College Football 2022

[Starlord]

5 hours ago, Pariah said:

Who did? Ohio State? Michigan? Alabama?

 

Dunno, but I feel OSU would've beat Georgia if Marvin Harrison plays the 4th quarter....

[Pariah]

Someone on the Book of Face made the comment that Georgia probably could've won the NFC South this season.

[Pariah]

Maybe it's just a bad time to be a football player.

 

Air Force offensive lineman Hunter Brown, 21, dies after suffering 'medical emergency'

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

 

[Pariah]

Let the gamesmanship begin!

 

San Diego State AD Threatens Pac-12 for Invite Using Big 12 as Leverage

[unclevlad]

I read it as trying to cram some reality into the pointy-headed shuttered minds of the Pac 12 ADs.

 

To which, of course, the proper response is "good luck with that."  IS it a legitimate risk?  Would the Big 12 bother?  I have no idea, but that seems to be part of the wall they'd have to breach.

[Pariah]

The Big XII (finally) released their football schedules for next season. We now know what BYU's for season in the conference will look like:

 

Sept. 2: Sam Houston
Sept. 9: Southern Utah
Sept. 16: at Arkansas
Sept. 23: at Kansas
Sept. 30: Cincinnati
Oct. 14: at TCU
Oct. 21: Texas Tech
Oct. 28: at Texas
Nov. 4: at West Virginia
Nov. 11: Iowa State
Nov. 18: Oklahoma
Nov. 25: at Oklahoma State

 

This past year, BYU played 10 games before their bye week. Next year, they'll only play five. And they get their bye week before having to travel to Fort Worth to play TCU. Maybe that'll help.

 

To get to a bowl game, BYU will have to win six games. Sam Houston, Southern Utah (FCS), and West Virginia should all be comfortable wins. I also expect them to beat Kansas and Iowa State. The sixth win? Maybe Arkansas, if the Cougars can find a defense between now and then. Maybe Cincinnati, especially since they get them in Provo. Same with Texas Tech. Oklahoma was a wreck last season, but I expect them to be better in 2023. TCU, Texas, and Oklahoma State, all on the road? I wouldn't bet on BYU beating any of them. 

 

So, maybe 6-7 wins and a much higher level bowl game the first Big XII season? I think any BYU fan would be pleased with that outcome. 

[unclevlad]

And the Big 12 is stuck with Oklahoma and Texas for 23 and 24...and an awkward, bloated 14 teams.

 

Love it.  But the schools and the conferences get nailed into situations they don't want, but created for themselves.  I call that a win-win...

[Pariah]

This is a blessing in disguise for Texas and Oklahoma, because they can remain relevant for two more years. Once they're in the $EC with the likes of Alabama and Georgia, they're bottom dwellers like Missouri and Texas A&M before them.

[unclevlad]

You said 'remain.'  Oklahoma wasn't relevant this year.  Texas....ehhh.  Certainly not by Texas' (grossly inflated) expectations.  Worse...they haven't been relevant since Mack Brown lost to Alabama in the title game in 2010.  (Close in 2018;  got to #6 but then lost back to back road games.)  And I don't think their situation, as conference lame ducks, will improve matters.

 

That said:  yeah, once they're in the SEC, there's a pretty good chance they'll be buried, but that has to be qualified.  The conference will have to realign.  There's 16 teams...way too many.  The geographic distribution would put A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Arkansas, Missouri, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State in the same division.  FAR away from the actual powers...Georgia and Alabama, and sometimes Tennessee and Florida.  They're talking a 9th conference game...but that still means, if everyone plays everyone in their own division, there's only 2 interdivision games.  So, you dodge both of em in 2 years...then either play both in the same year and dodge the other, or get just 1 of em for 2 years.

 

That potential SEC West looks rather mediocre, which means OU and Texas can potentially make the SEC title game reasonably often, before getting eviscerated, and probably get to a decent bowl game.

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

You said 'remain.'  Oklahoma wasn't relevant this year.  Texas....ehhh.  Certainly not by Texas' (grossly inflated) expectations.  Worse...they haven't been relevant since Mack Brown lost to Alabama in the title game in 2010.  (Close in 2018;  got to #6 but then lost back to back road games.)  And I don't think their situation, as conference lame ducks, will improve matters.

 

That said:  yeah, once they're in the SEC, there's a pretty good chance they'll be buried, but that has to be qualified.  The conference will have to realign.  There's 16 teams...way too many.  The geographic distribution would put A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Arkansas, Missouri, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State in the same division.  FAR away from the actual powers...Georgia and Alabama, and sometimes Tennessee and Florida.  They're talking a 9th conference game...but that still means, if everyone plays everyone in their own division, there's only 2 interdivision games.  So, you dodge both of em in 2 years...then either play both in the same year and dodge the other, or get just 1 of em for 2 years.

 

That potential SEC West looks rather mediocre, which means OU and Texas can potentially make the SEC title game reasonably often, before getting eviscerated, and probably get to a decent bowl game.

 

I disagree with you on doormats thing. Alabama and Georgia are currently on top, but both remain beatable.  I'd group the league in 4 tiers.

 

1- Alabama and Georgia. They're on top until someone knocks them off and have earned favorite status.

 

2- LSU, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas A&M, Texas, and Auburn. All of these teams have beaten one or both of the top dogs recently and have the potential to do it again. I'm giving Texas and Oklahoma credit here because of talent but Texas may belong in the next tier based on performance. But they were beating Alabama until their QB got hurt this year.

