Figured I would get this thing started since a mod still hasn’t changed the title of the 2022 thread. Let’s just start over. Fresh starts are good and this is a fresh new season.

This is the last college football season with the 4 team playoff format. Next year starts the 12 team playoff. It’s been an ok run. Most of the semi final games weren’t very good aside from a few notable ones like uga/ou, Ohio st/uga, and Oregon/fsu for the lulz.

I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but from a pure enjoyment perspective I enjoyed the bcs era more. Even with my team getting left out of a title game once in 2004. More chaos (see 2007), more controversy, and it felt like college football in its purest form because one game can ruin your season. Every game mattered and everything was still mostly regional before all the conference expansion. Was obviously pre NIL. Not saying players weren’t getting paid but I much preferred it being under the table heh. (Insert cam newton joke here)

This is also the last year of the conferences as we know them. Sec adds OU and Texas next year. B1G adds usc, ucla, Oregon, and Washington. Am I missing a team? I can’t keep up with this ****. Big 12 adds ucf, byu, Cincy, Houston and some leftover pac teams. The pac 12 or 4 whatever it’s gonna be called is dead. Done. Who the **** knows what’s gonna happen to the remaining teams. Kinda sad but it is what it is. Money rules all. People hate change but none of this is ever permanent. I think eventually these conferences will just get so big and ridiculous we will come full circle and teams will be sorted by region again and it’ll be something like it was in the past.

Anyway, I digress…

Top 25 pre season poll





Week 0 games.

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Saturday 8/26

2:30 — Navy vs. Notre Dame (in Dublin) — NBC/Peacock

5:30 — UTEP at Jacksonville State — CBS Sports Network

7 — UMass at New Mexico State — ESPN

7 — Ohio at San Diego State — Fox Sports 1

7:30 — Hawaii at Vanderbilt — SEC Network

8 — San Jose State at USC — Pac-12 Network

9 — FIU at Louisiana Tech — CBS Sports Network



Not a great slate but who gives a ****. It’s football legoooooooooooooooooooooo

Is Auburn the only SEC team not to make that list?

Frozen out???

Auburn is receiving votes.

Others Receiving Votes:

Iowa 169; South Carolina 89; Florida 63; Texas-San Antonio 59; Pittsburgh 52; UCLA 42; Kentucky 34; Baylor 28; Troy 25; Arkansas 20; NC State 19; Fresno State 19; Boise State 18; Auburn 18; Minnesota 16; Miami 16; Mississippi State 13; Oklahoma State 12; Missouri 11; Maryland 10; Southern Methodist 8; South Alabama 8; Illinois 7; Wake Forest 6; Air Force 6; Toledo 5; Washington State 4; Houston 3; Duke 2; Brigham Young 2; Arizona 2; Memphis 1; Kansas 1; James Madison 1.

From the USA Today site


A few years of Bryan Harsin recruiting will do that to a team. Almost every recruit from his first class has transferred out. And auburn sucked ass last year. Not sure what you expected lol

I honestly don't know what to expect from any team. Figuring out most teams is about like playing 52 Pickup while blindfolded. I was just funnin' you.

Who is your team again? I forget. Miss st?

Right neighborhood. Wrong school.

I'm admittedly the biggest fair-weather fan in SE.

Ah… yeh. Curious to see what kiffin can do after last year. Started off great but just fell apart in the second half of the season. I’m sure the auburn rumors didn’t help. I can’t help but think all the 4th down attempts finally caught up to him. Just wonder if he’ll keep being super aggressive like that this year.

Yeah, he Tubervilled that team last year. Disgraceful behavior on his part, but if you're primarily after top dollar ...

He has to keep being super aggressive. No way Ole Miss can be competitive otherwise. I hope Dart has made the progress that is being reported or Kiffin has a viable Plan B at qb. Otherwise it is going to be a very long season.

CFB was so insanely fun as a kid/teen. I don't think I'll ever be able to get back even a quarter of that joy from watching these days.

It helped that my team (FSU) was elite every single year (14 straight top 5s), but I think a confluence of factors have dampened my enthusiasm.

