2023 Season Lookback

Where did the time go?!?  Postseason already!  In the last year of the 4-team playoff setup, let's go back and see just how right - or how wrong - those predictions were!

2023 Hypothetical 12-team playoff

Here's what the CFP would look like if we had the 12 team system this year.  Although I'm sure there would be much debate over giving Alabama or FSU the first round bye.

2023 - Semifinals:  Rose and Sugar

Top 4	Quarterfinal	First Round
#1 Michigan	Peach	#9 Missouri @ #8 Oregon
#2 Washington	Fiesta	#10 Penn State @ #7 Ohio State
#3 Texas	Cotton	#11 Ole Miss @ #6 Georgia
#4 Alabama	Orange	#12 Liberty @ #5 FSU

Once again, we would see an OSU/PSU rematch, as well as an Ole Miss/Georgia rematch.

Click here for the full recap of 12 team playoff scenarios for the entire BCS/CFP era.

2023 Final Predictions

The games just wrapped up and the committee has 12 hours to figure out where everyone is playing around New Year's.

I hate the argument about "best teams" when it comes to choosing champions.  Those terms do not mean the same.  It's largely impossible to truly determine the best team.

I also don't like the line that the committee gives about each week being a fresh slate, as that seems to run counter to the idea that they are judging an entire season's worth of work.

That being said, here are my final predictions for what we will see in the New Year's Six.

Semifinals:
Rose Bowl - 1 Michigan vs. 4 Texas
Sugar Bowl - 2 Washington vs. 3 Florida State

Orange Bowl - Louisville vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl - Alabama vs. Oregon
Peach Bowl - Ohio State vs. Missouri
Fiesta Bowl - Liberty vs. Penn State

Other than the Orange Bowl, I have more confidence in the NY6 teams than actual matchups.

Speaking of the Orange Bowl, I don't think an idle 9-3 NC State will jump a 10-3 Louisville just because the latter lost their 13th game.  Some folks are probably thinking that Alabama should be going to the Orange Bowl, due to the highest ranking Big Ten/SEC team not in the semifinals.  Except that the contract specifically states "non-champion".

2023 Chaos Theory

There is a chance that 2023 could end up being the perfect year for a 4 team playoff.  There are currently four undefeated teams - Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and Florida State.  In addition, there are four teams with a single loss - Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, and Alabama.  

It stands to reason that if any of the undefeated teams wins their conference championship game, they are in the CFP.  Past history of the CFP tells us that any of the current 1-loss teams will be eliminated with a loss.  The only way for a 2-loss team to make the CFP is if there are no more than 3 teams at 1 or 0 losses, which is mathematically impossible at this time.

Here are the best possible scenarios I see for any of these top 8 teams to make the final four.

New Year's Six projections - Week 14

I guess this is the last time to do this.   The next set of rankings will come with the full bowl matchups.

Sugar Bowl:  1 Georgia vs. 4 Florida State
Rose Bowl:  2 Michigan vs. 3 Washington

Orange Bowl:  14 Louisville (projected ACC replacement) vs. 6 Ohio State

At-large participants:
5 Oregon
7 Texas
8 Alabama
9 Missouri
10 Penn State
22 Tulane (G5)

Peach Bowl:  8 Alabama vs. 10 Penn State
Cotton Bowl:  7 Texas vs. 9 Missouri
Fiesta Bowl:  6 Oregon vs. 22 Tulane

Really, no difference from last week other than not having to hedge bets on OSU/Michigan, and then rankings being adjusted accordingly based on that (and Louisville's loss).

Maximum chaos theory:  Georgia, Washington, Florida State, and Michigan lose while Texas wins.  That leaves no undefeated teams and 7 teams with a 12-1 record.

2023 Week 13 full wrap up

All of the Power 5 championship games are set.

ACC Championship:  Florida State Seminoles (8-0) vs. Louisville Cardinals (7-1)
Both teams clinched by virtue of having the two best records in conference.  No tiebreakers needed.

(UNC is the only ACC team to not play either championship participant.)

SEC Championship:  Georgia Bulldogs (8-0) vs. Alabama Crimson Tide (8-0)
Both teams clinched based on the best record in their divisions.  Every other SEC team has at least two conference losses.

Big Ten Championship:  Michigan Wolverines (9-0) vs. Iowa Hawkeyes (7-2)
Both teams had the best records in their respective division, no tiebreakers required.

Drive for 325:  In order to hit 325 points in 13 games, Iowa will need to score 109 points in the conference championship.  Or, they could average 67 points in the championship game and the bowl game to get to 350 in 14 games.

