That's fine, and it's also a distinction that makes no difference.
Heard this morning the last time Saban lost to an SEC East team was in 2010 to Spurrier's Gamecocks. That's incredible but not surprising really. As a Hog fan all I can do is laugh and hope they finish higher than 4th in the West occasionally.
CFB has been a regional sport for 50 years. ever since Alabama integrated in 1971. The Southeast and small sliver in the upper midwest along hwy 23, will continue to dominate it.
True, although imagine a world where the top six conference champs got in this year, and SDSU had won their game on Saturday. With Cincinnati already getting one spot, we'd have to choose between three-loss Utah and one-loss SDSU, where SDSU holds a head-to-head victory over Utah.
I’ve had recurring dreams over the past few years that the SEC and ACC negotiate a trade of Vandy and Clemson.
That's just incorrect. The last 15 years have been dominated by the SEC. Prior to that champions were coming from all over the country - USC, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas, etc. The sport is better that way.
And there's a reason why Lincoln Riley went to USC and not LSU. He thinks he can have a top 4 team there.
I plan to put a not insignificant wager on USC making the BCS playoff next year, once we found out who their QB will be. If Caleb Williams goes there, it'll be a very large wager. With the commits they are getting, and the schedule they have, they should steamroll the PAC-12 if Williams goes.
Their out of conference next year is Notre Dame and junk iirc. But they do get LSU in a couple years!
You know who is going to be junk next year?
Agreed. This early signing period needs to be rethought. Not only are teams firing coaches early to prepare for the December NLI period, they're now making short-sighted coaching hires to keep one recruiting class together.
Look at Georgia's schedule this year. If USC runs the table in the Pac-12 and beats Notre Dame, Fresno State, and Rice (that's their non-conference schedule - which is better than 90% of P5 teams, btw) they're 100% in.
I think rolling the dice on Freeman rather than throwing a bunch of money at whoever the hot G5 or low-end P5 coach is this year makes sense. ND will still be a marquee coaching job two years from now; they can move on from Freeman if it doesn’t work out. This gives them a chance to hold together the program ND built, which is probably their best-case scenario.
Just to see how this would play out, I looked at the 5-year period starting with 2015 and applied the 8-team system we were discussing (Top 6 conference champions + two highest-ranked runners up/independents). Notre Dame would have made the playoff once, in 2018, when they made the actual 4 team playoff anyway. You can quibble with the seeding, but the tournaments would have looked something like this (p.s. sign me up).
The 85% of college football fans who are locked out of ever playing in a meaningful game?
Going from 4 to 8 changes this how many percentage points since we're just making up stats? Each week matters a lot in college ball and many games are meaningful.
I think it's a good rule actually. If players aren't allowed to hit a QB once he starts his slide, given the speed at which these guys move, a QB faking a slide necessarily causes a defender to stop or risk a major penalty. It's an unfair taking advantage of a rule designed to protect them.
Honestly I would have been OK with them both stopping the play and assessing the offense an Unsportsmanlike Penalty complete with 15 yard walk off. That should put an end to these before they really get started.
Did the NCAA do the same for fake kneel downs (e.g. WKU or the Patriots against the Falcons) or fake fair catches (North Texas against Arkansas)?
Fake kneel downs are dead by rule and have been for some time. Much to the chagrin of many officials, the North Texas play has been deemed completely legal by the NCAA.
Oh wow, I didn't know that. A bush league team I played on once got burned on a fake kneel right before halftime. As the other team broke the huddle, the referee told us that the team was kneeling and to not come off the ball. Instead they threw a go down the sideline for a touchdown. I can't remember if they actually faked the knee or just took advantage of the ref's warning. I do remember the ref saying he would never do that again. But that was like a decade ago.
This is a pretty frequently discussed topic among officials. I don't tell teams anyone is taking a knee. I might come in tighter to the formation in order to more quickly get in between players but I don't want to tell anyone what to do.
Yes but I wouldn't charge it to anyone, just the team. But like I said I wouldn't have it in one of my games because I wouldn't tell anyone anything.
Yup.
