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The first playoff poll is out and some people are happy and others are clearly not:
1. Alabama (7-0) 2. Notre Dame (8-0) 3. Clemson (7-1) 4. Ohio State (4-0) 5. Texas A&M (5-1) 6. Florida (6-1) 7. Cincinnati (8-0) 8. Northwestern (5-0) 9. Georgia (5-2) 10. Miami (7-1) 11. Oklahoma (6-2) 12. Indiana (4-1) 13. Iowa State (6-2) 14. BYU (9-0) 15. Oregon (3-0) 16. Wisconsin (2-1) 17. Texas (5-2) 18. USC (3-0) 19. UNC (6-2) 20. Coastal Carolina (8-0) 21. Marshall (7-0) 22. Auburn (5-2) 23. Oklahoma State (5-2) 24. Iowa (3-2) 25. Tulsa (5-1) Our Weekly Playoff Predictor from last weekend: 1. Alabama (1) 2. Ohio State (4) 3. Notre Dame (2) 4. Clemson (3) Waiting in the wings: - Florida: (6) - Texas A&M (5) - Cincinnati (8) - Northwestern (7) Not exactly hard to predict but going 8 for 8 is pretty darn good. Texas A&M is a lame duck 5 as Florida and Northwestern have clearer lines to the playoff than A&M and Cincinnati due at this point. Win their respective championship games and they are in. Thoughts: - The top four is not exactly surprising and pretty predictable. Bama, Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State. Ohio States close on the scoreboard win last week probably put them in forth. - Texas A&M is sitting on the outside looking in. - Cincinnati is the highest rated Group of 5 team in history at 7. There isn't anything more that - BYU is beyond pissed and is ranting and raving about it. Independents are at a huge disadvantage in this environment, which is what drove Notre Dame to join the ACC this year. BYU did turn down the chance to play Washington this weekend but they didn't want to follow PAC12 Covid rules and PAC12 wasn't going to share television revenue for the event. Understandable why BYU turned it down but when you go around screaming "Any team, Any Time, Any Where" and then turn teams down, it ruins your narrative to be willing to take on all comers. BYUs only hope is to find the highest ranked opponent to play December 19th and even that probably won't be enough. - Iowa State is probably the biggest surprise as a two loss team ahead of BYU. I would have thought the opening season loss to UL would have hurt them much more. - Georgia is probably overrated though they are kept up by losing to two quality teams. Overall, I think the Top 8 makes complete sense to me at this point. After that it is pretty debatable though I could have easily seen BYU at 9. I wouldn't be surprised if they rise next week as some of the teams in front of them start to add more losses.
Comments
Top 25:
And the Bottom: - Penn State. What an epic train wreck for a team with such huge expectations. - Louisiana Monroe: Haven't watched them yet? Picture the NY Jets as a college football team. Then make them even worse. - Kansas: I love that they show more highlights for basketball when their football teams play than they do for the actual football team. - UMass: Their "Rent-A-Victory" scheme for teams wanting to pad their record is brilliant for adding funding to the UMass athletic department. Weekly Thoughts: - A bunch of games were postponed and will likely be cancelled but a solid weekend of college football with some great games being played. With the strange scheduling expect to see a ton of Friday night games next week with the holiday coming up. - Ohio State pulled it out against a game Indiana. Despite getting a 28 point lead the Buckeyes let Indiana get back into it. The big take away is that Ohio State's defense needs some work to get ready for the playoff. Indiana will be a fun team to watch with games again a resurging Maryland and an angry Wisconsin coming up the week after. - Indiana has some new believers even with the loss. They went toe to toe and stood their ground with one of the best teams in college football. - Huge win by Northwestern against Wisconsin. - Northwestern seemed to get some motivation from ESPN's Joey Galloway. When asked about his thoughts on Northwestern, he remarked to his co-host Rece Davis, "Honestly, they've got a bunch of Rece Davises running around out there" in discussing Northwestern's athletic disadvantage against some of the schools with less stringent academic requirements. Northwestern took it to heart and were joking about it after their win. - BYU won big against North Alabama but only has a single game left on its