College Football
Playoff Predictions
By: Charlie Moon
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
This season has been the most incredible and exciting season of my lifetime and I pride myself on NOT being Mr. “Recency Bias.”
Here’s how I see the inaugural College Football Playoff running its course.
Opening Round 12/20-12/21 (Home Sites)
Notre Dame (-8.5) v. Indiana: As much as people have hated on the Irish in the past, getting special exclusions and entrance into the BCS, the pundits have been right.
They’ve had a long history of getting smashed in these games. But this time will be different. Honestly, I think Notre Dame is one of the top 4 squads.
And let’s be real. If they weren’t so stuck on themselves, they’d be ACC Champs and none of this discussion of Indiana, SMU, Bama and South Carolina would be relevant.
The Pick: Notre Dame by 14.
Penn St (-8.5) v. SMU: Another blowout. As evidenced by the Vegas spreads, the real experts know the deal.
Sure, they get it wrong sometimes, but here we’re just talking about outright winners.
Penn St showed me a lot in their loss to Oregon. They only played two top 25 teams, a fading Illinois and a home loss to Ohio St.
But I was wrong, thinking they had no business in the playoff.
The Pick: Penn St by 17.
Ohio St (-7) v. Tennessee: This should be the only close one of the four 1st round games.
Simple…. Nico Iamaleava has shown much improvement in the last 3 games. Without that, this would be a blowout.
But as long as he keeps trending up, the Buckeyes will have trouble stopping Dylan Sampson on the ground. In the end, Ohio St’s home field wins out.
The Pick: Ohio St. by 3.
Texas (-11.5) v. Clemson: Look, some friends of mine from my home state won’t be happy, but this isn’t guys sitting around a campfire.
I have to give my honest opinion. And there’s a reason why the Tigers are double-digit dog. They deserve all the respect in the world for what they’ve done in the past. But I believe the Horns might hook ‘em hard.
The Pick: Texas by 14.
2nd Round Bowl Games (12/31 – 1/1): Peach Bowl Arizona St v. Texas
As much as I love the Sun Devil turn-around from a 2023 3-win season, this will come down to Texas #1 rush defense versus Cam Scattebo.
The Pick: Texas by 3
Rose Bowl Oregon v. Ohio St: In this rematch, Oregon won’t allow Ohio St to beat them on the ground like the Buckeyes did for over 200 yards in October.
The Pick: Oregon by 7.
Fiesta Bowl: Boise St v. Penn St: This won’t be quite the Vegas spread mismatch of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl when Boise shocked Oklahoma and the college football world with the hook-n-ladder, a Statue of Liberty and Ian Johnson getting engaged.
But….Penn St will be about a 4-point favorite.
The Pick: Penn St. by 3.
Sugar Bowl UGA v. Notre Dame: I think we saw why Kirby has been hesitant to give Gunner Stockton a shot, as much as Beck has struggled this year. Although he played with guts and tenacity of a Dawg, he’s limited.
That 2nd half in the SEC Title game, there were only 3 pass plays more than 10 yards, and one was nearly a game-costing Pick-6. That said, Etienne is healthy and Stockton still brings mobility back there.
The Pick: UGA by 6.
Semi-finals: Oregon beats Texas. UGA beats Penn St.
Championship game UGA v. Oregon:
Look, I know everyone will call me a homer, but it is what it is.
There is no team in America that has shown as much resiliency as the Dawgs. They are NOT the most dominant Dawgs squad ever, but the portal has changed the college game.
It’s so hard to make a real prediction with UGA’s QB situation, but I just can’t get past this team’s resiliency.
For a while, I just thought the Dawgs were getting exposed every week. But by season’s end, they proved that resiliency and being true Dawgs on the field gets it done.
The Pick: UGA by 3.
Larry Munson gets to smoke another Heavenly cigar.
Bowl Season
By: Michael Spiers
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It’s almost Christmas, and that means it’s time to go bowling—college football style!
For decades, bowl games have been the heart of the postseason for NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams.
