NCAA Football Thread - 2024

[Quintillus]

It's the first full Saturday of the season, and you know what that means - lots of competition for the Firaxis Civ VII announcement, and playing a few turns of Civ during the commercials.

Haven't seen any big surprises yet. I watched Ohio State fall behind Akron, as always, but come back and win, as always-since-1894 (but Akron had John Heisman coaching their team in 1894, so not winning then is somewhat understandable). Georgia also had first-half jitters but came back to win big as well. Iowa scored forty, but they were playing Illinois State so we don't really know much yet about whether they'll score 325 points this year.

Anyone else watch a few games? Hawai'i is playing UCLA now, I might catch a bit of that one as well.

 

[ummmm........]

Was kind of a boring first day, not many big games and lots of expected blowouts. The expanded playoffs also tempered my excitement a bit. Hard to get too excited about a game when the outcome has no meaningful consequence . . .

The highlights for me were Florida/Miami (poor Billy Napier, is Cam Ward really going to be that good all year for Cristobal?) and A&M/Notre Dame, just bc it was a great game. Idk that I needed the slow motion replay of the A&M guy puking tho ; p

In a game of solely personal interest it was nice to see DeBoer get off to a big start at Alabama, but I still expect us to lose the meaningless first game against Georgia at the end of the month. Our last five SEC games are all of the should win/could lose variety, so say we drop one of those and finish 10-2 we still make the playoffs without playing in the conference title game, probably ranked high enough to host the first round so yay I guess . . ?

But even with the playoffs reducing the value of the regular season, it was still great to have football back and I was still on ABC through all three windows, just like a 'normal' year. But I could see myself skipping some windows or even whole early-season weekends in the future, and that's something I never thought I'd say : /

EDIT: All that said don't forget we're not done, still games tonight and tomorrow, with USC/LSU tonight being one of the best matchups of the weekend . . .

 

[Quintillus]

31-12 Texas in the Big House. Fun game to watch as an Ohioan, bit surprised it wasn't closer but Texas was dominant on both sides of the ball. A few turnovers for U of M as well, but Texas didn't need them to win the game.

Iowa/Iowa State looks like the interesting mid-day slot (CBS), though I'll be spending at least part of that time on other tasks. NC State/Tennessee in the evening window (ABC), and Texas Tech vs Washington State looks like a good Pac-12 After Dark game (Fox).

 

[Quintillus]

Looks like I picked the wrong slot to take care of non-football tasks, that Iowa/Iowa State game was close. And who'd have thought Northern Illinois would beat Notre Dame?

Saw the first half of Tennessee/NC State but it was clearly not a close game, so then I caught the last part of USF/Alabama. Quite surprised when USF settled for a field goal on 4th-and-3 in the red zone with 6:45 to go. Then Bama scored 3 TDs in five minutes and made the final score look like a blowout. Meanwhile, Penn State was behind Bowling Green for a while there too, and Boise State is tied with Oregon. Much more craziness than the week before.

Washington State/Texas Tech could either be good or become a blowout in the second half. Kind of wish I had coverage for the Boise State game, but alas.

 

[ummmm........]

Notre Dame losing was the news of the day. With only four ranked teams on their schedule -- or three once GT drops out -- and none in the top ten, well, tbh I don't know what. I'd like to say they're on the outside looking in or that they'll have to win out to make the playoffs but with twelve slots available I don't think any major two-loss team will be passed over so really they still have another loss in their pocket to play with. Oh well . . .

Alabama looked like poop most of the day but see above, doesn't matter much as far as playoff hopes are concerned . . .

I did feel really bad for Boise, not being able to pull that off in the end : /

Ditto Arkansas, Tulane, Houston, etc. A lot of 'nobodies' had a shot at the end there and failed to pull it off. ISU got it done tho \o/

One more surprise for me today was that I skipped the first SEC game of the year, SCAR/UK, in favor of the other more competitive mid-slot games today. In the past I never would have done that bc even the middling SEC teams still had a chance to affect the conference title race back when we had divisions. But with divisionless play the bottom half of the conference is somehow a lot less interesting to me. Ofc with today's results maybe I have the bottom half misidentified ; p

 

[Quintillus]

Iowa State isn't really a nobody though, they've finished in the upper half of the Big Twelve a decent amount over the half decade, and have bested Iowa on occasion as well. That was one that I took as basically a tossup.

