The Clemson schedule, Tennessee’s issues, and UCF’s possible beef, in the latest Cavalcade of Whimsy.
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Sorry if this column sucks, it’s not my fault …
I was all worried about picking against Alabama -55. Fortunately, my backup plan to use a Sharpie to change the fives to sixes wasn’t needed.
“Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing.” …
So … is that it?
Are we all done paying attention to Clemson now until it goes to Charlotte to win another ACC Championship on December 7th?
Really? All the Tigers had to do was come up with one okay Week 2 performance against a Texas A&M team that played with all the functionality of a Jeremy Renner app, and that’s all we get?
Maybe the trip to North Carolina will at least be intriguing. The date at NC State isn’t without its charm, and maybe, if the planets are aligned the right way, the date at South Carolina will be something, but …
Come on. Clemson will be favored by at least 25 against everyone the rest of the way.
From this point on, the only reason to watch Clemson football is to hope Trevor Lawrence doesn’t get hurt while wishing he was in bubble wrap. Outside of that – or an all-timer of a total meltdown – at absolute worst, this team drops one game in a total fluke and it still goes 12-1 on the way to the tournament.
And we all know what’s coming …
Oh boo hoo … when will the upstart SEC finally catch a break?
Considering Texas A&M still has to play Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi State, Georgia and LSU – those last two games are on the road – there’s a shot it finishes the regular season with at least four losses and is unranked.
There’s also a real, live possibility that Clemson goes into the ACC Championship without a win over a team that will be in the final regular season rankings.
Fans of the SEC and Big Ten – particularly ones who love the West and East, respectively – are about to go batspit insane over the walk through the tulips this Clemson team has the rest of the way.
At Syracuse, Charlotte, at North Carolina, Florida State, at Louisville, Boston College, Wofford, at NC State, Wake Forest, at South Carolina.
That’s cute.
SEC fans – and Nick Saban, too – groused about how hard Alabama’s slate was at the end of last year and how easy Clemson had it. Unless something drastically changes in the ACC, the offseason complaining will be nothing compared to the screaming due to arrive by mid-November.
Yeah, beating Pitt for the ACC Championship wasn’t like having to deal with a fully-operational powerhouse of a Georgia team for the SEC title, but there was one fatal flaw in the theory – make it two – when it came to the inference that the schedule had anything to do with Bama not getting off the bus in the 44-16 national title loss.
First, Clemson can have a light schedule, AND be the best team in college football.
Also, considering all the blowouts and all the time the starters got to rest in stress-free games, no great team ever had more chances to chill than the 2018 Crimson Tide. That’s not why they lost.
Now it’s up to Clemson to see how it’s going to play this, because it has the light schedule and it’s going to have the opportunity to rest everyone in game after game.
And to all the expected naysayers about the slate, Clemson has two real, live, restaurant-quality Power Five non-conference games in Texas A&M and South Carolina. Charlotte is a layup, but there aren’t any FCS games – LSU plays Northwestern State this week and Alabama gets Western Carolina in late November.
It’s not Clemson’s fault that Syracuse got its doors ripped off by Maryland last week. It’s not its fault that Florida State is all weird now, or that Georgia Tech is in the midst of a regime change, or that Louisville isn’t the Louisville of a few years ago. And it’s not Clemson’s fault that it doesn’t play Virginia or Miami from the Coastal, at least until the ACC title game.
However, to be fair …
NEXT: Because it’s been SO much fun over the last two years …
Or, the Stanford Cardinal can end this with one good road win this week
There’s still a long, long, long way to go, but if UCF can somehow do it all again, this time around it might have a legitimate case to make before the College Football Playoff committee.
UCF: “Uhhhhh, we went the undefeated over the last two regular seasons. What happens if we do it again?”
The Committee: “Uhhhhh, I dunno, Sport. Maybe go to another New Year’s Six game or something. Those are fun, right? You get pullovers with logos on them.”
UCF: “What if Clemson’s schedule really does turn out to stink?”
The Committee: “In the end, it won’t. It just sort of looks bad right now, but if it really is light, so what? The talent on that team is otherworldly.”
UCF: “You dogged us for the last two seasons for not playing a great schedule, so why don’t you hold everyone else to the same standard? What if we end up with as many wins or more over ranked teams than Clemson has?”
The Committee: “Certainly you’re not suggesting that you should get in over an unbeaten Clemson, or even a 12-1 ACC champion Tiger team?”
