closetojumping

People talk about the Florida schedule this season, and rightfully so. Accordingly, at least in part due to that, Florida is unranked and barely receiving any votes. All of that and Florida is actually returning its QB and 8 total starters on offense. Now consider USC. These guys are ranked #23. They lost their star QB. They return just 5 starters on offense. On defense, they bring back 9, but it's not clear that that is a positive. Beyond all of that, their schedule rivals that of Florida's and no one seems to notice. USC opens against LSU in Vegas, then they play 2023 bowl team Utah State. Their other non-con is Notre Dame. 2 P4 programs that open the year in the top 15. They get a bye week following Utah State then go @ Michigan, Wisconsin, @ Minnesota, Penn State, @ Maryland, Rutgers, @ Washington in consecutive weeks. That could be 9 bowl teams to open the season. They then get an off week and go Nebraska, @ UCLA (LA though), Notre Dame. There is not a true gimme on the schedule and only 2-4 teams where you can figure they'll be favored while looking at it now (UState, Rutgers, Minne, UCLA). USC should not be ranked. It's lazy voting. They're more likely to go 6-6 than 9-3.

That whole LB is dogshit. The secondary is spared from that classification simply due to Anderson being damned good. Watching Liucci spin the OT position as anything but an oncoming and obvious disaster is the good stuff. Fatheree has lingering injury issues and has the feet of a dead tree. Crownover is a low-ranked coverted TE. Ogunbiyi is allegedly far more gifted at date raping than playing OL. Zuhn is fine. They are razor thin there and any injury will be a big fucking problem. Barber may not play all year. They have a bunch of decent to shitty possession WRs and a TE recovering from major surgery. Weigman is made of glass, will be playing behind a terrible OL and the playcaller will be running into the teeth of the defense if he's at all allowed to lean into his personal preferences. Good shit.

It's an interesting year ahead of the season, to say the least. Yeah Georgia, Ohio State and Bama in the top 5 is more of a "usual suspects" thing than a reflection of parity, but all 3 of those teams have major flaws that can lead to failing to do much this season. Here are some of my thoughts, initially on the top 2 and spoilered for the tl;dr crowd:

Rank Team Record PTS 1st Prev Chg Hi/Lo 1 Georgia 0-0 1364 46 NR - 1/1 2 Ohio State 0-0 1302 7 NR - 2/2 3 Oregon 0-0 1228 0 NR - 3/3 4 Texas 0-0 1223 1 NR - 4/4 5 Alabama 0-0 1077 0 NR - 5/5 6 Ole Miss 0-0 1019 0 NR - 6/6 7 Notre Dame 0-0 969 0 NR - 7/7 8 Michigan 0-0 944 1 NR - 8/8 9 Penn State 0-0 889 0 NR - 9/9 10 Florida State 0-0 867 0 NR - 10/10 11 Missouri 0-0 808 0 NR - 11/11 12 LSU 0-0 742 0 NR - 12/12 13 Utah 0-0 665 0 NR - 13/13 14 Clemson 0-0 657 0 NR - 14/14 15 Tennessee 0-0 621 0 NR - 15/15 16 Oklahoma 0-0 609 0 NR - 16/16 17 Kansas State 0-0 416 0 NR - 17/17 18 Oklahoma State 0-0 359 0 NR - 18/18 19 Miami (FL) 0-0 292 0 NR - 19/19 20 Texas A&M 0-0 273 0 NR - 20/20 21 Arizona 0-0 230 0 NR - 21/21 22 North Carolina State 0-0 216 0 NR - 22/22 23 USC 0-0 199 0 NR - 23/23 24 Kansas 0-0 186 0 NR - 24/24 25 Iowa 0-0 148 0 NR - 25/25 Others Receiving Votes Washington 123; Louisville 95; Virginia Tech 64; SMU 47; Memphis 44; Boise State 30; Auburn 25; West Virginia 22; Wisconsin 17; Liberty 15; Iowa State 15; Kentucky 12; Florida 11; South Carolina 10; North Carolina 6; UNLV 5; Maryland 5; UCF 4; Texas Tech 4; UTSA 3; Tulane 2; Texas State 2; Nebraska 2; Colorado 2; Appalachian State 2; Troy 1; Syracuse 1; Miami (OH) 1; James Madison 1; Air Force 1; Pasting as regular text makes it a mess, so I posted what I copied so folks don't have to click the link.

It's the 3rd and 5 graphic or whatever. Someone around has it.

I don't see how I am ever going to get used to seeing this kind of thing. It would also be weird if the Big 12 did it. Kind of a No Man's Land thing, but Texas should just be able to do it on their own and everyone just shut the fuck up. But, that can't happen with the biggest loudmouth conference in the history of conferences. It's going to just keep being weird, and batshit crazy if Texas keeps winning in many things.

If I ever get in trouble, I just go 5 Wide, All Go/Verticals and throw it deep to Bond, and then Wingo, and then a 5 star that I recruited with 99 speed. It feels like cheating.

I thought the same thing. At a minimum, that dude should have been getting jet sweeps, kick returns, punt returns, and third and long draws and screens. That said, it led to one of my all-time favorite CFB graphics/memes ever.

Outside of injuries, I don't get the logic here. If you have 6 starting caliber receivers, why would you not continue to rotate them and keep everyone fresh and productive?

He’s more likely to wind up as a sack of goo, watching Spongebob reruns from his mom’s couch in New Jersey by the time the season is finished than with 5 sacks on a football field. How high did you get before visiting the practice on Saturday night? immamac is prone to fits of absurd hyperbole. The post you’re responding to appears to be another example.

That poster is a proven buffoon. If you put him on ignore, you won’t miss a thing.

