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College Football 2018-19


Pariah

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Several of the local schools are starting fall camp this week, so I figured this is as good a time as any to start a new college football thread. A few items of personal interest:

 

1. Can BYU recover from last season's 4-9 debacle and save Kalani Sitake's job?

 

1a. If Sitake does lose his job, who would replace him?

 

2. Most of the power rankings I've seen lately have Utah ranked number 3 in the Pac-12. Is this high praise for Kyle Wittingham's program, or an indictment of how mediocre the Pac-12 was last year, including 1-8 in bowl games?

 

3. Weber State, who made it to the FCS quarterfinals last year, has lost some players to graduation and some coaches to larger schools (including, oddly enough, BYU). Can the Wildcats make another deep playoff run this year?

 

4. Can anyone beat Alabama this year? And if so, how many Alabama losses (and to whom) will it take to keep them out of the playoff?

 

5. Is this the year Michigan finally does what they hired Jim Harbaugh to do?

 

6. Which Group of Five team will be this year's Central Florida?

 

All right, kiddos, let's talk some college football!

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5.  No, it's the year they realize Harbaugh's a total flake who'll never take a team to the top.

 

Don't eat chicken because they're nervous birds???

 

OK, it's looking like Michigan might actually beat OSU because OSU potentially *implodes* with this scandal going on, and *maybe* causing Meyer to lose his job.

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1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

OK, it's looking like Michigan might actually beat OSU because OSU potentially *implodes* with this scandal going on, and *maybe* causing Meyer to lose his job.

There is no doubt in my mind, based on the reports, that Meyer is done. I wonder it would say about his own marriage if his wife heard something like what the alleged victim told her and didn't pass it on when he had the power to act. Of course, if he did hear and waited to long to react, then that's just despicable. Maybe not Joe Paterno level of despicable, but pretty bad. In any rate, the perception is so bad that his position is untenable.

 

It might or might not leave an opening at the top of the Big Ten (why do they still call it that when it has 14 teams?) that Michigan can fill. Maybe the Buckeyes play with a chip on their shoulders and run rampant over the conference like they have something to prove. I'm not sure who else in the conference can challenge them.

 

 

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OHHH MY!

 

Urban Meyer has been placed on administrative leave by OSU.  Reported a couple hours ago by MANY outlets.

 

I was checking for a bit more info before figuring whether he'd be gone or not...but this?  It's a long shot he'll come back, at best.  Will the team play well?  This late in the game, with camp starting?  I won't go so far as to predict an overall losing season, but I think it's gonna be a very rough year in Columbus.  Bowl, yes;  New Year's Day or BCS?  Get really good odds if you want to bet.

 

They kept the name because, remember back in the day they first went from 10 to 11...Penn State.  They'd been indie before that.  Big Eleven...ugh.  Sounds like a craps bet. :)  Then Nebraska...and they *couldn't* call it the Big 12.  By the time they borged Rutgers and Maryland, the precedent was long established.  These days, it's probably name recognition.

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A lot of media folks think Nebraska is going to be good this year under Frost. Good enough to win the B1G? If Ohio State falters, I guess it's possible.

 

Michigan? I'm not sold. Even if OSU is mediocre (or worse), Harbaugh hasn't demonstrated that he can beat Michigan State, either.

 

Penn State, Wisconsin, and Iowa in some order would be my guesses.

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3 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

It might or might not leave an opening at the top of the Big Ten (why do they still call it that when it has 14 teams?) ...

 

<academics hijack>

 

Because math and anything else to do with actual classes has been entirely decoupled and discarded by Division I athletics.

 

</academics hijack>

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I don't like Nebraska's chances.  Road games at Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin?  Seems a bit unfair for someone's first season.

 

I was going to grudgingly pick Ohio for Big Ten champs, but this scandal does put a question mark on it.  Not as big as some people might suggest; what little I'm hearing suggests that only Urban Meyer is going down.  With all the other pieces still in place, Ohio should still be in good shape.  Have to see how his replacement works out.

 

But now I'm not quite sure in my projections.  Penn State v Wisconsin, both at 11-1, and could go either way, feels like the most likely scenario for the Big Ten championship game.  With Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan waiting in the wings.

