College football 2016 - aSECendency

[lokisnow]

Well I haven't paid one iota of attention to college football since USC set themselves up for failure with another former athlete athletic director rather than hiring a professional. But the season is upon us, Alabama will kick it off by murdering SC and it seems like the usual suspects will be contending for playoff berths.

any important major off season news I missed? Can the big ten or the big twelve correctly count yet, or are they still numerically challenged? 

[lokisnow]

@Triskan

@Kalbear

@S John

 

@sperry

@HokieStone

@Pony Queen Jace

@Ferrum Aeternum

@Howdyphillip

@Manhole Eunuchsbane

@DireWolfSpirit

@Rhom

@Michael Seswatha Jordan

@Ded As Ned

New season new thread, the old one was about the Christmas / new years playoffs.

Top 25 is now out. tagging a bunch of regulars to alert you all to the thread and to start getting excited for the season!

 

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/8/21/12566340/2016-ncaa-football-preseason-ap-top-25-alabama-clemson-oklahoma-florida-state-lsu

[Jace, Extat]

I didn't realize I counted as a regular, I've only ever considered my self a moderate fan of college at best. And this year it'll likely be even worse since I'm gonna be taking classes on Saturday. All for the better, perhaps. With another USC disaster imminent and the recent ND woes.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

@Ded As Ned, you going to set up the Pick Em'?

[Ramsay B.]

I'm pretty excited for the Noles season as they have a whole lot of starters returning(10 from the offense, not counting injured Maguire). It's gonna be interesting right off the bat to see another redshirt freshman starting at QB against Ole Miss. I have no idea what to expect out of Francois, as he wasn't as highly touted as Jameis, but he is still supposed to be pretty good. I can't wait to see Dalvin Cook this year too, he should be an absolute monster if he stays healthy. It should all come down to the Clemson game and we're at home this year.

[dbunting]

Is it just me or there more arrests in college now than in the pro's? Yeah, statistically there should be since there are a lot more, but maybe it just wasn't reported as much in the past as it is now? What was it, six Notre Dame players in the last week?

[Ded As Ned]

3 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

@Ded As Ned, you going to set up the Pick Em'?

Sure thing, gimme a day or two and I'll post the info

[Rhom]

Got tickets to Kentucky vs Southern Miss for opening weekend.  On first glance it sounds like it should be a minor conference cupcake, but Southern Miss was really good last year and is picked to win C-USA this year.  To make it worse, they hired UK's offensive coordinator from last year that was a constant punching bag for fans.  If we were to lose to them, it would be tragic on multiple levels. 

The path to a bowl will require 3 non-conference wins (because UofL is a loss this year without a doubt) plus wins over Vandy, South Carolina, and at Mizzou.  Certainly doable, but no margin of error.

So we will know by late evening September 4 whether we will need to purchase any more tickets for the season or if we should just spend more time watching Bam Adebayo highlight reels.   

[Ded As Ned]

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

Got tickets to Kentucky vs Southern Miss for opening weekend.  On first glance it sounds like it should be a minor conference cupcake, but Southern Miss was really good last year and is picked to win C-USA this year.  To make it worse, they hired UK's offensive coordinator from last year that was a constant punching bag for fans.  If we were to lose to them, it would be tragic on multiple levels. 

The path to a bowl will require 3 non-conference wins (because UofL is a loss this year without a doubt) plus wins over Vandy, South Carolina, and at Mizzou.  Certainly doable, but no margin of error.

So we will know by late evening September 4 whether we will need to purchase any more tickets for the season or if we should just spend more time watching Bam Adebayo highlight reels.   

Mississippi State is also a winnable game at home, if all the pundits are correct in how bad they're going to be this year (I'm not qutie convinced).  

Normally I wouldn't write off the rest of the season with a game 1 loss to a decent SoMiss team... but to lose to our fired OC Shannon I'd-Be-A-Great-Coach-If-Just-My-Players-Executed-My-Play-Calls Dawson... it would just be too much.  Worse than losing to Petrino when he was at WKU in Stoops' first season.  

So let's not let that happen, Go Cats!

[S John]

I was fairly bullish on WVU, but now I'm back to neutral.  Lost a couple of key guys on an already inexperienced D in camp and even with that knowledge, (the word is) that somehow the D has been dominating the O in scrimmages.  So... either the D is going to be a big surprise or the O is so terrible that they can't beat a bad D?  I'm trying not read too much into what amounts to some practice plays, but I no longer have any idea what to expect when we line up against Missouri in 12 short days.  Excited for football either way, but I hope the 'eers are at least decent.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Alabama has been so good the last 5 yrs ive become a lot less interested in the National Championship game. For me the season highlights will revolve around the the U of M vs Sparty, U of M vs Buckeyes, Sparty vs Buckeyes , B10 Championships and Rose Bowl games. I'm more interested in the 3 team competition between OSU, UofM and MSU and how they will stack up against each other. For me the rivalries are more entertaining than the National Championships.

On another note, a 15 game season is a knee shredding, heinous exploitation of unpaid athletes, its borderline criminal. A college season shouldnt exceed 10-12  games, with only the national championship game being a 12th game. Case in point watch how quickly McCaffrey's production goes off a cliff by his first or second yr of Pro ball. These backs can only carry so many times before there football dreams begin expiring, its selfish of us to expect them to expend it all as unpaid players.

One solution could be to keep these crowd pleasing, revenue producing 13-15 game schedules intact, but mandate that no player can play in more than 12 games for the season. The coaches would have to play a few more 2nd and 3rd unit players on a occasion but that could just be incorporated into his coaching strategy and every team would be under the same rules, so for player safety i'd favor the NCAA going to something like that.

