The Rest of College Football

[Mike]

When your star QB apologizes for not breaking his leg sooner... Such a crazy set of circumstances where a 13-0 Florida State team is not in the top 4 - and it's justified. But damn, man. I can't imagine how pissed I'd be if I were them.

[AlabamAlum]

Oh, I would be upset, too. No doubt. Hope they beat Georgia. They won’t, but I hope they will. Of course, as I often say, I would pull for Osama Bin Laden Tech over Georgia, though.

[iam416]

I'd root for Georgia against you. STFU.

[Cody_Russell]

This transfer portal list is insane:

https://247sports.com/season/2024-football/transferportal/

MSU is getting crystal balls for the Oregon State backup QB. I recall mentioning that last week when Jonathan Smith was hired. That would be a smart move IMO!

[JRB]

The committee was going to get skewered no matter what they decided, because there were at least five, and probably seven, qualified teams. If we had the 12-team playoff this year, we'd still have a problem, because Liberty would knock out one of the Power 5 two-loss teams.

Speaking of two-loss teams, I thought it was weird that Penn State was pretty much automatically slotted into a Big Six game, and Oklahoma wasn't given much consideration for one. Penn State's losses are better than OU's, I suppose, but OU's wins were better. There should have been more of a debate there than it seems that there was.

[WingsFan]

FSU should have just said Jordan Travis will be back for the playoffs and their in.

[Jeff Buchanan]

A new meaning for Eleven Warriors:

CFP Top 25 and how many players they have in the transfer portal:

Rank | Team | Players in Portal

1 Michigan: 0
2 Washington: 1
3 Texas: 0
4 Alabama: 0
5 Florida State: 1
6 Georgia: 4
7 Ohio State: 11
8 Oregon: 3
9 Mizzou: 7
10 Penn State: 2
11 Ole Miss: 4
12 Oklahoma: 7
13…

— College Football Report (@CFBRep) December 4, 2023

[iam416]

UAT had like 20 last year. No one in the top 4 is going to lose much YET because they're still playing meaningful games.

OSU's 11 losses are meh. I mean, McCord is certainly fine, but he's not going to get Ohio State to a national title. 11-1 and not making the playoffs isn't good enough. At Ohio State.

[AlabamAlum]

Alabama has had 1 now. Tyler Buchner, the QB from Notre Dame who xffered with Tommy Rees. He ended up 3rd on the QB roster here, and with Ty and Milroe returning and the true frosh we have (and Julian Sayin on the way), it didn’t make sense for him to stay.

But it’s a different world, kids who were HS stars who don’t start (who think they can elsewhere) are going to leave. It’s the world we’re in now.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Aside from sassing with that post up there, the reality is that NIL and the portal has changed CFB drastically. It's a wild west free agency with the NCAA foot dragging on guard rails. TBH, I don't think the NCAA has a whole lot of interest in trying to establish some workable rules, especially with the portal. When it comes to NIL, it appears the NCAA is looking at a new proposall that restructures the current divisions. I haven't studied this yet but according to the report, it's "revolutionary." TBH, nothing the NCAA does is helpful.

https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-proposing-new-college-athletics-subdivision-rooted-in-direct-athlete-compensation-145051537.html

[JRB]

College football has been my favorite sport since I was a very little boy. When I was seven or eight years old, I walked down the street from my grandmother's house to my great-grandmother's house to find a TV so that I could watch the Texas-Texas A&M game, because the grown-ups were watching something else. I didn't tell anyone where I was going, so there was some consternation at my grandmother's house once my absence was discovered, but my actions made perfect sense to me at the time. I had no rooting interest in the game, but big college football games were historical events, in my view. They took precedence over anything else.

In 2009, a cousin of mine got married on the day Virginia Tech hosted Nebraska. My family and I had tickets to that game, but missed it to attend her ceremony. We then bailed out on the reception to find a restaurant that was showing the second half. We ragged on her mercilessly after Virginia Tech won a thriller, 16-15, and needled her even more after the marriage ended fairly quickly. She will be the first now to say she should have skipped the ceremony and gone with us to the game instead.

I have had my struggles with adjusting to the changes that have happened to this sport over the last twenty years, mostly with expansions and realignments that have destroyed as much as they've protected, but in general, I have loved college football all the same. It's been a big part of my life, and of the lives of my family. But the new NCAA proposals, if I understand them correctly, seem to want to accelerate the move toward the much-discussed college football super conference, and to leave any regulation of said conference up to the member schools. If this is the case, if this is the direction college football is heading, this might be a bridge too far for me. These proposals strike me as antithetical to what I value most as a fan of the sport.

[Mike]

Texas and Texas A&M are getting back together at least.

[lineygoblue]

I don't think the current, and upcoming conference alignments are going to last long.

I believe that eventually there will be 4-5 geographically based super conferences of about 12-16 teams each.

And the playoffs will eventually be 16 teams.

JMO

[JRB]

Texas and Texas A&M are getting back together at least.

There is that, at least. But SMU, Cal, and Stanford in the ACC? Utter nonsense. SMU was so desperate for a power conference affiliation that the school made an awful financial deal with a league that Clemson and Florida State are probably leaving soon anyway. Stanford and Cal made the best decision available to them, but as many people have said, nothing about the dissolution of the Pac-12 was in the best interest of any institutions other than USC and UCLA, and I suspect they're going to regret their decisions in the not-too-distant future.

[Mike]

My semi-bold prediction is that a few years from now, people will come to their senses and conference affiliations will begin to revert back to something that makes geographic sense.

It’s inevitable that major CFB will break away from the NCAA and govern themselves which is a good thing. 4 super conferences will probably be the model but instead of 16 teams it will probably swell to 18 or so. 72 teams in the major league with some ebb and flow among the bottom feeders and up and comers.