My top 4 agrees with the committee’s, and I would even have the same matchups. I would have had Washington and Texas in the Rose Bowl though, which makes more sense geographically; and I wouldn’t have made the Longhorns (who are supposedly the worse seed) close being at home.
My top 4 is based on the best teams. I’m not saying that I don’t think a team like Florida St., which went undefeated and even played two programs with multiple championships in the last 20 years out of conference, should be included in the top 4; but I think Alabama and Texas both have strengths of schedule that cancel out the additional loss and then some.
Florida St.’s Exclusion
The committee’s instructions do not include something that says, “an undefeated conference champion should be given priority over a conference champion who is not undefeated.”
I would be OK with adding such a stipulation, especially if it also added language that said an exception could be made if the non-conference schedule is particularly weak, which would certainly not be the case here.
My point is the committee did its job. If I were a one-man committee with the same instructions, I would have put aside my preference for including Florida St. and given the same list of best 4 teams.
There is also language that the committee can consider injuries to major players. I don’t consider anything like that in my formula, and I can’t think of any consistent way you could apply that to any formula. There are no strict standards for injury reporting in college football like there is in the NFL. Even if there were, it would be difficult to enforce that and provide consistent oversight for injury reports of all 133 teams and then add those reports to a formula. I don’t like the idea of using that as an argument because every team has a mix of players who are hurt or otherwise unavailable from game to game that can affect any outcome. Others are playing hurt or playing with some other type of stress or distraction.
In the only touchdown drive of the game by either team, Lawrance Toafili (#9) rushed for 75 yards in two plays. Florida St. won the ACC championship, 16-6, over Louisville in Charlotte last night. It was the Seminoles’ first conference championship (and first 13-0 start) since Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston led the team in 2014.
What I do think is fair, and what I think the committee did, is to look at how they played at the end of the year. They did not look like a top-4 team against Florida or Louisville. I don’t think they looked like a top-20 team in either game. I have Louisville in the top 20; but if I considered the trajectory of their season, I wouldn’t have them anywhere close. I have Kentucky #47 right now, and the Wildcats won at Louisville 8 days ago.
I don’t include that in my formula, but I’ve never had a problem with the basketball or baseball committee’s giving more weight to recent results, and I don’t fault the football committee for doing so. If there were no SEC championship and Alabama beat Georgia earlier in the year, I wouldn’t want them to be given less credit for that, but obviously the committee isn’t being unfair about when you any played a given game. If anything, I think they’re being charitable to Texas for not considering how long ago the Alabama game was (or any game against a top-20 opponent was) in ranking Texas #3. But the point is that’s why I don’t include it in my formula. It could yield unfair results that way, but a person can avoid such outcomes.
So I have Florida St. fifth without considering margin of victory, how the Seminoles looked in those games, or the Jordan Travis injury. I also didn’t consider how Florida and Louisville were playing, just their respective seasons as a whole. So I think there are more than enough factors not to consider Florida St. to be a top-4 team. It’s not just one thing. But as I said, I’m very sympathetic if you ask me who should get to play for the championship instead of who the four best teams are.
Some people are coping by saying, “at least it’s an expanded playoff next year”; but that doesn’t give me any consolation personally. None of the major-conference championship games would have been for a spot in the top 12 this year. I might not even watch next year if LSU isn’t in it. There is a good chance the committee will already know exactly who the top 12 is by championship weekend, and the games will solely be for seeding. I’ll have my opinions again, but it will lose a lot of the excitement.
Alabama vs. Texas
To go back to the Alabama-Texas discussion I began in previous blogs (especially the last rankings blog) and touched on a couple of paragraphs ago, I think too much attention is being paid to a head-to-head game in September and not enough attention is being paid to all the games since then. I have Alabama #2 in strength of schedule vs. FBS teams and Texas 21st. Texas does get a little more credit for playing all FBS teams though. If I ignore Chattanooga from Alabama’s schedule and drop Baylor from Texas’s schedule, Alabama still ends up stronger. The average of the best 12 teams Alabama faced is about equal to that of #39 Iowa St. The average of the best 12 teams Texas faced is about equal to that of #51 Northwestern.
So now I’m going to get to arguments from outside of looking at the computers. Alabama has a better loss from longer ago. The #1 wins by each team are roughly even (Alabama vs. Georgia), but I would give Alabama more credit for getting the win in December versus September. Even if you still give Texas a point from there to make the two teams even, I don’t know how you argue LSU and Ole Miss aren’t better wins than Oklahoma St. and Kansas St.
I think Texas would have to have a far superior list of the more middle-of-the-road wins to overcome that, and I don’t think they do. Texas beat Wyoming, Iowa St., and Texas Tech. Alabama beat Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Auburn. Those are pretty similar lists of three. Although it did fall a little short, I do think the Longhorns made a very good attempt at playing the necessary type of schedule to prepare them for an SEC season. If you’re one of those people who says, “sorry, that win over Auburn was ugly and if they’re that close, I’m going with head to head,” that’s a reasonable point of view. It’s just not how I see it. I would have been perfectly happy to have joined you in laughing at Alabama if Texas and Florida St. had made it ahead of the Tide though.
Alabama WR Isaiah Bond (who may have pushed off first) catches the go-ahead touchdown pass on fourth and 31 in Auburn 8 days ago. The need for a miracle finish in this situation is one argument against Alabama’s inclusion in the top 4.
As I mentioned, what I don’t like is when someone says, “I don’t care what else they did, they each have a loss and Alabama’s is to Texas. End of story.” That’s just wanting to rush to a conclusion and not consider the season as a whole. Word keeps telling me not to use the phrase “season as a whole,” but I don’t know a better way to distinguish my more holistic approach from the approach of just cherry-picking a couple of factoids and stopping there.
Washington vs. Michigan
I don’t have strong feelings about Washington ahead of Michigan, but I’ll lay out the arguments. I have Michigan about 99% as good as Washington, so there isn’t a huge separation. I like that Washington had a much tougher game this weekend, but obviously Michigan had a much tougher rivalry-week opponent. Maybe some of the narrow margins of victory (both Oregon games, Arizona, Arizona St., Utah, Oregon St., and Washington St. were all within one possession) hurt the Huskies. Michigan had a robust list of top-three wins: Ohio St., Penn St., and Iowa. I think Oregon would beat Ohio St. and Penn St. but it was just unfortunate for the Ducks that they had to play a top-2 team twice instead of Ohio St.’s once. Iowa is a better third win than Washington’s third, which might be Arizona. But then Michigan’s fourth- and fifth-best wins are UNLV and Bowling Green (they didn’t play Northwestern or Wisconsin, which are my two highest Big Ten teams after Iowa). I strongly believe both would lose to both Oregon St. and Utah and probably USC as well.
LSU Bowl Selection Reaction
D’Cota Dixon celebrates the game-clinching interception of LSU QB Brandon Harris in 2016 in Green Bay, Wisc., as LSU was driving with just under a minute left in the game. This was one of the final nails in the coffin for LSU head coach Les Miles, who was fired three weeks later.
I’m sure I’ll go more into bowl match-ups later, but I’m disappointed that LSU will be playing Wisconsin. I was hoping for either Notre Dame, which would give the Tigers a chance to get revenge for some foolishness in bowl losses over the last 10 years (as well as being the Brian Kelly bowl), or Iowa. The contrast in styles for Iowa/LSU would have been worth getting up early for. Wisconsin isn’t an offensive juggernaut – they haven’t scored more than 30 points in a game since September – but they’re not Iowa. Wisconsin isn’t even in my top 50. I think either LSU won’t get up for the game and it will be ugly regardless of the winner or we could get another blowout like last season. Neither would be a very satisfying end to the year. It’s one of six bowl games between the SEC and the Big Ten.
Top 25 Later This Week
I have my top 25 ready. Of course it’s mostly based on my ratings with a few adjustments, but I don’t want to overshadow it with all of the discussion of the top 4, so look for that later in the week.
I’m still moving toward my completely objective top 25; but if you just want to know what the computer says, go here. Last week, it was less than 1/3 objective. Today, it’s roughly half. The initial list I made was 60% objective, but I still allowed myself to move teams by up to 5 spots after that. The only exception was Ohio St., whom I moved six spots. There is a good chance the Buckeyes will be near #1 on their own merit next week anyway (if they beat Penn St. of course).
This might be the last week I can have Georgia ahead of all the one-loss teams though. Texas has the #3 schedule, and Georgia has one of the worst in FBS. Adding a bye week doesn’t help. The Bulldogs have a gauntlet after that (three games against ranked teams, one on the road, and two other good teams away from home), so they’re not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes to get back to the Playoff; but this is meant to be a snapshot. They should not be in the top four or even the top eight if the season ended now. Not only was Vanderbilt a weak opponent, but all of the Bulldogs’ best three opponents so far (Kentucky, South Carolina, and Auburn) lost to teams the Bulldogs have not yet played or will not play.
Just like last week though, most teams did not move more than a couple of spots from the improvised formula. There may still be some volatility in the coming weeks because for many teams next week’s result will still make up 1/6 of their FBS opponents, so it counts for about twice as much as a game does at the end of the year. Also, I’m going to continue to give myself less power to smooth out any transitions up or down the rankings.
The top 9 should make a lot of sense based on last week.
Iowa is exactly where the formula put them. If Penn St. loses, the Hawkeyes may fall a spot or two, but I think this is fair for right now. North Carolina is undefeated and has played a significantly better schedule than Georgia has, so I thought that spot was good for them.
Louisville followed up on the win over Notre Dame with a loss to Pitt, so this allowed LSU to move ahead of the Irish despite having a much less impressive win. The only loss by either of the two teams who beat LSU was to Alabama, so LSU’s two losses look much more excusable right now. Pitt already had four losses and had no FBS wins going into last week. They had a significant drop-off from last season. Former Pitt (and USC) quarterback Kedon Slovis going to BYU didn’t seem to do either side any good.