schedule. If they want to keep the voters interest then they'll need to magically find a top 25 team to play additional games to raise their strength of schedule. - Chanticleers won again! Looking good for their monster showdown with Liberty coming up in two weeks. - But too bad those same Liberty Flames flamed out against NC State in a close won. Another unbeaten juggernaut goes down on a blocked 39 yard field goal attempt in the last 90 seconds of the game. - Georgia beat Miss State but I'm going with the kuddos to Miss State. Miss State had less than 50 scholarship players available for the game which would have allowed them to cancel the game if those chose to. I'm pretty sure that every other college football team that was below 50 has cancelled their games so good on Miss State for showing up and not crying. - Auburn beat Tennessee and set up their matchup with Alabama with the Tigers having a Top 25 ranking. - If you haven't watched Iowa State this year you are missing out on a solid football team. - Good article by ESPN on the downfall of Florida State Football over the last few years. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30331494/deep-deep-hole-6-year-unraveling-florida-state-football - When did U of Okie remember how to play defense? Combining a solid defense with that offensive system and you have a solid future. As long as Lincoln Riley doesn't leave. - Perdue got screwed by a weak pass interference call against Minnesota. Not a good look from the Big 10 refs. - Illinois pulled out the big win against Nebraska. Scott Frost continues to be a huge disappoint but his buyout is around $25 million so expect him to hang around for a big. If you haven't watched the video on the fake punt from the game, I recommend it as it is the easiest first down fake punt run ever. (https://twitter.com/i/status/1330228469670830086) - Also with the SMU video about their game being posponed. (https://twitter.com/SMU_Football?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1330197418118418434%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2F) - Oregon beat UCLA but has pretty much shut the door on making the playoffs with their play. Needing UCLA to go full moron on a pointless Hail Mary to make the scoring difference won't inspire voters to dislike the PAC12 less. - I really don't enjoy watching PAC12 football, even more so this year than most. Very sloppy which is understandable because they just started but its awful to go from a back to back well played games to watching poorly played 7-on-7 with four additional players on each team. - Neat Senior Day by Pitt. With restrictions limiting contact with families the players came out to cameos from their families on the big screen. Playoff Prediction for This Week. No changes again this week to the Top 4. 1. Alabama. Not playing the best, but they looked pretty good. 2. Ohio State: Smooth sailing until the Big East Championship game against Northwestern. 3. Notre Dame: North Carolina, two cupcakes (Syracuse and Wake) and then Clemson again 4. Clemson: Two mediocres (Pitt and VTech) and then Notre Dame again. Waiting in the wings: - Florida: Another easy win. Smooth sailing until they meet the Tide. - Texas A&M: Still needs Clemson to lose the ACC Championship game if it wants a shot at the 4th spot. Expect to see this for a few more weeks because there isn't much in A&M's way at this point beyond that loss to Alabama. - Cincinnati: The Bearcats pulled out the win but it was really close. The first decent team they played (UCF) took them to the wire. Put them in the ring against an Alabama or Clemson and they lose by 30 points, easily. - Northwestern!: Yup. It is a simple path now for the Wildcats, just beat Ohio State and they are in the playoffs. Good luck with that. First, we've already had two nights of MACtion, as the Mid American Conference has elected to play their games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in order to hopefully get more TV games...  Then, we have a bunch of games that have gotten postponed or cancelled.  And here we are, as of 3:52pm EST, here are the games still scheduled to be played this weekend:  A slow week in college football due to covid postponements and cancellations. My original thread disappeared when posting so you get this version instead. I swear the other one was much funnier. Oh well, lesson learned.