Before the days of playoffs, national champions were decided by polls from sportswriters and coaches.
To spice things up, cities started hosting regional festivals featuring bowl games. Over time, systems like the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and the current College Football Playoff (CFP) came along to settle things on the field.
Still, the traditional bowl games remain a big deal.
The term “bowl” comes from the Rose Bowl Stadium, inspired by the Yale Bowl.
Over time, it’s become shorthand for major football games. Back in the day, bowl games only featured the very best teams, with strict rules about who could play.
Fast forward to now, and we’ve gone from just 10 bowl games in 1971 to a whopping 43 in 2023. Eligibility has loosened too, with teams sitting at .500—or even below—sometimes getting the call to play.
The first official college bowl game was way back in 1902, a matchup between Michigan and Stanford organized by the Tournament of Roses.
After a brief pause, it became an annual event in 1916 and eventually found a permanent home at the Rose Bowl Stadium in 1923.
Other cities took note and started their own bowl traditions, drawing tourists to warmer climates. What started as New Year’s Day exclusives has since spread to indoor stadiums and colder regions.
The “Big Four” bowls—Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Cotton—were once the ultimate destinations in college football, all tied to specific conferences.
For example, the Rose Bowl paired champions from the Pac-10 and Big Ten. But these tie-ins sometimes kept the top-ranked teams from squaring off, leaving voters to decide the champion. That messy process earned the name “Mythical National Championship.” (Looking at you, UCF!)
In the 1990s, things started to change with systems like the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance.
The BCS followed, introducing a rotating championship game among the major bowls.
Today’s CFP has taken it further, with a twelve-team playoff format—expanding from just four playoff teams the previous few seasons.
Bowl games have grown into cultural and commercial giants. Many have corporate sponsors, blending old-school names with flashy branding. (Remember when the Citrus Bowl became the Capital One Bowl for a bit?)
The postseason now stretches from mid-December to early January, with games filling nearly every day of the calendar.
Some things never change, though. The Rose Bowl is still the biggest stage, holding the record for the largest bowl game crowd at over 106,000 fans in 1973.
And while bowl games are mostly a U.S. tradition, they’ve made their way north. Canadian college football has its own bowls leading to the Vanier Cup, and the CFL features the Banjo Bowl, an annual rivalry matchup.
Bowl games have come a long way, growing from a few exclusive contests into a sprawling postseason showcase.
Even though New Year’s Day isn’t as packed as it used to be, the excitement of bowl season is as strong as ever.
This year marks the debut of the 12-team playoff format, designed to give the top programs a real shot at the national title.
The playoffs kick off on December 20th and 21st, though the first-round games aren’t technically bowl games.
Starting with the quarterfinals, the familiar bowl names return. The Fiesta Bowl leads off on December 31st, followed by the Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl on January 1st.
The semifinals take place with the Orange Bowl on January 9th and the Cotton Bowl on January 10th.
The grand finale? The National Championship game in Atlanta on January 20th.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and bowl season is here to make it even better!
Prove It
By: Charlie Moon
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
You’re going to Golden Corral (or your favorite buffet spot). You got it all planned out.
“Imma get some BBQ…. some mac-n-cheese… some of that steak with rice-n-gravy. Then, some of those collard greens….and those yeast rolls!”
You haven’t eaten in 24 hours. Yeast rolls been dancing in your head all day at work. You pay at the register. You got that sly grin and a bounce in your step.
You walk to the buffet and start looking down and around. Suddenly, “I don’t know what to get first.”
You start piling up stuff. By the time you get to the bottom, half of it is cold. You get more. You finish. You walk out.
“Mannnn…..I don’t know. Nothing was great. It was all just kind of okay.”
I can’t help but think the first year of this new 12-team playoff is the same, just a pile of really good teams. When you stack it all up, nobody can tell the difference.
#1 Oregon is undefeated, but they’ve only played two ranked teams, Ohio St and a fading Illinois team.
#3 Penn State is just 1-1 after only playing two ranked teams.
#9 SMU has only played two ranked teams.
