College Football 20-21’

A 6-1 IU gets snubbed from the New Years big 6 bowl games and is instead given the honor of playing a 4-5 Ole Miss in the way Outback bowl.

Still think an undefeated IU would have gotten a sniff Matt? I don’t, not even for a second. The CFP committee would have used the excuse that IU was missing Penix and taken A&M or Oklahoma. As it stands, IU finished behind two three loss teams and two two loss teams in the CFP top 25 after losing only to Ohio State in a hard fought game.

If that didn’t sting enough, another three loss team in North Carolina ranked behind IU in the CFP standings was selected for the Orange Bowl ahead of IU. The final AP poll had IU at 7 and the coach’s poll had them at 8. The CFP stinks and all of college football can see it. IU deserved better than a final standing of 11 in the CFP poll and the Outback bowl invitation.

 

I feel your pain @BarryWhite. Coastal Carolina goes 11-0 with wins over two top 25 teams and gets rewarded with the sixth annual FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl! And who do they get to play? Do they get a chance to validate their best season ever against a larger conference school? Nope. They get to take on their old FCS rival turned FBS Independent Liberty.

I'm so disappointed. I was really hoping that Coastal would get the chance to test their talent and game against a tried and true FBS program. Not against a team with less FBS seasons (3) under their belt than Coastal even has (5).

I also feel that the playoff is a joke. Didn't they learn their lesson when they picked Notre Dame two years ago? Clemson destroyed them then and destroyed them last week. I seriously hope they Bama a fight. I'm guessing that the Tide are going to blow them out of the water though.

 

@astroevan - I can’t wrap my head around either Coastal Carolina or Cincinnati. I may be committing heresy hear in Indiana, but I also can’t understand how a Notre Dame team that just got blown out by Clemson makes it into the finals playoffs. I guess all of this madness is fitting for 2020.

Actually, never mind I do understand. The CFP = the long rumored soccer Super League. Only the big boys are welcome.

 

Actually, here's what they should have done. They should have had CCU and Cincinnati play in a bowl - sort of a Group of Five championship. If they aren't going to consider the lesser five conferences for the playoff, then give them their own!

Edit: I just saw that Cincinnati gets to play Georgia in the Peach Bowl as the obligatory Group of Five team allowed to play in a New Year's Six bowl. At least they'll be able to test themselves.

 

Just because it made me smile: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...y-perfect-beats-college-football-system-every

 

Well, notwithstanding all my whining and complaining, the bowl planners got it right. The matchup between Coastal Carolina and Liberty was quite entertaining - even before the insanity of the last minute and overtime. My only disappointment at this time was that Coastal’s defense had no answer for Malik Willis and couldn’t tackle any Liberty players without letting them fall forward for at least two more yards.

The good news is that CCU will have most of their big offensive names back next year. The bad news is that the exact opposite is true for the defense.

Looking forward to the rest of the games this week/weekend.

 

@astroevan, Great season, crazy game, hate for it to end on a blocked FG.

Some great games on the 2nd to discuss before today’s Semi-Final:

OutBack Bowl: Ole Miss vs Indiana: @BarryWhite and his Hoosiers line up against @dtowndough and his favorite team . Indiana doesn’t have your average backup QB, Lane Kiffin’s offense has been quite good. 2020 might be over, but the SCJ Kids of Death still in play, let’s say Ole Miss for you Barry.

Fiesta Bowl: Oregon vs Iowa State: Iowa State coming off a disappointing loss, while Ducks off their best performance. Will go Iowa State.

Orange Bowl: Texas A&M vs North Carolina; @AggieMatt Teams that get snubbed either take it out on their next opponent or play apathetic, going former and Aggies rolling.

Today Semi’s:
#4 Notre Dame vs #1 Alabama; Bama going to roll, the only question is will the humiliate the Irish? Not totally, but certainly don’t think ND can keep it under 3 TDs

#2 Clemson vs #3 Ohio State; Dabo Swinney out Ohio State as #11 in his rankings because they didn’t play enough games. The Buckeyes will certainly be taking that slight as fuel. Can Justin Fields play better then he has? He’s thrown far too many interceptions. Tough one to call, but going Clemson to play Bama in their annual game.