[dbunting]

10 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Alabama has been so good the last 5 yrs ive become a lot less interested in the National Championship game. For me the season highlights will revolve around the the U of M vs Sparty, U of M vs Buckeyes, Sparty vs Buckeyes , B10 Championships and Rose Bowl games. I'm more interested in the 3 team competition between OSU, UofM and MSU and how they will stack up against each other. For me the rivalries are more entertaining than the National Championships.

On another note, a 15 game season is a knee shredding, heinous exploitation of unpaid athletes, its borderline criminal. A college season shouldnt exceed 10-12  games, with only the national championship game being a 12th game. Case in point watch how quickly McCaffrey's production goes off a cliff by his first or second yr of Pro ball. These backs can only carry so many times before there football dreams begin expiring, its selfish of us to expect them to expend it all as unpaid players.

One solution could be to keep these crowd pleasing, revenue producing 13-15 game schedules intact, but mandate that no player can play in more than 12 games for the season. The coaches would have to play a few more 2nd and 3rd unit players on a occasion but that could just be incorporated into his coaching strategy and every team would be under the same rules, so for player safety i'd favor the NCAA going to something like that.

Being a U of M fan I am slightly optimistic about this year. I keep talking myself down but realistically they could win every game and then challenge OSU at the end.

As to season lengths, agree with you 100% 10 games, conf champ, then bowl game, championship game makes 13 max.  I would really like to see the power 5 just break away and make a league of their own. Play like 8 team from your own conference plus two from another power 5 conference on a rotating basis so you can't just schedule the weakest ones each year. Who really wants to see a top 10 team playing a div 2 school? Play fewer games but have them all mean something.

Will never happen because money rules everything.

 

[S John]

The conferences are powerful entities all on their own.  It'll take an external force to blow them up.  What do we have now, something like 64 P5 teams + ND?  

If I were king I would elevate 5 teams to P5 status, something like Cincy, UConn, Houston, BYU, whoever.  Then scrap the current conferences and create 7 regionally sensible 10 team conferences.  For most conferences the opponents will be familiar ones in neighboring states, so not a total overhaul of tradition.  All of college football is in one pool of money and negotiates TV contracts as a single entity and conference payouts are the same for all 70 teams.  

Every team plays a 10 game schedule and a conference round robin.   No conference champ. games because everyone plays everyone.  A round robin in the conference would be 9 conference games, so the 10th game can be a 'group of 5' kind of team for a tune-up game and to help those lower tier schools fund their athletic programs.  Then we have 7 auto-bid spots into an 8 team playoff for the conference winners.  The other spot can either be at-large or dedicated to a 'group of 5' type team that would almost inevitably get the 8th seed and play the overall #1 team.

In this scenario the 2 teams in the national championship would be playing their 13th game (not their 15th), we'd have an expanded playoff, and the regular season will still matter.  Winning your conference will be a huge deal.

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Ded As Ned said:

Mississippi State is also a winnable game at home, if all the pundits are correct in how bad they're going to be this year (I'm not qutie convinced).  

Normally I wouldn't write off the rest of the season with a game 1 loss to a decent SoMiss team... but to lose to our fired OC Shannon I'd-Be-A-Great-Coach-If-Just-My-Players-Executed-My-Play-Calls Dawson... it would just be too much.  Worse than losing to Petrino when he was at WKU in Stoops' first season.  

So let's not let that happen, Go Cats!

Dunno about Mississippi State.  Even in the halcyon days of the Woodson years when we were objectively better than them, we still lost to them every year.  They were the one team that I felt kept us from reaching the 8-9 win plateau.

I'm just glad to see Prescott making NFL defenses look like the highlight reels that always featured a ton of Kentucky film!   

[sperry]

I am going to the OU - WVU game in Morgantown this fall, if any of our resident Mountaineers will be attending, I'd love to grab a beer.

 

 

As for the season, I'm excited. The big concerns for the team are at wide receiver and defensive line. At WR, I think they'll find somebody to step up, so I'm not too worried. On the defensive line, though, they just don't have the horses right now. They've got some talented young guys, but they aren't likely ready to compete at a really high level.

[S John]

On August 22, 2016 at 8:57 PM, sperry said:

I am going to the OU - WVU game in Morgantown this fall, if any of our resident Mountaineers will be attending, I'd love to grab a beer.

 

 

As for the season, I'm excited. The big concerns for the team are at wide receiver and defensive line. At WR, I think they'll find somebody to step up, so I'm not too worried. On the defensive line, though, they just don't have the horses right now. They've got some talented young guys, but they aren't likely ready to compete at a really high level.

As long as the Mountaineers don't completely tank before we get to OU, that will be a fun environment.  

Dont think I'll be able to make it to Morgantown again this year, but I will catch WVU in Austin.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

@sperry, I might be going, if I do I'd love to meet up. Will let you knows.

ETA: Also, if we do get tickets to the OU game, you and whoever your with will be welcome to tailgate with us. If I must say, we are the best pregamers in the country.

[Ded As Ned]

The week 1 lineup is quite impressive, 9 more days!!!

I'll get the pick'em info up this evening, haven't forgotten about it but it's firewalled here at work.

[S John]

I hate August.  Every year I tell myself I'm not going to get excited about college football because it just makes the hottest month of the year drag on and on and on.  

This year I did a pretty good job because of the Olympics.  While no substitute for football, it kept my attention for the first 2/3's of the month.  But now that is over and I can't really do baseball on TV and pre-season NFL doesn't do much for me, so I'm in a pretty rough entertainment stretch right now.  Bring on the Mountaineers!  I wish I could just go into hibernation for a week and emerge at kick off. 

[Ded As Ned]

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Group ID: 5691
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