Michael Penix, Jr., of Washington prepares to attempt a pass against the Oregon Ducks in Seattle on Saturday. While both teams did have some success on the ground, the anticipated quarterback battle largely delivered. Although Penix threw for fewer yards and a lower completion percentage and threw the game’s only interception, he made up for it by throwing for two more touchdowns and about half a yard more per attempt than Oregon’s Bo Nix threw.
Oregon is still a good team despite the setback in Seattle. Their loss is similarly excusable to LSU’s losses, but there just isn’t a quality win like LSU and Notre Dame have. Missouri also only has one loss, but obviously I think hosting LSU is a step down from traveling to Washington right now.
Five of the remaining nine teams in my top 25 are in the Pac-12. It took me a while to sort them. I think it’s easier to explain in reverse order. Despite two losses in a row, Washington St. deserved to stay ranked because they beat Wisconsin, the team I would otherwise have put #25. Colorado St. isn’t bad for a second-best out-of-conference win either.
I don’t know why Wazzu lost to Arizona so badly, but margin of victory (or loss in this case) isn’t a big concern for me going forward. The week before, the Cougars lost to UCLA, so I put the Bruins higher. Oregon St. beat UCLA, and I think they only ended up losing to Washington St. because the game was in Pullman. Also, it’s a singular loss. The Beavers also beat Utah, so I think putting them between Washington St. and Utah made sense.
USC lost, but it was out of conference to Notre Dame, so I don’t have a problem with leaving the Trojans ahead of Oregon St., UCLA, and Washington St. You could argue about Utah, but it helps that the Utes beat Florida, whom I have #32 right now. Baylor isn’t having the best season, but going to Waco is still a strong second-best out-of-conference game. I don’t think USC has beaten anyone nearly as good as Florida. The Utes are 1-1 against the rest of the top 25 (win over UCLA, loss to Oregon St… another reason the Beavers are ahead of the Bruins), which is of course better than 0-1.
I squeezed Duke ahead of USC because they played Notre Dame closer and also because Clemson is creeping their way back toward the top 25 like Florida is.
I wasn’t blown away by the fact that Tennessee beat Texas A&M at home, but I like the way that they were able to grind out a low-scoring win and never seemed panicky or particularly at risk of losing. There were times last year when the Volunteers were out of their element when a defense was able to slow them down. I’m seeing some maturity and consistency that I’m not seeing from teams that are lower; and I mentioned Florida vis-a-vis Utah, so I’m more forgiving of that loss than the combinations of two losses below or the singular loss to Pitt.
I moved James Madison as far down as I could, so I don’t think the Dukes would beat the Volunteers on a neutral field right now; but this is a normal consequence of the computer formula. I could be wrong though. I would have sworn all last year that Tulane wouldn’t have beaten USC on a neutral field, for instance. I have Tulane #31, by the way, between the five honorable mentions and Florida. Kansas St. is right after Florida, which explains in part why Missouri is still as high as they are. Kentucky isn’t a bad #2 win for a one-loss team either.
I’ve been accused of being an SEC homer in the past, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There were two more disappointing results to add to the LSU loss in Week 1. Neither was as bad as Utah, the defending and eventual Pac-12 champions, losing to a Florida team that wouldn’t even finish with a winning record last season. By SEC standards though, losing to a similarly-placed team in another conference as Alabama and Texas A&M did is still bad news.
Texas A&M and Alabama
It was a doubly good weekend for Longhorns fans. I guess it will be OK in hindsight if Texas A&M finishes last in the SEC West and U. Miami is in the top half of the ACC, but chances are the Aggies will beat at least one competitive team this year (as they beat divisional champions LSU last season). I think there is a limit to how low Alabama can fall, but if they’re third and Texas goes undefeated in the Big XII, maybe that loss will also be understandable in hindsight by the end of the year. Alabama could still win the national championship, but I’m just giving one scenario.
In Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday, Texas QB Quinn Ewers threw for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the one above to Xavier Worthy in the second quarter.
Early Big Games Are Not Always Determinative
Like I discussed last week, sometimes a team just gets off to a rocky start and fixes the problems before getting exposed by a conference opponent. This happened to Ohio St. in 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff. An SEC example happened in 2006, when Arkansas was embarrassed against USC, 50-14, before winning the SEC West. 2006 was when the 7-year run of SEC national titles began, so it wasn’t a sign of a weak league then. USC went on to win the Rose Bowl, but not before losing as many Pac-10 games (2) as the Trojans had lost in the previous four seasons combined.
Putting A&M aside since I don’t think a lot of people picked them first or second in the SEC West, the fact that it happened to both LSU and Alabama is somewhat concerning. As far as I can recall, there wasn’t a second such game in 2006 or the few years after by one of the top SEC teams.
I also want to say I don’t agree with some people saying that this means Texas will be a top contender for SEC titles right away. One game isn’t an 8- or 9-game SEC slate; and even though Texas should be an easy place to recruit, they probably will have less experience in key positions next season. Also, without the divisional format, it isn’t likely they can make a championship game almost by default like Missouri did a couple of times. Texas A&M, which joined at the same time as Mizzou, still has never made an SEC championship game despite typically having much better teams.
Ole Miss and LSU
Neither of the next two SEC West teams I’ll mention have gotten much of the flak for last week, but I’ll also be fair and say I wasn’t impressed by them either.
Also, Ole Miss should have appeared vastly superior to a Tulane team that is missing a lot of its talent from last season (when they still lost to Southern Mississippi and Central Florida despite the positive season overall) and was also playing without its starting quarterback. The starting quarterback might not have made a difference of 17 points (the final margin of victory), but it easily could have made a 7-point difference. That game would have been a lot different if Ole Miss had made a field goal to go up three points instead of ten with just under two minutes left. If Tulane didn’t have the urgency of being down two possessions on the ensuing drive, the turnover that resulted in the final Ole Miss touchdown would have been less likely.
LSU was expected to beat Grambling by a big score and did so, but I still think it was a bad sign that it was 14-10 LSU at the end of the first quarter. If Grambling hadn’t deferred after winning the toss, they would have had two different leads. It’s not like the field goal was from 50 yards either. It was a 23-yard field goal, so Grambling was close to scoring before stagnating in the red zone. It shows you don’t even have to be an FBS talent to catch passes against LSU, you just have to be tall. I’m sure there are some tall receivers in the SEC. A few players got out of the backfield too easily too.
Nonetheless, if LSU manages to go to Starkville and get a win (more on that below), the other teams in the division could be beatable. I think the Tigers also have a fairly favorable cross-divisional schedule with Florida (at home) and Missouri (on the road).
Mississippi St. and Auburn
I mentioned last week that the Pac-12 had not lost any games against other conferences in Week 1. The one bit of good news from the SEC West is Mississippi St. and Auburn became the first two teams from other conferences to defeat Pac-12 opponents. Cal and Arizona only had a combined five conference wins last season, but it’s not like Auburn was terrific either (2 conference wins by a combined 6 points). Yes, I know LSU struggled on the Plains last year anyway; but LSU has struggled there in the past against weak Auburn teams (even in 2012).
It will also be interesting to see how hosting Arizona compares to hosting LSU from Mississippi St.’s perspective.
Mississippi St. QB Will Rogers, who has thrown the most completions in SEC history, runs the ball against Arizona in Starkville, Miss. He only threw 13 of those 1192 completions on Saturday despite the game going into overtime.
LSU/Mississippi St. Series
Even if LSU wins, it’s going to be bittersweet, to me at least. 2024 will be the first year that Mississippi St. will participate in an SEC season and not play LSU. The first SEC season was in 1933, and the last regular season Mississippi St. played without playing LSU was 1925. The only Tigers’ schedule that didn’t have the Bulldogs on it over that time was 1943, when Mississippi St. didn’t field a team.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t keep the series going next season while they figure out what the permanent rotation will be, but of course no one asked me. Next season, LSU will play Vanderbilt for the 33rd time, South Carolina for the 23rd time, and Oklahoma for only the fourth time. I think somehow one of those (or even Florida or Arkansas) could have found someone else to play while LSU played Mississippi St. again.
I will have more to say about this whenever I get around to updating the rivalry blog, but I want people to appreciate that much while the game is taking played.
LSU/Mississippi St. Preview
About the game itself, it might be a good thing for LSU that Mississippi St. has moved away from the air raid since I’ve made no secret of my lack of admiration for the LSU secondary so far. By the way, I had to laugh during the week when LSU commentators who acted like the Tigers could somewhat easily handle the Seminoles and were good bets for the top 10 (if not top 5) acted like they agreed when Brian Kelly told the media that he knew it would be an area of concern. I understand why he didn’t tell us, but why didn’t the LSU media tell us if they knew? LSU has a well-paid PR department. They don’t need volunteers masquerading as journalists.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’d take the Bulldogs and the points at home anyway. Based on what State did last week, I do give LSU the edge but not by much. Just because Miss. St. didn’t throw it much last week doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t if they feel like that’s what LSU is giving them. The LSU defensive backs can’t get taller in the next couple of days, but I’m hoping they do a better job at breaking up passes on throwing downs and that there is more of a rush to assist the pass defense than there was against Florida St.
if Mississippi St. is not able to generate much offense without the help of the turnovers which they relied on to win the last game, then it might be relatively easy to outscore them. In that case, this might result in LSU being conservative to try to preserve the lead. Something like 23-14 or 27-19 would still fail to beat the spread. If LSU has to try to go score for score, then it’s also unlikely the Tigers win by double digits.
