Andy

The committee is going to make this thing an SEC vs Clemson Invitational every year going forward and the sad thing is I can't even argue too much with them

It's interesting, because neither team has faced an opponent that could really threaten them talent wise since September. It might come down to who adjusts to the higher level of play quickest (Dabo is a better coach than Kelly, so that idea doesn't fire me up much). Common opponents don't reveal much. Of the 4, both teams blew out 2 (Clemson's margins were bigger but I'm not totally sure how much it matters beyond 4-TD spreads), while ND was way better vs Syracuse and Clemson was way better vs Pitt. Both teams have really good defensive lines (Clemson's is ridiculous), so whichever QB is able to work around the pressure might have the advantage. Book has been really good at adjusting to what he sees from defenses. I can't speak to Lawrence, but I'm guessing he hasn't seen a ton of pressure. I'll be interested to see what ND's DC decides to do against him. I love both of ND's coordinators, they've done a tremendous job figuring teams out in-game all year. I expect it to be a pretty good game and if I were forced to bet the line (10.5-12) I'd take ND. This isn't 2012 - the Irish have a much more complete team than that one, and this Clemson team isn't the death machine that that Bama team was. I think Clemson will win but I'd obviously love to be surprised. You horsefeathering idiot

If not for an inept kicker the first couple weeks, they'd have made the playoffs this year. Crazy.

Magary got really horsefeathering plastered and almost died of asphyxiation.

He's broken and pretty much has been since 2016.

Unless Carolina can say with 150% certainty that this version of Cam is completely the result of a repairable shoulder injury, it's probably time to think hard about who the next QB is going to be. He's 30, so he's not gonna be getting any better.

I sort of feel bad for Rivera, who is a pretty good coach and will absolutely be fired for losing 8 in a row to end the season

You aren't the first to bring up that kind of seedings proposal, and I just find it ridiculous that anyone would seed a better team behind a worse one for no apparent reason other than 'hey, these guys aren't playing by our rules, screw them'. If you're going to have this system, seed the teams correctly. And if you want ND out of the playoff, as I assume you do, you should be thrilled they're independent. Their schedule is almost always more difficult as it is than it would be in the ACC. 2 of their 3 best wins this year, Michigan and Northwestern, aren't on the schedule if they're in the ACC. Instead, in this scenario, they're playing like Virginia and North Carolina or something. I don't understand how that change makes them worthy of a higher seed. I don’t want ND out of the playoff. They are certainly worthy. How is seeding conference winners higher as a benefit of winning their conference different than seeding the abraves and dodgers ahead of the Cubs because the Cubs didn’t win the central? I guess it’s possible that you don’t like that too but no one seems to throw a huge fit about it in general. Just like in baseball a team plays the large majority of their games against their conference/division so there should be some weight to conference champ I don't like it, but it's baseball, where home field means little to nothing, and it's a best-of-5 and not a best-of-1. That's not a relevant comparison. I'm perfectly fine factoring in conference championships when seeding, but there's no reason it should overrule such a drastic difference in resumes as the one between Notre Dame and Washington this year. Clemson is a #2 seed and shouldn't have to play a better team in the first round than the #4 seed just because one of them played in a terrible conference and the other didn't.

That sounds right. I think every power conference except the Pac-12 has a rule about playing a Power 5 opponent out of conference, and most Pac-12 teams end up playing one anyway.

I completely agree. Unfortunately nobody else seems to. Georgia only played 9. Alabama only ever plays 9. ND, unfortunately, only plays 9 next season, but with @ Georgia, @ Michigan and @ Stanford on the schedule I doubt they're going to be in playoff contention anyway.

They're literally the only team in the Power 5 that pretty much isn't allowed to lose a game. Everyone else gets a freebie extra game at the end if they're good enough to be in contention. I'd say that's plenty enough of a disadvantage without rigging the seedings of a playoff for no real reason. Clemson should get to play a Washington or something in the 1st round of this thing rather than an unbeaten team Wouldnt you rather fix the former problem rather than the latter? You seem to be upset about the seedings proposal but both problems would be fixed if you just joined the damn ACC like all of your other sports. You aren't the first to bring up that kind of seedings proposal, and I just find it ridiculous that anyone would seed a better team behind a worse one for no apparent reason other than 'hey, these guys aren't playing by our rules, screw them'. If you're going to have this system, seed the teams correctly. And if you want ND out of the playoff, as I assume you do, you should be thrilled they're independent. Their schedule is almost always more difficult as it is than it would be in the ACC. 2 of their 3 best wins this year, Michigan and Northwestern, aren't on the schedule if they're in the ACC. Instead, in this scenario, they're playing like Virginia and North Carolina or something. I don't understand how that change makes them worthy of a higher seed.

