College Football 2023-2024

[Pariah]

Florida State calls emergency board meeting, could take first step toward leaving ACC, per reports

[unclevlad]

I'm thinking Florida State is heading for a cliff dive belly flop.

[Grailknight]

Yeah, unlike other conferences, the ACC wrote their current deal in the era of conference jumping and the member schools were very meticulous on the procedures for leaving and the legal and financial consequences. And they made it binding until 2036. No one foresaw the fiasco that the Pac-12's poor negotiating leadership would create and how that debacle would pretty much destroy the existing balance. 

 

But if the committee had been honest, FSU would have been in or at least it should have seen the whammy coming for weeks. If the justification for dropping them out of the top 4 was the loss of their QB, why did they not drop them before the last 2 games? They didn't look great, but they beat Florida without requiring the miracle that let Alabama top Auburn and they didn't get dropped. Then they beat #11 Louisville with their 3rd string QB, while Alabama beat a Georgia team playing without their two best skill players at TE and WR. They didn't want the possibility of another Georgia-TCU but that overlooks that TCU beat Michigan to earn that beatdown. They didn't want to listen to the networks whine about no SEC schools making it. So, they bowed to the de facto BiG10/SEC overlords and gave us this. 

 

So, here's FSU, which played by all the rules, went undefeated and won their conference championship and they don't make the Playoff? With the committee being comprised by a majority of ACC affiliated voters? I'd be outraged and looking for any way out if I could find one too.

[unclevlad]

The Pac-12 didn't destroy competitive balance.  The SEC, Texas, and Oklahoma did.

 

Want to see some scary numbers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Football_Playoff

 

Alabama and Georgia have 14 combined wins in the CFP.  All other teams combined have 13.

 

The SEC has 6 titles.  All others, 3.  The SEC has 2 other wins...LSU.  The SEC is 16-5;  all others, 11-22.  And note, this does include Clemson, who's got 6 of those wins.

 

The SEC was the 800 pound gorilla BEFORE the OU and Texas cash grabs.  After it?  1200 pound gorilla.  Everything else devolved from this.

 

The ACC, in a sense, lost out by being the first to redo their packages, and NOT doing that good a job of it, one can argue.  

https://businessofcollegesports.com/current-college-sports-television-contracts/

 

Note that the deals for the Big 10, Big 12, and as best known SEC are:

a)  far, FAR more lucrative

b)  much shorter, meaning these conferences can renegotiate sooner...presumably for more.

 

The ACC's contract paid them a bit more than the SEC was getting in '16...but it's very commonly the case that the latter part of big contracts starts slipping behind the payouts in new contracts.  The ACC settled only for, basically, matching amounts at best, at the *start*.  So now, they've fallen FAR behind.

 

But FSU...where do you think you can go?  I *really* doubt the SEC will add 1 school, so they need somehow to get someone else to join...and convince the SEC that 18 teams is manageable.  Big 12?  Potentially, I suppose, but they're bloated too.

 

What this may push, is the complete blow-up of the FBS, and separating football out from everything else, with its own rules/structures.

[unclevlad]

Oof.  The Frisco Bowl ...oops, brain cramp...Boca Raton Bowl...is turning into what may stand as the biggest ROUT!!!  of the bowl season.  South Florida 38-0...2 minutes into the 3rd quarter.  Syracuse fumbles the ball deep, USF scores, with 9 seconds left in the 1st half;  then Syracuse throws a pick on the 2nd play of the second half, and USF goes for 35 yards and a TD on 3rd and 3.  Syracuse has just bee massively mistake-prone all game.  

 

Out west, the departing schools have given up, having basically lost the major point about control of the conference.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/washington-state-oregon-state-reach-agreement-with-departing-pac-12-schools-to-end-litigation/#:~:text=Oregon State and Washington State,across multiple months and courts.

[Grailknight]

I don't think it would be hard to get the SEC to accept FSU and Clemson.

[unclevlad]

8 hours ago, Grailknight said:

I don't think it would be hard to get the SEC to accept FSU and Clemson.

 

If Clemson agreed to go along.  And if they'd be willing to go to 18 schools.  Then...possibly.

 

This comes very close to creating a Power 2, tho.  SEC and Big 10 would then have almost everyone that mattered.  I'm not trying to diss anyone else, but recognize...those 2 super-conferences would have 11 of the top 13 teams this year.  In the 9 years of the CFP, the teams in these hypothetical conferences would have won 25 of the 27 CFP games.