General Blog and Rankings Comments
Before I post the Top 25, I did want to mention that I’m not completely confident about my posting schedule for the next couple of weeks since I have some traveling planned. It will be done by the time I usually post my first computer ratings in early October though. It’s also more difficult to post blogs of my usual quality while traveling. Enjoy the pretty rankings chart below since you might not see it again for a little while.
This is already long, so I won’t explain any particular ranking decisions. I’m still giving some credence to preseason rankings at this point; but when I transition into a purely computer-based system, all preseason bias will be removed. This does not take place in major polls or committee rankings.
Sometimes long weekends are the worst scenario. It was basically Wednesday by the time I was able to review some of the things that went wrong during the LSU game. If I had waited to review all of them, I might have never written another blog. Obviously I’m not a beat reporter in Baton Rouge, so I rely on public statements and coverage from the people who are based around the program. That process was delayed by a day or more given that the game took place on Sunday night. I did have Friday the 1st off, but nothing had happened yet. I had decided to go out of town to a baseball game on Saturday, so I couldn’t write live reactions about the teams who played on Saturday.
On Sunday, I barely made it back in time for the game, and then Mondays are workdays for me whether I go into work or not. My bosses check to make sure I’ve made enough progress on Tuesday mornings, and I have the type of job where I always have to spend time preparing for the next day the night before anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t just clock in and clock out without having to think about it until I clock in again.
LSU-Florida St. Reaction and Historical Comparisons
Anyway, I do feel a little good right now that at least I didn’t pick LSU to win the SEC West or make the playoff. I’m not throwing in the towel though. There have been teams with rough starts who ended up doing well in the SEC, but it’s pretty rare to be one of the top teams nationally. Ohio St. got run out of their own stadium against Virginia Tech in the first week of September 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff, but that’s kind of the exception that proves the rule.
Also, the Buckeyes had two months before they had to play a major-conference opponent who would finish with 9 wins or more. That was a long time to fix the issues in the Virginia Tech game, and there was even a close call against a Penn St. team (which would finish 7-6) in the interim. I think LSU has a lot less time. Mississippi St., LSU’s opponent a week from today, will win 9 games or more.
In Columbia on October 6, 2012, Marcus Lattimore gained as many yards on the ground (109) as Georgia QB Aaron Murray gained in the air. LSU handed South Carolina its first loss the following week. The Bulldogs would win the SEC East over the Gamecocks and the Gators.
A couple of years before that, Georgia got blown out by South Carolina, 35-7. in early October but came just a couple of yards short of beating Alabama to win the SEC and make the BCS championship game (which they most likely would have won given how easily the Tide handled Notre Dame). I think that’s a more realistic example for LSU to hope to follow (possibly making the SEC title game and playing better than last year). Georgia of course had to overcome that game to win the East whereas LSU’s loss to Florida St. does not count in the SEC standings. Unlike the Ohio St. example, the Bulldogs’ next big game (in hindsight and at the time) was just a couple of games later against Florida, who would finish 11-2. The only bad thing about following that Georgia example would be having to wait another 10 years to actually win a national championship.
I’ll update the Florida St. rivalry blog another time, but it’s just crazy how cursed LSU seems to be in the series. Of course, I still think LSU would have done quite well if they had played the Seminoles annually from about 2001 to 2019 (minus a couple of losses to Jameis, I suppose).
Thoughts on Brian Kelly
I said I’m not throwing in the towel on this season. I’m also not throwing in the towel on Brian Kelly. This was Kelly’s 15th game. Ed Orgeron lost to Troy in his 13th game in charge (two weeks after a 30-point loss at Mississippi St. that I still argue was worse). Les Miles lost his 12th game by 20 to a Georgia team that finished 10-3. Say what you will about Miles and Orgeron after the respective national championships, but no one was whining about it taking too long to get there at the end of 2007 (Miles’ third year) or 2019 (Orgeron’s third full year) seasons. By the way, 2014 was Urban Meyer’s third year at Ohio St., and Nick Saban didn’t win his first at Alabama until his third year (he had taken four years to win one at LSU). So even if it’s safe to assume a national championship is off the table already, I never thought it was a highly realistic goal for this year anyway.
LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly went on a bit of a rant at the end of his press conference on Tuesday.
Kelly can be a smooth talker, so I don’t always hold too much stock in his press conferences and whatnot, but I liked his rant at the end of his week-opening press conference. I disagree somewhat with faulting the enthusiasm gap, but I think it was a good message to put out there, and it showed he took onboard many of the issues fans and media pointed out.
“I could go through a number of different situations. We don’t get to the chains on third and 5… We’ve got a drop on third and 6 trying to get upfield… We’re 4th and 1 and we’re trying to make a play instead of reading what the defender is giving you. I could elaborate on defense. We’re spinning down a safety[, and] he’s watching the quarterback. We could have been more creative with play-calling. We could have been better defensively and [made fewer] spy calls and [brought] more pressure. I could attack the whole thing. The bottom line is I’ve got to get our football team thinking the right way and play[ing] with a competitive edge.”
I tried to clean up some of the grammar. He usually speaks better than that, but I’ll forgive it. I’ll accept some grammatical hiccups in exchange for his not sounding like a politician sometimes.
Other Results and Reactions
At least Kelly has been overshadowed somewhat by the hysterics about Dabo after Clemson’s loss to Duke. My prediction of those Tigers being the team to beat in the ACC isn’t looking too good right now. But that 2014 Virginia Tech team was in the ACC and ended up losing 6 games, 5 of them in conference, so we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions about that conference either. Even if Clemson continues to disappoint, I might still be right that the ACC champion will have a good shot at the Playoff though.
If I were a betting man (sports betting is still illegal where I live anyway), I would have taken Colorado +20.5. Although I did leave TCU ranked, I wasn’t very convinced they were going to be a competitive team this year. Deion performed better than many more experienced coaches in getting a bunch of transfers and other new players to support each other and have the needed enthusiasm. Whatever happens this season, he definitely did something right in preparing for Week 1.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders confers with his son, S Shiloh Sanders, on Saturday in Ft. Worth. Sanders’ other son, Shadeur, threw for 510 yards in the upset win.
I don’t believe in making drastic changes after one week unless necessary, so I’m not dropping LSU and Clemson from the top 25. TCU was low enough that they will drop out though. I don’t really have the time and energy to re-work the whole thing even if I wanted to. I don’t really have a long list of teams that were just outside of the top 25 either.
I also wanted to put some of the conference talk into perspective. South Carolina has a much lower status in the SEC than North Carolina has in the ACC. The Tar Heels were the ACC runners-up in 2015 and 2022 and represented the conference in the post-2020 Orange Bowl. They would have been #2 in the conference had Notre Dame not temporarily joined. The Gamecocks have only made one SEC championship game, and that was back in 2010. They have only won 8 games or more twice since the 2013 season.
Florida is obviously a more successful program in the big picture than Utah is, but the Gators lost 5 SEC games (and two other games) last season and 6 the season before, going 6-7 overall both seasons. Utah went 10-4 in each of the last two seasons, winning the Pac-12 both years. I know Florida beat Utah anyway last year, but you can’t expect the SEC to win every game like that.
LSU-Florida St. was the only game of the three that was an apples-to-apples comparison.
It is interesting that the Pac-12 is disintegrating at the same the conference had the most successful Week 1; but other than Colorado, nothing is too impressive based on recent seasons.
I considered ranking Purdue in preseason, and Fresno St. beat the Boilermakers on the road. I thought it was good to make sure one team from outside of the major conferences (and Notre Dame) was included. I also considered Wyoming, which beat Texas Tech; but the Cowboys rarely sustain their early-season successes whereas Fresno St. is often one of the top teams in the Mountain West. I also take overtime wins with more of a grain of salt.
I know Georgia is the defending champion, but I need more continuity if I’m going to consider them the #1 team going into next season. Amost everyone knows the quarterback will be different, but the offensive coordinator is gone and so are most of the targets and running backs. They might gel by the end of the season, but I think preseason rankings shouldn’t just be guesses as to which programs have been good enough in recent years to probably finish near the top.
Georgia and Ohio St. were arguably the two best teams last season and provided the historic moment above, where the deciding kick in the semifinal was kicked by Ohio St.’s Noah Ruggles in 2022 and landed in 2023. If you have amnesia, it missed and Georgia won, 42-41, before defeating TCU in a blowout for the national championship.
Ryan Day is still at Ohio St. though. The Buckeyes will also have a new quarterback, but I trust Day to have whoever it is ready right away more than I trust (old and) new Georgia OC Mike Bobo. Day might even have backups who can win Heismans at other schools. I also think the Buckeyes have better continuity in the roster. I hope for their sake they have a kicker who’s a little better from 50 yards, but that’s what separated them from a relatively easy pick to stay #1 going into the season.
I’ll stay in the Big Ten for #3 Michigan. It’s a weird situation where the Wolverines were top five the last two seasons and Alabama was not.
Michigan’s resurgence is mostly based on defense, and the good thing about that is it’s not centered around one player. They seem to be solid everywhere but linebacker.
On offense, Big Blue does have a returning QB and players to block for him, so expect another quality game against the Buckeyes. I have been a little less impressed with Michigan’s consistency though, so this is why I couldn’t justify putting them higher.
While I’m pretty confident the winner of Michigan and Ohio St. will be the team to beat in the Big Ten (no offense to Penn St., who has a habit of being really good one year but mediocre the next) if not the entirety of college football, I don’t feel the same way about the SEC. Of course I’d be surprised if anyone other than Georgia won the East, but I don’t have a strong feeling about the West.
