2025-2026 College Football Thread

[Eye Candy]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

You may well be right had Miss St. Won. As much of a screwjob as it would have been for FSU we might need something that awful to happen to improve the system, expanding to 8 teams with a revised method for determining who makes the playoff. I think everyone hates the lack of transparency with how this committee is creating their rankings. The committee is only 13 people so one or two extremely biased people can probably screw over a team from a conference they don't like.

The Fox coaches roundtable is already saying that:

1. Conference championships need to just go away, or not be considered for the playoff slots.

2. The top 8 teams overall need to be in the play-offs.

And, I agree with that. Then recruiting will be about being in the playoffs for the National Championship, over winning a conference title, which has many different values. But, making it to the playoffs, will come to mean more, imo.

[Moviefan1203]

While I do think Florida State should be ahead of TCU, all that really matters is that you are in the top 4. I just can't get over that we don't have a 8 team system. As tight as it is from 3-6, it really validates the fact that we need more than 4 teams.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

And the old SOS argument doesn't even hold water when it comes to TCU vs. FSU. Here's the current SOS for the top ranked teams. FSU has a weak schedule but TCU's is actually a bit weaker. Though I still highly doubt FSU is left out if they beat Georgia Tech. FSU's SOS would improve while TCU's will drop with their weak final opponent. I'm thinking FSU moves back up to #3 if they win the ACC title game.

Alabama - 6th
Oregon - 28th
TCU - 45th
FSU - 43rd
Ohio St. - 54th
Baylor - 64th
Arizona - 29th

Can you please stop using the old BCS-SOS system and start using the one the committee does? Which, incidentally, has TCU with the 4th best schedule, and makes a lot more sense. FSU has not played a tougher schedule than TCU by any reasonable standard. Nor, for that matter, has Alabama, at least not by such a huge margin.

Unfortunately I don't know where to find this SOS, I've only heard people talking about it on ESPN-radio.

*EDIT* Ok my bad, I was getting SOS messed up with Strength of Record. I still think Strength of Record is more important because playing a tough game and losing is hard to regard as better than winning against a slightly worse team.

I still despise the way SOS is being calculated though. I don't know how FSU can be viewed as a tougher schedule than TCU, except by stupid math.

[Terjyn]

I've complained about SOS without explaining, so here's a concrete example, just from the Big 12.

TCU has the second worst SOS in the Big 12(Baylor is the worst). Since the Big 12 is round robin, they all have effectively the same conference schedule.

OOC Schedules:

TCU: Samford, Minnesota, SMU
Iowa State: North Dakota State, Iowa, Toledo
Texas Tech: Central Arkansas, UTEP, Arkansas
Kansas: SE Missouri State, Duke, Central Michigan.

All 3 of those are regarded as tougher schedules than TCU. MUCH tougher.

Why?

But here's where the fun comes in:
Kansas State: SF Austin, Auburn, UTEP

You know why I bring up Kansas State? Because they have the 3rd worst SOS in the Big 12.

Are you really telling me that Auburn alone shouldn't move Kansas State's schedule above Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Kansas?

I understand, it's just math. But it's bad math.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

I've complained about SOS without explaining, so here's a concrete example, just from the Big 12.

TCU has the second worst SOS in the Big 12(Baylor is the worst). Since the Big 12 is round robin, they all have effectively the same conference schedule.

OOC Schedules:

TCU: Samford, Minnesota, SMU
Iowa State: North Dakota State, Iowa, Toledo
Texas Tech: Central Arkansas, UTEP, Arkansas
Kansas: SE Missouri State, Duke, Central Michigan.

All 3 of those are regarded as tougher schedules than TCU. MUCH tougher.

Why?

But here's where the fun comes in:
Kansas State: SF Austin, Auburn, UTEP

You know why I bring up Kansas State? Because they have the 3rd worst SOS in the Big 12.

Are you really telling me that Auburn alone shouldn't move Kansas State's schedule above Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Kansas?

I understand, it's just math. But it's bad math.

The top teams in a conference almost always have a lesser SOS than the inferior teams within the same conference. Why? Because they don't have to play themselves obviously.

