UCF lost a game, the Clemson schedule issue, and the top remaining games, in the latest Cavalcade of Whimsy.
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Sorry if this column sucks, it’s not my fault …
Like Tennessee, I can’t figure out how to call anyone on this new iPhone 11, either …
I’m not exactly Spartacus, but …
UCF fans, I am with you.
Group of Five fans, I hear you.
One loss doesn’t end what should be an ongoing discussion, but unfortunately, that’s it for now.
There won’t be any debates, no theoretical discussions, no arguments, and no pushing the system to make any sort of a change to the College Football Playoff format.
That’s what the Pitt Special to beat UCF did to the cause.
UCF was never really in the College Football Playoff discussions over the last few years – at least not in Grapevine, Texas – but it was nice to make the program think that it might be on the the same footing as the Power Five teams.
It wouldn’t have mattered if UCF beat Pitt by 50, or lost on a gimmicky play – there was never, ever, ever any real chance of getting into the four-team playoff. A win over the Panthers would’ve continued to push the false narrative, but at least it would’ve kept the issue alive for the public to talk about.
Now the CFP gets off the hook.
UCF fans, you’re absolutely right. Things have to change up so that over 60 teams aren’t already eliminated from the 2020 national championship chase, and the 2021 run, and 2022, and so on.
The playoff has to expand to six or eight teams with a provision to automatically include the top-ranked Group of Five champion. So what if the team might get walloped by a No. 1-seeded Alabama or Clemson? It can be seen as a sort of reward for being in the top spot for the Power Fiver.
All the Group of Five programs are looking for is a path. All they want is to go into a season knowing that there’s a shot to have a shot.
Better yet, UCF deserves to go TCU and Utah and make the jump from TV to movies. Big 12 … expand already and be a real 12 or 14-team league by bringing aboard UCF, USF, and maybe Houston and Cincinnati.
With all of that said …
Help me … Help you …
UCF fans, ENOUGH of the whining about not getting a shot in the last two CFP s unless you can reasonably and rationally say who should’ve been out.
What team in each of the last two College Football Playoffs should’ve not been in?
2017 No. 4-seed Alabama didn’t win its own division – it won the national title.
UCF should’ve been in over a Big 12 Champion Oklahoma team that beat Ohio State on the road and took down four teams that finished with ten wins or more? A Georgia team that won the SEC Championship? A Clemson team that beat Auburn AND a ten-win Miami AND nine Power Five teams that finished with winning records?
And who should’ve been left out last year? 13-0 Alabama? Of course not. 13-0 Clemson? Of course not. 12-0 Notre Dame? Look at the the Irish schedule full of Power Five programs – of course not. 12-1 Oklahoma? Of course not. 12-1 Ohio State that won the Big Ten Championship? Of course not. A Georgia team that came within a fake punt of beating that amazing Alabama team? Of course not.
Again, UCF, I’m with you. I want the system to be changed to include you and the rest of your Group of Five brethren. But this only works if you fully embrace the valid argument against the cause …
“You don’t have one of these, do you Jack?”
Among current American Athletic Conference programs, USF beat Georgia Tech and Illinois in back-to-back weeks early last season, and as part of the Big East, famously made the cover of Sports Illustrated – pour one out; sky point to SI – back in 2007 after beating Auburn and North Carolina and West Virginia in back-to-back-to-back games.
2014 East Carolina took out Virginia Tech and North Carolina in a two-week span, and in 2016, Houston destroyed Baker Mayfield and Oklahoma to start the season, and rolled Lamar Jackson and Louisville later on.
Since becoming an FBS program back in 1996, UCF has played Power Five programs in back-to-back weeks 14 times – if you include the old Big East as a major conference back in the day, and including one run of four straight games against P5ers as two. How many times has the program come up with two straight wins over the big boys?
Zero.
How many times has UCF beaten two Power Five schools in the same regular season?
Never.
With this loss to Pitt, what is UCF’s all-time regular season record vs. Power Five and Big East schools?
7-53.
So, you’re trying to figure out your perception problem, UCF? Winning seven Power Five games in one regular season doesn’t even get you a College Football Playoff can cozy, and you haven’t won more than that in almost 23 seasons.
Click for the CFN Podcast Quick Hit: Our UCF Rant …
And that’s why the loss to Pitt was so devastating. It didn’t matter that the Knights lost in a thriller – and it wouldn’t have mattered to the College Football Playoff committee if UCF won by 50 – but the loss is the entire point of why the program isn’t on the CFP philosophical or theoretical radar.
Worse yet, it was against Pitt. You know, amazing uniforms, suspect defensive scheme that leaves its corners out to dry, probably won’t go bowling this year, bad food, worse weather … Pitt.