Top 25:
Thoughts: - Jim Harbaugh sucks as a coach and needs to be fired. The Wolverines get worse every week. But for some reason there are people who love him so I expect Jim to fail into success so get ready for Jim to be announced as the Jets new head coach in January. - Kyle Trask is a legit Heisman candidate. Especially this year. If Florida continues to perform like this then Bama won’t have a walkthrough in the SEC Championship game. - Kentucky had an emotional victory in a 38-35 win over Vanderbilt. The game was two days after the death of longtime offensive line coach John Schlarman. The Wildcats only had four offensive linemen for their first play as a sign of respect. The next play the Left Guard came into the game wearing Schlarman’s old number from when he played. - Marshall won 42-14 over Middle Tennessee State. The win, which improved the Herd to 7-0 on the year, came 50 years to the day after 37 members of the Marshall football team and eight coaches were among the 75 people killed in a plane crash on the way back from a game at East Carolina. - East Carolina got roughed up by a talented Cincinnati team. My first chance to really watch the Bearcats and they were really legit. Their week strength of schedule hurts but I’m convinced they could play against most top 10 in college football and hold their own. - North Carolina’s awful defense is hiding that the Tar Heels offense is pretty good. - Who had Indiana as undefeated for the first time through 4 games since the Reagan administration? Huge game next week with the Hoosiers against Ohio State. - Northwestern is undefeated as well, setting up an interesting game next week against Wisconsin. Wisconsin continues to look pretty good. - Rutgers was a favorite for the first time since 2015 in a Big 10 game because Illinois was starting its third string QB. Of course they lost. But hey, small victories. - Tulane beat up an Army team that had been having a good season so far. Army can’t come back once it falls behind and just embarrasses itself when it tries to come back. - Ragin’ Cajuns are in the Sun-Belt Championship game. They’ll play the winner of the Appalachian State-Coastal Carolina match-up. - Minnesota looked awful. I love the calling for time outs from Iowa late in the game. - The only thing worse than PAC12 football, are PAC12 ref’s. 4th and 1, QB gets two yards and its short. Look forward to the apology from the PAC12 this morning. - Ole Miss gained 700 yards of offense against the Gamecocks. The video of Lane Kiffin knowing it was a touchdown before his QB throws the ball (from near his own endzone) is entertaining. Clipboard goes 30 feet into the air and Lane sprints down the sideline 60 yards. - Ian Book keeps getting better each week. The Irish will need that passing attack if they want a chance against a healthy Clemson. - Miami’s punter won them the game averaging 52 yards per kick for his seven punts. - Merchant Marines beat Coast Guard for the Secretaries Cup. Yup, DIII making the highlights shows you how weak this week was for college football. - There are talks about pushing back the college football playoff so teams can get in more games. Nothing settled in stone just yet. - The deadline for Heisman voting is Dec. 21. Finalists for award will be announced during a 30-minute special on Dec. 24 at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN. In normal years they would award before the championship games. - Don’t forget you have Cal and UCLA playing today. When their opponents fell off due to Covid they signed up for a last minute game. Good for them trying to just play. Playoff Prediction for This Week. No changes to the four this week. 1. Alabama. Don’t expect the postponed LSU game to be made up. 2. Ohio State Big game against Indiana this week. Yup, Indiana. 3. Notre Dame: Getting better each week on offense. 4. Clemson: Just waiting for Lawrence and the defense to get back on the field. Waiting in the wings: - Florida: Trask is looking like a strong potential Heisman candidate. - Texas A&M: Still needs Clemson to lose the ACC Championship game if it wants a shot at the 4th spot. - Cincinnati: Falls due to Army getting trounced and one of their rare “quality” wins disappearing with Army being exposed by Tulane.
