The Everything Minor League (NCAA) Football Thread : 2014-2015



Well, we're finally into the Playoff era of CFB. No more B(C)S.

Just some questions to get discussion rolling:
-Who can stop FSU this year? Their toughest game is basically a road trip to Louisville (who must replace Bridgewater). Clemson loses too much on O to make me think they have a chance of winning the division, and outside of those 3 teams, the ACC kinda sux. FSU too skrong.
-Outside of the pundits' picks for the inaugural playoff (FSU, Bama, OU, Ohio State, Oregon, Auburn, UCLA (?)), who has a shot of squeezing into the top 4?
-Speaking of playoffs, how much BS should we expect from the committee?
-Who's gonna regress significantly or just flat out fall off the map this year? Texas A&M? (no Manziel / Evans. Bad, bad Defense.) Michigan? (They's been regressing since Hoke's first year. Dont know how the Nussmeier hire will work out) Texsa Texas? (rebuilding year for Strong. Booted like half the team. RB / Safety depth is perilous. QBs cant stay healthy). Any other team of note (UCF without Bortles, etc.).
-Last, whose bright idea was it to make the new trophy a waffle cone? #bringbackthecrystal

Coaches Poll Top 25 Preseason:
1. Florida State Seminoles (56)
2. Alabama Crimson Tide
3. Oklahoma Sooners (3)
4. Oregon Ducks (1)
5. Auburn Tigers
6. Ohio State Buckeyes (1)
7. UCLA Bruins
8. Michigan State Spartans
9. South Carolina Gamecocks (1)
10. Baylor Bears
11. Stanford Cardinal
12. Georgia Bulldogs
13. LSU Tigers
14. Wisconsin Badgers
15. USC Trojans
16. Clemson Tigers
17. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
18. Arizona State Sun Devils
19. Mississippi Rebels
20. Texas A&M Aggies
21. Kansas State Wildcats
22. Nebraska Cornhuskers
23. North Carolina Tar Heels <---WTF?
24. Texas Longhorns
25. Washington Huskies
 
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xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
hihihi WHY NOBODY LIKE COLLEGE FOOTBALL must be a sexuality issue

anyways...notre dame is really, really good with golson back. I mean they stand a chance in Tallahassee type good. They play each other october 18 in what will be a huge game for both teams, and if notre dame can pull the upset it would be a spark for both a heisman and a playoff bid.

That being said i am an FSU fan so imo notre dame has no chance so....

Saying it right now: todd gurley will win the heisman if he stays healthy. He is reggie bush with even more swag...really this dude has the skill set of Adrian Peterson atm.

Stanford looked remarkably immature in their loss to USC, and lost where they normally destroyed teams like oregon in the past. If USC or UCLA cant stop oregon I dont think stanford will either, so everybody in the playoffs has to deal with that team. makes me cringe. last few years stanford has taken care of that god damn team for us, but this year...i dont think so.

UNC is ranked for a reason, returning a boatload of talent this year. They should win their division of the ACC this year.

UCLA for overrated teams imo, they have a meh running game and little depth at reciever, and if virginias offense didnt turn over the ball the awful virginia cavaliers would have beaten them.

Also overrated is Oklahoma, when they play good teams who are they gonna throw to? Sadly, they have a legit chance to go undefeated with their awful schedule and because of the preseason ranking would be a shoe in for the playoff.

Also virginia tech w/o logan thomas to throw it to the other team is very competitive, they play amazing defense and without constant turnovers can easily compete in the mediocre ACC.

SEC isint quite as good this year, and IMO the most secure team so far is texas a&m since you know gurley will get injured.
 

Mr.E

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As an Ohio State guy, I don't pity Michigan but they're currently too pathetic to laugh at.
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
I don't want to get people's hopes up but it is still mathematically possible for Michigan to win the Big Ten championship.


EDIT DAVE BRANDON IS GONE DAVE BRANDON IS GONE DAVE BRANDON IS GONE DAVE BRANDON IS GONE DAVE BRANDON IS GONE
 
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Dunno why, it's not like the Badgers have been much better, if at all without Bielema. I've heard this comment from several Badgers fans, though, and I feel like it's a coping mechanism because someone dare leave their program for an SEC school.
 
