interesting to watch and they always seem to go 7-5 though so I think they'll be alright. Boston College is Vandy, but more so. They'll have a top 10 defense, bottom 10 offense. Wake Forest is trash.

1a. Clemson
1b. FSU
3. Louisville
4. Syracuse
5. NC State
6. Boston College
7. Wake Forest

The Atlantic is decided in the FSU-Clemson game (where Clemson is the slightly better team but FSU has home field advantage) and the winner of the Atlantic wins the ACC. I call it now as Clemson winning it all.

Coastal:

The Coastal is a mess, like usual. It feels like every year there's a serious risk that the whole division will go 4-4. UNC was underrated last year, they'll probably stay good enough to win the division this year. Like NC State they're kind of a black hole for me; I don't think I saw any of their games last year besides USC(e) and Clemson. I'm kind of bullish on Miami this year too though; Kaaya is easily the Coastal's best QB and Richt might be able to take advantage of Miami's good recruiting classes in ways Golden couldn't. VT goes in over Pitt because I like VT's coaches and football culture and just don't care for Pitt. Virginia Tech also gets points for having the most redneck game of the year against Tennessee at a NASCAR track. That being said, experts are apparently high on Pitt this year and they DID outperform expectations quite a lot last year. I could see any of these four win the Coastal but will give UNC the benefit of the doubt.

After going from winning the division to winning 3 games (but SOMEHOW beating FSU) I'm terrified of even thinking of Georgia Tech. They might win 2 games or they might go to the playoff. Duke has the advantage of a good coach but they suffer from a bad case of being Duke. Not great recruiting and not great turnover means they'll probably continue to slowly regress towards where they should be as a small, high-standards basketball school. Virginia should improve, but they just start from such a low and with such a crap roster that I think it'll take them a few years to actually show life. At least they're not Wake Forest.

1. UNC
2. Miami
3. VA Tech
4. Pitt
5. Georgia Tech
6. Duke
7. Virginia

[Dereich]

FSU-Ole Miss has been appalling. Just appalling. FSU's much hyped OL (one of the most experienced and best recruited in the nation) has been leaky as a sieve. Our new QB is sloppy and our also much hyped secondary is somehow always allowing at least one player be open for Chad Kelly to throw long to.

I'm going to go...somewhere. Somewhere I don't have to see this for a while. Ugh. Maybe this will be like 2014 where stellar halftime adjustments happen.

EDIT: Five minutes in to the 2nd half. FSU has scored 17 unanswered points. I apologize for everything I said and bow at the feet of Jimbo, ultimate halftime corrector.

[Dereich]

I am very happy. I'll leave it at that.

[Dereich]

PPP included an FBS question in its Florida poll. Here are the responses (numbers from March in parenthesis):

UF: 24 (29)
FSU: 24 (19)
UCF: 11 (12)
Miami: 10 (10)
USF: 7 (5)
The Credit Unions: 4 each (3 FIU, 1 FAU)

I'm always surprised to see UCF above Miami; people I know who went to UCF have led me to believe that most UCF fans only consider themselves fair weather fans and mostly root for UF or a bandwagon team. That there are enough people consistently telling pollsters something to the contrary in what is expected to be a terrible year for the team says to me that there is real potential for a support base if the Big 12 decided to add UCF.

[Dereich]

Ouch.

I'd be (relatively) fine if this happened against Clemson, but Petrino is a scumbag and deserves no good things. Houston/Louisville will now be good enough to get a victorious Houston in the playoff 100%.

[Dereich]

Go Cards!!!

U wanna fite?

[Dereich]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that among our teams only Sandander's team won today...there is no justice in the world.

[Dereich]

This year seems potentially crazy enough that I think there is a reasonable chance that a two-loss team can get into the CFP.  I would not have fired Les Miles at this point if I were Joe Alleva and LSU.  If you brought him back at the end of last year, I would at least give him the year.  He was literally fired because of a tenth of a second!!