Look at blind resumes. Take off the helmet. Don’t watch the games. Just look at the schedule difficulties and how teams have fared.
What have they proven?
If you do that, the top 3 resumes in college football, in no certain order, are Texas, UGA and the University of South Carolina.
Skeerrrr…..(insert brake sound here). Yeah, that’s right. If you only look at the resumes and what the teams have proven, you simply cannot make an argument otherwise. You just can’t. You can try, but those arguments would not be meaningful.
Against ranked teams…. Texas (4-1), UGA (3-2, including three top 10 wins) and South Carolina (4-3, including an LSU loss with a horrendous game-changing call).
Don’t come at me with “They beat them by…. They lost to…..” Whatever.
And between all three, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have ZERO losses against unranked teams.
I’m sorry. I get it. Teams can’t be totally blamed for their schedules. But I think there needs to be a rule. If you haven’t played at least 3 ranked teams, then you shouldn’t be allowed in the top 8. You get no home playoff game or a 1st round bye.
Right now, if you forced Penn St, Oregon and Indiana to take a back seat and move to 9 through 12…or worse, then you’d have a much more quality comparison of teams.
I would absolutely guarantee you South Carolina would be in, over an Indiana. Why?
Because their current ranking would be based off the idea of being undefeated or only having one loss.
Right now, if South Carolina played Penn State and Indiana on neutral fields, I guarantee you the Gamecocks would be at least a 4-point favorite. They might even be a 1 or 2-point favorite over Penn State, but no more than a field goal underdog.
I know, the elephant in the room. How would South Carolina be in over two teams it lost to? That argument is pointless based off the current system. Why?
Well, if Clemson beats SMU Saturday, they’ll be in over South Carolina, who it JUST lost to, at home.
To me, the bottom line is this. There will always be arguments about these last 3-4 teams getting in, but this is still so much better than the old system.
So, what’s the only way we can know who should be in? Teams like Oregon, Penn St and Indiana should no longer get passes, simply because they only have one loss or less, but have only played 1-3 ranked teams.
What have they proven? Easy….nothing.
Who’s Next?
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
So how good is the UCF Head Coaching job? What names could get in the mix? Here is a breakdown of the job and the potential names to watch.
Jamey Chadwell (Liberty) is 57-17 as a full-time head coach, including a 21-4 run with the Flames.
The 47-year-old Tennessee native ran one of the most entertaining offenses in the country at Coastal Carolina, which seems like a good fit for UCF’s modern, up-tempo brand. Chadwell has never worked at a Power 4 program.
Scott Frost is beloved at UCF after going 13-0 in his second season. But he never had a winning record, with his 16-31 stint at Nebraska, and history suggests that these coaching sequels never live up to the standard of the original, and rarely go well.
G.J. Kinne (Texas State) was Malzahn’s co-offensive coordinator at UCF in 2021. The 36-year-old Texas native also fits the Knights’ identity.
Kinne led Incarnate Word to the FCS semifinals in 2021, and his 15-10 record with the Bobcats earned him a contract extension in November. Is changing jobs a viable option?
Joey Halzle (Tennessee OC) is another former UCF assistant; he spent two seasons under Heupel and followed him to the Vols.
The 38-year-old California native has had success as a quarterbacks coach, tutoring Hendon Hooker and Nico Iamaleava, among others.
Ryan Silverfield (Memphis) overcame a bumpy start to his tenure and is 20-5 over the past two seasons.
The former Mike Norvell assistant has Florida ties. The 44-year-old is from Jacksonville and spent two years with UCF as a graduate assistant. His offense has ranked in the top 25 in scoring in each of the past three years.
Barry Odom(UNLV) was in consideration the last time and had the Rebels in the Mountain West title game. But the former Missouri head coach has a defensive background, and UCF has a much stronger offensive identity.
Will Stein(Oregon OC) leads a top-20 offense for a national championship contender. He’s also the position coach for former UCF star Dillon Gabriel, a potential Heisman Trophy finalist.
A deep Playoff run could complicate the timing for the 35-year-old Kentucky native.