After 12 games:
Total points / Benchmark: 216 / 300
Points per game:  18

Big 12 Championship:  Texas Longhorns (8-1) vs. Oklahoma State Cowboys (7-2)
While Texas had the best record in the conference, Oklahoma State clinched the #2 spot by virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker over Oklahoma.  Every other team has at least 3 conference losses.

(Every Big 12 team played at least one of these two championship game teams.)

Pac-12 Championship:  Washington Huskies (9-0) vs. Oregon Ducks (8-1)
These teams had the best records in the conference.  No tiebreakers were needed as everyone else in the conference had at least two losses.  This championship game will be a rematch of the October game that Washington won by 3 points.

(UCLA is the only Pac-12 team to not play either championship participant.)

If the Pac-12 still had the North and South divisions, the championship game would have been Washington vs. Arizona.

2023 Week 13 Black Friday update

Black Friday brought some deals to a few teams heading to conference championships.

New Year's Six projections - Week 13

The craziest part of Thanksgiving week is not having any clue what day it is, since it's usually a two day workweek.  For a few seconds tonight, I was wondering why I was seeing new rankings on a Friday.

Sugar Bowl:  1 Georgia vs. 5 Florida State
Rose Bowl:  2/3 Ohio State/Michigan winner vs. 4 Washington

It looks like we are on pace for the Rose Bowl to feature it's traditional match of the Big Ten champ vs. the Pac-12 champ.

Orange Bowl:  10 Louisville (projected ACC replacement) vs. 2/3 Ohio State/Michigan loser

At-large participants:
6 Oregon
7 Texas
8 Alabama
9 Missouri
11 Penn State
23 Tulane (G5)

Peach Bowl:  8 Alabama vs. 11 Penn State
Cotton Bowl:  7 Texas vs. 9 Missouri
Fiesta Bowl:  6 Oregon vs. 24 Tulane

Other than swapping FSU and Washington, the only significant change in the rankings and projections is Oregon State falling out (previously 11, now 16) and being replaced by Penn State.

I expect to see some significant adjustments next week as we will finally get some separation between Ohio State and Michigan.  Also, we'll how how FSU losing their quarterback affects their ranking.  It shouldn't as long as they continue to win games.

2023 Week 12 wrap up

We're down to the final week of the season, and four championship game slots are up for grabs.  However, the Big 12 really needs to stop overthinking their tiebreakers and get them to make more sense.

New Year's Six projections - week 12

With the latest CFP rankings out, let's project the New Year's Six.

One aspect of other projections that drives me crazy is when there are two teams in the top 4 (or close to it) that have to play each other in the final weeks of the season (or a conference championship game).  While Ohio State and Michigan are #2 and #3 right now, we all know that both won't remain in the top 4 in two weeks.

2023 Week 11-12 ACC update

 Technically, there are three teams still in play for the second spot in the ACC Championship Game.

2023 Week 11 Wrap up

With two weeks left in the season, we have two championship games completely set, and a winner-take-all divisional game in place.

EDIT:  Maybe not....ACC is being #goacc again....

VT - most frequent opponents

I've been keeping a list of VT's opponents since my freshman year of 2002.  This keeps track of how many times we've played teams and our win-loss record.

It's also interesting to keep track of which teams are at the top of the list.

Currently at the top is Boston College with today being the 23rd matchup over the last 22 season.  For some reason, even though we were in opposite divisions, the ACC decided to make us permanent crossover rivals. Even though the two teams didn't play each other in 2004, they had two matchups in the ACCCG, which keeps BC in the lead.

Next up is uva and Miami, both tied at 21.  Both were annual rivals, however games got skipped for both.  When the ACC got rid of divisions after the 2022 season, they did not choose to protect VT/Miami as an annual rivalry.  However, after the schedule reshuffle in 2023 to accommodate three new teams, that rivalry did get protected as a guaranteed annual matchup.  And of course, VT/UVA skipped 2022 due to the tragic events that occurred to the UVA football team that November.

At what point does uva or Miami overtake BC as the most common opponent of VT in that era?  While 2002 might seem arbitrary to many, we could also extend this exercise back to the beginning of the Big East in the early 90s, so the numbers would still be relative to one another.

While uva and Miami are back to permanent annual status, VT is only scheduled to play BC twice in the next 7 years - 2024 and 2026.

BC will stay two games ahead of the others in 2024 (24 vs 22), but the others will close that gap by one game in 2025 (24 vs 23).  The one game gap remains in 2026 (25 vs 24), and then uva and Miami will finally tie BC in 2027 (25 all around).  Starting in 2028, uva and Miami will pull ahead on the list.

Of course, all of this assumes the ACC status quo remains for the next few years.  Which I wouldn't bet on....

2023 Week 11 ACC update

Louisville beating uva on Thursday night had a major effect on the ACC race.  It's not over, but it's close.