FSU is trying to top Auburn for luckiest season this year... I'm still clinging onto the dream that DUKE knocks them out of the playoffs in the ACC championship.

right now for the playoff we're probably looking at FSU, TCU/K-State, and 2 SEC teams... I don't think Oregon is good enough to win their next 5 games, and Ole Miss dropping only 1 spot after losing to LSU virtually guarantees that the SEC West teams "beating up on each other" won't drop them far enough to prevent them from making the playoffs. Highly likely we'll have a 2-loss SEC West team make it over a 1-loss MSU/OSU or ND or a PAC-12 school not named Oregon. Of course, there's a lot of games left to play, but at least there's two extra spots this year!

PS what the fuck is up with the 12:00 games this year??? usually there's plenty of good ones, but it seriously seems that any game containing one ranked team has been pushed to 7:00 or 8:00 this season. if I were trying to get as many people as possible watching my game, I'd rather have a game like Ark-MSST or Ill-OSU at noon rather than competing with games like Auburn-Ole Miss or Stanford-Oregon. Maybe I'm just misremembering things, but even just a couple years ago most prime-time games were saved for two actual prime-time teams.
 

Mr.E

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Ole Miss dropping only 1 spot after losing to LSU virtually guarantees that the SEC West teams "beating up on each other" won't drop them far enough to prevent them from making the playoffs.
"But SEC bias doesn't exist, guys!"

A few days ago, the talking heads were literally arguing that having three SEC teams in the top four teams (the first week of rankings) is proof that SEC bias doesn't exist. To be fair, it also doesn't prove SEC bias does exist (if they're three of the best teams, then they're three of the best teams) but come on, really? It's just another piece of evidence to throw on the pile of shit we already know: SEC bias is still completely and utterly rampant throughout the NCAA Football machine. Ole Miss dropping only one spot is a fucking joke.

At least in the AP poll, they dropped one more spot than Notre Dame did after their loss to FSU (and are behind ND). Still should've dropped more but it's better than nothing.
 
I will always argue against SEC bias, but im not gonna turn this thread into a flame war about it. IMO the best 4 teams should be in the playoff, and if 2 of those teams are SEC teams, then they should be in the playoffs. nobody can dare argue that SEC teams have the hardest road to the playoffs period. This is clearly demonstrated in both the ARK-MISS st. game where ark almost pulled it out. Ole miss had to play auburn, right after LSU, right after T A&M, i could go on. It is near impossible to get out of the SEC without a loss, so giving a little mercy to those teams seems fair to me.
 

Mr.E

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Or maybe those higher-ranked SEC teams aren't as good as we (using "we" loosely) think they are? Ole Miss hardly dropped in the AP poll more for losing to a barely top 25 team than ND did losing to the #2 ranked defending national champions, and the selection committee clearly didn't give a shit either since Ole Miss opened at #4 and ND way down at #10. I mean, if LSU is so good that Ole Miss basically didn't get penalized at all for losing to them and are still eminently in the national title hunt (well, maybe not after losing this week too), why isn't LSU ranked higher? Because they aren't that good. Maybe Ole Miss isn't either.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State went from unranked to literally #1 in the span of three weeks. Sure, they had some good wins but it turns out LSU really is just okay and A&M is actually pretty fucking bad, so they haven't really accomplished a whole lot more than FSU (or anyone else). They beat Auburn; FSU beat ND. Of course, FSU is also the defending national champs and Miss State is... well, they've never been good. Ever. And suddenly they're #1 in the country, over the undefeated defending national champions who have a history of success (both historical and recent), because they beat Auburn? Boy, I'm convinced! That said, being the only other good undefeated team (sorry Marshall), I wouldn't be so bothered if they were simply #2. But they're #1 because SEC bias.

And I'm not even going to go into blatant SEC bias of the recent past. (Snippets: Bama getting the rematch but not Michigan, LSU being the only two-loss "champion" in history.) At the moment it looks like the SEC should have multiple teams in the playoff anyway but the bias doesn't hurt. State and Auburn are locks but the SEC dicksucking might be what gets Bama chosen over any of their worthy, non-SEC competition for the #4 seed.

Of course, we've still got 3-4 more games for everybody to see how things shake out.
 