LSU certainly has the talent to do so. Somehow the Tigers managed to pull it off last year even though Brian Kelly basically took over a JV team that was embarrassed in the bowl in January 2022. I don’t think LSU was actually the better team overall last season though. They were the day of the Alabama game, but they definitely were not in the first week against Florida St. or the last (regularly-scheduled) week against Texas A&M.
I don’t think this was the actual play, but Alabama LB Henry To’o To’o was not able to contain QB Jayden Daniels in Baton Rouge last season. Daniels scored in overtime in this fashion before completing a pass to Mason Taylor to the same corner of the field for the two-point conversion in the 32-31 LSU win.
Like the change of fortune I expect for Ohio St. and Georgia, my instinct is to reverse the order here and give the nod to the Tide. I am skeptical this will be the first time that there will be back-to-back failures by Alabama to either win the SEC West or the national championship under Saban or the first back-to-back divisional wins by LSU ever. LSU also hasn’t won three of five against Alabama since 2007-2011.
I think Kelly has things headed in the right direction, but I still think there will be growing pains before the Tigers are in a playoff position. Of course I hope I’m wrong.
I’m not saying that the playoff will be only two conferences, but I think these will at least be the best 4 teams before the Ohio St.-Michigan game (and including LSU, the best 5 before the LSU-Bama game). I don’t feel strongly about any candidate outside of those two conferences. There are several teams that could be this year’s TCU (maybe not as big of a surprise, but someone from outside the SEC and Big Ten whose record is too good to pass up), but it’s hard to be confident in any one of them.
A lot of people have USC as the top team outside of those two conferences, but I think the main reason (other than hype) the Trojans were so high at points last season was the overall lack of competition. I recognize they lost to Tulane in flukey circumstances, but it was about time for someone other than Utah to expose their weaknesses. I don’t see USC beating any of the five teams I’ve mentioned.
One that I could see as more likely to win the necessary big games to make a Playoff is Clemson. If another one-point game had gone differently, they probably would have done so last season.
On offense, all the skill players should be improved, and it seems the OC position will be upgraded. Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley of the aforementioned Horned Frogs takes over that job. There may be some issues with depth, but the Tigers also have a talented defense. It might not be enough to contain a playoff offense, but it may be enough to get them there. Most playoff games are won by the more efficient offense anyway.
The USC defense has a lot to prove, but I apply a similar analysis to the Trojans. If things go well, it may be hard to turn them down for a Playoff spot. I think Dabo has shown more ability to do something once there than Lincoln Riley has. Like with Brian Kelly, I’m a little skeptical that all of the cultural problems will be gone in Riley’s second season.
Clemson RB Phil Mafah did not get around the end (Jordan Burch, in this case) quite as easily against South Carolina in Clemson last season. In hindsight, this game is probably what kept the Tigers from a playoff position. South Carolina won, 31-30, ending a 7-game losing streak in the series.
So I think those are the main Playoff contenders at the moment.
I did want to note that Washington will probably be lower on the list than they are in some other places since they had a major injury to Cam Davis, who would probably have been the star running back in the Pac-12.
Speaking of the Pac-12, Utah is another team to watch, but my concern would be they peaked last year and may not have the staying power of my top 7.
I think it makes some sense in preseason to give the benefit of the doubt to programs that have been the most successful of late, but I don’t agree with treating teams that way just for being good last year.
There could be a team out of left field again that makes or at least competes for a playoff spot, but I’m not going to go into detail about any of the others on the list below. It’s just going to be snap judgments based on last year’s results and known quantities who are returning.
Ole Miss (who entered the bowls at #26) ended up being the worst team on my list going into the bowls last season that did not win its bowl game, so that gives you an idea of how seriously I tend to take predictions of miraculous transformations from December of one year to September of the next.
Pitt and Texas Tech were too far out to make the final top 25 last season (see below) despite quality bowl wins, but they were impressive enough and seem to have enough coming back to make the top 25 now. The only teams I dropped out to make room for them and Ole Miss were the Group of 5 teams who all happened to start with T. Boise St. seemed most likely to maintain its success, so I did leave the Broncos in.
I did complete my top 25 before the Florida/Utah game, but I didn’t want to just rush out a low-quality blog. I didn’t complete it before Notre Dame/Navy or USC/San Jose St., but those did not affect my rankings. I didn’t consider Florida because they didn’t finish in the top 50 of my last ratings anyway. That was my cutoff to be considered.
I never did a final top 25 for last year, but you can figure out what it was below. The teams I had as #26 to #31 and #33 to #35 going into the bowls all lost their bowl games, so there weren’t any changes to the teams that made up the top 25 after the bowls, just the order.
Rank
Team
Last
1
Ohio St.
2
2
Georgia
1
3
Michigan
3
4
Alabama
6
5
LSU
10
6
Clemson
8
7
Southern CA
11
8
Penn St.
7
9
Utah
13
10
Texas
18
11
Florida St.
19
12
Tennessee
5
13
Notre Dame
22
14
Ole Miss
—
15
Oregon
14
16
UCLA
25
17
TCU
4
18
Kansas St.
12
19
S Carolina
24
20
Oregon St.
16
21
Washington
17
22
Boise St.
21
23
Mississippi St.
23
24
Pittsburgh
—
25
Texas Tech
—
Out of Top 25: (9) Tulane, (15) Troy, (20) TX San Antonio
I don’t have that much to say about the LSU game itself. I thought they would lose by single digits if they had a good day, and they basically would have lost by three if you take out two disastrous plays (and leave everything else the same): a blocked field goal from fairly close range that was returned for a touchdown, at least partly because all but a couple of players on the field forgot the rules (a 10-point swing), and an interception deep in LSU territory that resulted from a ball that was falling to the ground that hit an LSU helmet instead (this set up a fairly easy touchdown drive).
I’m not surprised that Alabama and Tennessee went ahead of LSU in bowl consideration given that they each only have two losses. I would argue if LSU had beaten Texas A&M, but my guess is that didn’t matter either. Rightly or wrongly (obviously wrongly in my view), Alabama was seen as the best SEC team after Georgia; and Tennessee’s win over LSU would have been a tie-breaker for a New Year’s Six bowl even if one didn’t punish LSU for the extra loss.
LSU is a superior team to Purdue, but sometimes it can be hard to be enthusiastic about playing such a game. I think the Boilermakers will be relatively excited to play in the game and probably would be to play in any bowl.
I do think Tennessee should have gone to the Sugar Bowl, but I guess we didn’t need another game between Alabama and Clemson to take place in the Orange Bowl. All the other New Year’s Six Bowls were fairly obvious match-ups according to the guidelines. USC vs. Tulane in the Cotton especially made sense as the two westernmost teams not bound to the Rose Bowl. They will play one another in a bowl for the first time since the Trojans won the Rose Bowl after the 1931 season. That game might have helped inspire the creation of the Sugar Bowl a few years later. USC and Tulane also split a home-and-home in the 1940s.
I had said Friday that Ohio St. should move up if another team fell out of the top four. I didn’t realize that TCU and USC were far enough ahead of Tennessee and Alabama that they could afford a loss and stay in the top five. Actually, my first draft of the ratings had USC ahead of Ohio St.; but then I realized that somehow Utah was being counted as a better opponent than they were. Not to bore the reader with the details, but I try not to penalize teams as much for losing a close game on the road, but that wasn’t meant to treat the winner as one of the top teams in the country as the weighted ratings do if not corrected.
The Trojans did beat one more top-25 team than Tennessee did. It hurt the Vols that LSU lost in a way because now the Tigers are not in the highest classification of the weighted ratings. Had LSU won, Georgia would not have fallen out of that classification (which right now is the top 8 teams). In the bigger picture, USC beat 8 Pac-12 teams and Notre Dame whereas Tennessee only beat 6 SEC teams and Pitt. You can think the former is more impressive while still having the SEC as the best conference.
I’ve written about Clemson playing a deceptive number of quality opponents, so that’s why they’re ahead of Alabama. The Tigers only beat one top 25 team (the same number Alabama has beaten), but they’ve beaten five other teams in the top 42 to Alabama’s one. Illinois is #39 and was a missed field goal from beating Michigan, and #37 Pitt took Tennessee to overtime, so I’m not talking about opponents that anyone can take for granted. (For an even better example, Florida is #51 and beat Utah.). Alabama does have better losses, but that doesn’t make up for that volume of decent wins.
Florida LB Amari Burney intercepts a pass to win the game against Utah in Gainesville on September 3. In hindsight, it’s another reminder that there are a lot of teams (including those who fall well outside of the top 25) who are threats to some of the best teams, even eventual Power-5 conference champions. On Friday, the Utes beat USC to claim the Pac-12 title and eliminate the Trojans from Playoff consideration.
I think it’s appropriate that the respective Big XII and Pac-12 champions round out the top 10. I don’t think Tulane, Troy, and UTSA would beat many of the 5 to 10 teams immediately below them, but I don’t mind that in my system teams like that are in the top 20 as long as they’re not in position for the Playoff. I’m glad not to be in New Orleans to hear from the Tulane fans who don’t know anything about national college football listing all the SEC teams they’d beat with their one good team in a generation though. I have mixed feelings about Troy playing UTSA in the Cure Bowl. On the one hand, it’s good that they’re both playing a ranked team; but on the other hand, I wonder how they would do against one of the lower Power-5 bowl teams.
I know the Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams, but one or two of those teams being non-Power-5 champions is fine with me. I will want most Power 5 teams to be eliminated with three or four losses. This isn’t the NFL; I’m not willing to take a team seriously as the potential national champion if they lost 1/3 or more of their regular-season games.
