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!
Bears, does WVU give a **** tonight?
Hmm...appears I should have asked about the defense specifically.
Is Memphis this good, or WVU this bad?
lmao ****ing numb at this point
what an absolute insane ending
While we're here, how are you guys handicapping the lesser bowls. For that matter, the New Year's bowls that aren't part of the 12 team playoffs?
My first thought was to try and see which teams had the fewest players enter the portal, but last I checked there were 1800+ and I have no idea if they are backups moving to inferior teams because they want more playing time? Or they're good players being sniped by blue bloods and have no interest in playing in a bowl game. Or going to the NFL and don't want to get hurt.
Seems more impossible to have any sort of an edge than it already was. Normally I'd just lay off of these games with my local book, but I'm gonna be in Vegas for Christmas thru New Year's. Plan on spending a good amount of time in the sportsbook so I need some action.
Probably just flip a coin and call it good. 🙄 Any insight would be most helpful ��.
For example:
Mike Elko won’t have his total roster on Dec. 27 when Texas A&M tries to end its 2024 season with a bang against USC in the Las Vegas Bowl.
The Aggies head coach confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that senior defensive lineman Shemar Turner, and junior defensive linemen Shemar Stewart and Nic Scourton will opt out of the bowl game. Stewart and Scourton recently declared for next spring’s NFL Draft, so their opt-outs for the bowl game aren’t surprising. With Turner being a senior and the NFL Draft likely awaiting him, his decision wasn’t a shock either.
But...
So, Texas A&M will be hurting a bit along the defensive line against the Trojans in Sin City. But this hardly means there is some kind of mass exodus going on in College Station for the bowl game. In fact, it’s the opposite, with Elko also saying on Tuesday that he doesn’t expect any other opt-outs.
The Aggies went 8-4 in the regular season, winning 7 in a row after a season-opening loss to Notre Dame before losing 3 of their last 4. They clearly didn’t finish the regular season the right way, but Elko believes so many of his players are choosing to play in the bowl game because they want to finish the season the right way.
“It probably speaks to culture,” he said on Tuesday. “For some of our seniors, this is a chance for them to go out and have a big game against USC. … Our kids trust in the culture here.”
So loading up on the Aggies knowing nothing about USC. Seems like a solid plan. What could go wrong?
PFF has snap counts but it'll cost ya. Those guys are their 3 highest by a hundred snaps, both edges, and it doesn't look like they've played anyone outside the two deep on a 4-man front.
USC looks to be without 3 of the top 5 WRs and their 1,000 yard rb (who just happened to be receiver #6), plus are now using a boring qb.
I guess we call that a draw.
collegefootballnetwork has an opt-out tracker which seems behind random twitter by a day or two. Also random day-of articles.
Other than betting against coaching changes or over reactions, I'm mostly waiting for in-game. Great move betting the under after the first quarter last night, and I'm still smarting from Nate Noel opting out at halftime last year.
Reminds me of when I was visiting Iran and started having suicidal thoughts so I called the suicide hot line and the first question they asked me is if I knew how to drive a truck.
For a dad joke I'll give it a 6 out of 10. Passing grade!
Here are the real locks:
$80 parlay to win $3,420.12
Indiana +225
Tennessee +240
Clemson +12 (-110)
SMU +8.5 (-110)
I will not be tailing, but will be extremely happy for you if that cashes.
Georgia Southern's qb is now 4 of 10 with 3 interceptions. Class.
my hypothetical parlay would be iu, psu, ut, ut.
Maalik Murphy is going to... Oregon State??
Weird he couldn't find a better spot
Surprised you’re betting against ND. IU is solid but they haven’t beaten anyone. No Top 25 wins.
To me the whole game comes down to IU's offensive line vs ND's defensive line. I already know IU's DL is legit. I saw what they did vs Mich's OL pressuring our QB damn near the whole game. Now I know Michigan's OL sux but still that was impressive. Problem for IU tho is both Michigan and Ohio State overwhelmed their OL but that might not be a big deal given that Michigan and Ohio State both have one of the top DL's in the country.
I don't know anything about ND's DL. If IU's OL vs ND's DL can just be a stalemate, I don't see ND winning this game. This is the EXACT type of game ND shouldn't win. Besides money reasons, this game is almost the perfect illustration on why ND would never join the Big Ten becuz they know they would end up like Nebraska becuz they can't win this type of game. I don't think ND can match IU's physicality. If they could they'd probably be in our league by now.
IU 28 ND 17
Man I am getting excited for the playoffs bros
To me the whole game comes down to IU's offensive line vs ND's defensive line. I already know IU's DL is legit. I saw what they did vs Mich's OL pressuring our QB damn near the whole game. Now I know Michigan's OL sux but still that was impressive. Problem for IU tho is both Michigan and Ohio State overwhelmed their OL but that might not be a big deal given that Michigan and Ohio State both have one of the top DL's in the country.
I don't know anything about ND's DL. If IU's OL vs ND's DL
Not homering at all, but ND’s defense is championship caliber. IU struggled against strong pass rushes, and ND has an outstanding secondary capable of playing man coverage to open up blitzed.
Other side of the ball, ND OL much better than UM’s this season. And they have the most dynamic RB tandem in the last 30 years.
Weirdly, I’m not nervous. I think ND wins comfortably.
