So Arkansas is reportedly going to wave $50M/7 years at Malzahn.

Because they said it, doesn't make it any less stupid.

In reality, and trying to be as objective as possible, this would have been my top three:

1) Oklahoma- One loss to a mediocre Iowa State, but some of the best wins over top teams of anyone. Really the class of the best conference this year.
2) Georgia- One loss to a good team at home. Convincing wins against everyone else (only close game all season was Notre Dame at Notre Dame)
3) Clemson-One loss to a very bad team. Had good wins, but not on the level of Oklahoma.

There are a lot of teams that could enter at 4. I actually think USC has almost the same argument as OSU. Wisconsin gets screwed by the "when" of their loss. Alabama to me has the worst argument, yet they get it at the end. UCF is screwed because no non-power 5 team can get in unless they both go undefeated AND somehow play and beat a Power 5 champion.

fwiw ... when push came to shove this morning, I mentally had Ohio State ahead of Alabama.

That's not a ringing endorsement of tOSU, it's more about the optics of the Bama loss, but that's where I had 'em.

Stub hub may have jumped the gun. They posted bowl games including USC vs Ohio State.

Btw, the best thing about how this panned out: Georgia plays Oklahoma first the first time ever. Over a century and a half of college football, two storied programs. They have never played each other. Georgia also plays in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1943. Both are pretty crazy facts.

As a match-up, no. I'd rather the be in the Sugar, and against say OSU. But it will be a fun and interesting match-up.

Just buy the best that is available. Jerry Jones has alot of dough.

I want to personally thank the Iowa Hawkeyes football team from the bottom of my heart. Thank you!!! Thank you!!!!!!

Washington vs Penn State in the Fiesta. That’s going to make things awkward with my in-laws.

Given my friends' reactions, the Alabama selection was a great win for Michigan fans.

Let's break down #3 a bit.
1 loss yes. By 4 without their starting QB.
Oklahoma's 1 loss was worse.

Now compare wins.
"Not on the level of oklahoma"
Auburn, Miami, South Carolina, VT, Louisville (obviously fell off late) and NCSU.
I'm leaving out FSU, BC and GT

Give me the next level oklahoma wins.
Osu/auburn is a push.
Miami/tcu ?
Then where

FEI has the schedules almost idential. Clemson SOS 28 and OU 24.

FEI Top 25 wins:

Clemson: Auburn (2), Miami (10), , BC (20), NC State (21), Louisville (23), VT (25)
OU: OSU (9), TCU (13), Oklahoma State (15), Iowa State (16)

Clemson with more wins against the top 25, but OU had 4 wins against the top 16. If we extend that to top 50 then OU adds Texas (35), KState (36), and Texas Tech (50) while Clemson adds Wake Forest (27) and FSU (37).

Those schedules look pretty similar to me.

Btw. I agree. The schedules are basically equal. Clemson lost 1 game, on the road, on a short week, by 1 score without their starting qb.

Oklahoma lost on a Saturday, by more, with their heisman qb.

Go Oklahoma!

Oh well, can't really blame him ... but time for AR to move on.

Gus Malzahn, Auburn Reportedly Agree on New Contract Amid Arkansas Rumors | Bleacher Report

Here's 538's analysis.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ference-crown/

Good suggestion.

I knew Alabama would make it in.. no doubt in my mind because they are Alabama... it is what it is.

I just hope Clemson stomps the crap out of them.

Amen.

Im not impressed by Alabamas resume. And my initial reaction was BS.

BUT it is Alabama. They can do no wrong. And tOSU wasnt consistently great this year.

The simple solution is to go to 8 teams.

Then it is:

1. Clemson
2. Georgia
3. Oklahoma
4. tOSU
5. USC
6. Alabama
7. Wisconsin
8. UCF

Now that looks like a great 3 weeks of football to me. And it takes care of all the arguments. And doesnt leave out a conference champ.

I know this 4 playoff deal has a contract through the mid 20s. But maybe Don Delaney will shake things up since the B1G was left out.

+1

Auburn
Washington
Penn St
Miami

It doesnt take care of all arguments it just creates a different tier of argument. Just like the NCAA basketball tourny going from 64 to 68 didnt solve the "snub" problem it just changed the level.

Right.

If they have to have a playoffs (which I never liked, neither BCS either), it should always be the four best teams chosen.

I have a big problem with conference championship games - it adds a needless layer of complexity and sometimes a redundant game. I would be more in favor of going to 8-team playoff IF the conference championship is eliminated.

So after the whole regular season and before the extraneous conference championships, who were the 4 and 8 best teams?

That's easy enough, I just go back to my last t25 before the latest one.

Clemson
Oklahoma
Auburn
Alabama
Georgia
Wisconsin
Miami
Ohio State

This is a great point. It also alleviates coach concerns about having too many games. The only problem is that conference championships still mean something to me. I may be in the minority on that one though.

Yes, I don't know why you would go to 8 teams and keep conference championship games. I would be ok with eliminating conference championship games if they expanded the playoffs to 8 teams which start at the best seed's home field on that same weekend.

The conference championships basically function as a 1st round as it is. I would like to see a team like UCF get a shot at a big team though.

I'm perfectly okay with Alabama getting the spot over Ohio State. But we shouldn't let the committee off the hook for saying they were "unequivocally better". That's some horseshit.

Put me in the eliminate conference championships and expand to an 8-team playoff camp.

For the record, Clemson had their starting QB for the Syracuse game, he just got knocked out in the game. He put himself in harms way and it costed him, and ultimately, the team.

That is WAY different then entering the game without him.