Top 25:
Saturday, Nov. 7
Thoughts: - If you watched it, you were impressed with both teams. Notre Dame and Clemson was fantastic it and it really gave you appreciation for how good the Notre Dame offensive line is. Trevor Lawrence being out was of course huge but Clemson missing a couple of starters on defense was bigger as the Clemson freshman QB DJ Uiagalelei passed for 426 yards (most ever against Notre Dame) and looked great. The Golden Domers offense is straight out of the 1970s with just enough throws to tight ends to move the chains as they the just chew up ground behind what is easily the best offensive line in college football. Yup, they are better than any Offensive line in the SEC, they are they good. This sets up the ACC to be an instant classic if Clemson and Notre Dame both win out and they meet again. - I've been saying it here, the Chanticleers are legit! Another big win this week! Chanticleers vs the Flames in the final week of the year for a potential playoff spot? - Texas A&M is looking awesome right now. Huge potential for them to threaten Clemson for the number 4 spot in the Top 25. Their win over Florida looks huge right now. - Speaking of Florida, they took the Bulldogs behind the woodshed. Georgia isn't good enough to make up for injuries and awful QB play. How can Clemson have a roster of starting QBs while Georgia managed to go from having three starters two years ago to having none now. I bet they'd love to have Fields back. Florida looks to have an easy ride into Atlanta to represent the SEC East with no ranked teams left on their schedule. - Oregon beat Stanford but I don't know if anyone actually cares about the PAC12 right now. Oregon need to have a signature game against a quality opponent if they are going to make a run at the playoff. Otherwise you're going to see either the ACC or SEC double up. Same goes for USC. - Ohio State looked alright. Lots of mistakes but their talent gap between them and the rest of the Big 10 is so big they can make up for the issues. It will be different in the playoff when they face teams who are just as talented but more disciplined in Clemson and Alabama. - Iowa State is now 5-1. Not that anyone really cares about any teams in that conference not from Texas or Oklahoma. - Oklahoma beat on Kansas for fun, which really isn't that hard. - Okie State had to make the comeback after struggling for parts of the game. - Cincinnati is legit and can play. A solid team that performs every week. They need SMU and Army to continue to win. With UConn leaving last year the American switched to a single conference with the two best records so it is likely to get the Bearcats and SMU again which would knock SMU out of the Top 25 and hurt the Bearcats strength of schedule. Army doesn't play anyone good the rest of the year so no real issue there. - Marshall beat up on a UMass team that is basically whoring itself out this year as chum. Being an independent is hard if you try to play after everyone else scheduled their games and you only get dates with the people who got stood up. - Michigan and Penn State are both awful. They probably wished they had cancelled their season right now. - Maryland looks like a decent team behind Baby Tua. - BYU looked good. Miami continues to play to their opponents level, which isn't a good thing against bad teams but they squeaked it out. - Mississippi State came out to their new state flag which looks pretty decent. Ole Miss did the same. - Troll of the Week goes to Clemson Fans for trolling their own QB. As Trevor Lawrence walked on to the field some of the Clemson fans were yelling, "J-E-T-S, JETS JETS JETS!" Maybe they are hoping if they tease him enough he'll be back for another year. - Virginia Tech iced a kicker and ended up losing because of it. Dumbest thing in football. Playoff Prediction for This Week. 1. Alabama. 2. Ohio State 3. Notre Dame 4. Clemson Waiting in the wings: - Cincinnati: Easy schedule the rest of the way ensures they will end up undefeated unless SMU gets really lucky in the championship game. - Florida can get in if it wins the SEC. - Texas A&M needs Clemson to lose the ACC Championship game if it wants a shot at the 4th spot.
Welcome to November!