[Moviefan1203]

Congrats to Brad Kaaya for being named the ACC Rookie of the year!

[fatediesel]

Originally Posted by sycro

Georgia Southern went 9-3, including 8-0 in conference, and are not eligible for a bowl because it is their "transition year" (first year) in FBS.

They appealed twice for a waiver and were denied both times.

The only chance Georgia Southern had at getting a waiver was if there weren't enough 6 win teams to fill the bowls. The NCAA is pretty strict about the transition rule and with more than enough teams to fill the bowls Georgia Southern knew they had almost no chance at winning their appeal.

[ChadFL]

They made a good point on the radio I hadn't thought of before. Could the playoff committee purposely be attempting to seed Alabama #1 and FSU #4 to create a regional semi-final game? The 2 vs. 3 game is in Pasadena, CA while the 1 vs. 4 game is in New Orleans. It would make sense for the committee to want an Alabama-FSU game in New Orleans rather than FSU going all the way out to California to play Oregon in the semi-final.

[Slec]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

They made a good point on the radio I hadn't thought of before. Could the playoff committee purposely be attempting to seed Alabama #1 and FSU #4 to create a regional semi-final game? The 2 vs. 3 game is in Pasadena, CA while the 1 vs. 4 game is in New Orleans. It would make sense for the committee to want an Alabama-FSU game in New Orleans rather than FSU going all the way out to California to play Oregon in the semi-final.

Particularly for attendence and hotel sales when you know there is a short turn around for the Nat'l Championship....it's a good argument because this is a business after all. making sure people show up and don't save money for 'the big game' possibility is huge.

i know i'm a stuck record, but this is brilliant. If FSU wants to win out, they'll need to beat Bama (or someone who beats Bama) anyway, so why not do this regionally. At 8 teams that wouldn't work, but 4... sure, why not!

[ChadFL]

Yahoo Sports updated bowl/playoff projections. This is assuming the top-4 all win this week. Aside from Boise St. being in there the major bowl games look really good.

Rose [Semifinal]: #2 Oregon vs. #3 Florida State
Sugar [Semifinal]: #1 Alabama vs. #4 TCU

Cotton: Baylor (at-large) vs. Ohio State (at-large)
Fiesta: Arizona (at-large) vs. Boise State (Group of 5 rep)
Orange: Georgia Tech (ACC) vs. Michigan State (highest ranked SEC/Big Ten non-champion)
Peach: Mississippi State (at-large) vs. Wisconsin (at-large/Big Ten champ)

Other potentially interesting matchups:

Citrus: Clemson (ACC/Big Ten) vs. Ole Miss (SEC)
Alamo: Oklahoma (Big 12) vs. Arizona State (Pac-12)
Belk: Notre Dame (ACC) vs. Georgia (SEC)
Russell Athletic: Louisville (ACC) vs. Kansas State (Big 12)
Texas: Texas (Big 12) vs. Texas A&M (SEC)
Holiday: Nebraska (Big Ten) vs. UCLA (Pac-12)
Independence: Miami (FL) (ACC) vs. Arkansas (SEC)
BitCoin: Central Florida (American) vs. North Carolina (ACC) - UCF in a bowl game sponsored by a fake currency... lol

[Moviefan1203]

The Big XII needs to add two more schools and get a conference championship game, or convince the NCAA to let them have one with only 10 members. It's not exactly a level playing field when they are the only Power 5 conference without a title game.

[fatediesel]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

The Big XII needs to add two more schools and get a conference championship game, or convince the NCAA to let them have one with only 10 members. It's not exactly a level playing field when they are the only Power 5 conference without a title game.

Yeah, the Big 12's biggest mistake was not staying at 12 teams. Louisville was openly campaigning for an invite (no clue why the Big 12 chose West Virginia over Louisville) so they should have been the 11th team. For the 12th team they could have gone with Cincinnati, which is a natural fit geographically, or there were rumors that they wanted a team in Florida, which would help all teams in recruiting, and added someone like Central Florida. Instead they go to 10 teams and can't crown a real champion and are missing out on significant title game money.

