The first installment of the two-day feast of major college football conference championship games is in the books as of late Friday night. The highly anticipated Saturday portion remains.
Already we’ve seen Jacksonville State thump Western Kentucky for the Conference USA title, Army pound Tulane for the American Athletic championship, and Boise State throttle UNLV for the Mountain West title.
Having watched significant portions of both the Army and Boise State wins, several thoughts occur to me:
- Army quarterback Bryson Daily, with four rushing touchdowns in the game and 29 for the year, is a throwback to what we used to think of as the typical college football player. It’s his physical, no-nonsense playing style and love of the game for its own sake, along with the notable fact he gets zero name, image, likeness (NIL) revenue. That’s because Army players cannot take the NIL financial handouts that are further sullying already shady recruiting and making college players millionaires even before their pro football careers begin.
- Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty deserves to win the Heisman Trophy because he’s the most dominant player who also plays on a team that’s going to the national championship playoffs and would be nowhere close to accomplishing that without him. It doesn’t even bother me that Jeanty is reported to make $1.4 million in NIL money because, by all accounts, he is just as great a person as he is a football player.
- Former West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez might appreciate the irony that he has won a conference championship with a 9-4 Alabama-based team, but won’t be making the national championship playoff field.
And now, some thoughts on the Saturday games as well as the national championship playoff field in general.
After the Boise State game, FOX analysts made their picks to win the national championship. The two fan boys on the panel picked the schools where they played, Alabama and Notre Dame. The two serious pickers, former USC quarterback Matt Leinart and former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, both took Oregon.
Bottom line, there are no great teams this year, so any team could win. Yes, Oregon is unbeaten, but has had close calls along the way which suggest a certain measure of vulnerability.
The expansion of the playoff field to 12 teams in this year of relative parity was timely.
Despite the lofty seed, at least until the Big Ten title outcome is decided, Penn State still would not be among my picks to win the national title. To do so would mean James “Can’t Win The Big Game” Franklin would need to go against his form, multiple times.
But I think Penn State could beat Oregon for the Big Ten championship because even blind squirrels sometimes find the acorn.
Texas and Georgia in the SEC title game figures to be an interesting contest, a rematch of a regular-season game won by Georgia. Despite that win, this Georgia team is nowhere near the caliber of its recent national championship squads, lacking consistency and firepower on offense and big play people on defense.
One of the flaws of the national championship bracket as currently seeded, Georgia and Texas could end up meeting yet again in the second round of that playoff. Also, Oregon could need to play Penn State and Ohio State yet again in its half of the bracket.
You would not be totally insane to ponder Alabama making the 12-team championship field, losing in the first round, then being reinstated to the field despite such a loss based on a superior strength of schedule. After all, that is the rationale for stashing Alabama in the field in the first place.
Speaking of that strong schedule, the Crimson Tide’s 9-3 record includes a 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt in early October and a 24-3 loss to Oklahoma Nov. 23. Both Oklahoma and Vanderbilt finished at 6-6. But they were strong .500 records!
If I were a fan of another SEC school, South Carolina for example, I might wonder why my 9-3 Gamecocks, winners of six straight games, a team that crushed Oklahoma, 35-6, in mid-October and lost 27-25 at Alabama the week before that, isn’t getting more playoff consideration.
Oh, South Carolina is not the TV ratings draw that Alabama is. Now I understand.
With players earning NIL millions, why should we expect the movers and shakers of the sport not to bow and scrape to the almighty dollar god too?
Watch these people eagerly demote SMU if somehow Clemson pulls the upset in the ACC title game, or cast aside the winner of the Iowa State-Arizona State Big 12 championship due to double secret probation for not delivering big TV numbers.
Rodriguez might want to remind the committee that his championship team is Jacksonville, ALABAMA, State. Don’t laugh.
Sam Ross Jr's site 