I don’t like Oregon being ahead of Oregon St. even though I do think the Ducks have been the better team overall this year. USC didn’t beat Oregon (both “civil war” teams played Utah), so it doesn’t hurt Oregon for the Trojans to lose. USC did beat Oregon St. It also helps that Oregon’s best non-conference opponent solidified its claim as the best team in the country. Oregon St. played Boise and Fresno, and neither is as good as LSU anyway, so there wasn’t as much of a gain there (there was a slight improvement to strength of schedule though).
My formula did put the Egg Bowl rivalry in the “correct” order (according to head-to-head results) though, with Mississippi St. at #25 and Ole Miss at #26. Of course, it helps that Mississippi St. played Georgia instead of Vanderbilt (all the other conference opponents were the same, and the two teams have the same record).
Some teams moved up or down more than they normally would given how many teams didn’t play. I hadn’t worked on the weighted formula in a few years and it was still new before COVID, so there were still some kinks to iron out. Given that most of the changes still made sense given the results and there was no turnover in the top 25, I don’t think I changed anything too abruptly.
I’ve updated the ratings after the Army-Navy game before, but this year I’ll just treat is as a bowl game since neither will play an actual bowl game.
For the ratings of all 131 teams and all FBS conferences (and independents), see here or click “Knights’ Ratings” above at any time while browsing this site.
I wanted to start by saying happy Thanksgiving. I thought it was best to get this out today since there is only one game, which is probably not of crucial importance.
Because they have been so dominant until now, Georgia is the only one-loss team I can see finishing ahead of either LSU with two wins in the final games or USC with two wins in the final games. The loser of Ohio St.-Michigan will not have anything on their resume similar to Georgia’s wins over Oregon and Tennessee. It could be an interesting argument if TCU loses or if both LSU and USC lose though. I don’t automatically discount non-champions (even with the same number of losses), but I believe they should be looked at more skeptically.
Strength of Schedule
I touched on this last week, but something that many basic fans either don’t grasp or don’t bother to look into is how much schedules vary. Most conferences are not like the Big XII where it’s a pure round robin; but even in the Big XII, there are still three non-conference games.
I wanted to go over who is on the schedule of the following teams that have a realistic chance at the playoff. I’ll go over the top four teams of the respective conferences and the biggest non-conference game. I’ll mention TCU last because I think most people’s sense of their schedule is accurate.
LSU: Georgia (plays December 3), Alabama (win), Tennessee (loss), Ole Miss (win), Florida St. (loss).
Georgia: LSU (plays December 3), Alabama (did not play), Tennessee (win), Ole Miss (did not play), Oregon (win).
USC: Oregon (not played; possible conference championship opponent {NPPCCO}), Washington (NPPCCO), Utah (loss), UCLA (win), Notre Dame (play on Saturday).
Ohio St.: Michigan (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Notre Dame (win).
Michigan: Ohio St. (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Connecticut (win).
Clemson: North Carolina (plays December 3), Florida St. (win), Pitt (did not play), Duke (did not play), Notre Dame (loss).
TCU has beaten the following: Kansas St., Texas, Oklahoma St., Baylor, and Texas Tech. Out of conference, the best win was over 6-5 SMU. As I discussed in the last blog, the Horned Frogs will play either Kansas St. or Texas for a second time in the championship game.
Former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV (pictured above throwing on the run against Florida in Jacksonville last month) helped lead Georgia to its first national championship since 1980 and has the Bulldogs well-positioned for another.
Early Resume Comparison
I’m not making predictions about the remaining games, but I’ll discuss the teams as if I’m comparing them at the end of the season. For instance, if I say LSU will have beaten Georgia, what I’m talking about is the only scenario in which LSU is a contender. I don’t expect LSU to come particularly close to beating Georgia.
The committee does not consider the wins a team would have at the end of the year, or Clemson and USC would be higher. Those are the only two above who have two really decent opponents left. I think it’s harder to have to win successive games like that. Even moreso with USC because it would be three strong wins in a row: UCLA, Notre Dame, and then the #2 Pac-12 team.
If Iowa beats Nebraska, which is highly likely, LSU and TCU will be the only teams to have played every other top-five team of their respective conference. I do think the quality of LSU’s top opponents would make up for the extra loss if TCU were to lose a game.
I know it doesn’t seem like either Big Ten team would be missing a big resume bullet point by not playing Purdue, but Purdue has one fewer loss than Illinois, which led Michigan with about one second left on the clock last week. Also, if you’re not really missing any competition by not playing one of the top five teams of your 14-team conference, that doesn’t say much about your conference schedule.
As I suggested, I’ll be impressed by USC if the Trojans manage to win the next two weeks, and I would not be bitter about it if they were to edge out LSU. I tip my hat to the committee for having LSU #5 right now. I think it shows they understand the lists above, and if the last two games barely put USC ahead of LSU, so be it.
That’s not to say I don’t think LSU would have an argument. One key point is USC’s loss thus far. Utah lost to a mediocre SEC team and beat USC. That suggests to me that USC would have more than one conference loss if they played at least four teams who finished higher in the SEC than Florida did.
This comparison only takes place if LSU wins, so we would either have an SEC non-champion having blown out USC’s best win at the beginning of the year or we would have USC avoiding one of the more dangerous teams in its conference.
Teams Who May Lose Late and Be Considered; Why Clemson Might Deserve a Spot if They Do
Putting LSU aside, Ohio St. would be a very interesting contender if they lose to Michigan. I think they would compensate for having two fewer games against the Big Ten West as a result of the non-conference game against Notre Dame. This argument becomes even stronger if USC is knocked out of the running by Notre Dame.
Ohio St. WR Emeka Egbuka stretches for a touchdown against Notre Dame in September in Columbus. Although the Irish have had a couple of ugly losses since then, this still may be a key win for the Buckeyes.
One-loss Michigan would be a poor contender against anyone but a one-loss TCU though. I know Connecticut beat Liberty and became bowl-eligible, but Connecticut is not a good team. TCU is the only team in this discussion with a similar lacking best non-conference opponent.
Maybe the committee disagrees, but I would prefer a one-loss Clemson to a one-loss Michigan. The ACC wouldn’t be the reason, but playing two non-conference opponents with the kind of quality wins that South Carolina and Notre Dame have would make the difference for me. It would be two good non-conference opponents to zero.
As I discussed in the previous blog, one reason I give Clemson more credit so far than others do is if you play a series of let’s call them high-medium teams (not ranked but above average) such as Louisville and Wake Forest, you’re still exposing yourself to risk of a loss to a higher degree with each game. Just ask Tennessee and Ole Miss. They didn’t show signs of being vulnerable to teams like that over the previous month or two, but they got to the point of playing too many teams that were high-medium or better and apparently didn’t get up enough for every one.
On the other hand, based on the above, you can imagine what the committee has probably said. Even if these other teams are in equal conferences (the ACC is probably the worst of the bunch), Clemson has only played one team in the top five of its conference, and they lost to the only team they’ve played so far who would be in the top five of their conference.
This conversation would probably only come up in seeding, but I wanted to address it anyway. Some are assuming that Georgia will definitely be ahead of LSU even if they lose to the Tigers, but I’m not so sure. If Georgia had to play Alabama and Ole Miss, it’s certainly possible they’d be entering the championship with a loss. Right now, I think the non-conference game against Oregon resolves any doubt; but it becomes a more open question if both Oregon and Florida St. have three losses at the end of the season. This wouldn’t matter in my ratings, but obviously how that SEC championship game plays out would influence this discussion.
As I’ll explain when I write my top 25 blog later in the week, I’m progressing more to a computer-based system and may just rely on that within the next couple of weeks.
As such, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what my top 25 will be by clicking on “Knights’ Ratings” in the heading/masthead above or clicking here I only considered teams in the computer top 35.
Choice of Kelly Vindicated… for now.
I was too excited about some of the specific results not to write about that first. Not only was it a good night for LSU and Brian Kelly on the field but also in other results.
LSU supposedly made a big play for Lincoln Riley before he went to USC. People who are wowed by the Sean McVay types were very disappointed with Kelly after that.
LSU’s opponent was Florida. The “culture” people who loved Coach O wanted LSU to hire Billy Napier from ULL. Maybe his accent isn’t as good, but they are the “Ragin’ Cajuns” after all, much better than “Fighting Irish.” We’ll see how Florida does against FSU, though early September FSU is a different team from what late November will be; but I think LSU has a worse record right now if he’s the hire.
Win chains can give weird results, especially by the end of the season, but another neat thing about the results of the week is LSU > Florida > Utah > USC.
Utah QB Cam Rising scores the winning points in the 43-42 win against USC on Saturday in Salt Lake City. It was somewhat relevant to LSU in that the Utes had fallen in the Swamp in another dramatic game in Week 1.
Also, it was nice that for the first 28 minutes or so, Alabama had just as much trouble with Tennessee as LSU did. The difference was Alabama scored right before the half rather than letting Tennessee score. Tennessee also had a very close miss on a TD throw. 35-17 at the half is a different game, similar to (but even worse for the opposition than) the 23-7 halftime score against LSU.
Finally, many prominent Notre Dame fans celebrated/pretended to celebrate the supposed upgrade from Kelly to Freeman based on a couple of recruits he got. “You see, it’s not hard to recruit at Notre Dame, Kelly was the problem, good riddance.” That was nicer than what a lot of them said.
It’s only been 9 months since Kelly took over completely, and he could be there 10 years with ramifications of the hire unfolding well beyond that. So I know it’s early on, but today was as good of a week in support of him as I could have imagined.
Florida/LSU Rivalry and History
Of course I’ve updated the Florida Rivalry blog. I somehow missed one of the LSU wins, so LSU is actually tied in the all-time series now, and last year the Tigers had taken a lead at home for the first time in over 30 years. When Florida ran off nine straight under Spurrier and then again when they won two national championships and three SEC East championships in four years under Meyer (beating LSU in all three: 2006, 2008, and 2009), I wondered if I’d ever see the day. After that 2009 game, Florida had led 30-23-3 overall and 16-13 in Baton Rouge, and 14-10-3 in Gainesville. After the 2003 game, the Gators had led 27-20-3 overall, 15-11 in Baton Rouge, and 12-9-3 in Gainesville.