These last few weeks are crucial for every team in the running. one bad game could spell the end for any of the really. also, about ole miss only falling a little bit, they were transitioning from the AP system of ranking to the new one (or something like that, i swear this crap gets more confusing each year) so that could have some part to it. with ole miss losing again this week, hopefully now we will really be able to tell how this new system treats quality losses
 
The ranking system is inherently flawed for too many reasons to describe, but the #1 reason is probably because games are always based on the rankings of the teams at the time of the game, and never in retrospect.

Take Mississippi State, for example; as of today's AP poll, LSU and Texas A&M are #14 and unranked, but when Mississippi state beat them they were #8 and #6. Auburn is #3 and was #2. An undefeated team that has beaten 3 top 10 teams should be #1, period, if you do the rankings every week like the AP poll does. The BCS/whatever they call the new poll is much better because it waits until midseason to start doing polls, but the issue is that most of the voters are biased thanks to the weekly AP/Coaches polls anyway.

Notre Dame dropped from #5 to #7 in the AP poll after (barely) losing to FSU. Ole Miss dropped from #3 to #7 in the AP poll after losing to LSU (Notre Dame was #6). The difference is in the playoff rankings, where Ole Miss was (inexplicably) still ranked #4 compared to Notre Dame's #10.
 

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
CAN WE DROP THIS STALE ASS TOPIC THAT EXISTS ON EVERY FUCKING INTERNET FORUM RIGHT NOW? IF WE WANTED TO HEAR THIS SHIT, WE WOULDNT BE HERE!

Seriously can we talk about the teams instead of how objective the rankings are?

K-state is such a question mark. They should have beaten auburn, and they have played very well against other teams in the conference.
Wvu is the most underrated team in the entore country hands down. You look at what they have done and can be nothing but impressed.
 
xJownage has a point. In terms of team i agree that WVu is the most underrated, they almost beat bama, took down baylor and lost to TCu by a last second field goal. The most overrated team imo is FSu. I know im gonna get flak for that but they almost lost everytime they had even a slight challenge. Clemson has done nothing this year and they almost beat them, notre dame barely wins their games, somehow got to #5 and barely lost on a controversial penalty (although i believe it was the right call). For the rest of their season the only possible challenges they have are florida and the ACC championship. And although florida's win over georgia gives me hope, i still doubt it will happen. It really bugs me that some team's schedule almost gives them a free pass to the playoffs, while teams like TCU, WVu, and the entire SEC have to fight for their lives every week. FSu will be in the playoffs, and they will lose in the first round. Last year id say they deserved to be in the championship, this year not so much. Now to put up the flame shield...
 

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
While I am an FSU fan, I do agree with your points of why you believe FSU is overrated.

I think they are a different type of team, and we have seen these teams have success at many levels before. We know they go down early to a lot of teams and persevere and win. The most prevalent example of teams like this being BETTER than those that just plow over everybody was the 2006 colts, who fought for every win and grabbed Peyton Manning's only ring *as a team*. This happens in college as well. I think this is a good team that people circle and act as if this is the one game of the year they will leave everything on the field. This is the only really good non-sec team so everybody targets them and goes after them. The result is that they quickly pile on during the first half, as the positive energy is so overwhelming, but in the second half the better team ends up prevailing.


I am SICK of hearing about people saying that notre dame shouldn't have fallen as much as ole miss (pre this week). Notre Dame won against a bunch of mediocre squads. Thats literally it. Prior to the FSU game, their best win was vs stanford (#14 at the time), who we now know is mediocre at best. The rest of their wins were unimpressive against lackluster teams that you can't trust.

People are talking about how bad A&M is, but what you don't realize is that the only teams they lost to were SEC TEAMS. So shut up.
 
BUT NOTRE DAME PLAYS THE TOUGHEST SCHEDULE EVERY SINGLE YEAR, AND THE STRICT ACADEMIC ADMISSIONS MAKE CROOTIN' VERY DIFFICULT. THEY SHOULD GET MORE RESPECT!!1!!!

*Looks at ND's sched, sees Rice and Stanford as only teams with winning records that were defeated*

People are talking about how bad A&M is, but what you don't realize is that the only teams they lost to were SEC TEAMS. So shut up.
A&M went full retard against ULM and almost lost though. They're gonna get eviscerated by (F)AU this weekend.

As a Bama fan though, ULM brings back bad memories :(
 

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