Charlie Weis Jr. (Ole Miss OC) is a future head coach, but is he ready for a Power 4 job at age 31? He has familiarity in the state with stints at South Florida and Florida Atlantic and briefly overlapped with Mohajir at Kansas (when Mohajir was an administrator and Weis Jr. was a manager on the football team coached by Weis Sr.).
JON SUMRALL (TULANE) will be one of the hottest coaching names on the carousel. In two seasons at Troy he won 23 games and led the Trojans to two straight Sun Belt titles.
At Tulane this season he led the Green Wave to the American Athletic Conference title game.
Sumrall is expected to be choosy if he decides to leave the Green Wave (he was once a defensive assistant there and wanted to return to New Orleans).
An opportunity to coach in a power conference with a team building to win might be hard to pass up.
In Conclusion: UCF is the fourth major program sitting in the center of one of the most talent-laden states in the country.
The Knights have a clear identity (modern, fast) to sell to recruits. They are new to the Power 4, and it’s fair to wonder if fans’ enormous expectations (buoyed by the undefeated season/national title from 2017) are attainable immediately.
Regardless, there’s great potential for eventual success in a Big 12 that lacks heavyweight, championship bound programs.
Gus Bus Leaves
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Gus Malzahn is resigning after four seasons as the head coach at UCF.
He will become the offensive coordinator at Florida State University, multiple sources with knowledge of the hiring have confirmed.
Malzahn, 59, went 28-24 with the Knights. After two nine-win seasons in the AAC, UCF fell to 10-15 in its first two years in the Big 12.
UCF finished 4-8 in 2024, ending the season with a 28-14 loss at home to Utah.
Malzahn and Florida State coach Mike Norvell have known each other for almost 20 years. Malzahn was the offensive coordinator at Tulsa when he heard about Norvell through a friend.
Malzahn hired Norvell (then a graduate assistant at Central Arkansas) as a GA with the Golden Hurricanes before the 2007 season. Norvell rose the ranks after Malzahn left to become an assistant at Auburn.
Malzahn will be taking over a Florida State offense that heads into its season-finale against Florida, and they are ranked 131st nationally in both yards per game and points per game.
Malzahn is 105-62 in 13 seasons as an FBS head coach with one season at Arkansas State and eight at Auburn.
The Arkansas native went 68-35 at Auburn, with a BCS championship game appearance in 2013, his first season as head coach.
He never had a losing record there and went 3-5 against Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide teams in the Iron Bowl, but he was let go after the 2020 season, with the school paying a then-record $21.5 million buyout to get rid of him.
Malzahn was also a successful offensive coordinator in the SEC, first at Arkansas and then at Auburn, helping Cam Newton and the Tigers win a national title in 2010.
UCF athletic director Terry Mohajir rushed in as soon after Malzahn was let go by Auburn, a splashy move to replace Josh Heupel after he left for Tennessee.
Malzahn seemed invigorated by the new challenge. He bought into the branding and underlying idea that UCF was the future of college football as a growing program in the center of one of the nation’s biggest football states.
Malzahn’s 2024 recruiting class was the best in program history, finishing 39th in the 247Sports Composite.
His staff fended off one of Florida to sign defensive lineman John Walker, the nation’s No. 95 overall prospect and the top recruit in program history.
Even during two seasons in the AAC, UCF failed to meet the elevated expectations of a program that went to back-to-back New Year’s Six Bowls in 2017 and 2018 under Scott Frost and Heupel.
The Knights went 18-9 his first two seasons, losing the American title game in 2021 before beating Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl.
All three former AAC schools, including Houston and Cincinnati, have struggled to win since entering the Big 12.
UCF had the best first season by reaching a bowl game. But the Knights had one of the season’s biggest collapses when they blew a 28-point second-half lead to Baylor in their first Big 12 home game.
Year 2 was expected to bring solid results with Arkansas transfer KJ Jefferson, a promising match for Gus’s offense.