I did watch the end of the Pac-12 After Dark game, Texas Tech never made it close, but the Cougars' quarterback Mateer was fun to watch. 197 rush yards, 115 through the air, dual-threat and evasive. Will be interesting to see how things go in the Apple Cup next week.

 

[Quintillus]

The 2-Pac is set to become the 6-Pac - Fresno State, Boise State, San Diego State, and Colorado State are all joining.

I wonder if they've considered becoming the "State Conference", given that all of their members are lining up a "State" schools?

Will be interesting to see how this all looks in ten years. Will California still be an Atlantic Coast school?

 

[ummmm........]

I'm guessing Cal and Stanford will just shut football down entirely before too long. Or go back to the Six Pac I guess, which is a great name, if not a great looking conference ; p

 

[Quintillus]

Didn't see K-State beat Arizona last night. Good for them though, I'd feel a bit bad if their new QB weren't doing well, considering where their old QB went.

Wisconsin/Alabama at noon... probably won't be close, Wisconsin didn't exactly dominate Western Michigan or South Dakota. Would be an interesting matchup in a good Wisconsin year though.

Oregon/Oregon State at 3:30 also looks interesting. Oregon may be ranked, but Oregon State has done significantly better when playing teams from Idaho.

I could also watch either Ole Miss/Wake Forest or Georgia/Kentucky in the late slot, but don't expect either to be close, and will probably have enough football for one day with the first two games.

 

[Quintillus]

Kentucky 6, Georgia 3 at the half. Should have watched this one from the beginning!

Unfortunate the Apple Cup was on Peacock, that one looked like it would have been real fun to watch and was a nail-biter. Oregon/Oregon State, not so close, I took a nap instead of watching the 4th quarter. But it could have been the interesting one instead, you never know.

Caught the end of LSU/South Carolina, that was an interesting one. Boneheaded move by the South Carolina guy who pulverized the LSU quarterback after the throw and cost his team a pick-six and thus the game. To be fair there were over 200 penalty yards in that game and he probably didn't know that would cost them 90 yards and 7 points, but still... great example for coaches to show their players of why you shouldn't commit fouls like that.

Watched Wisconsin/Alabama until Jumping Around but that wasn't a very close game. I had been hoping I might get to watch the Tyler Van Dyke Show as he put on a good show when I saw him last year at Miami, and he was 5/5, but had to leave before the end of the first drive. Too many self-inflicted mistakes by the Badgers too, especially fumbles.

Colorado/Colorado State and Ole Miss/Wake Forest are also going on, but for now the Wildcats seem to have the best chance of pulling off the upset. That Dart guy for Ole Miss has an accurate name though.

 

[Quintillus]

Man, that Kentucky game was a good one. 13-12, went down to the wire. I've never heard a crowd cheer as loudly when one second was added back to the game clock as when it switched from 2 to 3 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

I don't know who the best team in the SEC is, but Georgia looked quite beatable. Kentucky needed just a little bit more depth on the defensive line and they might have had the upset.

 

[ummmm........]

Yeah UGA/Kentucky gave us a great game in what was supposed to be a really blah weekend. Still, no upsets in the top twenty-five. Things look a little better on paper for next weekend with three top twenty-five matchups, but I'm betting at least one of those -- Tennessee/Oklahoma -- isn't going to give us the payoff we want . . .

 

[Quintillus]

I'm guessing you also suspect Tennessee will win handily?

USC/Michigan could be a good one. As could Utah/Oklahoma State.

I feel sorry for Kent State though. Got demolished by #7 Tennessee 71-0 this weekend after a loss to St. Francis, and they're off to #8 Penn State next weekend. They couldn't have known both of them would be in the top 10 when they scheduled that, but still, that's a tough schedule.

Maybe they can trade games with Toledo? They seemed to have no trouble winning against a Power 5 school.

 

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Texas jumped UGA for new number one in the AP. I love to see that ppls are willing to move teams around based on performance and not just wins and losses, but ofc "number one" means even less now than it did in the four team model. The SEC still has six of the top seven in the AP as well, which feels weird but I guess we've got to get used to as the best teams consolidate themselves into fewer conferences . . .

It's interesting to start to think about who will be representing the 'lesser' conferences. Miami looks like the class of the ACC but the Big XII looks like a crapshoot. And I'm not sure what either of those teams is going to look like v the lower seeded teams coming out of the SEC and Big Ten to face them in the second round. I've been disappointed at how the expanded playoffs have lessened the importance of the regular season games, but now I'm starting to think that even a lot of the playoff games are going to be disappointing rematches and mismatches : / Have to wait and see I guess . . .