 

I also don't believe they're viable arrangements long term.  Too many teams creates its own instability.  So if FSU and Clemson got serious?  That could be the final trigger to the whole "separate football out completely" movement.

[Cancer]

... and ideally get it recognized as a professional, non-academic enterprise, fully taxable as such, and with athletes as compensated and protected employees.

[unclevlad]

So FSU has gone to court to nullify the contract. 

 

Quote

Lawyers for the Seminoles estimate that the current cost of paying the ACC’s exit fee in addition to the forfeiture of media rights revenue would cost the school $572 million, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Athletic. They believe that the severity of the penalty to withdraw from the league should be considered “unreasonable restraints of trade” or unenforceable. They also allege in the filing that the ACC materially breached its contracts with Florida State by failing to properly exploit its media rights value, by extending the league’s contract with ESPN in disadvantageous ways without required input from schools and by adding three new members to the ACC (Stanford, Cal and SMU) that do not add value to the conference.

 

To me, the 2 key aspects are whether the conference acted in bad faith by not getting input from the schools, and signing a bad deal.  This basically sets up a Pac-12-like situation, if this aspect gains traction.

 

Adding the schools not adding value, IMO, implicitly supports the separation/superconference movement.  Because the statement's certainly true *if football is the primary focus of conference affiliation.*  It should NOT be.

[unclevlad]

BIG!!!!! congratulations to Northwestern.  They had a disastrous summer on par with Michigan State;  Pat Fitzgerald got fired due to hazing issues.

 

Tonight, tho, after going 7-5 and making it into a decent bowl...the Vegas Bowl...they beat Utah tonight.  

[Pariah]

Utah has now lost five consecutive bowl games.

 

Utah State also played (?) yesterday. They won't have to worry about what time it is for a while, because Georgia State cleaned their clocks. Side note: Maybe the worst aesthetics of any bowl game. GSU in blue / white / white and USU in white / navy / navy on Boise's blue turf. Woof.

 

BYU didn't qualify for a bowl game this year, and Weber State missed the FCS playoffs for the first time in several years. So overall a disappointing year for college football in Utah.

 

Meanwhile, Colorado's only bowl team had a better result. Air Force ran all over James Madison in the Armed Forces Bowl. I heard that JMU had the nation's top rushing defense coming into the game. Not any more. Welcome to the grownups table, Dukes. 

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

Meanwhile, Colorado's only bowl team had a better result. Air Force ran all over James Madison in the Armed Forces Bowl. I heard that JMU had the nation's top rushing defense coming into the game. Not any more. Welcome to the grownups table, Dukes. 

 

Ehhh, you have to be careful.  It's a bowl game, not a real game, so trying to draw firm conclusions is tricky.  Transfer portal.  Coaching losses.  Players sitting out.  Players never quite checking back into game mode after 3-4 weeks off...with major distractions along the way.  I had that game on, altho I wasn't really paying much attention to it...but the thought struck me that the academies, when they *do* get into bowl games, are much less likely to have those problems.  (A couple aspirin took care of the pain quickly, fortunately.)

[unclevlad]

Kansas is up 28-10 against UNLV, but I would *NOT* want to be a fly on the wall in the KU locker room...the paint's gonna get scraped off.

 

Why?  In one half...KU has 10 penalties for 140 (!!) yards...and remember, in college, pass interference is not a spot foul.  I don't believe any single flag can be *more than* 15 yards.  5 personal fouls in there, too.  SLOPPY and undisciplined.

 

The bowl game before this wasn't any better.  ServPRO Bowl...Texas State won easily, helped by a pair of pick-6's...but they had 11 flags for 129.  And there was at least one case of offsetting personal fouls.

 

The analyst on this last game of the night is really poor...and the game's not much good either.  Think I'll pour myself a splash of Maker's 46 and go read....

[unclevlad]

Yeah, this captures the essence of all the non-playoff bowl games...

 

 

Report is, it was the strawberry Pop Tart.

[Pariah]

Wow, there are so many visibly empty seats at the Orange Bowl.

[Pariah]

To be clear: Maryland in the Big Ten is stupid. Not as stupid as USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington in the Big Ten, but that's a separate conversation.

 

But if I have a chance to cheer for the Big Ten over the SEC, I will take it every single time. Go Terps.

[Pariah]

Florida State is certainly not generating any sympathy for having been left out of the playoffs. For a moment there, it looked like they were putting together an actual drive and might be down only 25 going into the half. Alas, a collapsed pocket and resulting strip sack put an end to that. Bulldogs 42, Seminoles 3.

