Official 2024 College Football Thread

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I wonder if we start to see conferences make sweetheart schedules to stack teams in. With conference championship game losses not mattering and loses being more important than wins it would really make sense to schedule, for instance, SMU-Miami-Clemson to not play each other every year in order to maximize your chances of getting the most 1 and 2 loss teams possible.

No, because rankings of the conference winner determines byes, and the team doesn't face a challenge all year they are likely to be penalized. The thing they need to do is weigh even more the need for strong strength of schedule.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

So if we had a 4 team playoff, we'd see Oregon vs. Penn State, and Georgia vs. Texas, and ND being left out. Fun.

I'm getting really curious about this. I wonder, if we really did have a 4 team playoff, would the committee really rank these teams 1-4?

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I wonder if we start to see conferences make sweetheart schedules to stack teams in. With conference championship game losses not mattering and loses being more important than wins it would really make sense to schedule, for instance, SMU-Miami-Clemson to not play each other every year in order to maximize your chances of getting the most 1 and 2 loss teams possible.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

No, because rankings of the conference winner determines byes, and the team doesn't face a challenge all year they are likely to be penalized. The thing they need to do is weigh even more the need for strong strength of schedule.

Not to mention, I don't think any conference had the top 3 teams come in as expected, so they'd all probably screw it up.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by dubb93

It has always been a major data point. This change makes the championship games significantly less exciting. In the past you really had to make your game count to get in. This is the first year in memory where these games basically meant nothing. Next year will be the second.

A bye means a lot. Georgia desperately needed that win. Those were fun games last night with players putting all out on the field. Clemson was playing for their lives because they weren't in without winning that game. Beyond that, conference championships still matter to the kids that earn it, maybe not to talking heads and dudes sitting at home.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Not to mention, I don't think any conference had the top 3 teams come in as expected, so they'd all probably screw it up.

Texas was definitely given a sweet heart schedule by the SEC, and both Bama and Georgia seemed to be purposely screwed over. Kirby slammed the SEC office about it in the trophy ceremony.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

A bye means a lot. Georgia desperately needed that win. Those were fun games last night with players putting all out on the field. Clemson was playing for their lives because they weren't in without winning that game. Beyond that, conference championships still matter to the kids that earn it, maybe not to talking heads and dudes sitting at home.

GA is the 5th seed with a loss and gets Clemson and ASU instead of Notre Dame. I think we have a seeding problem too because besides the extra rest I don’t see an advantage of opponent quality existing for being a higher seed. The five seed is very powerful in this format.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by dubb93

GA is the 5th seed with a loss and gets Clemson and ASU instead of Notre Dame. I think we have a seeding problem too because besides the extra rest I don’t see an advantage of opponent quality existing for being a higher seed. The five seed is very powerful in this format.

Georgia needs the rest. They have played a brutal schedule, and they did not want to play next week regardless of the seed. It is easy for someone to say they should want to get the 5th seed when they don't have to suit up and play that extra game.

[SirFozzie]

Pleasantly surprised that SMU got in and Bama is out.

[Atocep]

Penn State OC Andy Kotelnicki is a finalist for the WVU job.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Pretty happy with Georgia facing the Indiana-Notre Dame winner.

Yeah, I would be too lol

Boise would be a matchup problem for them ... but I don't think they get past Penn State to make that happen

[bronconick]

I've been surprised that they didn't decide to reshuffle the quarters to reward the higher seeds.

[RainMaker]

I wish the quarterfinals were played on campus sites too.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I wish the quarterfinals were played on campus sites too.

That was to appease the money behind the bowls. It would have been logical to keep the four team playoffs as they were and add a first round and quarter final before the bowls. But the school schedule masses that up, along with their desire to involve as many major bowls as possible.

[Solecismic]

The committee approach definitely emphasized that the conference championship is a free shot to improve standing, not lose it. So Clemson's win had the effect of taking another bid for the ACC.

They had also emphasized that they would not consider the matchups when seeding, but dropping SMU behind Indiana avoided a Big Ten matchup in the first round.

Clemson's the only 3-loss team, but they played their way in and they only moved up to 16. There are some examples of 1 and 2-loss teams that didn't have any signature wins receiving high rankings.

The ACC was rewarded (unintentionally - the top teams all feasted on Florida State, for example) for its top teams avoiding each other. There aren't any examples of teams that would have been considered had they not lost an out-of-conference matchup (SMU's loss to BYU ended up only affecting seeding), but those aren't exactly encouraged.

The big takeaway is that in-conference schedule strength, which ended up helping the top ACC teams and muddled the Big 12, is something out of your control that's going to end up deciding a good part of the bracket.