 

Then again, if Alex Hornibrook (QB-Wisc) has figured out how to stop throwing interceptions, an Alabama-Wsconsin semifinal game seems plausible

 

Oh, and re: Pariah?  Insincere apologies in advance for the rout waiting for BYU in Madison.  Since you Mormons aren't supposed to drown your sorrows in alcohol, I'll have to suggest going to Culver's for frozen custard and deep-fried cheese curds as an alternate means of coping. :)

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2 hours ago, novi said:

Oh, and re: Pariah?  Insincere apologies in advance for the rout waiting for BYU in Madison.  Since you Mormons aren't supposed to drown your sorrows in alcohol, I'll have to suggest going to Culver's for frozen custard and deep-fried cheese curds as an alternate means of coping. :)

In my ward in Portland, college football is taken seriously. It's been a while since we've had a Turkey Bowl (an informal pickup football game held Thanksgiving weekend), but I've known several members who only have Cable TV subscriptions during football season. Comcast must hate them. And naturally we have many BYU alumni in our ranks (just how many people attend BYU in any given year?).

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On ‎8‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 4:29 PM, Michael Hopcroft said:

'Bama could go 6-6, finish fourth in the SEC West, and still win the National Championship, because they're 'Bama.

 

Hopefully, they wont win their division.  Don't want to waste effort having to play an SEC championship and risk injuries when you'll be in the playoff anyway.

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1 hour ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

In my ward in Portland, college football is taken seriously. It's been a while since we've had a Turkey Bowl (an informal pickup football game held Thanksgiving weekend), but I've known several members who only have Cable TV subscriptions during football season. Comcast must hate them. And naturally we have many BYU alumni in our ranks (just how many people attend BYU in any given year?).

 

Comcast hates everyone.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In what is considered a first, the University of Maryland has accepted responsibility for the death of one of their football players who expired in practice.

 

Offensive lineman Jordan McNair died after collapsing in a summer practice in very hot conditions, and many of the standard procedures for heat-related injury were not taken (they didn't even take his temperature). Usually when something like this happens universities essentially shrug their shoulders and move on, and avoid any discussion for fear of prejudicing any legal action against them. This time, the football coach is on paid leave and the University has publicly said, essentially, "this is our fault".

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Ohio State Suspends Football Coach Urban Meyer For 3 Games

 

For those keeping track, those three games are against Oregon State, Rutgers, and TCU. Not exactly Murderer's Row.

 

Meyer will, of course, be on the sidelines for games against the likes of Penn State, Nebraska, Michigan State, and Michigan.

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That is disgusting. Apparently Meyer himself attended the meeting to discuss the findings in his case, which obviously took place behind closed doors. The argument for the weak sanctions apparently was that Meyer "did not intend to lie to the media". Bull****. Do you think a man as media-savvy as a college football head coach would not know exactly what he was doing?

 

The point is that Meyer knew that one of his assistants was beating his wife, and did nothing about it as a favor to his mentor (who was Zach Smith's grandfather). Maybe he was lying to himself in thinking that the higher-ups would take care of the nasty business for him so he wouldn't have to, which we now know not to be true.

 

In the Jim Tressel  mess, the then-president at OSU joked that he was worried that "the football coach would fire the President". Apparently that is still true.

 

Urban Meyer showed sufficiently bad judgement that he should not be mentoring young men. It's not like every single player on the roster is going to end up turning pro.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

In the Jim Tressel  mess, the then-president at OSU joked that he was worried that "the football coach would fire the President". Apparently that is still true.

 

I think that's true at just about every school in the Power 5 conferences.  And as a corollary I think Jerry Sandusky would still be raping little boys in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, if Joe Paterno had not been clearly approaching the end of his health at the time that scandal broke.  That is the level of power Division I athletics has -- and routinely abuses.

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On 8/23/2018 at 9:06 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

In the Jim Tressel  mess, the then-president at OSU joked that he was worried that "the football coach would fire the President". Apparently that is still true.

 

 

On 8/23/2018 at 9:24 AM, Cancer said:

 

I think that's true at just about every school in the Power 5 conferences.  And as a corollary I think Jerry Sandusky would still be raping little boys in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, if Joe Paterno had not been clearly approaching the end of his health at the time that scandal broke.  That is the level of power Division I athletics has -- and routinely abuses.

Apparently it was the president who insisted on the suspension, because the Trustees did not Meyer to receive any punishment at all.

 

Keep in mind that, from what I see of the story, this is not (or at least shouldn't be) about what he said to the media. It should be about Meyer not doing the right thing when his assistant was assaulting his wife -- even though he had a specific legal duty to the contrary. What does this say to the players he coaches -- that he doesn't care how his players treat other people as long as he can win games? We've seen the results of that attitude in situations like that of Jameis Winston at Florida State (who is still being accused of sexual assault every so often now that he's a pro).

 

Coaches influence the development of their players, not just in their skill at football but also in their morality. That's their jobs. These are young men still learning to understand their places in the world.

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