2024 NCAA football thread

[transplant99]

Projected first rd matchups.

First-round byes

No. 1 Oregon (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Texas (SEC champ)
No. 3 SMU (ACC champ)
No. 4 Boise State (Mountain West champ)

First-round games

On campus, Dec. 20 and 21

No. 12 Arizona State (Big 12 champ) at No. 5 Penn State
No. 11 Miami at No. 6 Notre Dame
No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Georgia
No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State

Only thing I would disagree with is Miami being in while keeping South Carolina out.

Of course any upsets in the conference championship games changes things again.

[GirlySports]

every expert has SMU over Clemson? That game should be close

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by transplant99

ESPN;s college "experts" give their current predictions for the PO bracket

I haven't heard of a single one of these experts. All but one has Texas as the SEC champ which is surprising.

I could see Texas/Georgia playing 3 times this year.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I haven't heard of a single one of these experts. All but one has Texas as the SEC champ which is surprising.

I could see Texas/Georgia playing 3 times this year.

I think they are just taking the home teams to win this weekend. Too much to be decided yet but Texas is a 1.5 pt favorite to open.

[Strange Brew]

The conference championships aren’t likely to produce much chaos this weekend. In some cases both teams are already in (SEc, Big 10). The Big 12 winner wil get in, same with Mountain West.

I can’t believe SMU gets in if they lose but I suppose that’s the possible chaos game.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I think they are just taking the home teams to win this weekend. Too much to be decided yet but Texas is a 1.5 pt favorite to open.

they're all neutral site games

[Senator Clay Davis]

Georgia getting to claim Atlanta as a "neutral site" is always hilarious. If one team gets to drive and one team has to fly, it's not really a neutral site. Also gonna be interesting to see if we get any tanking this weekend. The #5 seed could have an easier path with a likely Boise State/SMU QF matchup than the #1 seed who might be looking at a Ohio State/Tennessee/Penn State QF.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

they're all neutral site games

Yeah...worded incorrectly....the favorites is what i should have said.

The P4 spreads are

ASU -2.5 50.5

Texas -2.5 48.5

Oregon -3.5 49.5

SMU -2.5 55.5

[GirlySports]

the ASU game is the only one the experts are split on

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Ah the current state of college football. Where octogenarian billionaires buy their 33 year old wife a $10m QB.

When the University of Michigan football team’s boosters announced on Nov. 21 that they had flipped the No. 1 high school quarterback in the country from Louisiana State to Ann Arbor, it sent shock waves through the sport.

The on-field implications were only a part of the surprise. Just as stunning was how the Wolverines had pulled it off: with the help of a surprise donation from the world’s fourth-richest man, tech billionaire Larry Ellison. The strangest part was that Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, had no known connection to the school.

But in recent days, it has emerged that Ellison does have a close, previously unknown link to Michigan after all. Out of nowhere, a statement from a Michigan booster group known as the Champions Circle singled out Ellison and Jolin, whom the group identified as his wife, as key players in the school’s pursuit of Bryce Underwood, the top-rated high-school quarterback in the country.

Now, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found that Jolin is a 33-year-old also known as Keren Zhu, according to two people familiar with the couple and several public records. And most importantly, she happens to be a Michigan alum.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/...2c9a?st=tNCoVu

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well that's Alabama locked into the playoff. Even if Clemson wins I would expect they'll drop SMU out.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

The committee have said losing a CCG won’t hurt a team. Only help the winner. Otherwise it incentivizes missing it. Of course that won’t be universall true. a team getting absolutely hammered could hurt their chances.

But considering SMU is 8th there would be no justification at all for leaving them out unless they get demolished.

If Clemson wins, it’s Alabama who drops out I think. Or maybe Boise if they get clobbered by UNLV.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Of course there'd be justification. Bama would bring higher ratings, wouldn't even be close in fact. Bama-Ohio State/Penn State/Oregon would do massive numbers. No one would care about SMU against those teams. Same reason we've seen teams get jumped in the past.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I don’t think there have been nearly as many controversial picks as people like to pretend there have. Whether or not Bama or SMU are a superior team is a coin flip. Just like every other year where there’s arguments about who should be in and who is out.

[Strange Brew]

I don’t think it’s a coin flip at all. If they play 10 games, Alabama beats SMU 8 or 9 times.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

The committee have said losing a CCG won’t hurt a team. Only help the winner. Otherwise it incentivizes missing it. Of course that won’t be universall true. a team getting absolutely hammered could hurt their chances.

But considering SMU is 8th there would be no justification at all for leaving them out unless they get demolished.

If Clemson wins, it’s Alabama who drops out I think. Or maybe Boise if they get clobbered by UNLV.

Huh? In what circumstance would a team skip a CCG? It's a chance for an automatic bye into the top 4 for the winner, and it's hard to see a team ever thinking there safe in an at large with a WD from the championship game.

Would a conference even allow a team to skip the championship game? That all sounds like nonsense.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Huh? In what circumstance would a team skip a CCG? It's a chance for an automatic bye into the top 4 for the winner, and it's hard to see a team ever thinking there safe in an at large with a WD from the championship game.

Would a conference even allow a team to skip the championship game? That all sounds like nonsense.

It’s been widely discussed amongst media, teams and fans that missing the CCG should not be an advantage. Right now, making it and losing is, in some cases, worse than outright missing it. There have been several examples where a team was punished for losing and a team sitting out has benefited.

The CFP committee is aware of this and said they view making the game as a positive, winning the game as a positive but losing it will not punish teams. How true that is remains to be seen.

[transplant99]

From the CFP chairman

CFP selection committee chairman Warde Manuel said on ESPN's rankings release show Tuesday night that teams not competing in championship games this weekend, including Alabama and Miami, wouldn't have their rankings changed because they're not playing another game.

"Any team that is not playing right now, we don't have a data point to rearrange where we have those teams ranked, and so that is set in terms of how we see them going into the final week of championship week," Manuel said. "There's nothing that's going to change for us to evaluate them any differently than we have now.

"Those teams who are not playing cannot be adjusted in terms of where they are compared to other teams that are not playing, but the championship [game] teams we will evaluate that data point to determine if there needs to be any movement, based on how the performance of the game goes."

https://www.espn.com/college-footbal...1-cfp-rankings

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

The committee have said losing a CCG won’t hurt a team. Only help the winner. Otherwise it incentivizes missing it. Of course that won’t be universall true. a team getting absolutely hammered could hurt their chances.

But considering SMU is 8th there would be no justification at all for leaving them out unless they get demolished.

If Clemson wins, it’s Alabama who drops out I think. Or maybe Boise if they get clobbered by UNLV.

Nevada would just take Boise's states spot as conference champ right? I can't see them both staying in.

I think the SMU billionaires have bought better players than everyone realizes. Now that they've finagled themselves into the ACC and have unlimited money, I can see them being a juggernaut going forward in this current wild west NIL environment.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Nevada would just take Boise's states spot as conference champ right? I can't see them both staying in.

I think the SMU billionaires have bought better players than everyone realizes. Now that they've finagled themselves into the ACC and have unlimited money, I can see them being a juggernaut going forward in this current wild west NIL environment.

Definitely no chance UNLV and Boise both make it.

SMU is the interesting one. I know people like to say it’s all about money and ratings and I don’t doubt the committee isn’t blind to ESPN’s wishes. But I’m not as pessimistic as others when it comes to the committee being crooked and in the pockets of ESPN.

It’s hard to imagine SMU at 8 could drop more than a spot or two with a close loss. I think it takes a blowout for them to drop out. That gives an opening for Miami to be in.