This is partly a function of Auburn crashing and burning under Bryan Harsin and Florida’s rut of mediocrity that no one seems to be able to coach them out of since Meyer left, but Brian Kelly is the first LSU coach ever to win at Auburn and at Florida in the same season. The location of those games is part of the reason LSU won national championships in odd years (2003, 2007, and 2019) and played for one in another odd year (2011) while Florida won national championships in even years (1996, 2006, and 2008). Florida has never played LSU in an SEC championship game, but in many years the loser of that game could have won the division without that loss.
LSU has won four in a row over the Gators for only the second time ever. The Tigers have now won 10 of 13, the best decade-plus run in the series since Florida won 13 of 14 from 1988 to 2001. One of the Florida wins in that span was Will Muschamp’s one good year (2012), when the Gators went to the Sugar Bowl with only one loss. The other wins were 2016 and 2018. 2016 was one of the years Jim McElwain led to the Gators to the SEC championship (and was the weird year where the game got moved from Gainesville to Baton Rouge and delayed until November); and 2018 was Dan Mullen’s (first and) best year, when he led the Gators to the beat-down of Michigan in the Peach Bowl. All three games were by a single possession. I don’t know what it is, but LSU comes to play in these games no matter how good they are. Only a very good Florida team* has been able to win
(*There is a lot of context to why that 2016 Florida team was better than their final record. They were 8-2 after the LSU win but lost to Florida St. the next week and got humiliated in the SEC Championship game the following week against Alabama. They did regroup in time for the Outback Bowl against Iowa, which they won 30-3; but that didn’t really overcome the losses. The disappointing endings to the 2015 {3 straight losses after a 10-1 start} and 2016 seasons put some pressure on McElwain. After a hopeful 3-1 start to 2017, Florida’s confidence evaporated after a one-point home loss to LSU (the week after LSU fell victim to Troy), followed by a two-point home loss to Texas A&M. McElwain would be dismissed after a 42-7 loss to Georgia in the following game, and the Gators finished 4-8. I don’t think he was a bad coach; but when things went off the rails he seemingly had a hard time getting his teams back on track.)
LSU/Florida Series Since 2017
Even including 2018, the last several times LSU has faced Florida, it seems to have put LSU on the right track at least temporarily. Joe Burrow really seemed to find himself and take more responsibility after that close loss in which he threw a late “pick six” and the Tigers lost by 8 after leading with 9 minutes to go in the game. His only losses over the next two seasons were Alabama (who didn’t lose until the national championship game that year) and the 7-OT loss by 2 at Texas A&M. I mentioned the 2017 game above and also here.
In 2019, LSU really hadn’t had an impressive win yet. They had beaten Texas by a touchdown in Week 2, but that game went right down to the end and could have easily gone either way. Texas would only finish 8-5. Although the outcome was never in doubt, the Tigers had also looked vulnerable against Vanderbilt a few weeks before. In hindsight, among LSU’s first 7 wins in 2015, Florida was the only team who would finish better than 7-6. I think the combination of the Florida game and the Auburn game two weeks later gave the coaches enough information to put together the game plan to beat Alabama four weeks later.
LSU’s winning field goal in 2020 was partially set up by the famous thrown shoe of TE Kole Taylor (shoe thrown by Florida DB Marco Wilson). The personal foul penalty kept the drive alive after the Gators had stopped LSU on third down.
In 2020, LSU was only 3-5 with wins over the three worst teams in the SEC (Arkansas, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt). The Tigers would eventually self-impose a bowl ban, but ending the season without another win would have been a disaster. It took a personal foul from a thrown shoe and a 57-yard field goal in the fog, but somehow the Tigers beat the 8-1 Gators in Gainesville. For more about how improbable that win was, see here. The win also gave LSU the confidence to beat Ole Miss in the final game of the season. LSU did end up with a losing record after the bowl game last season, but the Tigers are only one win away from finishing .500 or better in the regular season for the 23rd consecutive year. That doesn’t happen without those two wins.
In hindsight, 2021 was much more of a matchup of equals (both teams would finish 6-7), but Florida was favored by 12.5. In the previous week, Florida had beaten Vanderbilt 42-0 while LSU had lost to Kentucky 42-21. Kentucky had beaten Florida the week before beating LSU, but the Wildcats had only won by 7. Florida’s only other loss had been by 2 to Alabama (who went onto win the SEC before losing in the national championship game to Georgia), and LSU had two other losses: UCLA (who finished 8-4) and Auburn (who also finished 6-7). It was some slight advantage to LSU that unlike Kentucky and UCLA the game was at home; but since Auburn had just won in Baton Rouge two weeks before, I guess that didn’t deter the gamblers much. I’ll give you the recap and response to that game from the same source.
Finally, this season, LSU really needed the win after the big loss to Tennessee at home last week. LSU being 4-3 and looking at undefeated Ole Miss, followed by Alabama, followed by a trip to Arkansas would not be a good position to be in.
Recap of Saturday’s Game
I’ll give a brief recap since I’m adding this link to my blog. Even though the LSU defense and special teams didn’t help much, the LSU offense scored touchdowns on its first six drives after Florida took the lead in the first minute as Jayden Daniels was able to run, pass, and spread the ball around. He threw or ran for all six touchdowns. Florida had run back the opening kickoff to midfield and then QB Anthony Richardson found Justin Shorter for 51 yards on second down.
The Gators also scored a touchdown on their second drive. They were finally forced to punt in the third drive, but Jack Bech fumbled the punt, and Florida ended up scoring on that ensuing drive as well. The defense didn’t give up though, and finally stopped the Gators completely on the next drive. This allowed the Tigers to pull ahead 28-21 at the half.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels turns the corner on the way to his third touchdown run in Gainesville on Saturday, putting the Tigers up 42-21.. Daniels also threw for three touchdowns and 349 yards, his biggest game in the air in almost three years.
The LSU defense continued to hold the entire third quarter. Florida had the ball at the end of the quarter, but the game seemed fairly secure as it was deep in Florida territory 42-21 at that time. Richardson ran for 81 yards (and should have been tackled about five times) on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 42-28. But then the Gators defense finally got a stop, a three-and-out. The LSU defense was winded by this time. In the next possession, Florida scored again, making it a one-score game for the first time since early in the third quarter. So now the score was 42-35 with 7:39 to go.
LSU had quite a scare on the fourth play from scrimmage on the ensuing drive. Daniels threw over the middle and the ball sailed on him, right into the hands of Jason Marshall. Luckily for LSU, roughing the passer was called; and this canceled out the interception. Possibly a little shaken by this, the offense stalled after a couple of runs. Daniels did complete a pass on third and 8, but it was only for 7 yards. This set up a 4th and 1 at the Florida 27. They could have kicked the field goal then, but Brian Kelly decided to go for it. LSU got the first and then gained seven yards combined on the next two plays. But when it was finally fourth down, they had lost 12 yards, 10 yards from false starts and another two yards from a sack. This forced a 47-yard field goal attempt from Damien Ramos rather than a 35-yard attempt, but it was right down the middle.
Since LSU now led by 10 with less than two minutes left, the game was essentially over. Florida did get one first down; but there were only two positive plays on the entire ensuing drive, so the Tigers were then able to run out the clock after the turnover on downs.
I’m sure most who are reading already know all of this, but I’ll provide a short recap for posterity. I will add this blog to the links on the “Rivalry Series” page. I know I’ve been posting something every other day, but don’t expect anything new until Sunday at the earliest. If you missed it, I posted my Top 25 and made some preliminary comments on Tuesday.
Recap
LSU got to the Florida St. 5 on the opening drive before settling for a field goal. The Tigers got to the 8 two drives later, but a 30-yard field goal attempt was partially blocked. There were only three LSU drives in the first half other than the one that was ended by the half. The drive in the middle was a three-and-out, and Florida St. took advantage with a touchdown on a flea-flicker, so the ‘Noles led 7-3. Toward the end of the half, Maliik Nabers fumbled a punt, but Florida St. turned the ball over on downs on the subsequent possession despite taking over at the LSU 16. This kept the lead down to 4 at the half.ings got more exciting in the second half.
Ontaria Wilson went high to catch the flea-flicker as the late-arriving defender went low in the second quarter in the Superdome Sunday. The Seminoles led for the remainder of the game.
Florida St. scored on their first two drives (field goal, then touchdown), interspersed with another LSU three-and-out, to take a 17-3 lead. LSU and Florida St. exchanged touchdowns on the next two drives. The Tigers cut the lead to 24-17 on the next drive (their second of the half); but given that the drive took almost five minutes off the clock, only 4:14 was left to play.
After a first down on the opening play of the next drive, the Seminoles stalled on the next three plays. So, with 2:!5 left in the fourth quarter, the Seminoles were forced to punt for only the second time all game, and it was fumbled by Nabers yet again.
Florida St. had a third and goal at the 1 yard line with only 1:20 on the clock, but on that play, FSU running back Treshaun Ward didn’t handle the pitch cleanly and fumbled the ball back to LSU.
This is what occasioned the 99-yard drive I mentioned. That drive almost ended when Mason Taylor caught a pass in the middle of the field. He was initially ruled out of bounds with one second left, but a replay seemingly showed that his knee touched with two seconds left. In the NFL, this may have ended the game as the clock would have kept running by rule.