Keep the conference championship games. Expand the field to 16. The ccg serve as round 1. Byes for conference champs after pigtail.

Btw I agree, I think, that Bama is a better team than OSU.
My problem is, Auburn is a better team than Bama.

Auburn when healthy beat UGA worse than UGA beat Auburn without their best RB.

He missed the entire second half after being knocked out. He started the game unable to run with a sprained ankle.

The coaches have said if they had a full week to change the game plan he would never have started.

Ultimately Syracuse won, I'm taking nothing away from them. That doesn't change the fact that Clemson didn't have their qb for their only loss. The selection committee recognized and stated as much

Do we really think that from a money perspective we are going to convince the conferences to get rid of their championship games?

And for the record I think the committee got this wrong two years in a row. I’d like to see a system where the 5 power 5 conference champions + 3 go to a tournament with the conference champions seeded 1-5 and the +3 seeded 6-8. That is the system I would like to see.

I appreciate the season-long entertainment you continue to provide with the "short week for an 7pm Friday night game" BS. :lol:

I like the way you think. I doubt we will ever see a UCF type team in these playoffs - mostly because of the conference Championships and the 4 team setup.

This would work too. Make conference championships really mean something. When non-conference champions get in over conference champs (OSU over PSU last year, for example), it renders the conference championship game useless or worse.

They played the week before on Saturday and then followed with a Friday game, so they had one less day to prepare. What am I missing here? How is that "BS"?

Well in fairness to him, the first time he trotted out the excuse he called the 7pm Friday night game "midweek" so at least this was an improvement.

The larger point is that teams play two games less than exactly 7 days apart all year. Some of them even play on Thursday after playing the prior Saturday.

I think Dabo and crew would be insulted if anyone was to make the claim that they couldn't properly gameplan for Syracuse.

Yeah, I don't think it's really the gameplanning thing, not exclusively. Yes, many/most teams do have 6-day turnarounds at some point in a season rather than the normal 7-day. But I don't think you can argue that it's not harder on the body with less recovery time and there's just that much less time to prep and do everything else that is required during the week.

Clemson at least wasn't doing this as part of back-to-back road games, unlike the dumbfuck schedulers in the Pac-12 where teams were doing late-night Saturday road games followed by Friday road games - that's some real BS and a significant competitive disadvantage.

They were losing at that time, too.

At least the ACC and SEC decided several years ago that this was a safety issue. And any team schedule with a Thursday night game has a bye the week before. I *think* all of the Power 5 conferences share this rule, but I am not certain of the other 3.


I thought I detailed this earlier in this thread but cant find it.

By rule a team can not "physically" practice on Sunday. They are allowed video review, which is always done on Sunday, meeting or classrooom instruction but not on field practice. Then you physical practice on Monday
They get 2 days of normal practice (Monday and Tuesday)
Walk thru gameplan on Wednesday.
(Remember under new rules this year all treatment, whirlpool, ice bath, or e-stim time counts toward daily max sport activity. In a condensed week this is what athletes skip, they dont skip practice they skip treatment.
Clemson then spent 6 hours on Thursday traveling. (2 hour bus ride to Atlanta, 2 hour in air, 1 hour in airport and bus ride to hotel)
Then on Friday they are required to go to class. Since they are in Syracuse they tele-class. On Field walk through was at 3pm.


The Friday away team is at a tremendous disadvantage. The fact that FSU and Clemson are required to participate in Friday games but will never have home Friday games, while a compromise, still hurts both school.

If you dont think Friday games are a disadvantage, I am not sure how to debate you. Friday games between in conference P5 opponents the home team went 10-3 this year, including 7 outright upsets.

Huh?

Ladies and gentlemen, Herm Edwards!

http://footballscoop.com/news/herm-edwardss-introductory-press-conference-arizona-state-experience/

NC State beat Louisville on Thursday October 5th. They both played on Saturday September 30th. Louisville had it a little easier and played Murray State but NC State played Syracuse the week before, obviously a conference game.

Look, I'm not claiming it's "easy" to play with less rest. I'd be crazy to think so. But continually using that as some sort of mitigant for the loss is just completely unnecessary. Your team is literally too good for that kind of garbage.

I'm sure you were really feeling bad for Miami having to travel to Pitt to play that game on the Friday after Thanksgiving, after playing the Saturday prior. And that game kicked off 7 hours earlier than Clemson/Cuse!

You are talking about Mizzou's 68-21 win over Idaho right? Oh yeah, the team from the equivalent Sun Belt...

Here we have it...

Mizzou/Texas
UK/Northwestern
Michigan/South Carolina

Let's see how the worst division in college football does.

So Herm Edwards is so ready to coach the college game he won't even hire his own coaching staff. He's just keeping the entire staff Todd Graham had.

But they're going to huddle more because we don't huddle enough as a society.

That was how the ASU AD (who used to be Edwards' agent) wanted it. This whole thing is so weird and unusual that I'm glad they're doing it just for the entertainment factor.

It was definitely rough on Miami that they basically played 11 straight weeks. It absolutely had something to do with their loss to Pitt.

I would blame the hurricane for that more than anything.

Are we talking about 8th place Sun Belt team Idaho? Great.

Troy won the Sun Belt this year. They beat LSU. They are better than Missouri.

Georgia beat Appalachian State by 21. Georgia beat Missouri by 25. Appalachian State is better than Missouri.

I would figure Northwestern steamrolls Kentucky, if they aren't flat as hell then Michigan beats South Carolina. Mizzou/Texas is probably a toss up.

And at this point I'm not even sure whose point those outcomes would even make.