It’s not like UCF lost late to Ohio State, or LSU, or Oregon.
Yeah, UCF can absolutely hang with or beat anyone in a one game shot – the program really is that good now – but no one’s arguing that. Beat Stanford, and then beat Pitt on the road, and then beat more teams with Power Five talent over and over and over again.
Don’t you see? This is a beauty contest, and to have any shot to make a reasonable case to be included in the judging, UCF couldn’t have stumbled in the swimsuit competition.
THIS was the chance to do it. THIS was a shot to take down two mediocre teams with ease, like any normal and decent Power Five program could and would do in back-to-back weeks.
Does this loss by 2019 UCF to Pitt mean the 2017 UCF team wouldn’t have obliterated these Cardinal and Panther teams? Of course not … again, that’s not the point.
It’s not that the system is rigged against UCF or the Group of Five programs, it’s that they’re not even in the system at all because they don’t play the biggest and best programs with Power Five talents, facilities and resources week after week after week after week.
It’s about the grind, and in this one chance to finally do something the program has never been able to do, it lost.
NEXT: Speaking of real schedules …
Of course, watch for all of these games to turn into duds, and Appalachian State ends up getting a four-seed …
Beyond just being a mildly amusing list to kill some time, there’s a point here that ties into the ensuing blurb.
Of course there will be a stunning upset to screw up our fun, but at the moment, these ten games are the only ones you absolutely have to watch until December.
Oct. 5 Michigan State at Ohio State
Oct. 12 Florida at LSU
Oct. 12 Oklahoma vs. Texas
Oct. 19 Oregon at Washington
Oct. 26 Wisconsin at Ohio State
Oct. 26 Auburn at LSU
Nov. 2 Florida vs. Georgia
Nov. 9 LSU at Alabama
Nov. 16 Georgia at Auburn
Nov. 30 Alabama at Auburn
Yes, yes, very amusing – like your kid’s 3rd grade art project making a turkey out of a cutout tracing of her hand.
So what?
1) Auburn matters. It’s going to be a player in determining what happens in the playoff chase, even if it can’t get through this alive.
2) Oklahoma only has one truly dangerous game, and a whole bunch of freaky smaller ones that should be fights.
3) Oregon has to go on the road to face USC and Arizona State, to go along with a home date at Cal and the trip to Washington, and …
4) You notice something missing? Sort of a biggie?
“I get paid to be suspicious when I’ve got nothing to be suspicious about.”
I’ll admit that I don’t exactly know what I believe here, where I’m going with this, or what I actually think should happen. I’m open to all ideas and theories.
Stay with me, because the details are important.
Let’s say the SEC and Big Ten champions are 13-0. They’re in the College Football Playoff, no questions asked, no arguments whatsoever, done deal.
Oklahoma goes 13-0 and is in the College Football Playoff as the unbeaten Big 12 champion. The schedule isn’t that great and there’s a little room for a debate here, but it will have beaten Texas twice.
So here we go.
Before you throw out the these-things-work-themselves-out thing, remember, it didn’t work last year and we got a disaster of a College Football Playoff. Let me give you three doomsday scenarios.
1) It’s 12-0 SEC East champ vs. 12-0 SEC West champ for the SEC title. If the loser is Georgia from the East, it’ll have beaten Notre Dame – who appears to be a mortal lock for at least ten wins – Florida, Texas A&M, and will have won at Auburn. If it’s Florida, it’ll have beaten Auburn, won at LSU, and in Jacksonville against Georgia.
It the SEC West 12-0 loser is LSU, it’ll have beaten Florida, Auburn, Texas at Texas, Alabama at Alabama, and Texas A&M. If the loser is Alabama, it’ll have on the resumé wins over Texas A&M and Auburn on the road, and LSU at home.
Now for the more likely scenario …
2) The Alabama-LSU loser finishes 11-1, and the winner is the 13-0 SEC champ. See above for the big wins on the slate, but in a Four Best Team Argument, the loser is still in the debate considering the winner will be the No. 1 seed.
3) Wisconsin really is that good, loses a close battle at Ohio State, but gets revenge over the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship – or vice versa with OSU losing first and then winning the title. Ohio State will have beaten Nebraska and Michigan on the road, Wisconsin once, and Michigan State and Penn State at home. Wisconsin will have beaten Ohio State once away from Camp Randall, will have annihilated Michigan, and will have beaten Michigan State, Iowa, and won on the road at Nebraska.
The drawn out point? If the SEC and Big Ten champs are 13-0, and two teams from the respective conferences are 11-1 or 12-1 with the only losses coming to those top teams, is it really about the four teams with the combination of the best records and toughest schedules?
