NCAA FOOTBALL 2024 MEGA THREAD - WELCOME TO THE PLAYOFF ERA
Just 8 days until Florida State plays Georgia Tech!
A lot happened while you were away:
Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC
The Pac-12 went out in a blaze of glory:
Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA are headed to the B1G
Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado are headed to the B12
Cal and Stanford along with SMU are somehow headed to the ACC
Poor old Wazzu and Oregon State are now aligned with the MWC in some sort of in-flux relationship
The conferences are huge now, and the schedules are wildly imbalanced. Florida might have the hardest schedule in the history of the sport, while Missouri's playing a sun-belt slate.
FSU and Clemson play each other, but then play ZERO common ACC opponents
Utah/Baylor and Arizona/Kansas State play non-conference games against conference opponents
LSU and USC play in Vegas!
Boise goes to Oregon, a team they've never lost to!
Texas at Michigan!
Alabama at Wisconsin!
Notre Dame at ATM!
Clemson vs Georgia!
And there are some incredibly juicy new conference matchups:
Texas @ ATM is back!
Texas vs Georgia
Oregon vs Ohio State
USC @ Michigan
USC vs Penn State
And then the bizarre:
UCLA @ Rutgers is now a conference game
Syracuse plays home and away against Cal and Stanford for some reason
Half the teams have new coaches, transferred quarterbacks, or both!
Let's get it on!
GoldenBears nailed it. Nice job!!
They need to go top 12 next year.
Surprised that nobody really tackled the question that if you are arguing between team 12 and 13, that you had all year not to put yourself in that position, and that you now have to let the committee decide your fate.
That Tennessee/OSU/Oregon slot is nasty.
It’s the same format next year with auto bids. 2026 is the next time they can change the format
So for Ohio State to win it all they have to beat Tennessee, Oregon, and probably Texas and Georgia.
I am very happy right now.
The committy is racist against Alabama
Son is in the ND student lottery for $35.
Was gonna look at going to meet him there but cheapest is $1100. Obv the Indiana locals are gonna push the price up. Happy to watch on TV.
PSU was available at +1500 all morning even as the sportsbook odds of them getting the 6 seed were heating up. Maxed it everywhere
GoldenBears nailed it. Nice job!!
They need to go top 12 next year.
Surprised that nobody really tackled the question that if you are arguing between team 12 and 13, that you had all year not to put yourself in that position, and that you now have to let the committee decide your fate.
That Tennessee/OSU/Oregon slot is nasty.
TYTY
That 12/13 point has actually been a very common talking point for the last year. Totally plausible that the first team out gets totally screwed vis a vis the last team in, but it's almost certain that the last team out also had plenty of opportunities to make it in. I.e. no more 13-0 FSU's getting left out. Bama... don't lose to two 6-6 teams and get absolutely boatraced by one of them. SMU... Miami... don't BOTH fail to beat anybody good AND ALSO lose your last game to syracuse
But they didn't avoid rematches on purpose. The only possible one would be if they made OSU the 7, but that wouldn't make any sense.
I mean ND-OSU-PSU as 6-7-8 is totally reasonable in a vacuum ND has the fewest losses and OSU and PSU have the same number but OSU beat PSU in their own house and also has the best win over Indiana. I think this is what would've happened if PSU had lost 42-17 instead of losing an absolute battle.
But kudos to the committee to finally at least applying one consistent set of logic week to week. They said they wouldn't punish teams for losing close in the CCGs, and they held true to their word for all 3 teams who lost close in their CCG, dropping them all the absolute minimum.
So for Ohio State to win it all they have to beat Tennessee, Oregon, and probably Texas and Georgia.
I am very happy right now.
64% to play Texas, only 40% to face UGA, but yeah
Toughest possible path OSU could've drawn
100%
As a die-hard CFB fan whose teams are always and forever garbage, I am extremely excited to have an emotional rooting interest in the CFB playoffs, like March Madness.
Indiana, Boise and ASU are all extremely easy football teams to root for. Even Oregon has never won a title so they're still a bit of an outsider, and I have residual Pac-12 feelings for them.