Instead, it brought a quarterback carousel ,a midseason firing of Defensive Coordinator Ted Roof, Malzahn handing off play-calling to offensive coordinator Tim Harris, and several close losses that could have flipped the season.
UCF issued the following statement: “We would like to thank coach Malzahn for his contributions to our football program over the past four seasons, including our transition into the Big 12 Conference. We appreciate his professionalism and dedication to our student-athletes throughout his tenure at UCF and wish he and his wife, Kristi, the very best in their future endeavors.”
Malzahn had three years left on a contract that would have paid him about $5.5 million annually.
From The Jump
By: Charlie Moon
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I’m not crazy, but…..Pat McAfee (yes, the same one permeating ESPN now) and long-time sports radio legend Colin Cowherd, had a major role in the country in introducing college football in the South, as the dominating national force.
Let me reset it for you. An undefeated, #2-ranked West Virginia was hosting long-time NFL coach Dave Wannstedt’s 4-7 Pittsburgh Panthers. The Mountaineers were 28.5-point favorites. WVU’s Pat McAfee missed not one, but two field goals.
To be fair, it was under 30 degrees and very windy. Pitt ran the ball out of the back of their own end zone as time expired and won 13-9.
My brother, Chad and our friends were going crazy. We called our parents, who were at some loud party in Athens. Why? Because the Dawgs, ranked #3, were going be in the BCS Championship game!
Then….they weren’t. Why? Long story short, the Dawgs were jumped by Florida, pitted against the Buckeyes on January 8, 2007.
Some can argue it began way before that. But that was the defining moment when a 7-point favored mighty Ohio St was supposed to show the country the Big Ten ruled the country.
But then SEC power and speed was on display and the country got to see just what pundit Colin Cowherd had been saying for a decade on his then ESPN radio show.
He had been saying for a decade that the SEC was already better than everyone, by a mile – and it would start showing soon. Most folks just shewed him off like they do now. But the guy knows his stuff.
One particular show hinged on one aspect. To most football purists, it was the craziest thing they’d ever heard.
It made perfect sense to me, though. He was talking about how the 90s saw the birth of 7-on-7 off-season football tournaments, similar to what happened with AAU basketball, and what we now deem “travel ball.”
Football showcase camps were popping up nationwide, and where were most of those camps? Yep, you guessed it.
The South. After all, why would a kid want to go to a March showcase event in lovely, icy St. Paul, Minnesota? So…. more kids from all regions, were coming down South.
His next point had nothing to do with football, but it rang clear. He talked about more kids visiting colleges down South, during these camps, and what did they see?
I can almost remember his exact words, but for emphasis, let’s quote it anyway.
“Imagine a kid from Syracuse, New York coming down south and visiting a college campus in sunny Florida. What do you think he saw? Yep, the college co-eds. And what do you think he thought? Do I want to stay in cold Syracuse, or go where the campuses are filled with sun and gorgeous co-eds?”
I get it, there are many reasons why college football in the South has been great for so long, well before 2007. But Cowherd’s argument was nearly a decade ahead of its time. College football in the South had been better for a long time, but it hadn’t yet dominated on a national scale.
In that 2007 BCS Championship Game, it was clear. The Gators were bigger, stronger and the biggest factor???…..speed!
The speed difference wasn’t even close. Gator defensive lineman were chasing down speedy Ohio State QB Troy Smith and running backs in the backfield all night long. Ohio State receivers could never break away from Gator DBs.
Sure, this game wasn’t a 1-game tell-all. And Pat McAfee and Colin Cowherd surely didn’t invent football in the south.
But they both had a say in what might be the turning point of the southern college football show on display for the country.
Staying Alive
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Which teams control their destiny to make the Playoff?
Right now, it feels there are about 20 of them, and it’s making for some great angst and drama.
Everyone from No. 1 Oregon (which is already in at this point) through No. 8 Miami (which would win the ACC) is safely in if they don’t lose another game.
Ditto these teams that will win their conference and an automatic berth if they win out: No. 13 SMU (ACC), No. 14 BYU (Big 12), No. 15 Texas A&M (SEC), No. 16 Colorado (Big 12) and No. 21 Arizona State (Big 12).
