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!
Miami currently has no ranked teams on their schedule.
They could run the table, but lose the CG, and would likely be left out of a 12 team playoff.
literally zero point zero chance they are left out of the playoff at 12-1 non champ
In fact, they've got a very good shot to make it as 11-2 non champ
FIU's kicker wears a leg brace?
WTF, FIU again declines the offsides on the tying extra point?
lol FIU down 14 with 6 minutes left
scores a touchdown
incorrectly kicks the XP
GETS AN OFFSIDE ON THE XP, SO NOW THEY COULD GO FOR IT FROM THE 1
declines penalty
nobody notices or cares
lmao FIU scores a TD to tie it up (instead of take the lead) and Liberty is OFFSIDES AGAIN
They decline it
Announcers now discussing how FIU should've gone for it the second time bc of the offside, completely ignoring the strictly dominant decision to have done that on the TD prior
Are we seriously trying to judge if this guy's knee touched the ground before his other knee snapped?
FRIDAY
19:00:00 Memphis -6.5
19:00:00 South Florida 6.5
Both teams are 0-1 in the AAC, and with the hot starts that Army and Navy have gotten off to, this is probably an elimination game.
fwiw this game has been moved to Saturday...if it's played at all
lol FIU down 14 with 6 minutes left
scores a touchdown
incorrectly kicks the XP
GETS AN OFFSIDE ON THE XP, SO NOW THEY COULD GO FOR IT FROM THE 1
declines penalty
nobody notices or cares
lmao FIU scores a TD to tie it up (instead of take the lead) and Liberty is OFFSIDES AGAIN
They decline it
Announcers now discussing how FIU should've gone for it the second time bc of the offside, completely ignoring the strictly dominant decision to have done that on the TD prior
Annnnd it costs them the game as they lose in overtime
Do you know how much money you would have to spend on NIL to add the amount of win probability to your team that you could add just by getting the basic decisions right?? Wild stuff
I have faith in the committee, but if Liberty even sniffs the top-25 at 12-0 it will be such an incredible failure of the system
Jeanty is averaging 125 yards per game after contact, which would rank him 6th on the overall yards per game list. that's getting up there with Gretzky's assists alone finishing second in scoring during the '85-'86 season.
Ole Miss is a flip to go to the playoffs and their win total is even money at 9.5
So, pretty clearly Vegas implying they are 100% in at 10-2 and 100% out at 9-3. Makes sense.
If they lose to UGA, they'd have losses to UGA and Kentucky at home and wins over
@ LSU
v Oklahoma
@ Arkansas
@ USCe
@ Florida
Bama is -500, which makes sense.
Implies they are 100% at 10-2+ and about 40% to go at 9-3
Say they lose @ Tenn and @ LSU
They'd have two fine losses (those two) and one terrible loss (@ Vanderbilt)
They'd offset that with:
v Georgia
@ Oklahoma
v Mizzou
@ Wisconsin
I imagine the brand name and big UGA win gets them in.
Texas A&M at +120 doesn't make any sense to me
Their win total is 9.5 (+110 / -140) so more likely to go under. My numbers think even more so, and I have them at 68% u9.5
On top of that, I would think they're a DOG to go at 9-3
So far:
Lost to ND at home
Won McNeese at home
Won decisively at Florida
Barely beat Bowling Green at home
Barely beat Arkansas at home
Won decisively vs Mizzou at home
That's 1 quality win and one ok loss
the rest of their slate:
@ Miss State who is gonna finish like 2-10
LSU
@ South Carolina
New Mexico State
@ Auburn
vs Texas
So say they lose to LSU and Texas, they'd be 9-3, ending the season on a loss, and they'd have 1 decent win all season?
I don't think they are sniffing the playoffs
I unloaded on "no" at -150 and -154
Tennessee win total is 9.5 but skewed under. Only 38% to go over. I basically identical numbers
They play both Bama and Georgia, so going 10-2 means winning at least one of those games in addition to
@ Oklahoma
Kentucky
Florida
Their resume is actually pretty light, since NC State turned out to be totally awful, and they also play UTEP, Chattanooga, Kent State and Mississippi State.
Nonetheless, Bama and Georgia are going to get so much cred, beating one of them and going 10-2 is definitely enough to make it.
But, they're being priced at 48% to playoff, which means 10-2+ is a lock and 9-3 they go about 22% of the time.