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by fatediesel

Yeah, the Big 12's biggest mistake was not staying at 12 teams. Louisville was openly campaigning for an invite (no clue why the Big 12 chose West Virginia over Louisville) so they should have been the 11th team. For the 12th team they could have gone with Cincinnati, which is a natural fit geographically, or there were rumors that they wanted a team in Florida, which would help all teams in recruiting, and added someone like Central Florida. Instead they go to 10 teams and can't crown a real champion and are missing out on significant title game money.

I read they flirted with BYU before as well, but BYU couldn't agree to all the terms that would be required of them unfortunately. It's not too late for the Big XII to expand. They won't be able to land a Notre Dame or even a Louisville, but they really need to get to 12 members.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

I read they flirted with BYU before as well, but BYU couldn't agree to all the terms that would be required of them unfortunately. It's not too late for the Big XII to expand. They won't be able to land a Notre Dame or even a Louisville, but they really need to get to 12 members.

Did the NCAA ever explain why exactly it's required to have X amount of teams in order to play a conf title game? I wish they'd just do away with the rule and require all conferences to have a title game. It's especially annoying for UCF this year. If we win this final game the likely result will be a 3 way tie for the conference championship in the AAC.

[sycro]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

Did the NCAA ever explain why exactly it's required to have X amount of teams in order to play a conf title game? I wish they'd just do away with the rule and require all conferences to have a title game. It's especially annoying for UCF this year. If we win this final game the likely result will be a 3 way tie for the conference championship in the AAC.

So the AAC will also have One True Champion!

[sycro]

David Hale at ESPN mentioned something interesting when talking about FSU at 4. The head of the committee said there are people that have FSU at 1 or 2. That means for FSU to be 4 that there are some people in the room that don't have FSU in the top 4, and at least a couple that have them likely outside the top 10. Which is literally insane.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by sycro

David Hale at ESPN mentioned something interesting when talking about FSU at 4. The head of the committee said there are people that have FSU at 1 or 2. That means for FSU to be 4 that there are some people in the room that don't have FSU in the top 4, and at least a couple that have them likely outside the top 10. Which is literally insane.

This is why their individual votes need to be made public. All of the people on the committee except for Condoleezza Rice sound like very smart football people in looking at their bios. And even Rice is at least somewhat knowledgable about college football from what I've heard. I have to assume there are people on the committee who despise certain programs (like FSU) and take advantage of the system by ranking them far lower than any reasonable person would.

I'll bet if they just did the rankings using the old BCS formula to determine the top-4 FSU would be #2. They should have scrapped the committee of 13 idea and used either a re-worked BCS formula or just go with the AP poll to determine the top-4.

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

This is why their individual votes need to be made public. All of the people on the committee except for Condoleezza Rice sound like very smart football people in looking at their bios. And even Rice is at least somewhat knowledgable about college football from what I've heard. I have to assume there are people on the committee who despise certain programs (like FSU) and take advantage of the system by ranking them far lower than any reasonable person would.

I'll bet if they just did the rankings using the old BCS formula to determine the top-4 FSU would be #2. They should have scrapped the committee of 13 idea and used either a re-worked BCS formula or just go with the AP poll to determine the top-4.

As much as I respect Condoleezza Rice on a political level, she has no business being involved in the college football playoffs. You and I would be a better fit to serve on the committee.

[fatediesel]

I actually have less of a problem with Condoleeza Rice being on the committee than having current athletic directors on the committee. There is no way Jeff Long, Barry Alvarez, Pat Haden, Oliver Luck, and Dan Radakovich don't have a bias. Even with their schools not in playoff contention they're still going to have a conference bias, and there is no way these guys have the time to properly evaluate and watch tape of multiple games in addition to their athletic director duties. I would prefer a panel that consists of former coaches and players, with committee members not allowed to hold any job at a university. There's no way to completely remove biases, but that would be a start.

[fatediesel]

Football Scoop says Jim McElwain has told the Colorado State team that he is taking the Florida job.

Edit: Colorado State's QB said they have not been told anything and that they haven't been called into a team meeting.