One last edition of our Sunday morning tradition. Scattered thoughts from championship weekend.
1) In the end, the playoff is pretty obvious. Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Cincinnati are going to get in. There really aren't an viable arguments that anyone else deserves it. The only question will be seeding. The key is that they'll avoid having Georgia and Alabama play in the semifinals. Bama obviously is going to be seeded above Georgia. I would bet it's Alabama 1, Michigan 2, Georgia 3 and Cincinnati 4. And I think that's fair. I'd guess Alabama will be favored by about 16 and Georgia by about 6. Personally, I'd like to see anything that isn't Alabama/Georgia in the title game. First, the SEC stuff makes me a little bit nauseous (both the idea that no other conference can possibly be good and the idea that you should cheer for the other teams in your conference. Screw that, Bama and Georgia winning national titles doesn't do Mizzou any good). Second, I just want something different. I don't really like Michigan and I don't think Cincinnati is one of the two best teams in college football, but I root for interesting stories and those are both more interesting than watching Bama and Georgia play again in my opinion.
2) The happiest people in America that Bama beat Georgia last night should be Oklahoma State fans. I can't imagine the angst and the heartache they went through yesterday. The Cowboys threw four interceptions and failed to score a touchdown on seven plays inside the one yard line and came THISCLOSE to the Big 12 title.
In the end, those six inches weren't the difference between making the playoff and not because OSU wouldn't have gotten in over Georgia anyway. So at least there's a little bit of solace there. Don't get me wrong, it's still a crushing loss. But at least you didn't miss a chance at the national title by that much.
I saw a lot of disparaging comments about the game. Neither of those teams is a top four team in the country, but they're both top ten and I thought it was a hell of a game to watch. A lot of the SEC fans ripping those offenses for not being able to do anything were drooling all over themselves about a 9-6 Alabama/LSU game a few years ago. It's okay to admit decent football is played in other places. And while I understand all the anger about Baylor even having a program right now (trust me, I get it), neither Dave Aranda nor Mack Rhoades had anything to do with that stuff. They've done a pretty impressive reclamation job since taking over (with a nod to Matt Rhule for starting it).
3) The unhappiest people that Bama beat Georgia? Notre Dame fans. It kept the Irish out of the playoff, which probably makes most of America happy (although choosing between Alabama and Notre Dame is a little bit like a seven year old going trick or treating and getting to choose between an apple and a toothbrush). It would have been kind of entertaining to see Notre Dame in simply because of the Brian Kelly bolting factor and giving Marcus Freeman a chance to go all Steve Fisher (Google him, youngsters) and start his career with a national championship shot. That said, I am interested to see if Freeman--a very un-Notre Dame like hire) can take the Irish's recruiting to a level it hasn't really reached in the last 30 years and move Notre Dame from really, really good to elite in the next few years. I know one thing: the locker room is behind him.
4) As far as the actual games, eventually we're going to learn that Nick Saban vs Kirby Smart isn't really a fair fight. To be fair to Kirby, Nick Saban vs anybody isn't really a fair fight.
No other coach has beaten a No. 1 team more than four times. But that might not be the most incredible Saban/Tide stat out there after yesterday.
Oh, there's also this
5) An Alabama player probably won the Heisman Trophy yesterday...but I'm not sure it's the right one. I fully expect Bryce Young to be a runaway winner and I guess I get it a little bit. But I don't even think Bryce Young is the best player on his own offense. Cardinal Ritter product Jameson Williams had 68 catches for 1445 yards and 15 touchdowns. He averaged 21.3 yards a catch, had seven 100-yard games, four 150-yard games and more touchdowns of 75 yards or longer than any player in Alabama history. He was ejected in the first half of the Auburn game and Alabama looked non-functional on offense. A week later, despite John Mechie missing the entire second half, Williams had 7 catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns against what most of us believe to be the best defense we've seen in college football in at least a decade and the Tide hung 41 points. I turned my vote in earlier this week. I'm not allowed to say who I voted for, but I should have waited and voted for Jameson Williams.
6) I am not a Michigan fan. The last time I remember cheering for them is in 1997 in hopes that they could win a national title instead of Nebraska. But I am happy to see new teams involved and I'm willing to acknowledge a good team when I see one. Michigan is absolutely a very, very good team. They don't do it the way most teams do it these days. They aren't flashy on offense. But they're absolutely dominant on the lines of scrimmage, which I think actually gives them a shot against Georgia. You can argue that their season is worthy of being the top seed in the playoff (they won't be, but on pure resume and schedule, they've got more impressive wins than Alabama or Georgia). I'm also not a big Jim Harbaugh fan. But in addition to winning the game yesterday, Harbaugh and Michigan did two things that deserve to be acknowledged:
Well done, Wolverines.