I do get the sense that I would really dislike most SMU fans if I actually knew any, but I don't, and I really love the way they play football, so that's yet another strong rooting interest. (Plus I guess I am supposed to root for the ACC or whtaever)
Bama vs Michigan bowl game rematch lol
People say that Penn State has an easy path, but instead I'd say that Georgia has an easy path to the final because Penn State isn't particularly good either.
If Penn State does make it past their first two games, which is no guarantee, Georgia vs Drew Allar seems like a colossal mismatch.
We've not had 12 teams until now. This format is going to change soon anyway, but if SMU is held out, ranked teams will just refuse their invites if close loses in extra games suddenly matter more than loses to Vandy/OU
I still don't get the problem with just making the CCGs elimination games. Y'know, try to win instead of make it close. Refuse invite? You forfeit and are eliminated from the playoffs.
Seriously of all the pearl-clutching that's the easiest in the world to fix. Boom, you've just functionally accomplished playoff expansion instead of this weaksauce double-elimination for half the field. Now, skipping scheduling tough OOC games (at Wisconsin!) that we all actually want to see? Practically nothing anyone can do about that except actually give teams extra credit for having some balls.
Not that I mind SMU in particular since a) this was their first year in P4, b) BYU + TCU OOC is certainly not nothing, and c) they might just have the best player at the most important position (plus I would have leaned South Carolina over Bama/OleMiss due to going on a tear the back half instead of ****ing the bed. Also the only team to put margin on Vandy!).
Then you could have teams tanking to avoid the CCG.
I would have put ND ahead of PSU, but it looked like the Committee wanted to avoid a B1G matchup in the first round. PSU definitely has the best path to the semi’s.
ND has been ahead of PSU in the computers for the last couple of weeks and behind in the PC and polls. When the PC did not swap us after vastly different results against a common opponent, @Southern Cal, we were drawing very thin to an Oregon blowout win.
Logicially it should not have been different if Ohio State goes as expected and beats Michigan but loses a close one to Oregon. But I have a feeling it would be anOSU-ND-PSU because the Lions don't have their 2nd quality loss.
Does anyone know why they put UGA not in the Peach and ASU not in the Fiesta? All that I have read is a vague comment that the PC wants historical bowl ties.
I suspect it has something to do with being too much like a home game, but
*SEC champ went to the Sugar Bowl plus UGA's already played 2 games at Mercedes this year.
**Both would-be opponents are from a state in the Mississippi watershed, so they've got that connection.
*Fiesta like how far can you expect people from Idaho to travel? It's not like they can just hop in a river and end up somewhere.
**It's somewhat close for SMU and pretty inconvenient for Penn State.
GG Bears, excellent work as always. Don't feel too bad Devils facing Texas as long as Ewers is still at QB. Manning different story.
The auto byes completely fuck this thing. It didn't seem possible that they could come up with something that's an even dumber format than the previous decade's but here we are.
Seems fine to me
The auto byes completely **** this thing. It didn't seem possible that they could come up with something that's an even dumber format than the previous decade's but here we are.
Shouldn’t there be some incentive to win your conference and be highly ranked? A first round bye is that reward. Don’t see a problem with them. I think the second round should also be on campus. The teams with byes should be able to have a home game but their first game is at a bowl site. That’s stupid. More on campus playoff games would be great but it’s never happening because money
I'm on the sun devils bandwagon.
<3
PSU was available at +1500 all morning even as the sportsbook odds of them getting the 6 seed were heating up. Maxed it everywhere
TYTY
That 12/13 point has actually been a very common talking point for the last year. Totally plausible that the first team out gets totally screwed vis a vis the last team in, but it's almost certain that the last team out also had plenty of opportunities to make it in. I.e. no more 13-0 FSU's getting left out. Bama... don't lose to two 6-6 teams and get absolutely b
just be a thinkin' kind of man
you lust for the rich man's gold
forget all that
what you need in your soul is to be satisfied
