2013 NCAA Football Thread

[ummmm........]

The SEC releases its new bowl schedule for 2014-2019. It's pretty confusing.

Playoffs: From zero to two SEC teams will likely be in the playoffs each year.

Sugar: The Sugar will host the 'Champions Bowl', featuring the highest ranked teams from the SEC and Big XII after the playoff teams have been determined. I'm not clear on whether the Champions Bowl will be played in years that the Sugar is in the playoff rotation. I don't think it will be played in those years, but I haven't seen anything that actually says so.

Orange: After the Sugar slot(s?) is/are? filled, the Orange will select from the remaining SEC teams, or could choose a team from the Big Ten or Notre Dame, but it must pick an SEC team in three of the next twelve years.

Capital One: The Capital One picks next, and it is now the only non-playoff affiliated bowl that still gets to pick its SEC team.

The next six: After the Capital One makes its pick, the Outback, Music City, Gator, Liberty, Texas and Belk bowl will 'consult' with the league office and eligible teams to assign participants to these games.

Birmingham Bowl: If anyone's left, the Birmingham Bowl gets to pick an SEC team.

Shreveport: If anyone's left after that, Shreveport gets them.

The main change is that there's no longer a pecking order for those middle six bowls. Teams will be assigned by the league office, based primarily on financial considerations.

The other change is that the Liberty now features a Big XII team instead of the CUSA champ, which is what allowed it to pass the Birmingham Bowl into the pool of six. The Birmingham Bowl will continue to feature a Big East (AAC) team. That gives us two bowl opponents from the Big XII now, which is an improvement. Still no Pac-12 matchup in bowl season Another change is that now a lot of the bowls that used to be ACC or Big Ten tie-ins are now ACC/Big Ten tie-ins, but I don't imagine that will make much practical difference in who we play . . .

In other news:

Local boy done good Jameis Winston doesn't want Manziel disease. It's a buzzworthy quote, but in reality he was led into it by the reporter . . .

And SportsNation has spoken! Play Manziel ! ! !

 

[ummmm........]

Saban seems awfully concerned about that O-line after the first scrimmage. LG and RT have switched spots, and the 2nd LT has moved to TE. We don't really have a big body in the TE/H-back group for goal line and whatnot. Malcolm Faciane is back from his 30-day suspension, but I don't know how much he'll help out . . .

Speaking of suspensions, ILB Trey DePriest is suspended for 'at least a week'. He finished 2nd in total tackles last year . . .

'Medically disqualified' offensive lineman Caleb Gulledge has turned up at Jax State. He says it was his decision to leave Alabama, where he would have qualified for a medical scholarship. Still suspicious though . . .

Word clouds! Anonymous opinions from current players about the first word(s) that come to their minds about other conferences . . .

And here's a neat article from Ted Miller about why the SEC is better than everyone else

EDIT: As an Alabama fan, it's mind-bending to listen to Spurrier talk about his 'injured' players and what they do during practice. For better or worse, under Saban there is never any question about what anyone is supposed to be doing at any given time . . .

 

[downtown]

Those medical disqualifications are always sketchy as heck, but Saban has to get under the cap every year, doesn't he? Funny how those turn up.

One of BYU' starting defensive backs is out for the season, and I believe 5 members of that unit are either injured or have otherwise left the team...and defensive back was probably their weakest unit BEFORE injuries. It's too bad, since on paper, the squad probably had a top 10 total defense (it was one of the best in CFB last year, even adjusted for schedule and pace), and with games against Texas, Notre Dame, Boise State and Wisconsin, there was potential for them to make some serious national noise. Now...probably not. 7 or 8 wins and a "meh" bowl seems most likely.

 

[MacAttack]

A bit off topic, <<fanboy hat on>> but really loving this JFF mag cover!

 

[mrt144]

dear god

 

[MacAttack]

Just saw this on USA Today's ForTheW!N blog (loving their reaction):

Texas Monthly is a magazine that covers all things Texas. We here at For the Win have been staring at this cover for roughly two hours, mesmerized and perplexed by it.