Iowa also played in that game.
7) Everything finally lined up to give a non-Power Five team a shot. Cincinnati earned that shot. Do I think they're on the level of Alabama or Georgia or Michigan? Over the course of a season, no. If they played in the Big Ten or the SEC they'd probably have two or three losses. So I understand those who don't think they belong. But I'm glad they got in. The Bearcats probably should have beaten Georgia in the Peach Bowl last year, but the argument was that Georgia didn't care about that game. Well, Bama (which is who I expect Cincy to play) is going to care. And if they manage to win that game, Georgia or Michigan is going to care. I do not expect it to happen, but what a story it would be if the Bearcats could win two more games. It would go down as one of the greatest seasons in college football history. The last team to win a national championship from outside one of the traditional power conferences? BYU in 1984.
8) The ACC title game happened. Pitt beat Wake Forest 45-21. That and the fact that Kenny Pickett acted like he was going to slide and then didn't and ran for a 58-yard touchdown is the extent of my knowledge about it.
9) In coaching carousel news, Brent Venables is finally getting his shot. He'll be named the Oklahoma head coach later today it appears. Whether he's turned down a million jobs over the last 15 years or whether schools have been scared off by something in his file that's never really been out there, I don't really know. But he'll finally get his shot. It's the third straight hire the Sooners have made of a head coach getting his first head coaching job. The last two have done all right. It turns out the seismic shifts due to Notre Dame and Oklahoma needing to hire coaches didn't really happen because both the Irish and the Sooners hired defensive coordinators so there was no huge domino effect. The only place where the dominos really will fall is Clemson. Dabo Swinney is going to have to replace both his coordinators because Tony Elliott is reportedly a favorite at both Virginia and Duke. We'll find out if Dabo can make the right hires to gear up for another run.
10) Bowl news will start leaking out across the country soon. The playoff show is at 11. The New Year's Six games will be announced thereafter. Then official bids to everything else will leak out. I ran down the Mizzou situation last night. I had someone text me "We don't have any official knowledge, but I think your bowl thoughts are right on." The expectation is that Missouri is probably headed for one of the non-SEC bowls, most likely in Texas, to face a non-Power Five team. When we know, you'll know.
1) In the end, the playoff is pretty obvious. Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Cincinnati are going to get in. There really aren't an viable arguments that anyone else deserves it. The only question will be seeding. The key is that they'll avoid having Georgia and Alabama play in the semifinals. Bama obviously is going to be seeded above Georgia. I would bet it's Alabama 1, Michigan 2, Georgia 3 and Cincinnati 4. And I think that's fair. I'd guess Alabama will be favored by about 16 and Georgia by about 6. Personally, I'd like to see anything that isn't Alabama/Georgia in the title game. First, the SEC stuff makes me a little bit nauseous (both the idea that no other conference can possibly be good and the idea that you should cheer for the other teams in your conference. Screw that, Bama and Georgia winning national titles doesn't do Mizzou any good). Second, I just want something different. I don't really like Michigan and I don't think Cincinnati is one of the two best teams in college football, but I root for interesting stories and those are both more interesting than watching Bama and Georgia play again in my opinion.
2) The happiest people in America that Bama beat Georgia last night should be Oklahoma State fans. I can't imagine the angst and the heartache they went through yesterday. The Cowboys threw four interceptions and failed to score a touchdown on seven plays inside the one yard line and came THISCLOSE to the Big 12 title.
In the end, those six inches weren't the difference between making the playoff and not because OSU wouldn't have gotten in over Georgia anyway. So at least there's a little bit of solace there. Don't get me wrong, it's still a crushing loss. But at least you didn't miss a chance at the national title by that much.
I saw a lot of disparaging comments about the game. Neither of those teams is a top four team in the country, but they're both top ten and I thought it was a hell of a game to watch. A lot of the SEC fans ripping those offenses for not being able to do anything were drooling all over themselves about a 9-6 Alabama/LSU game a few years ago. It's okay to admit decent football is played in other places. And while I understand all the anger about Baylor even having a program right now (trust me, I get it), neither Dave Aranda nor Mack Rhoades had anything to do with that stuff. They've done a pretty impressive reclamation job since taking over (with a nod to Matt Rhule for starting it).