I think they're trying to preserve the conference championships at the expense of a stronger bracket.

It would be nice to see the SEC and ACC add a ninth conference game, perhaps even discourage out-of-conference scheduling of FCS teams.

In the end, the bracket is fine. Not including Alabama or Miami or Mississippi or South Carolina doesn't make it less legitimate as a 12-team contest to determine the champion. But it's going to continue to discourage interesting early-season games.

Having "only" three teams will light an internal fire in the SEC. Television ratings and out-of-conference results (the SEC was 13-6 against the other majors) gives them a sense that perhaps they're not optimizing their strengths with the 12-team structure. Expect more talk of a breakaway league.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

It would be nice to see the SEC and ACC add a ninth conference game, perhaps even discourage out-of-conference scheduling of FCS teams.

Why in the world would either do that?

Strength of schedule doesn't matter in the current paradigm, SMU being in proves that. If you're in a conference that has a pulse, playing anybody worth a damn is only useful for practice purposes.

And it might be even more idiotic to give teams like Boise (et al) a chance to improve their strength of loss.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Why in the world would either do that?

Strength of schedule doesn't matter in the current paradigm, SMU being in proves that. If you're in a conference that has a pulse, playing anybody worth a damn is only useful for practice purposes.

And it might be even more idiotic to give teams like Boise (et al) a chance to improve their strength of loss.

The only reason for the SEC to add another conference game would be to increase inventory and get an even bigger TV deal. Not necessary for them at this point, but I'm sure they have it in their back pocket as a play if/when needed.

[Solecismic]

The big story of the season, from the perspective of future developments in college football, was the enormous success of the ABC triple-header with the SEC.

They moved those marquee evening games off of ESPN and into ABC prime time and increased ratings significantly. Enough to show a gap with the Big Ten, which had its own success with a three-tier broadcast approach. The Big Ten had not been using the mid-afternoon slot wisely. They did this year, and saw improvements with its FOX/CBS/NBC numbers (though Michigan/Ohio State wasn't the number-one regular season game for the first time since 2019), plus some improvement even on the Big Ten network, probably due to having more inventory to stash there.

The ACC faltered a bit, relying almost entirely on ESPN and the ACC network. The Big 12 held its own with the Pac 12 additions, but only ended up treading water. The group-of-five was down overall.

Point of all of this - more power for the haves and less for the have-nots, and the ACC/Big 12 is definitely a second tier now. But the SEC is creating some space at the top now.

What I've noticed, as well, is that the SEC has several brands that draw large ratings, while the other majors are more reliant on a small subset of teams to draw those big ratings.

We're quickly moving toward some sort of league, and it's going to be centered around the SEC. If the SEC moves to nine games, that's more big matchups throughout the year, more opportunity to keep viewers on ABC all day Saturday.

[dubb93]

Would be interested to know how streaming figures into the reported Nielsen numbers as to my knowledge you either watch ABC games on ABC or not at all whereas the Big Ten’s media deal includes CBS and NBC which share content with Paramount+ and Peacock. The one area where it’s apples to apples is noon and the Big Ten beat the ACC by 1.5 million views on average but I do think that tended to be one of the bigger Big Ten games of the week each week. The blog I pulled the numbers for said streaming numbers on Peacock at the very least aren’t reported.

[cuervo72]

Makes sense to me. Yes, I know old school fans love their home cupcake matchups. As a home viewer - and for better or worse I think we run the monetary show at this point - bring on extra conference games, or interesting non-conference games. I am NEVER going to watch Alabama/Mercer or Georgia/UMASS. Yes, there is going to be other SEC inventory much of the time, but why tempt me into watching the ACC or the Big 12? Because I will also tell you that if there is a decent SEC or B1G game on, I’m not watching the ACC/Big 12. (Also, ND? Not tuning in to see you romp on the service academies either. I know, you owe them and all that. That’s great but I don’t care to watch it.) So don’t press your luck by making the draw for a given time slot Ole Miss/Kentucky or some such.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by dubb93

Would be interested to know how streaming figures into the reported Nielsen numbers as to my knowledge you either watch ABC games on ABC or not at all whereas the Big Ten’s media deal includes CBS and NBC which share content with Paramount+ and Peacock. The one area where it’s apples to apples is noon and the Big Ten beat the ACC by 1.5 million views on average but I do think that tended to be one of the bigger Big Ten games of the week each week. The blog I pulled the numbers for said streaming numbers on Peacock at the very least aren’t reported.