I assume if they lose to both UGA and Bama, they would be out, and the best case scenario is something like losing to UF and Bama in their next two games to fall to 4-3 and probably out of the rankings, then ripping off 5 straight wins v Kentucky, v Miss St, @ Georgia, v UTEP and @ Vandy
I think 22% at 9-3 is probably too high, but it's not absolutely insane, it's possible I am underrating how much the committee will like a team that is 9-3, with no quality wins, a couple quality losses and a good power rating relative to somebody like 10-2 SMU who also has no quality wins and a much worse power rating
where my real sickos at?
watching this dumpster fire, but hey CFB on a wednesday is CFB on a wednesday
Not much at stake in the three games tonight
JMU is the sun belt co-favorite and won 70-50 @ North Carolina, but is a longshot for the G5 title after losing to UL-Monroe last week. If they run the table, I think they're ahead of undefeated Liberty, but any two-loss MWC champ is ahead of them and they're also probably behind two-loss Memphis/NavyArmy and probably behind a three loss Tulane team is my guess.
Coastal lost Chadwell to Liberty and McCall to NC State, but is off to a 4-1 start, losing to UVA at home.
If JMU loses, their SBC odds will take a pretty catastrophic hit, and Coastal would leap into first in the division.
Tomorrow:
Utah @ ASU is a big game. Both teams are 4-1. ASU has been one of the most improved teams this season. They beat Wyoming by 41, won @ Texas State which is actually pretty solid, and beat Mississippi State and Kansas at home. Their only loss is by 8 on the road at TT.
Cam Rising has been "probable" for the last 2 or 3 games for Utah and yet never seems to actually play, and boy do they really need him.
11 of the 16 teams in the B12 are still extremely live to win the conference.
Maryland and Northwestern are both 0-2 and not playing for much other than pride and bowl eligibility
UNLV @ Utah State is obviously a very important game for G5 playoff considerations, but also unlikely to be close. Hopefully UNLV bounces back from their heartbreaking loss to Cuse last Friday.
Best games by time slot on Saturday.
Looks like you can sleep in late, but don't make any plans for the evening!
12
Washington @ Iowa
USCe @ 7 Alabama
Wisconsin @ Rutgers
GT @ UNC
3:30
1 Texas n 18 Oklahoma
4 Penn State @ USC
Arizona @ 14 BYU
Cal @ 22 Pitt
Louisville @ UVA
Cincy @ UCF
7
2 Ohio State @ 3 Oregon
9 Ole Miss @ 13 LSU
11 Iowa State @ WVU
Florida @ 8 Tennessee
Wazzu @ Fresno
Vanderbilt @ Kentucky
10
18 K State @ Colorado
One of my TVs will be locked on the Vandy/KY Game of the Week!
Diego Pavia Mania is REAL!
:spoiler: Vandy probably loses by 30, but who cares
Proof that people that went to A&M have more money than cents.
It's early, but both Texas and Texas A&M remain relevant playoff contenders, and with that comes a price. A very high one, actually.
The Lone Star Showdown, where the two in-state rivals will face each other for the first time since 2011 on Saturday, Nov. 30 at Kyle Field, remains an expensive ticket on both StubHub and Ticketmaster. The cheapest seats for the game as of 11 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 10 are $613 per person on SeatGeek and $664 on Ticketmaster. That's a slight increase from early September, which were $549 and $623 respectively.
The most expensive seats are in the Legacy Club for $9,343 per person, according to SeatGeek. Suite seats for the Lettermen's Club are going for $12,020 on Ticketmaster.
Old man shaking hands at clouds remembering when he camped out overnight to get $5 student tickets in the lower level.
Proof that people that went to A&M have more money than cents.
Old man shaking hands at clouds remembering when he camped out overnight to get $5 student tickets in the lower level.
I did not realize they had not played each other for that long.
Probably about the time you were paying for those $5 tickets, a couple of golfing buddies of mine were paying $40k/yr each for primo parking spots for A&M home games.
This LaTech qb has 4 tds on 7 completions for 96 yards passing. Early 2nd quarter...
Looks like I picked the wrong night to start sniffing unders
question for you as I think u follow the SBC?
I have been riding the James Madison gravy train this season. The only speed bump is when they at played UL Monroe as a -16 fav last week. I bet JM and almost drove off of the road when I saw they had only scored 19 pts. into the 4th qtr. (honestly I was expecting them to win like 56-14ish)
UL Monroe is 4-1(!) with a completely new coach and players. Are they a legit -6.5 fav vs. Southern Miss, who seem to be amongst the worst FBS teams in 2024?