College Football Is Stale and Boring

[Hermanator 6944]

37 minutes ago, MirrOlure said:

The idea that a so-called surefire first rounder “cost himself millions” over a sprained ankle is ludicrous.

 Not a sprained ankle but the Miami running back that shredded his knee against Ohio state in the championship game in I think 2001, and Jaylen Smith are 2 examples. Neither became the player they were projected to be and Jaylen Smith became so unathletic as a result of the drop foot he became a joke and is no longer in the league.

[66BUFF 2554]

16 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

The reason I hate Herbie is because he had so much potential and he sold his soul.  You are right when he simply sticks to what is happening between the lines he is actually really really good.  But he works for ESPN and at some point he was confronted with the the age old quandary of staying true to himself or selliing out to being a shill and he chose the shill route.  When he talks about almost anything but pure football he is a fucking douchewaffle.  

 glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity

[Hermanator 6944]

All I know about college football is 20 to 30 years ago I would watch games that my team wasn't a part of because I was interested.The same was true for the NBA. But now the NFL is the only league where I can stand to watch any games at all my team isn't playing in. From that standpoint college football has become stale and unwatchable for me unless I'm personally invested.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10145]

There hasn't been a championship game since they started playing them that I truly care less about than this years....trying to find any interest and all I've come up with is Kirby Smart is an ass... That's all I've got. I truly don't care. I honestly had more interest on seeing a coach get mayo dumped on him than watching this game.

[Sandman 3402]

13 minutes ago, Hermanator said:

the Miami running back that shredded his knee against Ohio state in the championship game

Willis McGahee was drafted in the first round, played 11 years in the league and made $32MM. That's pretty damn good for an NFL RB. The money wasn't as good as it is now but if he was smart, he's set for life.

[DFW Horn 6118]

4 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

There hasn't been a championship game since they started playing them that I truly care less about than this years....trying to find any interest and all I've come up with is Kirby Smart is an ass... That's all I've got. I truly don't care. I honestly had more interest on seeing a coach get mayo dumped on him than watching this game.

LSU vs Bama rematch in 2011 immediately comes to mind. Watching the Tigahs offense not pass midfield was truly awe-inspiring.

[Hermanator 6944]

He had a good career but a very slow start due to that injury. He had to change the way he played and never had the same explosive burst that he had in Miami. 

 Now that was the championship game so nobody should ever sit that out, But if you're in the who gives a crap bowl it makes sense to sit out if you're considered a draftable player

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

2 hours ago, slorch said:

so we come up with attendance zones?

Notre Lame, USC, and the other privates are down with that...

not sure what that question means, basically if the big TX and FL schools can keep their top talent, Saban is cooked. 

[Had Enough 2057]

31 minutes ago, Hermanator said:

 Not a sprained ankle but the Miami running back that shredded his knee against Ohio state in the championship game in I think 2001, and Jaylen Smith are 2 examples. Neither became the player they were projected to be and Jaylen Smith became so unathletic as a result of the drop foot he became a joke and is no longer in the league.

There are tons of guys that don’t meet their projections for a variety of reasons. And injuries can happen off the field too so probably ought to stop working out.  Then you have dudes like Sergio Kindle.  From listening to Cowboys fans Smith was a sorry football player.  But he should have cash and connections to do just fine.

We’re paying dudes now so insure em for catastrophic shit but only for career ending type stuff.  People get why dudes opt out, but that doesn’t mean other opinions don’t have validity.

[Had Enough 2057]

12 minutes ago, Hermanator said:

He had a good career but a very slow start due to that injury. He had to change the way he played and never had the same explosive burst that he had in Miami. 

 Now that was the championship game so nobody should ever sit that out, But if you're in the who gives a crap bowl it makes sense to sit out if you're considered a draftable player

I’d ask you here.  Do you think Terrell Bernard last night increased his draft value?  I mean he whipped SEC butt.  Do you believe he was previously draftable?

my guess he did.  He also gets an unbelievable experience that he’ll never forget.

[formermav43 4599]

3 hours ago, PilotsError said:

The playoffs were on Friday.  Then yesterday there were OTHER bowl games that weren't playoff games.  That is so fucking absurd it can barely be mentioned.  No other bowl games should exist except the playoffs.  That's how every other sport does it.  Even if you want to keep the bowls, which is idiotic but whatever, they should ALL be played before the fucking playoffs. 

But why? Every game yesterday was infinitely more entertaining and enjoyable than either playoff game. 

[Had Enough 2057]

3 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

But why? Every game yesterday was infinitely more entertaining and enjoyable than either playoff game. 

Bowl games kick ass.  Not all of them but many of them.  But you have to be a football fan.  And people do care.  The players do care.  I’ve been to several bowls over my life.   They were all enjoyable.  Well, one was kinda crappy.  The crappiest thing about them is generally being relegated to crappy seats. 

[Paco 1932]

And Corral going down is exactly the reason so many players are opting out and it will only get bigger. Especially in meaningless scrimmage bowl games that have no bearing on any championship. Just a bowl to make the fat cats richer and ESPN getting more revenue. Draft status and their earning power >>>>> meaningless bowl game. But of course all the couch potato fans and analysts who are paid mouthpieces for the sport try and ridicule and talk down on these players who choose this and call them selfish. Gtfo.