2023 Week 10 Wrap up

I'm using my extra hour today to determine conference races.

2023 Week 9 wrap up

One of the problems of having a Thursday night game in October is wanting to start looking ahead, but having to wait at least 2 days for everyone else to play.

Championship Rematch Odds

Now that the conferences are all trending towards divisionless formats, what are the odds of seeing rematches in the conference championship games?

2023 Week 8 Wrap up

Virginia Tech gets a bye week and I take a Saturday off to do other activities, and I find that football has fallen into madness.

2023 Week 7 wrap-up

The networks actually scheduled all of the Power 5 games to end before midnight on Saturday.  So we have an early look at how shaken up the conference races got.  Plus, we have our first teams officially being taken out of conference title contention.

2023 Week 6 wrap up

We are now far enough into the season where those fortunate teams who have not lost nor had a bye are now bowl eligible.

2023 Week 5 wrap up

 As we finally enter October, every one has finally entered conference play except for Miami, somehow.

2023 Week 4 wrap up

A third of the season in the books, and we're just scratching the surface.

But we can claim Washington State as the champion of the Pac-2 as they defeated their only remaining conference member, 38-35.

2023 Week 3 wrapup

So much is changing across the college football landscape, and this weekly post is no exception.  I will do my best to keep track of conference races, even though we're only down to two Power conferences with divisions.

This year it took three weeks to get conference games from all 5 power conferences.

2023-2024 Conference Scorecard

We are in the midst of possibly the greatest realignment in college football history, and so many people are having a difficult time remembering which conferences contain which teams.  It also doesn't help that among these institutions of higher learning, the numbers that are part of the conference names now have absolutely no bearing on the number of members in their conference.

Since we have passed the deadline for teams to declare their intentions for the 2024 season, I present the scorecard for the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

EDIT:  I thought we were past the deadline, but I guess that only applies to leaving conferences that are still viable for 2024.  Still, here's the scorecard for 2023 and 2024.

2023 Season Predictions

Well here we are, the last weekend of 2023 without a single college football game.  Week 0 is just around the corner, and then the season, CCGs, Army-Navy, and finally the bowls!  Even with all the talk of the future conferences and larger Playoff, there's still plenty to look forward to for this year!

Conference Realignment - By the Numbers

After the recent announcement of USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten, there's been talk of other Pac-12 teams eventually moving.  But there's also a chorus of "if the Big Ten wanted them, they would have taken them already."  

That got me thinking.

One thing we have noticed over the last couple of decades is that change can be slow and gradual.  Look at the national championship process -- they didn't immediately go to a 12 team playoff.  Instead, it was a series of steps over 30 years (Bowl Alliance to BCS to 4 team CFP to 12 teams).

I believe conference expansion and realignment is very similar in speed.  It's a gradual process, where a conference is not going to add too many teams at once.  Then I remembered that the Big 12 is adding four teams this year alone.

So I thought some more, and realized that there are two types of conferences in realignment.

First are the "power" conferences.  They kick off the realignment process by expansion.

Then you have the "reactive" conferences.  While they could end up with more members at the end of the process than the start, they usually do it from a position of reacting to a move from one of the "power" conferences.

Butterfly Effect Games: Hokie Football Edition

Happy Summer, everyone!   After a couple of early CFP-era “butterfly effect” games, I thought I’d finish this little series (at least for now) with a batch of games that could have totally re-shaped the highs and lows of my beloved Virginia Tech Hokies.  

I’ve got the pre-BCS, BCS, and CFP eras covered.  This is certainly not all-inclusive, and I anticipate covering even more games in the future!

Butterfly Effect Games: 2015 Arkansas at Ole Miss

 It's been a couple months since my first "CFP era" butterfly effect post. I'm back, and this time with a game that was one of THE defining moments of the season - and perhaps even beyond - even though neither team was an actual Playoff participant!  I also wanted to wait until this week to post this, as the date April 25 (4-25) holds some significance when talking about this game!

Butterfly Effect Games: 2014 Baylor-TCU

 As promised in my last post, I've got a few more "butterfly effect" games to highlight. It's been a while since I've done these, which means that we can now look at some games in the CFP era to determine their long-lasting significance.

Kicking things off: a game that seemed destined for one of these posts the moment the initial CFP field was set.

2022 Season Look-Back

 With the National Championship Game almost a week in the past, and the 2023 Week 0 games about 8 and a half months in the future, we've made it to the off-season.

I plan to do a couple of "butterfly effect" posts in the months to come, along with some other unusual looks into the past, present, and future of the sport.

But for now, I thought I'd take the opportunity to look back at the season that was, sharing some highlights and areas I'd like to see improved in the future.