College Football - Week 14 (Nov. 29)

[cwood218]

If CAL beats SMU then Duke is in the ACC title game. LOL.

Currently CAL is up 17-7.

Edited November 30, 2025 by cwood218

[soccer10k]

Bama was up 17-0 in the second quarter but because no Iron Bowl at Auburn can be normal, it's now 20-20. Bama's offense doesn't look great either.

[bukie]

Cal blew a 17 point 4th quarter lead to prevent the funniest outcome because of course they did, now they have 2 minutes left to preserve the hilarity.

[soccer10k]

With how the Iron Bowls at Auburn usually are, I'm fully expecting Auburn to score here and the game to come down to a 2-point conversion.

[soccer10k]

8 minutes ago, bukie said:

Cal blew a 17 point 4th quarter lead to prevent the funniest outcome because of course they did, now they have 2 minutes left to preserve the hilarity.

Cal with a 1st and goal.

[bukie]

8 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

Cal with a 1st and goal.

Cal scored with 40 seconds left, now SMU driving, at the Cal 40 with 16 seconds left.

[cwood218]

Duke is one win away from sending a second group of five team to the playoff.

[bukie]

The ACC championship will be played between a team that lost 2 ACC games but only one counted, and a team that won a SOV tiebreaker because a California team beat a Texas team at the last second.

[BigSlick]

The biggest casualty of the CFP aren’t regular season games, it’s conference championship games, which now are often pointless. If you can lose the conf championship and still make the playoffs and win the NC, what’s the point? Never loved conference championship games anyway. 
 

Ohio State v Michigan will always matter because it’s horsefeathers Ohio State v Michigan. Same with most other rivalry games. 

there are downsides to having a playoff system but the upsides are: you get a lot more meaningful fun football and you don’t have to live through excruciating debates about who the best 1, 2 or 4 teams are - you see it on the field. Which is the best and most fair system. 

 

[Andy]

33 minutes ago, BigSlick said:

The biggest casualty of the CFP aren’t regular season games, it’s conference championship games, which now are often pointless. If you can lose the conf championship and still make the playoffs and win the NC, what’s the point? Never loved conference championship games anyway. 

 

CCGs now are just silly nonsense. Five teams tied for 2nd place in the ACC with 6-2 records, and Duke went 0-2 against the other 4. And yet they advance to the conference title game. If whatever the hell that tiebreaker is was replaced with 'highest CFP ranking,' Miami is in the game and has a chance to play their way into or out of the field, but instead 7-5 Duke is in it. It's so stupid.

Same with the other ones. It's the MAC so no one cares, but Ohio beat both of the other 2 teams they tied with for 2nd place in the league at 6-2 and they don't get to play in the title game. The Mountain West has to determine their title game matchup by SportSource analytics or some crap because 4 teams tied at 6-2. Four teams tied at 7-1 in the SEC and we ended up with a matchup of 2 teams that already played each other in a league that already features too few intraconference matchups (A&M never played any of the other 3).

And this is the system we're using to determine nearly half the CFP field.

Edited November 30, 2025 by Andy

[gflore34]

Illini finish at 8-4, will get a decent bowl bid in which Jacas and maybe, Bailey, and a few others, won't play.  Doesn't matter, it's the extra practices a bowl bid affords that are important.  Still, a somewhat disappointing season, OL never fulfilled it's promise.  There were hints in the very first game of the season, Western Illinois generated some pressure and sacked Luke Altmyer 3 times.  Then the disaster at Indiana, towards the end of that game, Indiana only rushed 3 the OL still couldn't keep Luke clean.  These last few games they couldn't run block worth a horsefeathers.  Bielema might now regret going to such lengths to keep the OL together instead of getting a start on the future.

[I owned a Suzuki]

8 hours ago, BigSlick said:

The biggest casualty of the CFP aren’t regular season games, it’s conference championship games, which now are often pointless. If you can lose the conf championship and still make the playoffs and win the NC, what’s the point? Never loved conference championship games anyway. 
 

Ohio State v Michigan will always matter because it’s horsefeathers Ohio State v Michigan. Same with most other rivalry games. 

there are downsides to having a playoff system but the upsides are: you get a lot more meaningful fun football and you don’t have to live through excruciating debates about who the best 1, 2 or 4 teams are - you see it on the field. Which is the best and most fair system. 

 

Ultimately I am for the CFP. Really my thing is I get tired of the debates about which borderline team should be in. I have a problem with anyone saying team X got screwed. Were they possibly more deserving? Maybe. But your 2 or 3 losses make it hard for me to say it was an outrage. Of course since Michigan St is so far away from it, my excitement level is probably not that great.

[CubinNY]

15 minutes ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

Ultimately I am for the CFP. Really my thing is I get tired of the debates about which borderline team should be in. I have a problem with anyone saying team X got screwed. Were they possibly more deserving? Maybe. But your 2 or 3 losses make it hard for me to say it was an outrage. Of course since Michigan St is so far away from it, my excitement level is probably not that great.

