Our playoff picture is sorting out more and more by the week, and even by the hour, as we have nearly reached the midpoint of the season for most programs. Oklahoma flamed out yesterday in Norman against Iowa State, and so one more domino falls. Here are my top seven thoughts from the weekend:
Point One: As it turns out, there are very few contenders worthy of a playoff spot.
As it turns out, the 2017 season has mostly been a dud from many different areas. The Heisman trophy hype of a four QB race between Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson has turned into a huge pile of crap, and the playoff race is starting to look like, as weeks progress, that we could mostly know who will be there before we even reach Thanksgiving. Unbeaten teams in Power Five leagues are down to Clemson, Miami, TCU, Penn State, Wisconsin, Washington, Washington State, Georgia, and Alabama, and the only teams that I can project winning out are Alabama and Washington. Penn State still has to play Ohio State, Clemson now has injury issues at QB, Miami will absolutely not finish unbeaten, TCU is still a huge question mark for me, Wisconsin does not play in a dominant fashion, Washington State still has to play Utah, Stanford, and Washington, Georgia will never beat Alabama, and may not even beat Georgia Tech. Still, with that said, the only reliable contenders left appear to be Alabama, Washington, Penn State, and Clemson, but only if Clemson gets Kelly Bryant back from an ankle injury in a hurry.
Point Two: Another Alabama vs. Clemson national title game is horrible for the sport.
If we indeed get to another Alabama/Clemson finale, college football will have a huge credibility problem moving forward. Alabama, as it turns out, has largely doused themselves in the relative comfort of the internal fillings of cupcakes, as their opponents are just 12-15 at this point, and Clemson's SOS is not much better. People are obviously getting bored across the nation, as it becomes more and more apparent that there is a monopoly on playoff spots. If fans start tuning out after their teams lose a couple of games in the first half of the season, that cannot be good for the game, and the TV partners, who are bleeding cash on horrible contract arrangements, cannot be happy about it. Everyone is trying to hire the next Saban or Swinney, and when those guys don't turn out to be that guy, they get a quick trigger finger, leaving an unstable coaching pool. Schools are also paying more and more money to find that guy, and that is troubling as well. All of these things are a direct effect of too much parity, allowing teams that moderately stand out to completely take the goods with impunity.
Point Three: Chris Peterson is right, and Kirk Herbstreit is wrong.
Chris Peterson, like almost every single PAC-12 coach, berated the late start times and off-night games that the PAC-12 has been forced into due to a miserably awful arrangement Larry Scott made with ESPN and Fox when it comes to their TV contract. Obviously, those complaints have fallen on deaf ears, as Larry Scott could give a crap less about what his coaches feel, as is the case with school presidents who continuously fail to back up their coaches. Kirk Herbstreit said on national TV this week that Peterson ought to not complain about it, but thank ESPN for the exposure. He is dead wrong. The PAC-12 has largely suffered under the conditions of this awful TV deal, and the bowl deal that they were backed into is even worse. Every other conference has largely benefited from the deal, getting plum daytime kickoffs, and just about any major bowl they want, while the PAC-12 gets stuck playing well after midnight on the east coast, loses exposure for their players, and has their second best team ending up in the Holiday or Alamo Bowls. Yeah, Herbie, the conference ought to thank you for that. What a loon.
Point Four: Sam Boyd Stadium was flat for UNLV/San Diego State a week after shootings.
I was at Sam Boyd with my Wife last night to witness the UNLV vs. SDSU contest, and expected a lot more energy to get out and support the Rebels, if only for a distraction from the tragic events in this town last weekend. I was wrong. The crowd was flat as a pancake from the start, and the SDSu crowd, which was effectively as large as the UNLV crowd, basically slept their way through the night. It was a shocking turn for me, as I thought there would be some rally in the crowd to get behind the UNLV program, but the stadium was rife with empty seats (we had not a soul around us for several rows), and the energy level was the standard here, bored and careless.
Point Five: TCU is the last hope for the Big 12
Even after a game in which TCU struggled to get out of their own way for the most part, TCU is now the last living hope that the Big 12 has of landing a playoff team, and that hope is dim. TCU still has some major hurdles to get by, and if they trip up just once, the Bug 12 is out of the playoff again. If there is one league that gets shafted by this current arrangement of bowls as much as the PAC-12, it's the Big 12.
Point Six: It was a dark day in the Division 2 ranked teams.
Arkansas Tech, Humboldt State, Delta State, Sioux Falls, and Texas A&M-Commerce all fell yesterday, opening up some serious D2 playoff debates as to how things are going to fall in just over a month from now. There were several games between ranked opponents, and Sioux Falls and A&M Commerce were both top three teams in the national rankings. Expect some major shuffling of the deck this week, as Shippensburg, who was a top three PRS team out of the PSAC, also fell.
Point Seven: Gameday shafting of San Diego is telling in attitude towards G5.
The ESPN decision to visit an FCS school over visiting San Diego shows that the network, P5 conferences, just don't care about the Group of 5. I am going to be working on getting Mountain West Commish Craig Thompson on our podcast shortly, and this is something I have to grill him on. At what point, when ESPN would rather visit an FCS school rather than go to San Diego State, do the G5 commissioners finally understand how screwed they are, and make a hard choice to break free from the grips of major TV networks and go off on their own? It's time for the preemptive strike to happen. It's simple, the G5 programs are the patsies and slaves to the networks and P5 conferences, and it's time to end the tyranny.
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