Back in the old days -- when all the numbers were simply over the air numbers - ACC games didn't do well in Atlanta, usually losing to the lowest tier SEC game as well as Notre Dame, generally similar to any Big 10 games that happened to be on at the same time.

While Syracuse and BC are both in larger media markets, the fact that Syracuse was 9th in average audience for the ACC last season and BC was a woeful 13th, (I haven't seen a 2024 compilation that would include SMU as a member but they were dead last in avg audience last year) but basically if the teams can't even draw eyeballs in their largest home markets, the outcome nationally is kind of a foregone conclusion.

[Thomkal]

Coastal Carolina qualified for a bowl game with 6 wins and was rewarded? with a home bowl game in Myrtle Beach against 6 win Texas-San Antonio. Yeah?

[cuervo72]

Aren’t these games supposed to be about tourism (for the hosts)? Why would you want a team playing at their home stadium?

[Young Drachma]

It's taken forever to get here, at least it'll be interesting.

Odom leaving UNLV for Purdue is interesting, but I guess after the Mizzou flame out and rebuilding UNLV opting for a place with bottom tier expectations is a smart way to play things.

Wonder if Brennan Marion is going to come along or if he can land a head coach job in this cycle.

[Solecismic]

Streaming services are not part of the Nielsen equation, but keep in mind that the Pac 12 no longer exists because, in the wisdom of athletic departments now part of the Big 12 and the Big Ten, streaming does not offer the same future that broadcast or even networks like ESPN offer.

However, this is an evolving world, and the Big Ten did get a lot of money to siphon off games to the Peacock thing (particularly for basketball).

When you look at the noon games and divide them by conference, ESPN's noons with the SEC did a heck of a lot better than their noons with the ACC. Overall, the SEC games on ESPN drew 2.01 million, Big 12 1.56 million and ACC 1.50 million. FOX at noon averaged 5.56 million - that was the Big Ten's prime slot and it beat ABC at noon. But the SEC put its best matchups in the evening slot and averaged 7.38 million viewers there.

Notre Dame took a nosedive, in part because NBC's evening slot became all Big Ten games, leaving Notre Dame primarily in the afternoon.

I see this as a macabre form of musical chairs. The first and most obvious shuttled off to the side were Washington State and Oregon State with their golden parachutes and poor-performing remnants of past Pac 12 contracts. But when you see FSU, Clemson and even North Carolina seemingly desperate to leave the ACC, you can see where this is headed.

The SEC can establish more dominance by moving to nine games, even if ABC doesn't pay more for it right away. Better inventory, all 14 weeks long, never a week to give anyone else a chance to shine. When Georgia is playing Tennessee Tech or Oklahoma is playing Maine, no one cares. I guess they can still tailgate at home, but that's about it.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

It's taken forever to get here, at least it'll be interesting.

Odom leaving UNLV for Purdue is interesting, but I guess after the Mizzou flame out and rebuilding UNLV opting for a place with bottom tier expectations is a smart way to play things.

Wonder if Brennan Marion is going to come along or if he can land a head coach job in this cycle.

Marion has missed on a couple this cycle already. I think Appy State was one. UMass may have been another. Charlotte is still looking but no one seems to be interested in coaching the school that's last in everything financial in the AAC.

Tony Gibson to Marshall.

Matt Campbell seems to be serious about leaving ISU. Their NIL and financial support is pretty bad in the Big 12 and it's going to be really difficult for them to compete.

Jon Sumrall appears to be a finalist at both WVU and UNC. He's already turned down UNC once because of their initial contract offer though.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Aren’t these games supposed to be about tourism (for the hosts)? Why would you want a team playing at their home stadium?

A lot of bowls, especially the smaller ones, do kinda like to sell tickets too.

And that's been a problem for that bowl with attendance of 5,000, 6500, 12,000, and 8000.

[RainMaker]

People complaining about SMU but Indiana is the team that should be out if you want Alabama in. They are worse than SMU in just about every metric.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

A lot of bowls, especially the smaller ones, do kinda like to sell tickets too.

And that's been a problem for that bowl with attendance of 5,000, 6500, 12,000, and 8000.

A lot of the bowls force the schools to buy 10k+ tickets just to play in it. It's why the schools go so hard selling tickets and why a lot of schools lose money playing in a bowl.

[Kodos]

Happy to draw ND in the first round. Go Hoosiers!

[cuervo72]

I mean that’s part of my point I guess. If you have a bowl and the crowd is the size of a MAC game on a rainy Wednesday in November, maybe you just ought to give it up.

If you absolutely need games for TV and for teams to go to, just have a dozen of them in Vegas or something.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I mean that’s part of my point I guess. If you have a bowl and the crowd is the size of a MAC game on a rainy Wednesday in November, maybe you just ought to give it up.