1 is an obvious one, I've been living abroad and am almost never in a good time zone for American sports. 2nd, as an adult, I just don't care as much about results. My week used to be ruined with an FSU loss, but now it doesn't even bother me. 3rd, I'm glad the kids are getting paid, but from an enjoyment perspective, I think it's a big negative. Signing Day used to be like Xmas, but now it's far less important. Then you have to re-recruit the kids after 1 year, then you've got the Portal, etc. The rosters are far less organic as kids switch teams so often, and you might bring in a ringer for 1 season like Russell Wilson, etc. Finally, I miss the old days of the smaller conferences. Big 8, SWC, ACC, a real Big East, etc. Once we started factoring in TV footprints, I think it started jumping the shark for me.

That being said, I'm still a bit amped for this season and it will be interesting to see what happens with the 12-team playoff next year. As AUGUY said, it will make the regular season even duller as now even a 2-loss or elite 3-loss team will be safe. We're going down the path of the playoffs becoming like a March Madness type deal where it's just so much more important than the regular season. I think D2 has a 28-team playoff so that will be used as justification to eventually expand this thing even further.

Can’t wait for the week one rematch between lsu and fsu btw. That game last year was wild.

This will be the first year in forever that I'll be able to watch all the early games live. Might need to start training camp - you know, getting used to watching 3 screens at once, perfecting the Rotel dip, that sort of thing.

I realized I made a mistake in the OP.

Byu, Cincy, ucf, and Houston are all in the big 12 starting this year. Not next. Should make for some interesting matchups this year given that this is the last year that Ou and Texas are in the big 12.

I tried to figure out the big 12 schedule butt their site is complete ****. No clue if they have any kind of new playoff or what with the new teams. Anyway here's their hard to read schedule where they use logos instead of names.

They have no divisions. Top two teams go to the conference title

Which seems kinda stupid with 14 teams. Who makes the playoffs could be determined by who draws the easier schedule. Next year there will be 16 teams which is even worse. At that point, you'd think they would have to at least go to two divisions.

With two divisions, who makes the playoffs could be determined by who draws the easier schedule. See Big10 and SEC.

Normally I would prefer FSU have some cupcakes early and let the hype build, but I think this game might work out in their favor.

Their schedule is kind of ass, esp. if Miami and Florida don't recover, so adding LSU could potentially give FSU a shot at the playoff with 1 loss.

Remember that the ACC changed their format so the top 2 go the title game regardless. That would potentially give FSU 2 wins over Clemson in that scenario. I think a 1-loss FSU ACC champ could get in unless Clemson is also mediocre.

Yah, it's almost even worse when you have divisions. ACC is an example too. The non FSU/Clemson division always seems to send a garbage team to the title game. Luckily they changed the format.

Yah, I think UNC is normally the bigger brand, but Clemson is benefitting from great timing for them. But I think the BIG or SEC would definitely save a spot for both if they become available.

It's always been odd to me that UNC could never quite put it all together in football. Seems like they've been close a couple times since the late 90s.

2005-2013 was peak college football. USC/Texas, Vince Young, Bush, Leinart, Jameis, Johnny Football, Tebow, Saban vs Meyer. and then Saban goes and wins 7 titles and the season starts to become a foregone conclusion before it even starts. nothing will ever match the Tebow hype.

Michigan ranked too low.

the primary stumbling block holding back UNC [along w the ACC's Grant of (tv media) Rights contract, ldo] is the University of North Carolina Board of Governors: known more commonly as the UNC Board of Governors, is the governing body of the University of North Carolina system. The board is composed of 24 members, selected by the state legislature

cliffs: the Board of Governors has a bunch of NCSU alumns and wouldn't vote for any positive move for UNC without NCSU also tagging along. it's a really fkd up situation that, long-term, has the power of holding back the succes of UNC athletics

Hot take. Michigan is the new Norte Dame with the voters

Their National Championship odds are #4 across the board behind Georgia, Bama and Ohio State.

That said, after seeing Michigan beat Ohio State 28-3 in the second half, just to lose to a team that then proceeds to lose to Georgia by almost 100, I arrive at only one conclusion: College Football results are just weird..

how much you wanna bet?

In for FOOTBALL!

Also in for the hilarity that will ensue if Michigan ever finds itself on the field with any SEC team.