They didn't want to keep him last year and he wasn't fired because of this game. If you'll recall, they tried to fire him last year, but an outpouring of fan support, his ridiculous buyout, and divided booster opinions convinced them to give him one more year which was supposed to be better since LSU retained everyone. LSU came out this season looking like it had solved literally none of its problems and seeming to all the world like Les had changed nothing. By firing him now they show potential coaching candidates that they are serious about a change this time and get a leg up on several other high paying schools who will probably fire their coaches in the candidate search.

Over/under on Orgeron straightening out LSU, beating Bama, and still not getting hired for the HC job?

Lol! I'll never forget how despicable USC was for not retaining him, and I hope they continue paying the price for it. The difference here is that he is the hometown kid this time around, so I really hope the attachment takes hold. He's more than earned it over his career.

Extremely sad to see Les go though. Should've taken the Michigan job when he had the chance. I definitely prefer him to Harbaugh.

I just found out that one of LSU's football news sites found out that LSU's AD reached out to Art Briles.

Dear God why. Why would anyone want that man near a college football program again.

Art Briles makes perfect sense! He'd be cheap (important since LSU is still going to be giving boatloads of money to Miles for years to come), he's available (no need to compete with Clemson, FSU, or Houston in a bidding war), and he's an offensive mind who could probably beat Bama. There's no room for weighty moral considerations in the cutthroat SEC West.

[Dereich]

I think there will be real chaos for the selection committee this year, as I don't think there will be 4 undefeated or one-loss teams from P5 conferences, let alone that won conference championships.  Somethingsg controversial will happen- possibly two teams from one conference or a close call with a mid-major.  It probably leads to an expansion to eight teams in a couple years.

Probably not in the near term. The current TV contract makes changing anything before 2026 virtually impossible.

And yes, rooting for a conference is disgusting.

[Dereich]

If A&M beats Bama tomorrow, I like our chances to get two teams in the College Football Playoff.  The SEC West, in my opinion, has six of the top 15-20 teams in the country.  It's not their fault that some of them will have five losses, because someone has to lose their games against each other!  It will be proven, yet again, when the SEC dominates in bowl season, just like last year, when people didn't give us enough respect.  Mississippi St. might not go to a bowl game, even though they are a good enough team to take BYU to overtime in Provo, because their early-season post-Dak growing pains will be too much to overcome in the SEC West.

The other thing that is incredible about this season is the number of brand names in serious jeopardy of not going bowling:

Michigan St.
Notre Dame
Oregon
Mississippi St. (reached #1 just two years ago)
UCLA
Texas

No way the SEC gets two teams from the West in. The committee has made it clear that it values conference champions far above non-champions. No way they put, say, a 1 loss Bama or A&M that doesn't even win its own division over a one loss (or even some 2 loss teams like a 2 loss Wisconsin that won a rematch in the B1G championship) ACC/Big XII/Big 10/Pac-12 champion. Plus, the SEC West just flat out isn't that great this year. It's possibly still the best division in CFB, but the non-conference results (losses by LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State, and wins that were either unimpressive or over unimpressive teams by Arky, Bama, and A&M) definitely make that a debatable proposition.

If they DO let in a non-conference champion, I think that 1 loss Louisville and the loser of the Michigan/tOSU game will have just as good a claim (or better) as the 2nd in the West.

[Dereich]

If A&M beats Bama tomorrow, I like our chances to get two teams in the College Football Playoff.  The SEC West, in my opinion, has six of the top 15-20 teams in the country.  It's not their fault that some of them will have five losses, because someone has to lose their games against each other!  It will be proven, yet again, when the SEC dominates in bowl season, just like last year, when people didn't give us enough respect.  Mississippi St. might not go to a bowl game, even though they are a good enough team to take BYU to overtime in Provo, because their early-season post-Dak growing pains will be too much to overcome in the SEC West.

The other thing that is incredible about this season is the number of brand names in serious jeopardy of not going bowling:

Michigan St.
Notre Dame
Oregon
Mississippi St. (reached #1 just two years ago)
UCLA
Texas

No way the SEC gets two teams from the West in. The committee has made it clear that it values conference champions far above non-champions. No way they put, say, a 1 loss Bama or A&M that doesn't even win its own division over a one loss (or even some 2 loss teams like a 2 loss Wisconsin that won a rematch in the B1G championship) ACC/Big XII/Big 10/Pac-12 champion. Plus, the SEC West just flat out isn't that great this year. It's possibly still the best division in CFB, but the non-conference results (losses by LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State, and wins that were either unimpressive or over unimpressive teams by Arky, Bama, and A&M) definitely make that a debatable proposition.