So, that’s 13. But let me address some of the ones I left out.
No. 9 Ole Miss and No. 10 Georgia , the final two at-large teams, are seemingly close but could get caught up in some weird SEC tiebreaker math.
If nothing else, Texas A&M winning the SEC and supplanting Texas as the highest-ranked SEC team would bump everyone else down a rung. Or either Ole Miss or Georgia makes the title game, loses and then drops too far to remain an at-large team. (This would be painfully dumb, but I wouldn’t rule it out.) But hey, at least No. 7 Alabama has some breathing room in that scenario.
I initially planned to put No. 12 Boise State in the group above but realized No. 19 Army could well pass the Broncos for the Group of 5 berth if the Black Knights beat Notre Dame, Tulane and remain undefeated.
And I don’t think it’s possible both would finish above an 11-2 Big 12 champ. Probably neither will. That’s why I’m comfortable including Arizona State in that pool.
So, it’s 13 that control their destiny and, by my count, 23 that still hold at least a glimmer of hope the 17 I mentioned- plus No. 11 Tennessee, No. 17 Clemson (can win the ACC), No. 18 a South Carolina (slim at-large hopes), No. 20 Tulane (G5), No. 22 Iowa State (can win the Big 12) and No. 24 UNLV (G5).
Twenty-three teams with a shot with three weeks to go. Last year at this same point, there were eight.
My question is should head-to-head play a factor?
Because head-to-head is not as simple as Team A beat Team B. Was the game close or a blowout? The latter is harder to overlook. Did Team B lose at home or on the road? Losing at home is less excusable.
And most importantly, in the context of their larger seasons, did this result fit with what the teams did the rest of the year, or was it wildly out of character? One game shouldn’t automatically void the other 11.
I was mildly surprised the committee held Texas’ Week 2 road win over Alabama last season so sacrosanct given it happened so early in the season, but it felt it couldn’t include the Tide in the final four without having the Horns one spot above them.
And now this season, you’re seeing it with the way it carefully ordered Alabama-Ole Miss-Georgia. (BYU/SMU, not so much.)
But I can think of one possibility that would be an absolute nightmare for the committee.
Say Notre Dame beats Army this week but loses to USC to finish 10-2. The Irish are out, right?
Except, what if Texas A&M beats Texas to advance to the SEC Championship Game, loses that game on a last-second field goal and finishes 10-3? Greg Sankey will lose his mind if the committee keeps the Aggies out because they played a 13th game but surely they cannot put 10-win A&M in and leave out 10-win Notre Dame that won in College Station, right? It’s the same scenario as Texas-Alabama last year.
Either both would be in or neither would be in.
Buckle up it’s gonna be an exciting last two weeks of college football. Let’s see what happens!
Corrupt Committee?
By: Charlie Moon
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I have to say. I was searching a little for a column topic. But this one, it is about as easy as somebody trying to get me to eat a slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza. Yeah, if you’re reading this and you know me, then you know. I had bariatric sleeve surgery in late September.
“Moon, thought you couldn’t eat pizza anymore!” And I say…. “Shhhhhh, don’t tell the doc!”
In all seriousness, I can still eat pizza. But – only a couple bites here and there.
Back to the lecture at hand…..the ease of choosing the column topic. What I saw last on ESPN’s College Football Playoff Rankings Show, was about as intellectually rewarding as blowing dandelions on a hot summer night. Who knows, maybe some scientist can argue that blowing dandelions actually do open the brainwaves a little.
You know, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, no matter the industry. Usually, when our government makes decisions we don’t get, I often give them the nod.
My best example is: 3rd and 1, and the offense runs a simple off tackle and gets stuffed for a 2-yard loss. What happens? Armchair quarterbacks start yelling, “What was that?” “What kind of play call was that?”
But not this time!!
Look, when I watched Warde Manuel give word salad on Tuesday night’s show, I nearly had to go stand on my front porch to ensure our house had not been lifted into some 3rd dimension.