If you absolutely need games for TV and for teams to go to, just have a dozen of them in Vegas or something.

Yeah they're mostly just a scam that isn't needed in a playoff.

[Edward64]

[Edward64]

FWIW

First Round

• Texas > Clemson
• OSU > Tennessee
• PSU > SMU
• Notre Dame > Indiana

Quarterfinals

• Texas > ASU
• OSU > Oregon
• Boise State > PSU
• Georgia > Notre Dame

Semifinals

• Texas > OSU
• Georgia > Boise State

Championship

• Georgia > Texas

Yeah, I know. A third matchup

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Edward64

FWIW after being depressed about the Hogs last year, I am much more optimistic with Petrino back as OC. Hoping for a winning season and minor bowl game this year

WooooPigSooieee !!!

Hogs vs Texas Tech (+2.5) in Liberty Bowl

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Marion has missed on a couple this cycle already. I think Appy State was one. UMass may have been another. Charlotte is still looking but no one seems to be interested in coaching the school that's last in everything financial in the AAC.

Tony Gibson to Marshall.

Matt Campbell seems to be serious about leaving ISU. Their NIL and financial support is pretty bad in the Big 12 and it's going to be really difficult for them to compete.

Jon Sumrall appears to be a finalist at both WVU and UNC. He's already turned down UNC once because of their initial contract offer though.

Shockingly Charlotte pulled in Albin from Ohio. AAC is a step up from the MAC but they must have ponied up to get him to leave a program he had rolling for another rebuild. I find it hard to believe but Belichick to UNC seems to have real smoke. And did Sumrall overplay his hand? He's been linked to every job for a month while his team either quit on him or was exposed as a scheduling mirage.

Re: the playoff it seemed like they wanted to prove they weren't beholden to the SEC (not sure why people thought the Michigan AD led committee was), but they ended up de emphasizing H2H and quality wins too much. Variable SoS within conferences is the biggest issue, and I'd also look to drop any decent OOC game. Ohio State & Penn State both lost close to Oregon, but I think a win at Penn State should help more than a loss to Michigan hurts. I get not wanting to hurt teams who lose an extra game in the CCG but Penn State was in the title game because they didn't play Oregon in the regular season, why shouldn't that loss count like Ohio State's one to Oregon did? And that really matters now if you look at the path each has.

Similarly with Clemson/SMU I'm no Clemson defender or going to cry about the 3 loss SEC brigade, Miami or BYU missing out, but what did SMU do to show they deserve a higher seed than Clemson, beat Louisville and TCU? (Take it further vs Miami and SMU didn't play either Syracuse or GT who knocked off the Canes). They're not going to drop the South Carolina game but Clemson should drop anything like that kickoff classic vs Georgia, they're punished for losing vs a team everyone thinks SMU would also lose to.

16+ team conferences are really dumb, but if they'd at least have divisions that play a round robin it makes some sense, right now these are just loose confederations of teams. I'm not even mad Indiana is in, I like Cinderellas even if it leads to a blowout or two before the semi's, but I don't want to hear about how Indiana got 10 wins "in the tough Big Ten" when they didn't play the teams who make it tough. Army should be nowhere near the playoff but their resume really isn't far off the Hoosiers if they beat Navy, both 11-1 with a blowout loss to the only top 25 team they played. And if you want to say the eye test goes to Indiana not sure why the eye test wouldn't help the 9-3 SEC trio for all their warts.

[Atocep]

Sumrall wants the Kentucky job and I think wanted SEC money to leave this year. He's banking on Kentucky opening up.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

16+ team conferences are really dumb, but if they'd at least have divisions that play a round robin it makes some sense, right now these are just loose confederations of teams.

Yeah, it's funny that the conferences grew AND they did away with divisions. If anything, I think they need to model after the NFL and have more, smaller divisions. Play everyone in your division each season (3 games), one other rotating division (4 games), then one team from each of the other two divisions, either by last season's standings or by rivalries (2 games). 9 conference games. I'm sure someone can figure out the divisions better than I can, but here's a crack at them.

Texas/A&M/Missou/OU
Florida/Georgia/LSU/SC
Alabama/Auburn/Ole Miss/Miss St.
Kentucky/Tennessee/Vandy/ARK

I don't know, maybe that's too easy a road every year for the Vols. I don't know if you have a mini playoff in the conference, or just say the four division winners move to the CFP. Seems to me the conference championships are kind of obsolete with the CFP too.