Wouldnt you rather fix the former problem rather than the latter? You seem to be upset about the seedings proposal but both problems would be fixed if you just joined the damn ACC like all of your other sports. Actually, I believe at least one of their sports (I forget what, though) is in the Big10 It's hockey - ACC doesn't have hockey and they were an awkward fit in Hockey East, which is made up entirely of New England schools.

For the horsefeathering life of me I don't understand the 'let's screw over ND for no reason to make them join a conference' attitude that permeates everybody. ND played 10 Power 5 teams this year, which is at least as many as the vast majority of any other Power 5 teams played (Clemson played 11 and I think Ohio State did too, but rarely does anyone play more than 10). Why does it matter if ND's 10 happen to be in 4 or 5 different conferences rather than a maximum of 2? Why does that justify seeding horsefeathering Washington, they of the 8-3 record against Power 5 teams, over an ND team that went 10-0 against them? Here's a looney-tunes idea: If you're going to have 8, seed them in order of how good they are, not based on some stupid arbitrary distinction like 'they won their TV cartel's championship'. Of course, the only reason we're even going to get 8 is because some conferences are pissed off they're not getting enough preferential treatment, so I expect your idea will take hold somehow. lol I just think if we have this conference setup and all but 4 teams (I think) play in a division that leads to a championship, that championship should mean something. In basketball its an autobid to the NCAA tournament. Same thing here (at least for P5). It's just stupid to make some special accommodations for basically 1 team because they just have to play Navy every year. If you want to be different for the sake of tradition fine, but since the rest of college football plays under different rules you might get screwed somehow. They're literally the only team in the Power 5 that pretty much isn't allowed to lose a game. Everyone else gets a freebie extra game at the end if they're good enough to be in contention. I'd say that's plenty enough of a disadvantage without rigging the seedings of a playoff for no real reason. Clemson should get to play a Washington or something in the 1st round of this thing rather than an unbeaten team

Yeah I love going this route and that structure. I would put some sort of condition though that the G5 team has to be in the top 20 or something to get a bid, otherwise its a 3rd at large team. I realize that this could make it so that the committee can artificially rank a G5 team lower to keep them out of the playoff, but I think top 20 is enough of a cushion where if an undefeated UCF wasn't in the top 20 it would cause significant uproar. Also doing so ensures that the G5 teams are still incentivized to seek out non-conference games against P5 teams. I would also seed the P5 champs and G5 team 1-6 and the wild cards automatically 7-8. If you don't want to play Bama in the first round, win your conference. Also, ND doesn't want to be seeded 7th or 8th or thinks its unfair that they have less of a chance of making it to the playoff? Join a conference fully. Also your scenario didn't include a Pac-12 team. My scenario would look like this: 8 Georgia vs. 1 Alabama 7 Notre Dame vs. 2 Clemson 6 UCF vs. 3 Oklahoma 5 Washington vs. 4 Ohio State For the horsefeathering life of me I don't understand the 'let's screw over ND for no reason to make them join a conference' attitude that permeates everybody. ND played 10 Power 5 teams this year, which is at least as many as the vast majority of any other Power 5 teams played (Clemson played 11 and I think Ohio State did too, but rarely does anyone play more than 10). Why does it matter if ND's 10 happen to be in 4 or 5 different conferences rather than a maximum of 2? Why does that justify seeding horsefeathering Washington, they of the 8-3 record against Power 5 teams, over an ND team that went 10-0 against them? Here's a looney-tunes idea: If you're going to have 8, seed them in order of how good they are, not based on some stupid arbitrary distinction like 'they won their TV cartel's championship'. Of course, the only reason we're even going to get 8 is because some conferences are pissed off they're not getting enough preferential treatment, so I expect your idea will take hold somehow.