 

I hate picking bowl games. But I’ll take Indiana’s defense to get enough stops and Ole Miss’s dreadful defense to give up enough to lose. I’ll take gritty Iowa St to grind out a win over an Oregon team that, like Ohio St, didn’t meet expectations during the shortened season. Either of those games going the other way wouldn’t surprise me in the least though.

A&M sounds motivated and should be able to dominate the lines and win by a couple of scores. I’m a little concerned by injuries in our secondary and their passing game, but I think we’ll be ok.

I would have gone Bama and Clemson comfortably and I’d have been wrong on the latter. All year we heard about what Ohio St could be with little evidence of it week to week. They couldn’t have picked a better time to finally find it and prove they belonged in the playoff. Unlike Notre Dame, who did the college football equivalent of parking the bus and trying to keep the blowout from being too bad. If tonight’s Ohio St shows up again, we should have a good game next week. It’s one I think Bama wins by 7-8 pts, most likely. If they have a letdown, it’ll probably be a blowout.

Addressing some previous stuff, Barry they proved you right. I still think the Penix injury was a factor but we’ll never know. Hopefully Indiana proves them wrong tomorrow. Some of those New Year 6 bowls have contractual obligations. That’s how Oregon and North Carolina got in over IU. Had ND not made the playoff, they’d have taken that ACC Orange Bowl slot. Not sure that alone would have been enough to get IU into one of those games but it didn’t help.

Based on all the blowouts in the semifinals, I think most years you’re lucky to have 2-3 teams capable of winning the Championship. That said, I do think they should expand it to 8 with the 5 conference champs, the top group of 5 team and 2 at larges getting an invite. I don’t think it’ll provide the upsets like the NCAA tourney, but it gives the appearance of fairness and gives more teams something to play for. Based on opt outs, the bowls aren’t that thing. After 6-10 years, if the group of 5 teams are getting blown out every year, maybe dump them for another at large and let them break off and form their own 6-8 team playoff.

The Coastal game proved to be entertaining but I still would have liked to see them get a ranked power 5 team. They can schedule Liberty any year, give fans something they don’t usually get to see.

 

The Outback Bowl will be the strength of IU’s defense against the Ole Miss offense. The thing that scares me most as an IU fan is the amount of time Kiffan has had to game plan for IU.

IU lost its defensive coordinator but that shouldn’t matter since Tom Allen is heavily involved in the defense anyway. With Penix I’d predict a route but without him IU’s defense needs to keep it close.

I have no idea what it means but IU will not have any Big 10 logos on their uniforms.

 

Natty Title tonight. It’s hard not to think Bama will
outlast Ohio State, but the Buckeyes do have a few things needed to pull off the upset; great running game, Sermon is outstanding, and OSU capable of keeping the Tide’s offense on the sideline. Justin Fields played his best game against Clemson, and it will be really interesting to see how he’s moving w/his rib injury. Finally Ohio State has a mediocre defensive backfield, but it’s masked by the pressure the line applies. If they can get heat on Mac Jones, they might be able to slow Bama down. All that said, Saban will be hoisting another trophy and cementing his place as the best college coach ever.

 

The Tide was never really threatened this season. The closest anybody got to them was Florida, who got within 4 points at the end of the third quarter. But you gotta put an asterisk by every sports championship this season. The pandemic had far too great an impact on the playing conditions. Even if your favorite team in your favorite sport won it all. Yes, even if the Cardinals had won the Series. Would Bama have won it all anyway with this juggernaut of talent? Probably. But we'll really never know.

 

So this isn't really about the college football season, but I was too lazy to start another thread and I was hoping to get the thoughts from those of you that follow college football.

Shad Khan announced that Jacksonville has hired Urban Meyer as their head coach. He's undoubtedly been successful as a college coach, however it seems like college coaches rarely find success in the NFL. Is there something about Meyer that could lead to something other than an ignominious exit after two sad seasons? I'm really worried about him and Trevor Lawrence together thinking they are still playing in the NCAA rather than the NFL.

When I think of successful NFL coaches they have spent years under other great coaches, which is why I'm disappointed Khan didn't go for Eric Bieniemy. So am I right to be disappointed in Khan's decision or should I be optimistic? Ha, I know, Jaguars fans should NEVER be optimistic, so let's just ask am I being overly pessimistic?