But a first down stops the clock in college, and the play was whistled dead regardless. It looked like Taylor’s knee touched with two seconds left; but it was announced that there would be one more play, and no adjustment to the clock was made. It’s unclear if the LSU center would have been forced to snap the ball within that one second, but we will never know since Florida St. called a timeout before the snap anyway.
Regardless, on the final play from scrimmage, Jayden Daniels found Jaray Jenkins on a crossing route toward the back of the end zone to make the score 24-23 In another flashback to earlier in the game, the extra point was blocked, ending the game.
So all the fumble and ensuing drive ended up doing for LSU was to make the score closer. With LSU’s kicking problems, I wouldn’t have put money on the Tigers winning in overtime anyway. I also wouldn’t have been confident in LSU converting a second do-or-die two-point conversion play (which is basically the kind of play the touchdown was) either, so I don’t completely fault the coaches for not going for the win. I did wonder why Kelly instantly raised one finger in the air to indicate kicking the extra point though.
Another key to the game I wanted to mention was Florida St.’s success on third down. The Seminoles went 11 for 17 overall and 4 for 6 on third and long (defined as third and 7 or longer). LSU only converted 5 of 11 overall and 1 of 4 on third and long.
The Big Picture and Additional Reaction
Losing by 1 when the 4 points that were blocked would have covered the spread is nothing like the slap in the face that the 11-point loss to UCLA (after the margin was 18 late in the fourth) or the 22-point loss to Kansas St. (after the margin was 35 late in the fourth) was. Florida St. isn’t necessarily better than those programs, but LSU was never behind by three or more possessions in this game.
It’s unreasonable to expect to just flip a switch between the last game last year and the first game this year regardless of who the coach was. Kelly didn’t inherit a well-oiled machine like Les Miles did. He didn’t even inherit an underachieving (and overworked) squad of veterans like Ed Orgeron did.
The Tigers had a new starting quarterback, a center who had never been a center in an actual game before, and (for most of the second half) two backup defensive ends (Maason Smith was hurt in the first quarter, and Ali Gaye was ejected in the third quarter). They were also without running back Jon Emery, Jr., who was supposed to be the top returning back going back to last season. (More on that later.) This was in addition to replacing most of the rest of the offensive line and most of the secondary in the offseason.
By the way, I disagree with some of the comments that Daniels did terrific, and every drive that ended quickly was someone else’s fault. I think former LSU and NFL running back Jeremy Hill tackled that narrative well here. In short, while the offensive line does need work, there were open receivers that Daniels didn’t even look at before scrambling and usually running. The pocket didn’t instantly close around him every play. I didn’t catch the name on every play and I’m not going to re-watch the game to take notes (once was painful enough), but one of the best receivers at improvising to get open is Jack Bech, and he was only targeted once the whole game.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels runs for a first down in the Superdome on Sunday. Although he ran well and his completion percentage was good, the question remains if he can do enough in the air for consistent offensive success.
Will this year be another 1999 or another 2000?
I think most of those predicting 10 wins or more have now been disabused of that notion, but there are still very good (great may be off the table) and very bad ways this season could go.
Some younger fans may not know this, but there was actually a time before Les Miles. I want to draw an analogy to something that happened in the beforetimes. I remember the last time some stick in the mud from the Midwest whom we vaguely remembered facing in a bowl game showed up to coach LSU. Kelly has tried harder to shake that image than Saban ever did, but the point is Saban didn’t exactly wow everyone with results right away either.
I really think 2000 was the last season for LSU that was anything like this one going into it.
I would argue the team we saw in January was worse than what Nick Saban inherited in 1999. In the game before Nick Saban was hired, LSU beat a good Arkansas team, 35-10, under Interim Head Coach Hal Hunter. LSU did lose 8 games under Gerry DiNardo in 1999; but they were neck-and-neck with some very good teams, and players weren’t deserting the team like it was a sinking ship (it helped that the transfer portal didn’t exist then) or they would have had no chance to beat Arkansas (who’d entered the game at 7-3 after knocking off both reigning SEC divisional champions).
If LSU had had the same team it had in January all of last season, not only would we have lost every SEC game, I doubt even one of the losses would have been close.
Saban’s first team was able to ease into things. The first game was a blowout against Western Carolina (whose only two wins were over I-AA opponents). The second game was against a Houston team that would finish 3-8 (whom the Tigers beat by a pedestrian score of 28-13). Even with those warmup games, LSU dropped the next two, an understandable loss at Auburn, followed by an upset home loss to UAB.
UAB’s Rhett Gallego kicks the winning field goal in Baton Rouge in 2000.
As an aside, LSU plays UAB again this year. Assuming we get past them, Southern, and New Mexico, we probably won’t have lost to a team like UAB in this coach’s first year. I don’t think there is one game on the SEC schedule (LSU is the only SEC team to lose so far, by the way) that looks as easy to beat as that team should have been given that the two SEC East opponents are Tennessee and Florida.
Anyway, UAB did finish with almost as many wins as LSU had in 2000; but for two teams to be even, a Conference USA team needs to have more wins, not fewer. After a 41-9 loss to Florida, LSU did have a 4-game SEC winning streak in 2000, but one win was over 2-9 Kentucky and one was over 3-8 Alabama (by two points). Which two SEC opponents this season are only going to win 2 or 3 games total? Vanderbilt and South Carolina aren’t on the schedule if either of those were your answer (not saying they won’t do better anyway… Vandy is 1/3 of the way to bowl eligibility actually).
Unfortunately, I think that 1999 season is more similar to what LSU is facing this year. LSU played three games against teams that didn’t qualify for bowl games and won three games. They weren’t the same three, but the point is Saban’s four-game improvement in the regular season was partly due to the schedule. The worst SEC opponent in 1999 was Auburn, which finished 5-6 (so with a modern schedule the Plainsmen probably would have also qualified for a bowl). There were two one-point losses during the losing streak, and one loss was to the eventual SEC champions (Alabama) by six points on the road.
So the team did not play dramatically differently overall in Saban’s first year even though he was a dramatically better coach than his predecessor. Winning three close games rather than losing them is what made the Tigers bowl-eligible rather than 3-8. What happens in future close games could make a huge difference in the number of wins here also. I hope the Florida St. game isn’t a sign of things to come with regard to close games (as the loss at Georgia was in 1999); but the Tigers also dropped the first close game in 2000 (UAB), so it doesn’t have to be.
There is one slight advantage of this year compared to that year in that there are still three remaining non-conference games (LSU will likely be favored by multiple touchdowns in all three) whereas there were only three non-conference games total in 1999 with the same number of wins needed to make a bowl (6).
What To Expect
I touched on this earlier, but the chance of a season with double-digit wins went down considerably; but 7 or 8 wins, either of which I’d consider a success and said so before the season, are still realistic if things go well. I’ll get to what might happen if things don’t go well.
To get a little more into “inside baseball,” I know almost everyone improves from Week 1, but the way this team had to come together in the offseason, I think players will improve faster than most as they get used to one another and learn their roles better. Maybe Daniels will learn to read a defense before scrambling or Nussmeier will get a shot.
Also, I do think by the time Emery comes back (he fell behind academically due to COVID, and the NCAA… enough said there), LSU might have a rushing attack other than the quarterback. His first game will apparently be against Mississippi St.
I’m not being a what the forums call a sunshine pumper though. Assuming we get past UAB and the other non-conference opponents that remain, I can’t tell you with confidence what three SEC teams we beat to become bowl eligible. I won’t rest easy about winning a single one in isolation.
I don’t expect Auburn or Florida to be great this year (I barely had Utah ranked, so the win over the Utes [who probably should have won] didn’t drastically change my mind), but it gives me some pause that both games are on the road. Mississippi St. is a good shot at a win; but except for the two years when Burrow was on the team, LSU has struggled against the Bulldogs since Dak beat them in 2014. In my estimation, the quality of opponent only goes up from there.
Maybe the home crowd could put LSU over the top against Ole Miss, Tennessee, or Arkansas. Another occasional source of late-season success of late has been Texas A&M; but this is less true on the road, where the Tigers haven’t officially won since 2016 (some would say they won the 2018 game more than once).
On the other hand, I wasn’t overwhelmingly confident last year’s LSU team was going to beat #20 Florida or #14 Texas A&M (both of which were needed to become bowl-eligible) last year. I also don’t remember being confident about LSU in 2000 when they went into a game against #11 Tennessee and another against #13 Mississippi St., but they managed (winning both in OT). Had the Tigers lost both, they would not have made a bowl game in Saban’s first year. Side note: Tennessee also makes a rare visit to Tiger Stadium this year.
LSU TE Robert Royal catches the winning 25-yard touchdown pass in overtime to upset Tennessee in Baton Rouge in 2000.
Since that season in 2000, we always have had the talent and the fighting spirit (both of which were on display to an extent against Florida St.) needed to win the games we need to win to become bowl eligible (which LSU has been every year since 2000, although it voluntarily absented itself from bowl consideration in 2020), even if that means beating multiple ranked teams. I’m not taking anything for granted though. With special teams like that, even if the offense and defense improve, this could well be the year it doesn’t happen. If none of the three areas improve significantly, it could be a repeat of 1999.
I’ve had some computer problems that have prevented me from writing more and posting blogs when people are most likely to read them. I have switched browsers for blog-posting; but if that doesn’t work, I may have to go to a new site. If that happens, I will do my best to post a link here. You can also follow me on Facebook for updates. I also have a twitter account @TheBayouBlogger.
I will elaborate further later in the week, but I just wanted to say a few things about the LSU game and some of the reactions.