I don't know what you do with the B1G's 18 teams. Either go to 20 and have 4 divisions of 5, go 4/4/5/5, or just cut two schools loose.

[Atocep]

The problem with divisions was trying to maintain rivalries and balance the divisions. It was an impossible ask that led to things like the 2 Big 10 divisions playing at completely different levels.

[cuervo72]

Somebody's eggs will need to be broken.

[cuervo72]

I mean, if they are going to stick with the teams they have, it's probably going to be something like this:

ORE/UW/UCLA/USC
NEB/MIN/IOWA/WIS
OSU/PUR/IU/ILL/NW
MICH/MSU/PSU/MD/RUT

Yes, the last one is kind of stupid, but someone insisted on adding MD and Rutgers to the mix.

This splits up OSU/Michigan; they would have to play their extradivisional game every year. Penn State is just going to have to deal with being in a division with one or the other of them. Get over the fucking hump...or don't.

OSU's second-most played "rival" is the Illini, so I'm cool putting them in that division, which they should dominate. And other than "The Game" I think this maintains most of the long-running matchups down through Michigan/NW, which, who really cares?

edit: I guess I missed Michigan/Minnesota. Again, eggs. Michigan can't rival everybody.

[GrantDawg]

Carson Beck's injury is a UCL in his right elbow. Still no word on a time table for the injury. Most likely will miss the playoffs. I hate it for him, but sort of excited to see what Gunner can do. Giving him 3 weeks as QB1 before the first playoff game is so huge. If they had to play next week, it might have been a challenge.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Source - Georgia Tech WR Eric Singleton enters transfer portal - ESPN

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Somebody's eggs will need to be broken.

No doubt. Right now conferences are more about inventory of games for TV than anything. As I've said on here before, until there's a commish type role for college sports, at least the major sports, we're going to see continued stupidity since everyone is working against one another.

[dubb93]

Before the Big Ten can do divisions again they really need some combination of USC/UCLA/Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin….atleast three of them to get back to routinely playing high level football. They really have 4 teams with any sort of consistency and three of them play on one side of the country and 1 the other. Divisions would be complicated.

[Ryche]

Could be fun having late December games in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio. College stadiums are not exactly built with winter in mind.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Carson Beck's injury is a UCL in his right elbow. Still no word on a time table for the injury. Most likely will miss the playoffs. I hate it for him, but sort of excited to see what Gunner can do. Giving him 3 weeks as QB1 before the first playoff game is so huge. If they had to play next week, it might have been a challenge.

They are now saying Beck and his family are exploring alternative treatments. I think that is suggesting he wants to play, and they are hoping to find a way to make that happen. Of course it could also mean he is trying to find a way to be healthy enough to not hurt his draft stock.

In other bad news, Bulldog punter Brett Thorton is going to have season ending knee surgery on his non-kicking knee. That kids has been a weapon on his own, not to mention a good tackler (Aussie rugby player). Georgia does have a highly recruited Freshman punter that could see some action.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Source - Georgia Tech WR Eric Singleton enters transfer portal - ESPN

There are saying he already had a visit scheduled Athens. Meanwhile, Georgia freshman receiver Nitro Tuggle is entering the portal. Sad mainly because I really like the name.

[Solecismic]

It's usually better to anticipate the future rather than react to the present. Conference bloat was a reaction, not a plan.

If you look at ratings, you get a sense of the national brands. Part of that is network perception, but there are huge differences even within the same time slot.

The uncomfortable reality is that the major conferences have a lot of non-brands. At some point, football will have to break away into a league, and that's going to involve a financial commitment from each individual franchise.

The sooner that's done, the more likely old conferences can re-form, which would work for every other sport.

[dubb93]

The Big 10 and SEC should look around and each add atleast two teams(Notre Dame, Clemson, ???, and ??? each and then turn the tournament into a 14 team playoff where the top 7 teams in each conference make the tournament. Make the conference championship games for a bye and the loser gets the 2nd seed. Go straight 2v7, 3v6, 4v6, 3v5, 1 gets bye. Have all matchups in the first round be B1G vs. SEC and have the conference champ be in the bracket where the other conference has the two seed. Don't play any non-conference games.

IE 1+3 seed B1G, 2+4 seed SEC. I would be more interested in watching that. They could even go beyond 20 for all I care. I know that is fantasy and we have what we have, but this doesn't seem sustainable.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by dubb93

Don't play any non-conference games.

Not worth giving up GT/ugag, SC-Clemson, FSU-Florida, etc and so forth. Not from my fan perspective ... which we already know doesn't matter one iota to the CFB powers that be.

Or at least, it won't until they NASCAR themselves.