Some observations:

1. This magazine sounds insane and awesome. &#8220;When Doves Fry&#8221; is the name of one of the articles? WHEN DOVES FRY?

2. This magazine claims to be the &#8220;National Magazine of Texas&#8221; which is so loaded and wonderful it&#8217;s almost too good to be true. Of course it&#8217;s the &#8220;national&#8221; magazine of Texas.

3. &#8220;Boots, Purses, Banjos and Guns&#8221; is a near-perfect headline for an article. Those are four things that I want to read about, right there, in order. For the Win needs to hire the Texas Monthly headline writer and we needed to do it yesterday.

4. If you imagine &#8220;Texas Monthly&#8221; as a play off the old Friday Night Lights adage, &#8220;Texas Forever,&#8221; it gets even funnier. Texas Forever? Nah. Texas Monthly.

Notice here that we have not even begun to discuss the cover story yet. This is just the appetizer of this magazine cover.

Let&#8217;s get to the main course.

1. It appears Manziel took off from midfield here. Did this happen during a game? Football buffs: what is the ruling on this play here? If you spontaneously turn into a rocket and erupt into the upper atmosphere with the football, is that considered unsportsmanlike conduct?

2. Also, if this happened in a game, where is his helmet?

3. Dropping a bleeped-out curse word in the headline of your cover story? Texas Monthly Headline Writer, YOU DID IT AGAIN.

4. A suggested caption from the group: &#8220;This photo was taken mere moments before Johnny Football realized he was not, in fact, a rocket, and began his calamitous descent back to earth.&#8221;

 

[dgfred]

Haha... toss him a few bucks and maybe he will sign the mag for you .

I am kind of hoping he does play and gets smashed.

 

[ummmm........]

I'm kind of doubting he'll play at this point, but I echo For the Win's reaction to that cover . . .

Conferences are following the NCAA's lead and not renewing any licensing agreements with EA. Individual schools can still enter into agreements if they so choose, and it looks like most will . . .

With TJ Yeldon's appearance on one of the regional covers for SI's CFB preview this week, Alabama's last five starting RBs have appeared on an SI cover at least once during their time at Alabama . . .

ESPN article on the ever-increasing challenge of going undefeated, and what that might mean to the selection committee . . .

 

[downtown]

I think it is entirely premature to guess whether every school is going to be in the game. Really, you only need a small number of schools to bail before the entire project is essentially worthless, and losing all of the conferences is already a significant blow. I've been told that Stanford, Kansas, and at least one B1G school is seriously considering not doing it. Nobody was really expecting a conference to bail, and they probably all will at this point.

 

[MacAttack]

Standford, Kansas and at least one big ten school are a small price to pay for us to be able to have draft classes to import into Madden

 

[ummmm........]

Pretty much all of VaTech's starting lineup is out for game one vs. Alabama. I hope this doesn't become a trend throughout the year . . .

 

[downtown]

Standford, Kansas and at least one big ten school are a small price to pay for us to be able to have draft classes to import into Madden

So Kokatu is saying that only one major school will not be the in game next year, AND that the SEC WILL be (although the Big Ten and Pac-12 will not), despite the SEC's comments to ESPN. Personally, I'm skeptical of this news, because I know there are multiple ADs right now who are not finished with their legal review. I know the University of Washington recommended to their staff to NOT continue with the game, but we don't know if they'll follow that recommendation. I suspect that if we lose teams, they will either be very small schools, B1G, or Pac12

Pretty much all of VaTech's starting lineup is out for game one vs. Alabama. I hope this doesn't become a trend throughout the year . . .

Yeah, it's really too bad. That was probably going to be a Bama +28 win even if everybody was healthy, but if those injuries pile up, Va Tech might just be a .500 team again, and this will be even more of a boring blowout.

