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College Football 2017-2018


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College football season starts one month from today!

Too soon! We shouldn't have football until after Labor Day.

 

Even then, it sticks in my craw a little bit that they play college football before students report to their campuses. I like to think of college football as at least partly for the benefit of the student body in general, and anything that makes it harder for students to watch the games in person is detrimental to the cause. (I'm going to leave the debate as to whether football is appropriate at all for another thread).

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Too soon! We shouldn't have football until after Labor Day.

 

Even then, it sticks in my craw a little bit that they play college football before students report to their campuses.....

When you recognize that quarter-system schools tend not to start their autumn instruction until the last week of September, ... when there's money to be made, students are irrelevant.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/big12/2017/06/07/oklahoma-coach-bob-stoops-retirement/102597330/

 

In case anyone hasn't heard, Bob Stoops retired as the Head Coach for the University of Oklahoma.

 

Stoops, 56, compiled a 190-48 record during his career which included one national championship and 10 Big 12 titles. He is the school's all-time winningest coach, passing both Barry Switzer and Bud Wilkinson, who each won three national titles during their careers in Norman.

Plus 2 Heisman trophy winners, bunch of All Americans. Won all the BCS bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta).

 

He won more games in his first 18 seasons than any other college coach. Among the successes was an 11-7 record against rival Texas and a 14-4 mark against Oklahoma State.

 

The Sooners were particularly difficult to beat in Norman. Stoops was 101-9 at Gaylord Memorial Stadium, including a school-record 39-game home winning streak.

I'll miss him. Opposing schools not so much.

 

Lincoln Riley has big shoes to fill, and a pretty short runway. I'll be very interested in how the season plays out.

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College football fans.

 

Perhaps this isn't the sport for everyone though. Those who don't care for the Sooners can always consider an alternative athletic competition.

 

Maybe jumprope? Or badminton?

Can badminton ever be played well, or would that defeat the purpose my making it Goodminton?

 

My relationship with college football is becoming more and more ambiguous. It's entertaining, but the same six to eight programs dominate the spotlight almost every year. Plus it seems to be a sport where you pretty much can;t compete if you don't break the (often silly or worse) rules of the NCAA, or be willing to accept people on campus who are a threat to the safety of other students.

 

The Premier League season in England starts in two weeks, and I'm actually looking forward to that more than to the college football season.

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Saw a 2017-18 power ranking of the ten D1 Conferences the other day...can't remember where. Yahoo Sports, maybe. Anyway, I liked it because of who they had at #3. Without further ado:

 

10: Sun Belt

9: Conference USA

8: Mid-American

7: Mountain West

6: American Athletic

5: Big XII

4: PAC-12

3: SEC

2: ACC

1: B1G

 

Thoughts?

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The argument from the article was that the $EC lacked depth this year, with a notable dropoff in quality after the top 2-3 teams (Alabama in the west, Florida in the east, and maybe Auburn). By comparison, they said that the B1G was pretty solid except for Rutgers and one or two others.

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When you get to conferences like the Sun Belt (who's even in the Sun Belt?), you get to the "Why do we even bother?" stage, where the entire conference is so irrelevant to everyone that One could almost view their football programs as a waste of time and money.  The best a team in one of those conferences can hope for is a meaningless minor bowl against the third-place or fourth-place school in the Power 5.

 

(It's even worse than that -- before this post, I had never heard of the Sun Belt Conference.

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Minor bowl games aren't necessary meaningless, as they provide at least three tangible benefits the school/team otherwise wouldn't get:

 

1) A couple hundreds thousand dollars in additional revenue;*

 

2) A national TV audience for at least one game; and

 

3) At least two weeks of additional practice time.

 

For schools outside of the Power 5, these things can make a huge difference.

 

--

*How much of this revenue actually makes it back to the school is a different discussion, of course.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Minor bowl games aren't necessary meaningless, as they provide at least three tangible benefits the school/team otherwise wouldn't get:

 

1) A couple hundreds thousand dollars in additional revenue;*

 

2) A national TV audience for at least one game; and

 

3) At least two weeks of additional practice time.

 

For schools outside of the Power 5, these things can make a huge difference.

 

--

*How much of this revenue actually makes it back to the school is a different discussion, of course.

 

They are helpful to the schools involved, very much so.  Though, in the total scheme of things I can see how one could call them meaningless.

 

ANd even when I was more interested in football, by the time the actual big ones came, I would already be suffering from bowl fatigue.

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Colorado State opened their new stadium with a pretty impressive showing. It was a close game well into the third quarter, when Oregon State threw a 44 yard pick-six. After that, it was pretty much all Rams.

 

Now let's hope the Colorado State can pick up another win against the Pac-12 next week in Denver.

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I spent much of the afternoon flipping back and forth between the Colorado State game and the BYU game. BYU did not have an impressive outing today. They beat Portland State 20-6. In what was supposed to be a tune-up game, BYU's defense was reasonably solid. But the first-team offense spent most of the game on the field, and struggled...neither of which you want to see against an FCS team that went 3-8 last season.

 

If BYU plays this way against LSU next week, they're going to lose by five touchdowns. And then they'll have to come home and play Utah in Wisconsin the next two weeks.

 

It could end up being a long, long season in Provo.

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Next week's BYU-LSU game almost certainly will not be played in Houston next week due to the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Preliminary reports indicate that the two sides are working on relocating to game to either Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

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