Warde Manuel is the current 8-year Michigan Athletic Director. He grew up in Michigan. He played football at Michigan under the great Bo Shembechler. Look, I’m sure he’s a great guy and a great family man….all of that. But there is absolutely no way a sitting athletic director can serve on the 12-person playoff committee that selects the 12-team playoff field.
When I did a little research, I was at Wild Wing Cafe in Statesboro. I nearly spit out the drink I was in the middle of. FIVE…. Count ‘em FIVE…. of the 12 members are either current NCAA athletic directors or are high-ranking officials in those athletic departments.
We’ve always known these playoff committees have members of current athletic departments, but to see that they constituted almost half of this year’s committee, was shocking.
I’m not going to dole out names, or give out their addresses like some of our national leaders do. But, I will criticize the committee and its member selection.
Normally, not much attention should be paid to the CFP rankings yet. But the problem is hearing their thoughts and how they rank teams.
When Warde Manuel explained why UGA was where they were and Texas was where they were, I was dumbfounded.
He said, “Yes they beat Texas. But their body of work – we just felt like 10 was the right spot.”
Ummmm…..wrong. UGA has more top 25 wins than the 2nd-6th ranked teams combined. Sure, the Dawgs got hammered by Ole Miss, but their strength of schedule is #1. The message being sent is for teams to play no one.
Look, we could argue all day long about who should be where, but there is one thing that should not be up for debate. There is no way that current school officials should be a part of selecting the teams. I’m sure they try as hard as they can to be unbiased, but human nature is what it is.
There’s no coincidence Manuel is a Big Ten guy and 4 of the top 5 teams are Big Ten. I’m not saying it “just because,” but again. The Dawgs have more top 25 wins than Ohio St, Indiana and Penn St combined.
I’ll just wrap it up this way. Let’s go back to the computers – honestly!
All Bark?
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
If anyone’s wondering how important Georgia’s showdown against Tennessee is on Saturday, let me tell you.
Win, and all is OK, full steam ahead to the College Football Playoffs and perhaps even a National Championship.
Lose, this season is set, but not in a good way.
It’s not ideal for any team to lose football games, but it happens. It’s much less ideal to try to clean up two viral messes from that loss. It’s even less ideal to field a question about whether to change quarterbacks.
The first viral moment: Carson Beck, starting and beleaguered quarterback, was spotted smiling on the bench as he spoke with backup quarterback Jaden Rashada during the fourth quarter of Georgia’s 28-10 loss to Ole Miss (UGA’s largest point margin loss in five years).
The visual was seized as a symbol of what’s wrong with Beck and perhaps the entire Bulldog football team.
The optics were poor and out of context: Harlen Rashada, Jaden’s father, posted, showing the moment before, Beck not smiling, Jaden Rashada telling him something that made him laugh.
Here the internet had birthed yet another out-of-context viral moment.
Beck’s on-field play has noticeably regressed. The easy excuse is he wasn’t focused during the offseason, between his Lambo and his personal life. Beck told me in the spring he wasn’t working any less, he was taking time to enjoy life after four years of hard work, which he certainly had earned.
We have seen many young athletes enjoy their life as a college student, and still thrive on the field.
It also feels invalid to attribute the offensive troubles to Beck’s leadership. He’s never been a rah-rah quarterback, and Stetson Bennett wasn’t either.
The difference might be the leaders around Beck. Nobody appears to have filled the void left by center Sedrick Van Pran. There isn’t an obvious alpha personality on the other side of the ball the way this year’s defense has Jalen Walker.
But the defense shouldn’t be absolved of blame, either. It came up huge in the wins over Texas and Clemson but also gave up big plays at Ole Miss, started soft against Alabama and has earned a reputation of inconsistency, ranking eighth in the SEC in defensive yards per play.
It’s not like a great defense is being wasted. A ton of world-class athletes on defense aren’t playing to their potential. Luckily for them, there’s still time. There’s still time for the whole team.
In the wide scope of this season, going 10-2 with this schedule is perfectly acceptable.