If any or all of this happens, theoretically, what the hell do you do with a Clemson that will end up playing nobody?
Remember, in theory, the 2019 season is a self-contained entity. We just came out of a coma and don’t know anything that happened in college football over the previous ten years – 44-16 in Santa Clara never happened.
Look at all of those big, giant games the other top teams are playing. Many of them are on the road, many of them are against superpowers who could win the national title, and many of them have multiple landmines blowing up all around them.
Clemson? It’ll likely finish the season as the 13-0 ACC Champion without a win over a team that will be ranked in any top 25 poll by late November.
In reality, Clemson is OF COURSE going to get into the College Football Playoff at 13-0 over any team with one loss. But then you have to tell that SEC team with one loss, “hey, tough luck that you had to play Alabama in the SEC Championship while Clemson played Virginia.”
Or, “bad break, Wisconsin, that you had to deal with Ohio State twice while Clemson ran the gauntlet of Charlotte (lost to Appalachian State), North Carolina (also, App State), Florida State (lost at home to Boise State), Boston College (lost at home to Kansas), Louisville (likely not going bowling), Wofford (it’s Wofford), NC State (walloped by West Virginia), Wake Forest (okay at the moment, but … come on), and South Carolina (sucks).”
If I’m consistent from the start of the CFP, I’m all in on the belief that you shouldn’t be in the playoff with a chance to win the national championship if you can’t win your conference championship. And on a four-best-team theory, of course I believe that Clemson is in – but we don’t need to play the 2019 regular season to know that.
The reality is that Clemson is going to get in at 13-0, no doubt about it. But the reality could also be that it won’t have done anything to deserve it.
NEXT: Come out of the dark, already …
Let us dance around like children of the night …
The Pac-12 has been America’s Power Five punching bag for the last few seasons, and now it’s time to give up the love.
It’s the most fun conference in college football right now by a mile.
The ACC is a giant bag of suck this season outside of the big cat up top, the Big Ten has been a tad dry, the Big 12 has Oklahoma and … Oklahoma, and the SEC has been underwhelming overall, to be kind.
What has the Pac-12 done?
Arizona beat Texas Tech, Arizona State beat Michigan State, Cal beat Ole Miss – boo hoo; come up with a better fourth down play – Colorado beat Nebraska, Stanford deleted Northwestern’s account, Utah got by BYU, Washington is rocking and rolling against everyone but Cal, Washington State is losing games despite throwing nine touchdown passes, and UCLA is winning games despite allowing nine touchdown passes.
In all of that, Oregon is looking every bit the part of a possible 12-1 Pac-12 champion that could somehow find its way into the College Football Playoff.
Click for the CFN Podcast Quick Hit: The UCLA-Washington State game …
Five teams are ranked, Washington State probably should be ranked in the top 25, Arizona State and Colorado are in the Also Receiving Votes category, Arizona will soon be in the Also Receiving Votes category, and …
Pac-12, enough with the hipster-cool Pac-12 After Dark thing. How do you grow the product? How do you eliminate the mythical East Coast bias? You play that all-time amazing UCLA-Washington State game when most of America is awake.
NEXT: Five Cavalcade of Whimsy footballey opinions and, like, other stuff
Five Cavalcade of Whimsy footballey opinions and, like, other stuff
5. It was close enough …
What happens if Georgia goes 13-0 and wins the SEC Championship, and Notre Dame goes 11-1 with its only loss a tight battle to the Bulldogs on the road?
Going back to the previous CFP Doomsday Scenario blurbs, the Irish still have Virginia, USC, at Michigan, Virginia Tech and at Stanford to deal with – that’s not that bad. This team could absolutely run the table from here. So if Georgia is unbeaten and No. 1 – which it would be in the CFP rankings if it goes 13-0 – then theoretically on a four-best team thing, what do you do with the Irish? Notre Dame probably just played its way into a New Year’s Six bowl.
4. In UConn’s defense …
I like to apply a good-natured ribbing doing what I do, but once in a while it’s time to give a loving, nurturing hug.
UConn had one of the most miserable defenses in the history of college football last season. It allowed 617 yards per game, while the second-worst D – Oregon State’s – gave up a mere 537 per outing. The fourth-worst defense was Houston’s, and it allowed 497 yards per game. That means that UConn’s defense allowed over 117 yards per game more than 127 other teams.
Only five teams gave up over seven yards per play, and only one of those gave up eight. UConn allowed 8.8 yards every play.
Oh, you want more? 2018 UConn gave up 4,020 rushing yards in 12 games. No one else allowed more than 3,400, and only eight other teams gave up more than 3,000.