I HATE how the media is always in competition to say the most dramatic outlandish things after a single game. There is no accountability for being wrong, they just get more clicks by being dramatic. If it were up to the media alarmists, Ed Orgeron wouldn’t have made it past the Troy game. Les Miles wouldn’t have lasted past the loss to Tennessee in 2005. (I don’t remember it being this bad in 2000, but I’ll get to that.) Oh all problems at LSU aren’t fixed, I guess Brian Kelly stole 10 million dollars! He should never show his face in public again after a one-point loss to a Power 5 opponent at a neutral site (FSU fans were there in droves, don’t give me that)! He’s blaming everyone but himself when he cited coaching as an issue four times in an 11-minute press conference! He made a sarcastic comment about how maybe they could have played worse at halftime!
Then every November and December, these same people decry how fast coaches get fired after their fan bases are bombarded with dire negativity after every loss. Some of them (Colin Cowherd, for instance) even attacked LSU in 2019 (when the Tigers had NO losses all year), saying they weren’t up to snuff because they allowed too many points and yards to Vanderbilt and Ole Miss in garbage time.
Top 25
I don’t like to shake things up too much after one game. Two months from now, I won’t really care about margin of victory; but I think a couple of these teams showed more problems than teams like Notre Dame and Cincinnati showed in losses. All four Division I teams Brian Kelly has coached lost this week.
I think replacing Utah with Florida was obvious, but the game certainly could have gone the other way. Even Oregon might well be a top-25 team. In 2006, Arkansas lost by even more to USC (the defending national runner-up); and the Razorbacks were national-title contenders until late November.
I listed six teams that I thought were good candidates for the last spot in preseason, but Maryland was the only one that played up to expectations. Obviously, the Terps may not be a top-25 team, but there was no obvious candidate to move ahead of them. One team I considered was Penn St., who had a good win at Purdue. Another was Indiana, who beat Illinois after the Illini easily beat Wyoming in “Week 0”, so right now there are seven Big Ten teams in my top 30. Not quite as many as the SEC, but close.
I only have the Bulldogs #3, but they certainly put up the most impressive score of the weekend. Pictured is Kenny McIntosh finding the corner of the end zone for a rushing touchdown during the first half against the Oregon Ducks in Atlanta on Saturday.
Some have said Georgia should be #2, but I think Notre Dame is significantly better than Oregon at the moment. I certainly understand if people who believed Oregon was a top-10 team differ with that assessment.
I think most of the changes are obvious if you just look at the results of a given team. The only one who slipped a little who might not be obvious based on the final score is Kentucky, who won 37-13 over Miami U.; but they only led 13-10 at halftime, and they only out-gained the RedHawks by 53 yards on offense.
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Reaction to CFP and LSU’s Bowl Selection
In College Football, College Football Playoff, General LSU, Post-game, Rankings, Rankings Commentary on December 3, 2023 at 4:47 PMMy top 4 agrees with the committee’s, and I would even have the same matchups. I would have had Washington and Texas in the Rose Bowl though, which makes more sense geographically; and I wouldn’t have made the Longhorns (who are supposedly the worse seed) close being at home.
My top 4 is based on the best teams. I’m not saying that I don’t think a team like Florida St., which went undefeated and even played two programs with multiple championships in the last 20 years out of conference, should be included in the top 4; but I think Alabama and Texas both have strengths of schedule that cancel out the additional loss and then some.
Florida St.’s Exclusion
The committee’s instructions do not include something that says, “an undefeated conference champion should be given priority over a conference champion who is not undefeated.”
I would be OK with adding such a stipulation, especially if it also added language that said an exception could be made if the non-conference schedule is particularly weak, which would certainly not be the case here.
My point is the committee did its job. If I were a one-man committee with the same instructions, I would have put aside my preference for including Florida St. and given the same list of best 4 teams.
There is also language that the committee can consider injuries to major players. I don’t consider anything like that in my formula, and I can’t think of any consistent way you could apply that to any formula. There are no strict standards for injury reporting in college football like there is in the NFL. Even if there were, it would be difficult to enforce that and provide consistent oversight for injury reports of all 133 teams and then add those reports to a formula. I don’t like the idea of using that as an argument because every team has a mix of players who are hurt or otherwise unavailable from game to game that can affect any outcome. Others are playing hurt or playing with some other type of stress or distraction.
What I do think is fair, and what I think the committee did, is to look at how they played at the end of the year. They did not look like a top-4 team against Florida or Louisville. I don’t think they looked like a top-20 team in either game. I have Louisville in the top 20; but if I considered the trajectory of their season, I wouldn’t have them anywhere close. I have Kentucky #47 right now, and the Wildcats won at Louisville 8 days ago.
I don’t include that in my formula, but I’ve never had a problem with the basketball or baseball committee’s giving more weight to recent results, and I don’t fault the football committee for doing so. If there were no SEC championship and Alabama beat Georgia earlier in the year, I wouldn’t want them to be given less credit for that, but obviously the committee isn’t being unfair about when you any played a given game. If anything, I think they’re being charitable to Texas for not considering how long ago the Alabama game was (or any game against a top-20 opponent was) in ranking Texas #3. But the point is that’s why I don’t include it in my formula. It could yield unfair results that way, but a person can avoid such outcomes.
So I have Florida St. fifth without considering margin of victory, how the Seminoles looked in those games, or the Jordan Travis injury. I also didn’t consider how Florida and Louisville were playing, just their respective seasons as a whole. So I think there are more than enough factors not to consider Florida St. to be a top-4 team. It’s not just one thing. But as I said, I’m very sympathetic if you ask me who should get to play for the championship instead of who the four best teams are.
Some people are coping by saying, “at least it’s an expanded playoff next year”; but that doesn’t give me any consolation personally. None of the major-conference championship games would have been for a spot in the top 12 this year. I might not even watch next year if LSU isn’t in it. There is a good chance the committee will already know exactly who the top 12 is by championship weekend, and the games will solely be for seeding. I’ll have my opinions again, but it will lose a lot of the excitement.
Alabama vs. Texas
To go back to the Alabama-Texas discussion I began in previous blogs (especially the last rankings blog) and touched on a couple of paragraphs ago, I think too much attention is being paid to a head-to-head game in September and not enough attention is being paid to all the games since then. I have Alabama #2 in strength of schedule vs. FBS teams and Texas 21st. Texas does get a little more credit for playing all FBS teams though. If I ignore Chattanooga from Alabama’s schedule and drop Baylor from Texas’s schedule, Alabama still ends up stronger. The average of the best 12 teams Alabama faced is about equal to that of #39 Iowa St. The average of the best 12 teams Texas faced is about equal to that of #51 Northwestern.
So now I’m going to get to arguments from outside of looking at the computers. Alabama has a better loss from longer ago. The #1 wins by each team are roughly even (Alabama vs. Georgia), but I would give Alabama more credit for getting the win in December versus September. Even if you still give Texas a point from there to make the two teams even, I don’t know how you argue LSU and Ole Miss aren’t better wins than Oklahoma St. and Kansas St.
I think Texas would have to have a far superior list of the more middle-of-the-road wins to overcome that, and I don’t think they do. Texas beat Wyoming, Iowa St., and Texas Tech. Alabama beat Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Auburn. Those are pretty similar lists of three. Although it did fall a little short, I do think the Longhorns made a very good attempt at playing the necessary type of schedule to prepare them for an SEC season. If you’re one of those people who says, “sorry, that win over Auburn was ugly and if they’re that close, I’m going with head to head,” that’s a reasonable point of view. It’s just not how I see it. I would have been perfectly happy to have joined you in laughing at Alabama if Texas and Florida St. had made it ahead of the Tide though.
As I mentioned, what I don’t like is when someone says, “I don’t care what else they did, they each have a loss and Alabama’s is to Texas. End of story.” That’s just wanting to rush to a conclusion and not consider the season as a whole. Word keeps telling me not to use the phrase “season as a whole,” but I don’t know a better way to distinguish my more holistic approach from the approach of just cherry-picking a couple of factoids and stopping there.
Washington vs. Michigan
I don’t have strong feelings about Washington ahead of Michigan, but I’ll lay out the arguments. I have Michigan about 99% as good as Washington, so there isn’t a huge separation. I like that Washington had a much tougher game this weekend, but obviously Michigan had a much tougher rivalry-week opponent. Maybe some of the narrow margins of victory (both Oregon games, Arizona, Arizona St., Utah, Oregon St., and Washington St. were all within one possession) hurt the Huskies. Michigan had a robust list of top-three wins: Ohio St., Penn St., and Iowa. I think Oregon would beat Ohio St. and Penn St. but it was just unfortunate for the Ducks that they had to play a top-2 team twice instead of Ohio St.’s once. Iowa is a better third win than Washington’s third, which might be Arizona. But then Michigan’s fourth- and fifth-best wins are UNLV and Bowling Green (they didn’t play Northwestern or Wisconsin, which are my two highest Big Ten teams after Iowa). I strongly believe both would lose to both Oregon St. and Utah and probably USC as well.
LSU Bowl Selection Reaction
I’m sure I’ll go more into bowl match-ups later, but I’m disappointed that LSU will be playing Wisconsin. I was hoping for either Notre Dame, which would give the Tigers a chance to get revenge for some foolishness in bowl losses over the last 10 years (as well as being the Brian Kelly bowl), or Iowa. The contrast in styles for Iowa/LSU would have been worth getting up early for. Wisconsin isn’t an offensive juggernaut – they haven’t scored more than 30 points in a game since September – but they’re not Iowa. Wisconsin isn’t even in my top 50. I think either LSU won’t get up for the game and it will be ugly regardless of the winner or we could get another blowout like last season. Neither would be a very satisfying end to the year. It’s one of six bowl games between the SEC and the Big Ten.
Top 25 Later This Week
I have my top 25 ready. Of course it’s mostly based on my ratings with a few adjustments, but I don’t want to overshadow it with all of the discussion of the top 4, so look for that later in the week.