Also interesting to think about who's going to be the sacrificial lamb from the G5. NIU will almost certainly have the best win over ND, but they have no remaining opportunity to impress anyone with their MAC schedule. Boise is probably the "best"(?) G5 school but missed their chance v Oregon this weekend. They do have Oregon State to close out the regular season which will be a big opportunity for them compared to the other G5 contenders locked in conference play . . .

 

[Quintillus]

Texas is back!

I don't think the SEC having six of the top seven teams is going to last once they start playing each other. It's still early weeks when most top 25 teams haven't been tested, let alone tested multiple times. Some of those top 7 will continue to look really good, some will stumble. Part of it is consolidation though, it would be 5/7 if it weren't for Texas switching conferences.

My pick for fifth conference champion is Washington State. In part because they're fun to watch but also because everyone wrote the Pac-12 off for dead, so they're the underdogs. And also a bit because it would inject more chaos into the system if a playoff format that was supposed to ensure a Group of Five team actually didn't result in a Group of Five team getting in, because in shrinking to five conferences and assuming the Pac-12 had no hope, instead of six including a G5 getting in, they wound up just going with the same Power Five conferences after all.

And they actually have a shot at it. Though there's another chaos scenario too, if both Northern Illinois and Washington State win out. Then Washington State could wind up on the outside looking in, as the sixth-highest-ranked conference champion, and potentially just outside the top 12, and become the second school in two years from a Power 5 to be undefeated but left out, despite a significant part of the point of expanding the playoff being to avoid just that scenario.

 

[ummmm........]

I didn't follow everything around the negotiations after the Pac-12 fell apart, but I'm not sure 'winning' the Pac-12 still counts as being a conference champ . . ?

 

[Quintillus]

Hmm, good point, I'm not sure it does either. So Washington State might need to qualify via being ranked in the top 12?

I was looking at the CFP's own site earlier: https://collegefootballplayoff.com/sports/2024/5/29/12-team-format.aspx They never actually define what they mean by "conference champions", that is, which conferences. But they do say:

The 12 participating teams will be the five conference champions ranked highest by the CFP selection committee, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams.

So a few hours ago I was reading that as, "if the Pac-12 champion is among the five highest ranked conference champions". And the Pac-12 is technically a conference, with a 2-year grace period to get back to 8 members, unlike Notre Dame, which is independent. So my guess is it would technically count, they probably just never expected the 2-Pac to have a chance after so many teams left and so many coaches and players transferred. Though being the Committee, they could just vote a Conference USA or American or MAC team slightly higher if they really didn't want a 12-0 Washington State or 11-1 Oregon State that was in the 11-15 range in the AP Poll to be included.

 

[ummmm........]

Yeah a five minute search reveals some places saying you need eight teams to be a conference, but nothing definitive about the 2-Pac this year, and I'm honestly just not invested enough to give it more than five minutes ; p

I did learn something tho, I thought the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big XII champs were locked in to those top four seeds, but it's actually just the top four conference champs. Which will probs always be those four, but still not exactly what I thought. Anyway, it's a long way off and it'll be here when it gets here . . .

 

[Quintillus]

It won't necessarily always be those four conferences. In 2012, the Big Ten champion was 8-5 Wisconsin, who was unranked in the AP and BCS Polls, and ranked #23 in the Coaches poll. That year, Ohio State went 12-0 but was banned from the postseason due to players receiving improper benefits from a tattoo parlor and selling memorabilia they'd received from winning games such as rings and pants. Seems quaint now with all the NIL deals going on, but hey, there was no risk of losing in a bowl game, so we got a perfect season out of the sanctions. Can't complain too much.

Wisconsin was the next-best in the Big Ten divisional structure at the time (this was the "Legends" and "Leaders" divisional structure, still the worst divisional names I've heard), at 7-5, and upset 10-2 Nebraska to win the Big Ten. By the rules of that time, they went to the Rose Bowl, where they lost to #8 Stanford, though they kept it close. But by today's rules, the door would have been open for a Group of Five school.

It's less likely now that fewer conferences have divisions as the driving factor of who is in their championship game, but a broadly similar sanctions-plus-upset scenario could still result in a power conference champion being left out.

 

[ummmm........]

Yeah, so probs going to be those four every year . . .