[unclevlad]

This isn't FSU.  9 opt outs for the draft...which suggests important players.  14 entering the transfer portal...including the backup QB.  

 

I get your point, but generally, a non-playoff bowl game result is simply not meaningful.  The halftime score isn't *that* much worse than what could reasonably be expected.

 

Well...ok, 42-3....that's a lot worse.  But if you asked me...what's more likely, Georgia up 3 or up 30...I'd have said 30.

 

[Pariah]

Three games on this morning. Wisconsin leads LSU going into the 4th quarter. One can only hope that result remains in place, because as I've said before, screw the SEC. Iowa's offense remains stubbornly persistent in its absence. And Oregon, whose throwback unis are amazing, is showing Liberty what it feels like to sit at the grown-ups table.

 

 

[unclevlad]

One might argue Iowa's failure to score isn't that meaningful...if it wasn't practically the storyline of their entire season.  35-0 Tennessee.

 

And sorry, Mr. P, but Wisconsin pulled the Big Ten Fold, as expected.  OSU, the conference #2...lose.  Iowa and Penn State, 3 and 4...lose.  The only teams that've won...the middle of the pack, where the results even in mid-season might've been pretty random.  

 

But these are also bowl games where NO ONE CARES!!!  much of the time.

 

BTW:  Liberty lost only 1 player to opt-out...so, yeah, the big boy table comment has more relevance.  You'd also think they'd have something to prove, and Oregon would be the team much more likely to have a letdown.  That said, there's still plenty of other factors...including freezing up by suddenly being on such an immense stage.

PS:  argh, kind of a weird night...forgot to pre-cook the meat/veggies for the chili...that's 30-40 minutes of cook time shifted...beans aren't close to ready right now.  Hopefully by halftime, that'd be fine....

[Pariah]

Good luck on your chili, vlad, and happy New Year!

[unclevlad]

Oh, it'll be fine, it's just a question of WHEN it'll be ready.  

Probably before halftime...I rather forgot just HOW SLOW these games are, as the commercials are interminable.

[Pariah]

Bye bye, Bama! 

 

Having said that, Michigan's special teams play was atrocious, and I have no idea what that timeout with 9 seconds left was all about. The Wolverines were lucky to escape this one intact.

 

It should be fun to watch Texas and Washington.

[Pariah]

The FCS championship game is this Sunday, January 7th at 2:00 p.m. EST. It airs on ABC. The game features the defending champion South Dakota State Jackrabbits and the #2 seed Montana Grizzlies. Should be a heck of a game. 

[unclevlad]

I'm not a big Bama fan, and yeah, I'm pretty tired of the SEC.

 

But man, I detest this Harbaugh.

 

Michigan's mistakes were offset, and then some since they won, by Milroe's mistakes.  The fumble...ok, turf monster somewhat, but once you lose balance and you see defenders in the area?  COVER UP THE BALL.  And it looked like the snap timing was off;  maybe the center was a half beat late snapping, maybe Milroe started back too soon, but that play had no chance.  As was said tho, Michigan got the penetration, so clean snap execution probably wouldn't have helped enough.

Apparently social media is pretty much calling it the worst play call since Carroll and Wilson tried that little inside slant route.

 

They're really stuck on the time to show the FCS game.  Saturday?  No, ESPN has a doubleheader Saturday.  Monday?  No, that's the CFP title game.  I suspect they don't want to do, say, FCS title game on Monday then CFP, say, Tuesday or Wednesday, for overall scheduling reasons, but 2 Eastern Sunday overlaps both groups of NFL games.  The ratings won't be good, ya gotta think.  But they're scheduling the championship game fairly quickly after the semis.  Last year it was Dec. 31st and Jan. 9th.  2022 was Dec. 31st and Jan. 10th.  2021 was perturbed by COVID, but Jan. 1st and Jan. 12th.  2020 was probably TOO long...Dec. 28th and Jan. 13th.  This was an oddball year, kinda;  Dec. 28th was a Saturday.  But Jan. 6th was a Monday.  Eh...the ways of megacorps are mysterious and not to be understood by us mere viewers.

One bare week is unusually quick, regardless.

EDIT:  Ohh...side thought.  Just realized.  Jan. 15th is NOT open now.  The expanded NFL playoffs have 6 games.  NBC/Peacock gets Saturday;  Sunday is standard CBS, Fox, and NBC;  Monday is ESPN.  They're not gonna have the CFP clash with an NFL playoff game.  You'd still think they could run the CFP on, say, the 10th or 11th...but the habit of the Monday game may be locked into the bureaucratic mindset of the programming coordinators...