The focus then moves to how Georgia performs in the Playoff, where pressure still waits, but the minimum threshold of making the dance has been hit.
Missing the Playoff, meanwhile, would in the kindest interpretation mean that Georgia was a flawed team undone by a brutal schedule.
The harsher takeaway would be that the schedule exposed a team that isn’t very good and the program has work to do this offseason to get back to status.
Even then, perspective is needed. This is a program that has won two of the past three national championships, then fell short but still went 13-1. If anyone has earned leeway to slip its Georgia.
If any coach has shown he can adapt and make needed changes, it’s Smart. Panicky fans need to touch grass.
Georgia may feel a lot better after Saturday. Through these years of winning Smart has loved to say that “humility is a week away.” Well, humility is here, and so is the chance for redemption.
SEC Dominance
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Kirby Smart wrapped up practice Tuesday at The University of Georgia. The College Football Playoff rankings just released, naturally interviewers asked Smart if the expanding field to 12 this year changed his curiosity.
“I could care less,” Smart said. “Because what is a quality win and a quality loss right now; they’ve been known to change their mind before it comes.”
The format may be different and the field may be bigger, but Georgia has experienced this before. Texas did last year. Tennessee did two years ago. Alabama and LSU have plenty of experience with it. At this point, everyone knows the deal by now.
Smart and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey may not love Georgia’s rank at third, behind two Big Ten teams, while the Bulldogs are second in the AP and coaches polls.
There are seven SEC teams in the top 25, by far the most of any conference (in second place: the Big Ten. With four). That’s an important note for a couple of reasons:
With four in the top 12 (Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama) and a few in striking distance (No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 15 LSU, No. 16 Ole Miss), this sets up more SEC teams to make the playoffs in the future.
Second, more SEC teams will have more chances for ranked wins, or their ranked losses might not seem as bad to the rankings.
Georgia bought itself a lot of room with its win at Texas, giving it a second ranked win, and its only loss came at Alabama. It would seem the Bulldogs need only get a split of the next two games at Ole Miss and Tennessee and they would be in. Even if UGA lost both games, they would have an argument.
Texas and Tennessee also have one loss but a little less leeway.
Texas is clearly in if they win out, although losing at Texas A&M in the regular-season finale would make things dicey.
The Longhorns don’t have a win over any team in the Top 25. Vanderbilt, ranked in the AP, didn’t make the CFP rankings.
Tennessee is all set if they win out because an 11-1 record with a win at Georgia is a strong argument.
If The Vols are competitive at Georgia and lose, 10-2 with two road losses but a win against Alabama may be enough to get it done. Of course, the regular-season finale at Vanderbilt isn’t a sure win.
Texas A&M, meanwhile, is not in the field right now — 14th — but the assignment seems straightforward: Win out, including the Texas game, and the Aggies are close enough to feel good about their chances.
Important caveat: winning out is no guarantee; it depends heavily on what happens elsewhere. As Smart pointed out, the committee is known to change their mind.
Alabama at LSU this week: The loser has a third loss, which puts its Playoff hopes to sleep, while the winner is in great shape. But is the loser truly done and the winner truly in?
Alabama would have three losses to ranked teams LSU, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, if it could sneak into the CFP Top 25 with one ranked win (Georgia) and some others that might check off as good.
LSU may need this win more. It has a loss to unranked USC and the other to Texas A&M. Their best win right now is against Ole Miss.
Then there’s Ole Miss, which is almost certainly done if it loses to Georgia this week. But if Ole Miss wins, that would give it something a ranked win and winning out would mean a 10-2 record.
Still, it has a home loss to Kentucky, and other than the Georgia game, there isn’t much impressive on the resume. So, Lane Kiffin’s team would seem at the mercy of the committee and things falling its way elsewhere.
There are so many important games left and too many data points left to draw any grand conclusions. Nobody from the SEC is definitely in yet, and seven teams still have a realistic shot.
That number figures to go down after this weekend. The question is whether it continues going down over the coming weeks or the SEC ends up with a half-dozen candidates for only so many spots.