Who in the fuck lets delicious cheese fries sit around? Much less for 15 minutes?

I worked there during college. I’ve always thought their wings were about as straightforward and terrific as you can find. Outside of their steaks, most of their food is still damned good in my opinion. Hell, their prime rib is still just fine too.

Listen, what in the fuck did Outback Steakhouse ever do to you people to deserve this kind of derision?

The strength of their team, on paper, is their front on defense. They have talent at DT and talent and depth at DE. I wouldn’t expect that group to get pushed around a ton. Oddly, they weren’t great against the run last year, but they have another year of maturation and some of the bitchy play from Nolan won’t be missed. At LB, they’re in the process of lionizing York as some sort of mythical creature. He played a lot as an undersized freshman and called the defense. He’s the best LB they have. The Scooby guy from Florida gets mentioned because SEC but UF packed his bags for him. He’s yet to live up to expectations. Outside of Anderson, their secondary projects to be dogshit. We’ll see, of course.

I like NC State to beat Tennessee. I think Iamaleava is severely overrated heading into this season, as are the Tenn WRs. Va Tech absolutely has the schedule to win the conference or play for it in the championship. They also have a QB to boot. Should be interesting watching them. They don't face an FCS opponent, but they face a really weak non-con with: @ Vandy, Marshall, @ Old Dominion, Rutgers. They miss FSU, SMU, NC State, UNC, and Louisville with their only real underdog games looking like @ Miami and Clemson.

I don't think that's fully accurate regarding Tilmon. They're not pushing him away. He seems to regard Utah as the better fit. Utah is a funny school in terms of the way they recruit. A lot of guys they land have bigger brand options and still choose to go there and often stick. Not always, of course, but it seems like that's the case more often than not. I do like that Texas and Utah are on some of the same guys. Utah evaluates really well, in my opinion. As to Jonah Williams, I have made my arguments for why I think he's a candidate to be a bust or non-entity in college. He's going to ultimately be a LB if he'll let himself grow out. Many people think he could be an excellent LB. That's what drove his early rankings. He comes back later and tells the services and the coaches that he's a safety and that won't be changing. He's also not in love with football. And he's an MLB risk. So there are a lot of red flags there. If he doesn't cost a program a ton of money (but he probably will), he's a quality lottery ticket. He will boost hype and rankings of the class, which helps the overall class, and he could well wind up spinning to the right position and discovering that he can make millions there. There are worse takes with that in mind.

I think Florida would have to go 9-3 to get in, and the losses would need to be of the quality variety. They're not putting an 8-4 team into the playoffs in year 1, particularly from the SEC. The optics on that would be horrendous. Good point about Memphis. FSU's schedule is getting little notice, but it's something of a beast in its own right if you look at it. FSU goes: -8/24 (Week Zero) - vs. Ga Tech in Dublin - this is a bear of a trip for both teams and Norvell publicly complained about it at ACC Media Days. -9/2 (Monday of Week One) - vs Boston College in Tallahassee. This is the second week to open the season in which FSU plays a talented QB against their new defense. -9/14 - Memphis - one of the better G5 programs this season according to projections. -9/21 - Cal - Cal projects as a bowl team, has a stud TB and will have an excellent defense. -9/28 - @SMU - SMU is a dark horse beloved in the media to win the ACC. They should be tough and solid at home. -10/5 - Clemson - I don't see Clemson competing for the national title, but they're going to be very good and gunning for FSU. -10/19 - @ Duke - Should be the first layup of the FSU season, although I am biased about Manny Diaz and Murphy and think Duke will be shit this year because of them. -10/26 - @ Miami - Rivalry game and the second straight roadie. If Cristobal is as big of a dumbass as I think he is, FSU should win here. If somehow that brickhead has Miami rolling with all of their talent, this could be a crazy game. -11/2 - North Carolina - UNC has talent, but FSU has more. The transfers should have gelled by now and FSU should be favored to win. The wildcard here is if Mack Brown goes into labor on the field during the game. That kind of distraction could really fire up the tarheels. -11/9 - @ Notre Dame - At this point, FSU has faced a legitimately brutal schedule with no true patsies. It's another opportunity to face off against a real dumbass at the head coaching position. Notre Dame is playing the cupcake schedule already alluded to, and this should be a key game they need to bolster their resume. I expect ND to win convincingly but, let's face it, it's August and who the fuck knows what will happen this season? -11/23 - Charleston Southern - This season's only true gimme for FSU. -11/30 - Florida - Another team that will beaten up by a brutal schedule, the rival gators come to town for what might be their battle for bowl eligibility. FSU faces that schedule with a true mediocrity at QB in DJ Ungaleieleieleilalluelei. That initial 6 game stretch includes just one bye week. Grim. FSU and USC are two teams with schedules in the range of difficulty of Florida and no one is giving either any credit for it. It's interesting in terms overall media bias and talking points at this stage. They're not going to give Riley any quarter and no one is giving the whiners at FSU much credit or thought right now.

et tu, Roma, et tu?

You elitists besmirch the proud city of Pasadena at your own peril.

You don’t post well enough to post at other posters like this.

@someguy mentioned on OTF that Scotty Cochran was on campus to give a speech to the team. Any shot that Sarkisian and him are talking about something more with the program? The guy was an integral part of the Bama program for a decade.

You’re in mid season form with the terrible takes. Solid work.

All of this is their bullshit and y’all are perpetuating it. They are choosing their course. This is what they want. If they wanted to play P4 teams, they’d be playing them. They’re not unique.

It is sad to me that Florida has fallen so far that their fans don’t even know what “electric” looks like out of the skill positions anymore.