It’s a system problem. In other sports the talent distribution is flatter. I’m college football it’s concentrated. Every year there are a handful of teams in each conference that are better than everyone else. 
 

But (at least right now) the talent is getting more distributed with NIL money. One way to fix it would be to cap NIL funding and distribute more money from conferences to schools so each school has the ability to compete. Does anyone think that will happen, ever? 
 

So it’s probably best to scrap the whole system and use some sort of soccer style tier system and have the handful of good teams play each other during the regular season to see who gets into a playoff. Big10 teams beating up MAC schools and SEC schools beating The likes of Troy and Southern Miss are no fun. Most weeks there are one or two games worth watching in the major conferences. And some weeks there are none. 

[Wilson A2000]

52 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

It’s a system problem. In other sports the talent distribution is flatter. I’m college football it’s concentrated. Every year there are a handful of teams in each conference that are better than everyone else. 
 

But (at least right now) the talent is getting more distributed with NIL money. One way to fix it would be to cap NIL funding and distribute more money from conferences to schools so each school has the ability to compete. Does anyone think that will happen, ever? 
 

So it’s probably best to scrap the whole system and use some sort of soccer style tier system and have the handful of good teams play each other during the regular season to see who gets into a playoff. Big10 teams beating up MAC schools and SEC schools beating The likes of Troy and Southern Miss are no fun. Most weeks there are one or two games worth watching in the major conferences. And some weeks there are none. 

Most weeks there are 1 or 2 games worth watching in the major conferences? No way, there’s more than that.

Edited November 30, 2025 by Wilson A2000

[I owned a Suzuki]

I understand that College Football is a slimy business, but this Lane Kiffon drama reads even worse than most slimy college football business

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/lane-kiffin-live-updates-ole-miss-lsu-decision-analysis/live/

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

I understand that College Football is a slimy business, but this Lane Kiffon drama reads even worse than most slimy college football business

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/lane-kiffin-live-updates-ole-miss-lsu-decision-analysis/live/

I thought the “he’ll have a decision in four days” stuff or whatever was really weird. Like that pretty much means you’re going to leave. Because if he was going to stay he would have agreed to a contract extension. And Ole Miss is in the playoff so you’re interrupting the season regardless (as opposed to if it happened after the regular season but before a bowl game).

[bukie]

35 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

I thought the “he’ll have a decision in four days” stuff or whatever was really weird. Like that pretty much means you’re going to leave. Because if he was going to stay he would have agreed to a contract extension. And Ole Miss is in the playoff so you’re interrupting the season regardless (as opposed to if it happened after the regular season but before a bowl game).

The only thing that changed the last 4 days was Alabama won, so Ole Miss didn't make the SEC championship. 

[CubinNY]

Apparently, if you believe the reports, Kiffin was trying to make a deal to coach the team through the playoff and the administration wanted him gone. That’s admirable. Also if you believe the reports, Kiffin was trying to take most of his coaching staff with him and the administration was paying them extra to stay… So, who knows. 

Edited November 30, 2025 by CubinNY

[I owned a Suzuki]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

Apparently, if you believe the reports, Kiffin was trying to make a deal to coach the team through the playoff and the administration wanted him gone. That’s admirable. Also if you believe the reports, Kiffin was trying to take most of his coaching staff with him and the administration was paying them extra to stay… So, who knows. 

Bold move trying to coach the playoffs. I think Ole Miss may get my rooting interest. 

[Derwood]

I don't know how to fix it, but the coaching carousel (and the transfer portal) happening in the middle of the postseason is terrible and needs to be addressed

[I owned a Suzuki]

1 hour ago, Derwood said:

I don't know how to fix it, but the coaching carousel (and the transfer portal) happening in the middle of the postseason is terrible and needs to be addressed

Probably the only way to fix it is make the letter of intent day earlier and make them much more binding. I am guessing the portal is when it is because of educational reasons. Hard to move that

[Derwood]

2 hours ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

Probably the only way to fix it is make the letter of intent day earlier and make them much more binding. I am guessing the portal is when it is because of educational reasons. Hard to move that

It's not educational reasons per se, it's "we need them registered for the spring courses in order to have them in spring practices", which is only tangentially educational

[I owned a Suzuki]

As an MSU fan I really like the Fitzgerald hire. I get the issues, but I suspect he has probably learned his lesson if there were any. I really suspect he will give Michigan fits similar to Dantonio.

[Rex Buckingham]

MSU and Fitzgerald deserve each other... bunch of scumbags that look the other way and act like they didn't know what was happening right under their noses

[Old Style]

1 hour ago, Rex Buckingham said:

MSU and Fitzgerald deserve each other... bunch of scumbags that look the other way and act like they didn't know what was happening right under their noses

So you’re saying Penn State would have been a good fit too?