Ron Rivera is getting fired. They might as well get rid of Cam too. He has the look of a guy that's on the precipice of free falling from mediocre to completely useless. That Miami play was absolutely insane.

This hypothetical doesn't account for the fact that even when the offense was good, there was extreme variability from game to game. Average runs per game are misleading when the standard deviation is massive. I haven't bothered to run the numbers, but the variability has got to be far bigger than normal. The sheer volume of runs the team scored on the days the the offense was on, masks overall problems with the offense when looking backward. I’d really like to see these numbers actually since it’s been a topic we often discuss and find out if the offense is really all that volatile and varies that much compared to other teams. I feel like on surface every teams fans thinks their offense isn’t “consistent” enough. The numbers would be very interesting to see if that’s actually the case if someone wants to take the time to run them, because I’m not aware of a site or stat that tracks it. My gut feeling is we don’t vary all that differently from other teams and most teams don’t just score 3-4 runs a game all that much more consistently than us (if we’re assuming around there is the magical being consistent number) most teams probably cluster around 2 or less and 5 or more. Sharma took a look at this last summer and the 2018 Cubs were abnormally inconsistent.

Every Cub fan goes right to Darvish as a big mistake, but at least he'd been pretty healthy post-TJS. Signing walking medical bill Morrow is looking dumber by the day.

I'm never going to complain about the Chapman trade because we won the title, but he paid like 130 cents on the dollar for him too.

Yep. I've never seen a more dominant team in my life. They are exceptional on both sides of the ball. Oddly, the 2016 Bama team that didn't quite finish the job in the title game is the highest-rated in the short history (since 2005) of Bill Connelly's S&P+ metric, by a pretty wide margin too - the difference between Bama '16 and second-place OU '08 is slightly bigger than the difference between OU '08 and 10th place, which is this year's Clemson. This Bama team is fourth, tied with '05 USC (Florida '08 was third). Also oddly, every playoff team this year has a better S&P+ rating so far than any playoff team last year.

That was great reporting by Darnell Mayberry. GarPax should be out on their asses too, but the firing makes more sense now.

The semifinals have been mostly ass in the playoff era (last year's Rose Bowl a huge exception). I'd take the points in both these games, though. OU's defense is bad, but Bama just gave up 28 points in 3 quarters to Georgia before the Bulldogs collapsed, so the Sooners should be able to score enough to at least cover.

He has a great reputation as an offensive coach (he's only going to be their OC). It's a pretty decent gamble for SC. If it doesn't work everyone's fired anyway.

Fact that probably only interests me: Since Carolina is a virtual lock to go no better than 8-8 (there is no universe in which I see them beating New Orleans and they have to play them twice in 13 days to end the season), they are going to go their first 25 seasons of existence without consecutive winning records. Truly amazing.

No, this interim coach is Jim Boylen, different from the Jim Boylan that was interim head coach 10 years ago. Is this the worst run organization in pro sports? It's definitely on the short list, but I think the Bulls are safe from the top spot as long as the Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns, Sacramento Kings, Miami Marlins, and probably a couple others I'm forgetting are still around.

It's interesting, because neither team has faced an opponent that could really threaten them talent wise since September. It might come down to who adjusts to the higher level of play quickest (Dabo is a better coach than Kelly, so that idea doesn't fire me up much). Common opponents don't reveal much. Of the 4, both teams blew out 2 (Clemson's margins were bigger but I'm not totally sure how much it matters beyond 4-TD spreads), while ND was way better vs Syracuse and Clemson was way better vs Pitt. Both teams have really good defensive lines (Clemson's is ridiculous), so whichever QB is able to work around the pressure might have the advantage. Book has been really good at adjusting to what he sees from defenses. I can't speak to Lawrence, but I'm guessing he hasn't seen a ton of pressure. I'll be interested to see what ND's DC decides to do against him. I love both of ND's coordinators, they've done a tremendous job figuring teams out in-game all year. I expect it to be a pretty good game and if I were forced to bet the line (10.5-12) I'd take ND. This isn't 2012 - the Irish have a much more complete team than that one, and this Clemson team isn't the death machine that that Bama team was. I think Clemson will win but I'd obviously love to be surprised.