 

[MacAttack]

Well as much as I love playing the NCAA Football franchise's Online Dynasty (works great since my brother is a Longhorn) I have a feeling that next year's game will be the last. I hate this feeling, but I really hope I am wrong.

the NCAA is so poorly run, they are making FIFA and Sepp Blatter look good. :suicide:

 

[downtown]

I don't disagree that the NCAA is a mess...we're going to see some pretty big changes this January (although probably not D4 in football) , but complaints about the video games technically has nothing to do with the NCAA. Schools and conferences make the decision to license independently. BLAME DELANY

 

[MacAttack]

BLAME DELANY

Way ahead of ya

 

[downtown]

Bucks pick up the 2nd best player in NY, a 4/5 star RB/S with a 4.36 40 and an ALABAMA OFFER (swoon).

The amount of speed...dare I say..SEC speed, that has been accumulated at offensive skill positions and along the defensive line for the Buckeyes has been nuts.

 

[ummmm........]

Bucks pick up the 2nd best player in NY, a 4/5 star RB/S with a 4.36 40 and an ALABAMA OFFER (swoon).

atpatpat Rivals doesn't show him with an Alabama offer, but we'll let y'all have it. In any event, he wasn't among our top ten targets remaining on the board . . .

The amount of speed...dare I say..SEC speed, that has been accumulated at offensive skill positions and along the defensive line for the Buckeyes has been nuts.

That Meyer always could recruit. And now that he's in the Big Ten he's got a much easier path to a conference title and playoff berth. I added the D-line emphasis because that's always been the real difference between the SEC and everybody else. One of the preseason articles from ESPN Stats & Info compared weights and 40s of players over the past how ever many seasons and SEC D linemen were found to be both the biggest and the fastest. A bit of a lethal combo . . .

In other news, the wait list for Alabama season tickets would be the 16th largest city in the state, according to the Wall Street Journal . . .

 

[ummmm........]

Shocker! Alabama's first in the AP, with 58 of sixty votes. Ohio State and Georgia got the other two . . .

Alabama has now been ranked 1st in at least one AP poll for six straight seasons, which has only happened once before since 1936. Miami managed the same feat for seven seasons from '86-'92 . . .

The top five are Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, Stanford and Georgia . . .

No preseason #1 has won the title since '04 USC . . .

Here's the complete poll. The SEC has four of the top seven, five of the top ten and six of the top twelve. After that, only one other SEC team received any votes . . .

As with the coaches' poll, Alabama plays only two ranked teams, both in the top twelve for the AP. Our only other two opponents who received votes are VaTech and Ole Miss . . .

EDIT: Alabama hasn't been a preseason AP #1 since 2010, which ended with three losses . . .

If Alabama, Ohio State and Oregon/Stanford all go undefeated, who ya got?

Two very real chances for two of those top six SEC teams to drop in week one btw, #5 Georgia at #8 Clemson and #12 LSU vs. #20 TCU in the Cowboys Classic . . .

Going by the preseason poll, there are exactly two top twenty-five matchups each week in weeks 1-3 before everyone goes powderpuff in week 4 . . .

Every other week of the season features between 2-4 top twenty-five matchups until week 13, which has only one -- LSU/A&M -- and week 14, which features six. Championship Saturday in week 15 already has one marquee game in Okie/Okie State. Of course all that's based on the preseason rankings and will change week to week, but it's interesting how they somehow manage to spread all those big time games out so evenly across the season. It's almost like they plan it . . .

Here's the ballot from Birmingham's AP voter -- one of two from Alabama. He be hatin' yo! He be hatin' ! ! !

 

[downtown]

I believe an LSU voter gave Georgia his vote. We haven't located the OSU guy yet.

I don't get an AP vote, but if I did, I would not have voted Ohio State second.

 

[ummmm........]

Georgia seems nuts to me, but there are a lot of different styles of voting. There's no way Georgia gets through that schedule with what they have on defense. Four top twelve opponents, two of them in the first two weeks . . .

Does the AP typically give votes to members with established allegiances? I know the Birmingham voter is notoriously neutral in the world of college football -- and is often accused of being an Auburn fan because of it. He's also a Heisman voter, and I assumed that was for the same reason -- his public neutrality. It always seemed to me that he cultivates that neutrality for exactly that reason. He's known for being a fan of the Dolphins, the Nationals and golf. Lots and lots of golf . . .