3) The unhappiest people that Bama beat Georgia? Notre Dame fans. It kept the Irish out of the playoff, which probably makes most of America happy (although choosing between Alabama and Notre Dame is a little bit like a seven year old going trick or treating and getting to choose between an apple and a toothbrush). It would have been kind of entertaining to see Notre Dame in simply because of the Brian Kelly bolting factor and giving Marcus Freeman a chance to go all Steve Fisher (Google him, youngsters) and start his career with a national championship shot. That said, I am interested to see if Freeman--a very un-Notre Dame like hire) can take the Irish's recruiting to a level it hasn't really reached in the last 30 years and move Notre Dame from really, really good to elite in the next few years. I know one thing: the locker room is behind him.
4) As far as the actual games, eventually we're going to learn that Nick Saban vs Kirby Smart isn't really a fair fight. To be fair to Kirby, Nick Saban vs anybody isn't really a fair fight.
No other coach has beaten a No. 1 team more than four times. But that might not be the most incredible Saban/Tide stat out there after yesterday.
Oh, there's also this
5) An Alabama player probably won the Heisman Trophy yesterday...but I'm not sure it's the right one. I fully expect Bryce Young to be a runaway winner and I guess I get it a little bit. But I don't even think Bryce Young is the best player on his own offense. Cardinal Ritter product Jameson Williams had 68 catches for 1445 yards and 15 touchdowns. He averaged 21.3 yards a catch, had seven 100-yard games, four 150-yard games and more touchdowns of 75 yards or longer than any player in Alabama history. He was ejected in the first half of the Auburn game and Alabama looked non-functional on offense. A week later, despite John Mechie missing the entire second half, Williams had 7 catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns against what most of us believe to be the best defense we've seen in college football in at least a decade and the Tide hung 41 points. I turned my vote in earlier this week. I'm not allowed to say who I voted for, but I should have waited and voted for Jameson Williams.
6) I am not a Michigan fan. The last time I remember cheering for them is in 1997 in hopes that they could win a national title instead of Nebraska. But I am happy to see new teams involved and I'm willing to acknowledge a good team when I see one. Michigan is absolutely a very, very good team. They don't do it the way most teams do it these days. They aren't flashy on offense. But they're absolutely dominant on the lines of scrimmage, which I think actually gives them a shot against Georgia. You can argue that their season is worthy of being the top seed in the playoff (they won't be, but on pure resume and schedule, they've got more impressive wins than Alabama or Georgia). I'm also not a big Jim Harbaugh fan. But in addition to winning the game yesterday, Harbaugh and Michigan did two things that deserve to be acknowledged:
Well done, Wolverines.
Iowa also played in that game.
7) Everything finally lined up to give a non-Power Five team a shot. Cincinnati earned that shot. Do I think they're on the level of Alabama or Georgia or Michigan? Over the course of a season, no. If they played in the Big Ten or the SEC they'd probably have two or three losses. So I understand those who don't think they belong. But I'm glad they got in. The Bearcats probably should have beaten Georgia in the Peach Bowl last year, but the argument was that Georgia didn't care about that game. Well, Bama (which is who I expect Cincy to play) is going to care. And if they manage to win that game, Georgia or Michigan is going to care. I do not expect it to happen, but what a story it would be if the Bearcats could win two more games. It would go down as one of the greatest seasons in college football history. The last team to win a national championship from outside one of the traditional power conferences? BYU in 1984.
8) The ACC title game happened. Pitt beat Wake Forest 45-21. That and the fact that Kenny Pickett acted like he was going to slide and then didn't and ran for a 58-yard touchdown is the extent of my knowledge about it.
9) In coaching carousel news, Brent Venables is finally getting his shot. He'll be named the Oklahoma head coach later today it appears. Whether he's turned down a million jobs over the last 15 years or whether schools have been scared off by something in his file that's never really been out there, I don't really know. But he'll finally get his shot. It's the third straight hire the Sooners have made of a head coach getting his first head coaching job. The last two have done all right. It turns out the seismic shifts due to Notre Dame and Oklahoma needing to hire coaches didn't really happen because both the Irish and the Sooners hired defensive coordinators so there was no huge domino effect. The only place where the dominos really will fall is Clemson. Dabo Swinney is going to have to replace both his coordinators because Tony Elliott is reportedly a favorite at both Virginia and Duke. We'll find out if Dabo can make the right hires to gear up for another run.
10) Bowl news will start leaking out across the country soon. The playoff show is at 11. The New Year's Six games will be announced thereafter. Then official bids to everything else will leak out. I ran down the Mizzou situation last night. I had someone text me "We don't have any official knowledge, but I think your bowl thoughts are right on." The expectation is that Missouri is probably headed for one of the non-SEC bowls, most likely in Texas, to face a non-Power Five team. When we know, you'll know.
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