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!
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?
I would sooner file my taxes honestly than to bet on Louisiana Monroe as a favorite.
Granted I did not see them coming preseason at all. Was pretty impressed at how they played against Texas, just by not getting blown off the ball and kept grinding. I like LaMo's "slow the game down" factor and pass rush (I mean, they got pressure on Arch Manning). Took them as a huge dog against Troy and JMU but...
Well I'm on Southern Miss but it was early +7 (wasn't going to take them any lower) and +245 mL, and before I'd watched the JMU game. My numbers would favor ULM by less than a field goal and I liked how Southern Miss looked off the bye against LaLa (an actual good offense).
Eh...then I watched the JMU game and LaMo really threw them a curveball by passing all the time--who would have guessed because it was a facet they had previously appeared completely incompetent at the 25% of the time they tried it and that was before they'd made it down to their third stringer (not injuries, benched for being bad). Got a couple of good breaks but played with a lot of heart and smart coaching until the last 5 minutes.
Great plan and signature win but now it's on film and how many more surprises have they got, you know? USM had a weird UNLV-but-just-for-drama thing with qbs but at least now the starter's been getting more reps in practice.
I'm more down on JMU than you; had an 8-1 turnover advantage in those two big crush games and 2-1 in each of the last two and their FCS game was way too close. Seems like their qb got a hot hand but has cooled off lately. I'd be wary of any opponent with a good pass rush (but congratulations on being in the Sun Belt!) and that turnover luck swinging.
ty 👍
JMU outplayed ULM pretty decisively, 399 yards to 257 and 4.9ypp to 4.3
ULM's defense is insanely improved
They've played jackson state, UAB, @ Texas, @ Troy and JMU and held them to 5.0 ypp.
That's not bad!
But yeah, they are running hotter than the sun.
They've been outgained 1701 yards to 1257 at 5.0ypp to 4.47 and yet they are 4-1
Even if you throw out the Texas game, they've been outgained 1204-1136, although have the YPP edge 4.96 to 4.67
By all measures this team should be 2-3 not 4-1 (which is a big improvement! They were 2-10 last year!)
Ya'll ready for some football??
Just fired up Northwestern-Maryland, decided to go with the 'feels like being whacked with a blunt instrument for hours' theme.
Yo!
I know nothing about Maryland or Northwestern but since I have a Maryland shirt I figured this is a good time to try my "this year every team who's shirt I wear is cursed" theory/observation. Critical 'cause I'm thinking about wearing my Hawaii shirt tomorrow but I'm on their team total.
Looking like "no" and maybe I should find a South Florida shirt just to be on the safe side.
Wow. Has anyone ever seen a kickoff bounce forward from the one like that?
Last five minutes of this bama game have been hysterical
Oh cmon scar
lolabama
Tide really dealing the LOLs
We're all watching UW Iowa right?
Colossally stupid coaching. Why even bother taking the TO to run a 3rd and 20 from midfield with only :10 left in the half? Just take it into the locker room, you stooge.
If someone challenges you to take a shot every time the Bama SCar announcers say the word, "Vanderbilt" I advise passing or at least keeping a scorecard.
Totlaaly unrelated; I'm going to go take a nap now.
High Tide
Jalen Milrooohhhhh
Scar has no interest in actually winning this game. Just trying to tease a bit.
Followed immediately by USCar doing a dumb
Is there invisible rain falling?
So you're saying there's a chance
Way to roll over, gamecocks.
announcers didn't mention how the Bama receiver should have gone down at the 1?
not that it matters, lol ***** not chucking it downfield on a free play
That looks like a touchdown