 

3-Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Kentucky and South Carolina. All of these teams are capable of contending once every 4 or 5 years and none of them can be taken lightly. Tennessee may be back to tier 2 status, but we need to give them a year to see.

 

4- Vanderbilt. They're a founding member of the SEC, I guess, but one of these things is not like the others.

[Pariah]

The Commissioner has already visited San Diego State and is visiting Southern Methodist today.

 

Pac-12 expansion with San Diego State, SMU may be necessary before league inks new media rights deal

 

SDSU nominally gives the PAC a presence in southern California after U$C and U¢LA leave for the B1G. SMU nominally opens up Texas in terms of viewers and recruiting. Is either of these things true in reality? I don't know that it matters. If the networks are convinced there's value there, then there's value there. 

 

There's probably more value than the last PAC expansion: Salt Lake City (which isn't as big as SD or DFW) and Denver/Boulder (where nobody cares about football except for the Broncos). 

[unclevlad]

The problems with CU:

--SO many years of being *horrible*, starting with Chuck Fairbanks.  Yeah, there were stretches, but not many.

--No fit.  Partly by choice;  CU considers CSU to be that stuff one scrapes off the bottom of a shoe.  There were no other natural rivals in-state.  Nebraska was the dominant football opponent...can't say rival, considering the utterly lopsided series history, but it was part of the CU identity.  The move to the Pac-12 cut them totally adrift, much like Missouri and the SEC.

 

It also doesn't help that Boulder doesn't like Denver, and Denver tends to think of Boulder as elitist.

 

San Diego is 100 miles south of LA...as the crow flies.  That's probably 3 hours by interstate.  (The speed limit is a total myth, or always was.  LA traffic is notoriously heavy.)  LA is a HUGE city.  The LA-Anaheim-Riverside metro area covers almost 34,000 square miles.  Indiana is 35,000.  That's larger than South Carolina or Maine and larger than Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey *combined*.   The metro area has over 18 million people...only Texas, Florida, and New York have more.  There's VERY little interest in LA about...well...pretty much anything in San Diego.  

LA is also a notoriously fickle sports town.  The Dodgers draw close to 4 million...but they're a late-arriving, early-departing crowd.  (Dodger Stadium is in Chavez Ravine.  There was, when we went to games, only one direction in or out...so the post-game traffic was hideous.)  The Angels suffer deeply from being in their shadow.  The Clippers built up their own fan base, but they're definitely second fiddle.  The Chargers' attendance woes have eased some, but they're middle of the pack in terms of percent of capacity sold.  (It's an interesting list...http://www.espn.com/nfl/attendance/_/sort/homePct  Note where Dallas is.  Washington, Giants, Atlanta, Houston, Jets...all understandable, but Dallas is a notable outlier among that group.)

So generally, yes, I can't see SDSU acting as a drawing card for LA.  SMU...?  Not on its own.  The problem here is the flip side:  *too much* competition.  Have to start with the Cowboys.  Denver might rabidly follow the Broncos...but Texas, the WHOLE STATE, *lives and dies* with the Cowboys.  It's part of the fundamental identity of the state now.  Then there's UT, A&M, Texas Tech and Houston...ginormous public universities.  (Tech is the smallest at over 40,000 enrolled.)  Baylor's twice SMU's size, TCU is about the same as SMU (about 11,000), with stronger conference affiliations.  If you're a football fan in Texas, you just don't have enough time to follow everyone.

[unclevlad]

The parties involved have agreed in principle for OU and Texas to leave the Big 12 after the 23-24 season concludes.  

 

The total cost for the universities...$100M.  The deal has not been approved by their boards yet.  But obviously, they figure to get that back.

 

Of course it's about the money, altho I think it's in the interests of both sides to NOT drag this out.  

[unclevlad]

The Athletic's morning newsletter calls 2023 "the last ride."

--OU and Texas leaving the Big 12

--USC and UCLA leaving the Pac 12

--CBS bowing out of the SEC...late slot Saturday afternoon, LOTS of big games.  They had their pick.

--last year of the 4-team playoffs

 

A point they made connects back to NIL...there's so much money in college football that it makes financial sense for 2 schools to pay $100 million to leave *1* year early.

 

But of course they can't pay the players an actual stipend.....

[unclevlad]

Little too early to think about a 2023 thread, so we'll carry on this one...

 

Several rules changes are under consideration, to shorten games.  Why?  Average NFL game had 144 plays;  average NCAA game had 180.  

 

The changes, apparently, have the support of all the FBS conferences, so it would seem a foregone conclusion they'll be approved.

 

--If a penalty occurs at the end of the 1st or 3rd period, eliminate the untimed down;  enforce the penalty and pick up with the start of the next period.  Not meaningful, but yeah, I'd rather do that.  

--Eliminate a team's ability to call consecutive timeouts.  Obviously, this shortens clock time only.  

--The big one...the current rule is to stop the clock on a first down, until the chains are reset.  Proposal is to ditch that special consideration.  The exception:  the last 2 minutes.  Still:  on a 10 play, 80 yard drive with 5 first downs before the end zone, you're probably looking at, what, 30 seconds to a minute, while the chains get reset.  This one feels like it'll effectively reduce the time available to run plays by perhaps 10%...so close to 20 plays.  It has some indirect effects too...that 17 point 4th quarter comeback becomes a little harder.  8 plays, 85 yards, in under 2 minutes off the clock is decently common in college.  This'd come close to eliminating those, except in the last couple minutes.