Top 25 Round Up
Thoughts: - Clemson didn't look great in the first half but righted the ship and looked like one of the best teams in the second half against a game BC team. BC seemed to get caught up in the moment in the second half and couldn't keep it together. Actual freshman (forget that "true" garbage) DJ Uiagalelei looked pretty good in the second half which is important because he'll be the starting QB again next week when Clemson takes on Notre Dame since Trevor Lawrence won't be able to pass covid protocol in time for the game. - Michigan doing Michigan things. Big Blue can't turn the page to become a dominant team. Good for Green Rutgers in getting the win. - Missouri showed its first fight of the year, too bad it was an actual fight. - Virginia took out North Carolina, pretty much guarantying a Clemson/Notre Dame rematch. - Alabama beat up on Miss State School for the Blind. Bama's defense is getting better each weak, whether it is only better because the competition is worse is unknown. - Ohio State continues to show that they are on par with talent with Bama and Clemson and are miles ahead of the rest of the Big10. It really is a three team race this year. - Penn State went from potential playoff to struggling to get picked for the Guaranteed Rate Bowl (And no, I didn't make that bowl up). - I won't be surprised to see Georgia's offense on the back of a milk cartoon soon. If they want a shot against the top three, they need to put points on the board. Otherwise we can look forward to the Georgia-Notre Dame Gator Bowl and a rousing 6-3 game. - Huge win by Texas. Tom Herman really needed that win. - Cincinnati should win out since they don't play anyone decent the rest of the rest. - Who had Indiana being any good this year? Nice start so far. - Wisconsin's game being cancelled doesn't help them out. - The Chanticleers crushed it again this weekend. The rematch with the Ragin Cajuns should be another good game. - PAC12 starts this weekend. Oregon seems to be the only PAC12 team with a chance to make the playoffs. By virtue of starting lower the other teams won't have enough time to make up ground against the teams that are two months into their seasons. - Not that I care about the Heisman, but I think this takes Lawrence out of the Heisman competition. I think it is comes down to Fields or Mac Jones in this shortened season. Okie State's loss makes it hard for Chuba Hubbard to have a chance at winning. Playoff Prediction. 1. Alabama. 2. Clemson. Falls this week because Lawrence is out. 3. Ohio State 4. Cincinnati (Not that it really matters) - Okie State falls out with its loss. No representation from the Big12 year. - I expect Notre Dame to fall to Clemson next weekend. Notre Dame can run and play defense but they can't throw while Clemson can do it all even with a freshman QB making his second start. They will get a second chance against Clemson in the ACC Championship game with North Carolina losing again though. - Georgia will get to meet Alabama again in the SEC Championship game and the outcome isn't likely to change with how the Dawgs offense is performing. - Wisconsin is an interesting team but they'll only have six games by the time they play Ohio State in the Big10 championship game. Of course if they win that weekend then they are in. - If Clemson, Bama or Ohio State lose in their conference game then I think they get the 4th seed and the winner gets the 3rd. I haven't seen a team yet that is anything but chum for the top three but we'll know more about Notre Dame this weekend.
We haven't done the best job of keeping on college football so let's see what we can do.
Top 25 Results:
Thoughts: - Going into this weekend, the Big 10 actually had the best chance of getting two teams into the playoffs because of how the schedules broke out for the ACC and SEC. With Penn State's loss it hurts their chances unless Wisconsin and Michigan can continue to step up to join Ohio State. - That was a hard way for PSU to lose though. And then you get Ohio State on the rebound? Lucky them. - Dabo through a hissy fit because reporters dared to question his teams excellence. The reality of Clemson's schedule is that the only talented teams they play this year are a Miami team that I think is overrated and a Notre Dame team I also think is overrated. If you are going to play lesser talented teams that don't have a gimmick then be prepared to get bad press if you don't blow teams out by 50. - Alabama's depth advantage makes it relatively easy to replace one of the best wide receivers in the country in Waddle. - If you had Army as the first team to commit to a bowl then you are probably a West Point grad. - Speaking of Army, Army and Navy will be played at West Point for the first time since 1943 due to covid. - If you haven't seen it, you need to watch the Rice field goal that hit the uprights four times before being not good. Heartbreaking for the Owls. - I have not idea how much Auburn paid the refs this year but they are getting their money's worth. - I think Tom Herman is playing for his job the rest of the year. The miracle hasn't happened and UT isn't relevant. The only things that could possibly safe him if he doesn't run the table is that UT can't afford the buyout this year or they can't find another coach of name to take the position. - Am I the only person who doesn't care about the Heisman? Plenty of defensive players have deserved but only one has ever done it and he played a ton of offensive as well. Current Playoff Prediction: - Clemson - Alabama - Ohio State - Oklahoma State |
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