https://mikefarrellsports.com/colleg...n-its-boots-on

How dare you suggest that antiquated concepts like hard work, sacrifice, relationships, trust, teamwork, and humility are required to build a championship contender in the modern college football era?

If Deion again fails to build an offensive line through the portal he'll shut down his QB son a couple weeks into the season to not have him or his draft stock getting significantly hurt.

Do all the recent changes allow multiple redshirt years to enable a coach to hold out his son for seasons in which he can be suitably showcased?

10 years, $130M for Kirby Smart.

I’d say he’s worth it, and he’s earned it.

gawja fans rit naw

https://x.com/easportscollege/status...718663547?s=46

TRAMAMPOLINE

TRAMAMPOLINE

I assume it will get better with time, but this year's schedule is brutal for the big-12

They already play 9 conference games where they beat each other up, then on top of that arizona/kansas state and utah / baylor play each other in "noncon" games.

Then they play like no creampuffs and then have so few chances to prove themselves against the Big-2 conferences.


The entire 16 team conference has only 8 games against the Big-2, and only 1 of those is by a presumptive top-4 team:
Oklahoma State v Arkansas
Iowa State @ Iowa
WVU vs Penn State
Kansas @ Illinois
UCF @ Florida
Colorado @ Nebraska
Houston @ Oklahoma
ASU v Miss State


Then they have 5 games vs the ACC:
WVU @ Pitt
TCU @ Stanford
TCU @ SMU
BYU @ SMU
Cincy v Pitt

And of those 13 games, 9 are on the road



They'll be lucky to have 1 team in the playoffs

ACC has 20 games against Big-2 / Notre Dame:

FSU v Florida
Clemson n Georgia
Miami @ Florida
Louisville @ Kentucky
NC State n Tennessee
Virginia Tech @ Vandy
BC @ Mizzou
Wake v Ole Miss
California @ Auburn
Georgia Tech @ Georgia

Virginia Tech v Rutgers
Duke @ Northwestern
UNC @ Minnesota
BC v Michigan State
Virginia v Maryland

FSU @ Notre Dame
Louisville @ Notre Dame
Virginia @ Notre Dame
Stanford @ Notre Dame
Georgia Tech n Notre Dame


(Or, it's probably better to count ND as an ACC team, then ND plays 3 big-2 teams, ATM, USC and Purdue)

Even if the Big12 champ finishes unranked the selection committee still has the option to rank only one group of 5 champion which would leave a playoff spot available for an unranked team. That could go to the Big12 champ.

ok, i calculated vegas implied ratings based on all the GOTY lines, and then also took the best conf odds and best playoff odds.


Big-12 playoff odds only sum to 1.38 (which includes juice) which is pretty wild. So, seems much more likely than not that they have 1 team rather than 2.

In particular, Oklahoma State at 10-1 to win the conf and 10-1 to playoff is pure value. They play Arkansas at home which gives them a good chance to secure an SEC OOC win. If they beat Arkansas and Utah or something then lose to K-State and @ TCU, and then lose a tiebreaker to like UCF or Kansas or Arizona and miss out on the B-12 title game, I could see them sneaking in at 10-2 without winning the conference.

Utah at +285 and K State at +310 look like good value relative to their conference title odds (which do look a little high to me)



ACC only sums to 1.66. NC State +500 to playoff looks like excellent value. They'd have to make it 16.7% to break even, and they're priced at 12% to just straight up win the ACC and get a (likely) autobid.

I have Vegas ranking them at #21, +8 @ Clemson, -6 @ UNC and +5 neutral vs Tennessee aligns with that

jfc, Michigan plays eight home games

In their 11 games against D-1 competition:

The average rating of Florida's opponents is +18 (roughly equivalent to the ~16th best team)
The average rating of Missouri's opponents is +4 (roughly equivalent to the ~50th ranked team)

Florida plays 5 teams in the top-11
Missouri plays 1


They play only 2 common opponents, Mississppi State and Texas A&M

Florida's other 9 opponents are rated:
1
3
7
8
11
16
20
34
38

Missouri's other 9 are rated:
5
12
23
36
40
74
100
119
128



These teams are in the same conference!!!

Hate to say this but Fresno State +22 and Texas -3 are both megalocks vs Michigan. We have no QB. We seriously might be starting a guy who couldn't win the starting job at Indiana or a guy who has thrown zero forward passes in game action over his two years on campus. I haven't been this tempted to bet 10k on a game in a long time.

A small consolation prize for having to play @#2, vs #3 and vs #4 (per SP+).

Yeah I would scream if we had to play Texas and SC in a 3 week stretch.

I assume 8 home games isn't that uncommon for a Power-2 program.

You get either a 5/4 or 4/5 split of conference games and most top programs are playing either 3 home or 2 home and a neutral for their OOC schedule.

I think it's actually the best kind of schedule. SIX gimme games against teams rated 55+ to build your record, then 3 marquee games to get a shot at a signature victory. Go 2-1 in those games, and you're a lock for the playoffs. Go 1-2 and you're still in good shape, scoop the other 3 against mid-level teams and you're a lock for the playoffs.


USC's schedule is almost as tough as Florida's:

only 6 home games
4 games against top-10 teams,
7 games against teams 11-50
only 1 gimme

Notre Dame basically has the perfect schedule:

7 gimmes:
NIU
@ Purdue
Miami OH
Stanford
@ Navy
Virginia
@ Army

games that a good team should almost never lose, but also they're playing decent brand name teams that aren't embarrassing on the resume

Then four games that will count as "big wins" or likely top-25 wins but they're against teams in the 10-25 range, not the 1-5 range:
@ ATM
Louisville
Florida State
@ USC

Out of their 12 games, only one is a bad game, @ Georgia Tech (#51) might be good enough to win once in a while at home but isn't good enough to get any credit.

The perfect schedule is like 5 teams from 11-25 and 7 teams rated 70-100

NC State is in pretty good shape too - they play TWO top-40 teams all year, neutral vs Tennessee and at Clemson. If Clemson was at home, they'd have a spectacular chance of running the table or finishing 11-1


You basically don't want to play Ohio State or Georgia, and you don't want to play a bunch of games like @ ~#30-55.

Unfortunately for the Big-12, 90% of their games are against teams in the 30-55 range, and they have almost no OOC games against teams in the golden 11-25 zone and almost no cupcakes either. Even their 1-aa games are against like south dakota state and north dakota and albany lol

TNT getting two games is annoying. Can't wait until the year every major streaming service picks off one of the games.

More common in conferences that play 9 conference games, sure. In this case IIRC it's also weird side effect of conference realignment -- the Texas series was flipped (was supposed to be @Texas in 2023) as part of their B12 exit and of course the B1G schedule changed completely a few months ago.

Weren't they supposed to play at Texas in 2024 and at Michigan in 26 or 27?