This year? Your 2019 UConn Huskies are 62nd in the nation in total defense, they’re allowing an okay 5.3 yards per play, and are 56th in the nation against the run allowing just 137 yards per game.
3. The Alabama stable of quarterbacks
There was a moment when Gardner Minshew was going to be on the Alabama Crimson Tide. He was a decent player at East Carolina, but he decided to transfer to Bama even though he wasn’t going to see the light of day – he wanted to learn the coaching ropes under Nick Saban.
Of course, the rest is history as Minshew went to Washington State, bombed away, and is now the NFL’s hot big thing.
Think about it. Had Minshew stuck with his commitment to transfer to Alabama, a rising-star professional starting quarterback would’ve been the third-stringer behind the likely No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft (Tua Tagovailoa), and the possible 2019 Heisman Trophy winner (Jalen Hurts).
2. Why I don’t play golf, for money, against people …
Buffalo isn’t very good. It got walloped by Penn State (fine) and Liberty (not fine).
Syracuse is just okay, but it went on the road to Liberty to start the season and won 24-0. A week later, Maryland obliterated the Orange 63-20. The next week, Maryland appeared to be the lock of the millennium for that week as just a -7 against Temple … and Temple won 20-17. So Temple is pretty good, right?
Buffalo 38, Temple 22.
1. The D’Eriq King issue
I had it first.
I had this part written already on Sunday night wondering which quarterback might want to duck out after four weeks to try becoming the man at Oklahoma next season.
Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray went from undersized ballers to No. 1 overall draft picks, and Jalen Hurts went from being Captain Wormburner as a passer at Alabama to – potentially – the greatest season by any quarterback in the history of college football.
I was trying to come up with options for who’d make the best business decision by transferring to OU to play in the Lincoln Riley offense, and it never occurred to me that D’Eriq King might just be the perfect fit.
You’re going to hear a whole lot of hoo-ha over the next several weeks about players are quitting on their teams by deciding to sit out after four games to preserve a year of eligiblity. You’re going to hear about players being selfish, and you’re going to hear about how this isn’t how the rules were supposed to work.
But if King really does go to Oklahoma – that’s hardly a given right now – can you blame him? If your dream is to become an NFL quarterback, don’t you do everything possible to become Riley’s guy?
Don’t get mad at King no matter how this works out. College students are supposed to prepare themselves the best they can for their future, and that’s all they’re trying to do.
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 …
I’d keep my shirt on, and …
The FOX college football pregame show is really good.
I never thought this would happen, but … you win, FOX. I’ve been watching your show more than Gameday.
The panel of talent straight out of the Handsome Boy Modeling School is fantastic, and once again – this was the case after his first sabbatical and foray into the media world – there’s absolutely no one better at breaking down plays and explaining college football better than Urban Meyer.
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: 17-10 SU, 11-16 ATS
You’ve made a very powerful enemy last weekend, college football betting gods.
Not only did you smite me with ALL of the big-spread top-team favorites covering, but losing straight up on SMU vs. TCU and Appalachian State vs. TCU?
Fortunately, these picks are all correct.
– Wisconsin -24 over Northwestern
– UConn +43.5 over UCF (but UCF to win)
– Louisiana -3 over Georgia Southern
– Utah -5 over Washington State
– Stanford -3 over Oregon State
– Virginia +11 over Notre Dame (but Notre Dame straight up)
– Ohio State -17 over Nebraska
– Arizona -7.5 over UCLA
C.O.W. shameless gimmick item …
The weekly five Overrated/Underrated aspects of the world
5) Overrated: The quick-pitch, sort-of-wrong, come-ON-we’re-doing-this-now fake kneel-down play.
Underrated: Ha ha … you got us, whatever. Let’s go into overtime and … uhhhhh …
4) Overrated: Third down in the Cal win over Ole Miss
Underrated: Fourth down in the Cal win over Ole Miss
3) Overrated: The honest, we’ve-all-been-there-in-some-form-if-you’re-in-the-media-long-enough, mistake made by ESPN’s Adam Amin right after the Tulane win over Houston …
Underrated: The way Amin and Lanie Fritz handled it all on social media like pros, and with the good-humor befitting the situation.
2) Overrated: The overall lack of quarterback depth across college football
Underrated: The unbelievable job the USC coaching staff is doing despite one of the most disastrous runs of quarterback injury bad luck with quarterback ever in the first month of a season.
1) Overrated: FOX naming it the Big Noon Kickoff
Underrated: The Big Nude Kickoff, as it sounds like when Gus Johnson says it in promos.
Sorry if this column sucked, I wasn’t my fault …
Yeah, I wrote this column. If you have a problem with it, Pat Fitzgerald will let you know how to reach me …