UCF: “Why not? If we have as good a record, and …”
The Committee: “Let’s stop you right there. We see where you’re going, and you have a point, but it’s a non-starter if you think for a single solitary second that you even exist if it comes down to between you and Clemson for a spot in the College Football Playoff.”
UCF: “Okay, okay, but how about overall? If there was a blind resumé thing, and it turns out that ours is stronger than Team B or Team G – forgetting about talent and preconceived notions – why do we get automatically dismissed?”
The Committee: “Because even a down ACC – or any Power Five conference – is better overall than a strong American Athletic Conference. And if you still insist on comparing yourself to Clemson, it beat Texas A&M, and you won’t have one of those.”
UCF: “But if we beat Stanford, and win at Pitt, Cincinnati, and Houston, and then win another conference title over a ranked champion from the West …”
The Committee: “Didn’t you just answer your own question? Anything else? We’re late for the foot spa.”
UCF: “We want a shot. We want our chance in the College Football Playoff if we go undefeated for a third straight regular season.”
The Committee: “Then you had better hope the Power Five conferences implode and several key teams have two losses.”
UCF: “This sucks.”
The Committee: “It’s September. Go worry about Stanford.”
NEXT: So, Greg Schiano, you say …
It’s not that common, it doesn’t happen to every major program, and it is a big deal
Really … why isn’t Tennessee better at this?
There’s the general assumption that the program is supposed to be among the powerhouses of powerhouses, mainly because it’s bound by next to nothing.
The facilities are there, the revenue isn’t an issue, the fan base will put over 100,000 butts in the house even if the team is merely showing promise, and recruiting has never been a problem.
But now we’re working on the 12th year since the Vols went to an SEC Championship, and most of this year’s freshman class wasn’t even born the last time the program was legitimately in the national championship chase back in 2001.
The last time Tennessee won the SEC Championship was … 1998. It was the year it won the national title, and it was the first year of the BCS – and CFN, BTW. Had there been a College Football Playoff in the mid-1990s, the Vols likely would’ve made it in 1995, 1997 and 1998, but …
We’re talking about the 1990s here. No one cares.
You ready for pain? Since 2008, Tennessee has as many bowl wins as Vanderbilt.
And it gets worse.
After last week’s loss to BYU, Tennessee has gone 9-17 since opening up the 2017 season with a thrilling win over Georgia Tech. Over that time, the Vols have a grand total of two wins over Power Five programs.
And it gets even worse than that.
Even with the losses to Georgia State and BYU, Tennessee barely gets on the radar to be among the nation’s biggest early disappointments, mainly because no one really expected anything in the first place.
It’s not like the SEC needs Tennessee to be a powerhouse again, but it would sure be nice if there were some realistically decent expectations going forward. This isn’t a zero sum game when it comes to bringing in the talent – it’s possible for Florida, Georgia and Tennessee to all be outstanding at the same time.
How much more fun would it be if the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry meant something again?
For those of a certain age who remember when they ruled the world, how crazy were the massive fan bases when Florida-Tennessee was among the three must-see games of the season?
Come back soon, Tennessee. College football misses you.
NEXT: Five Cavalcade of Whimsy footballey opinions and, like, other stuff
Five Cavalcade of Whimsy footballey opinions and, like, other stuff
5. Because the last three quarters of the Cotton Bowl were so much fun …
You know how Notre Dame is sort of being dismissed because the schedule seems a lot harder this year and the team doesn’t appear to be as good?
Yeah, it might be one big win over Georgia next week from changing everything.
Virginia is nasty, but that’s a home game. USC is better, but that’s a home game, too.
Are you really that afraid of the trip to Michigan now? How about dealing with Virginia Tech, at Duke, Navy or Boston College? How scary does Stanford seem to be?
The Irish aren’t going to run the table, but … again, beat Georgia next week in Athens, and it’s Game On.
4. It’s going to be okay … it’s going to be okay …
Michigan won. It might have been a horrible performance against Army, but for some reason, I just can’t dog anyone too much for looking awful against the team with that offense.
When the Knights have the knuckleball working and they go on nine minute drives, it makes everyone crazy. The opposing offense panics, there’s a sense of urgency to merely get a first down, and no one seems to play quite right.
Now the Wolverines get a week off and then they go to Wisconsin. Win, and with Rutgers, Iowa and at Illinois to follow, they’re going to be 6-0 going into the date with Penn State.
Lose, and with at Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Ohio State, and now appearing to be a nightmare, at Maryland, ohhhhh nooooooo.