If they DO let in a non-conference champion, I think that 1 loss Louisville and the loser of the Michigan/tOSU game will have just as good a claim (or better) as the 2nd in the West.

Let me give you a hypothetical from last year:

Arkansas fails to convert on the 4th & 25 miracle flip in Oxford.  Ole Miss wins the West with 2 losses.  Alabama was already inside the top 4.  Do you really think they would have dropped Alabama out?  My understanding is that conference championships are essentially used as tiebreakers, and I think that, sooner or later, a conference will get two of the four (which will probably lead to expansion, just like when Alabama and LSU had their 2011 rematch).  Assuming Ole Miss beat a reeling Florida team in the SEC Championship Game, what do you think would have happened?

Easy, we get a post-championship ranking of

1.Clemson (13-0)
2. Michigan State (12-1)
3. Ole Miss(11-2)
4. Oklahoma (11-1)
-------
5. Alabama (11-1)
6. Iowa (12-1)
7. Stanford (10-2)

SEC/ACC/B1G winners get in easy. Pac-12 winner has 2 losses, is out. So it's down to two 11-1 teams, regular ol' Bama and Big XII winner Oklahoma. The committee flat out isn't putting a 1 loss team which couldn't even win its division over another team with the same record but who was a conference champion. Plus, Oklahoma has a few other things to boost it up like its only loss being a close one in a major rivalry against another blueblood and being widely seen as much improved over the year; remember, Oklahoma went in to the playoffs favored against Clemson and seen by Vegas as the best shot at beating Bama.

Bama fans probably hiss and holler and I'm sure Finebaum's show would be full of BILE but you have to remember that the playoff was created because the outrage over the Bama-LSU championship was so bad that the government was threatening the NCAA. The committee would be faced with two teams with strong arguments with the very likely threat of backlash if they ignored the championship tiebreaker.

The only scenario where I can see 2 from a single conference getting in is if that 4 vs 5 is a "weak" 10-3 or 11-2 champion vs a clearly top 2 11-1. I doubt it'll happen any time soon.

[Dereich]

While we're talking about interesting scenarios, what does the committee do if the champions look like this?

ACC: undefeated Clemson
Pac-12: Undefeated Washington
B1G: 1-loss tOSU
Big XII: Undefeated WVU
SEC: Undefeated Alabama

All of these teams are good enough at their best to not lose any more games. I'm sure there would be serious pressure on the committee to include the B1G champion, especially when its an Ohio State that has looked really good, but do y'all think they would really slight an undefeated P5 champion to do so?

[Dereich]

Tennessee losing and ceding the East's crown (as well as any claim to being a good football team) to Florida, I assume.

[Dereich]

Tennessee losing and ceding the East's crown (as well as any claim to being a good football team) to Florida, I assume.

I'm not a Tennessee fan and pretty much laughed for the fourth quarter of that game.  The SEC East is a big mess right now.  I think Florida will lose both games at West opponents, though, which will give them three losses.  But, I don't trust Tennessee to run the table of Mizzou/Kentucky/Vandy.  It's actually realistic that Kentucky could win the East.  And, with just three losses, if Vandy somehow ran the table, even they could.  It really seems like no one wants to win that division (which only has one crossover win against the West all season).

In the West, Ole Miss is now in serious jeopardy of missing out on a bowl game.  They will likely need to beat both Vandy in Nashville and Mississippi St. in Oxford the last two weeks to get to six wins.

If not Tennessee, who is your team?

[Dereich]

C L E M S O N

Reminder: Last year Bama beat Clemson partly due to the momentum shift from an onside kick. This year? Clemson used an onside to seal the deal.

[Dereich]

The odds are already out for next year. Alabama is, like normal, the prohibitive favorite. Our shiny new national champions are down at number 10; the amount of talent they'll be losing plus stiff competition in America's best conference means they're not currently favored to repeat in the ACC championship, let alone the playoffs.