3. Every man has his tipping point …
I don’t know what it is about the ACC Network that offends my sensibilities. Maybe it’s because I don’t want it – I just want to the football games – and I don’t like paying extra for another tier of a programming package that I’ll never use.
Maybe it’s because the old ESPN model of making you pay for channels AND watch the ads they deliver doesn’t work in a world of RedZone, Netflix, and XM.
Nah. It’s really because I’m effectively paying to watch the boy-bands-that-don’t-dance-is-not-okay ad over, and over, and over, and over …
2. Come on, college football …
Gee, thanks, Syracuse. Now we have no games between ranked teams.
Somehow, though, I have a sense something sneaky-interesting is going to happen. It’s these weeks that look like nothing-burgers that tend to become something amazing.
Would you be totally stunned if Clemson got at least a push by the Orange?
How about if South Carolina put together something magical at home against Alabama, or if UCLA said, “yeah, those first two weeks … KIDDING!” and came out roaring against Oklahoma?
USC-BYU should be entertaining, Stanford-UCF will matter, and there’s a shot Arizona State at Michigan State might be fine entertainment for the whole family.
Florida HAS to beat Kentucky – Dan Mullen just can’t lose this game two years in a row – and how awesome would the story be if Hawaii went 3-0 in the Pac-12 and beat Washington?
Something interesting is going to happen. It has too.
1. Oh sure, let’s start this now
There are only 18,000 things still to happen this college football season and we’re on, like, step five, but I’m already seeing it coming.
At the end of the season, we’re not going to come close to agreeing on who the four best teams are.
Right now, there are six. Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Ohio State and Oklahoma. There are other good ones, but if you were to say right now that four of those teams are in – as long as two of them are Alabama and Clemson – you’d have a whale of a tournament.
Or, you’d have an even better six-team College Football Playoff.
In my dream world, all five Power Five champs get in and the top Group of Fiver gets a spot.
But how totally and completely awesome would that be if, say, on December 14, Oklahoma went to LSU, and Georgia went to Ohio State – or something like that – with the two winners getting to deal with No. 1 Clemson or No. 2 Alabama in the playoff as it’s set up now?
Okay, too soon. We’ll kick in the CFP discussion next month.
NEXT: The sure-thing picks of the century for this week
This week’s reason I should be the SEVENTH prognosticator on the set of the new FOX College Football Pregame thingy …
If it were up to me, I’d pick a Kent State field hockey game over fireworks. Okay, I lied. I like fireworks more than field hockey, but not if they’re being shot off in the daytime – the fireworks, not the field hockey. So yeah … I was right the first time. I’d rather see what happens in the second overtime in the field hockey thing. I’d actually rather see field hockey with fireworks going off, and …
The sure-thing, 100%, rock-solid lock, sell the house, sell the kids, no doubt about it picks of the century for this week
PICK SO FAR: 8-4 SU, 7-5 ATS
I have failed you. I have let you down, as I steer you down the wrong path.
Maybe once in a while there’s a misfire on a pick against the spread … maybe. But getting three straight up picks wrong last week (Texas A&M, Tennessee and Stanford) is unacceptable.
Fortunately, these picks are all correct.
– Maryland -7 over Temple
– Colorado -3 over Air Force
– Iowa -2 over Iowa State
– Syracuse +27.5 over Clemson (but Clemson to win outright)
– Colorado State +10 over Arkansas (but Arkansas straight up)
C.O.W. shameless gimmick item …
The weekly five Overrated/Underrated aspects of the world
5) Overrated: Alabama bitching about having to play Southern Miss next week at 11 am
Underrated: Alabama bitching about, you know, BEING IN ALABAMA WHERE IT’S REALLY FREAKING HOT.
4) Overrated: Yeah, the kid should actually be getting paid for the money the school is generating off of his design, but still, the hearts are in the right place, so …
Underrated: Just … just …this …
3) Overrated: Every preseason fantasy cheat sheet’s way-low ranking of Tom Brady
Underrated: Oh COME ON … how the hell does it magically happen 30 seconds after being released by the Raiders?!
2) Overrated: USC athletic director Lynn Swann
Underrated: The USC athletic director who Urban Meyer wants
1) Overrated: Entering the transfer portal the second you don’t win the starting quarterback job, or else you, too could be …
Underrated: Kedon Slovis. We’re two weeks in and we have a brand new college football star.
Sorry if this column sucked, I wasn’t my fault …
The Minister of Culture didn’t bring the Minister of Tackling LSU Receivers …