"meaningless scrimmage", etc. You keep saying these words and I don't think they mean what you think. Do the games count toward a team's season record? Yes.
Do the stats accrued during these games count toward a player's or team's stats? Yes.

[RomaVicta 29794]

I disagree with the op about college football being stale. It's difference from the NFL is why I've stuck with college football while abandoning the NFL. There is variety of offense and defense. There are more interesting battles over mismatched talent on the field. How do you stop a great receiver? How do you contain an elite edge rusher?

It's also more interesting because there is more heart in it. 

The NFL and other pro sports are just about purely mercenary. College sports are not the same, or at least haven't been; that's why I can put my heart into fandom. Most of these guys chose Texas just like I did. I like that about the other schools, too. They have real identities.

NFL adherents have, IMHO, been the drivers in the changes in college football. I'm curious to see how that comes out. 

[royiv 9163]

2 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

The NFL and other pro sports are just about purely mercenary. College sports are not the same, or at least haven't been; that's why I can put my heart into fandom. Most of these guys chose Texas just like I did. I like that about the other schools, too. They have real identities.

You have your head in the sand if you don't recognize the rapid shift towards CFB becoming NFL lite. Kids are not choosing schools based on allegiances. It's all about maximizing playing time and NIL opportunities. It may be even more mercenary than the NFL moving forward since the transfer portal gives college players more control of their destiny than multi-year contracts in the NFL does.

[Brothahorn 10085]

17 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

The reason I hate Herbie is because he had so much potential and he sold his soul.  You are right when he simply sticks to what is happening between the lines he is actually really really good.  But he works for ESPN and at some point he was confronted with the the age old quandary of staying true to himself or selliing out to being a shill and he chose the shill route.  When he talks about almost anything but pure football he is a fucking douchewaffle.  

IF there is a problem with the modern player, it is a problem that his employer helped create. They created the monsters, Herbie is now crying about. 

And as others have pointed out, I guess Chip, Lincoln and all the other coaches don't love football like they used to either.

If Herbstreit or Desmond had any balls, they would point that part out, too.

 

[Helobious 9481]

Worth noting the NFL product, while better than college, is steadily getting worse as practice time keeps getting cut. Plenty of blown coverages, missed tackles, and other dumb mistakes to be seen every week. 

[immamac 42519]

people who say college football is stale and boring and we have a 4M+ pageview thread on just Texas Recruiting. We have a 100+ page thread on quinn ewers transferring and we have all kinds of really cool initiatives going on for NIL that we have combined to payout nearly 6 figures since August to players on the team.

We had a coaching carousel thread that was hundred pages, we have so many awesome great things going on in cfb right now. So yeah, if all you like is to turn on games on saturday and watch or turn on a game during bowl season and watch maybe the product is stale and boring, there has never been a more exciting time to give a shit about college football than today though. It's so incredibly complex and the dynamics of what it takes to be good have been flipped on their head overnight. 

Alabama and Georgia are going to have Clemson seasons, Michigan, Texas and USC are going to be back in the main conversation etc all in the next year or 2.

[RomaVicta 29794]

6 minutes ago, royiv said:

You have your head in the sand if you don't recognize the rapid shift towards CFB becoming NFL lite. Kids are not choosing schools based on allegiances. It's all about maximizing playing time and NIL opportunities. It may be even more mercenary than the NFL moving forward since the transfer portal gives college players more control of their destiny than multi-year contracts in the NFL does.

From my post

Quote

The NFL and other pro sports are just about purely mercenary. College sports are not the same, or at least haven't been;

I specifically state that college football is changing and it's doing so on the impetus of NFL thinking people. 

Everyone could see that college football would change with the NIL issue. Don't be too self-congratulatory about your command of the obvious. An ostrich with its head out of the sand still has a pretty tiny brain.

You don't even try to recognize the actual point you're supposedly at odds with in favor of going straight to a rote declaration. I state a concern about college going full mercenary not a denial of same. 

Cut and paste your posts more judiciously.

 

[Neonmoon 38127]

14 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Kids are not choosing schools based on allegiances

This post is incredibly naïve. The NIL is only revealing what was already there. The average college football fan probably believes for the previous 120 years, the best players chose their team based on geography, school reputation, coach, strength of team, tradition. This is what everyone wants to be true. Tony 5 Star chose my school because we have a great school, and tradition, and we are the best! 

I am sure that is actually true for some players. 

Even if we ignore the long documented history of players getting paid under the table, from the recent 6 figure bags, Bama Booster Club, free cars, Clemson Church, 1000 dollar handshakes, SMU paydays, Aggy FedEx, whatever. Even if you pretend none of that existed. 

There is a reason for facilities arms race. New work out facilities, uniforms, dorms, smoothie bars, barber in locker room. Recruits usually choose the richer schools and always have. If I go to Ohio State, I get better meal plan, academic tutors, uniforms, free clothes vs going to Cincinnati and I get to help chalk the field before the game. 

In the 60s, before scholarship limits, rich schools would offer scholarships to players just to keep them off opposing poor teams. 

Kids were arguably never choosing based on allegiances. It was always because of money. And the teams (for the most part) that pay the most money, get the best players, and have the best teams. As long as they didn’t get caught. But there hasn’t been any enforcement for the past 15 years. The last one to get punished was USC. Ole Miss I guess, but that was self inflicted. 

[Hagbard Celine 10763]

21 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Vic’s a cannibal?

technically, it's not cannibalism if the host is still alive when you carve off a side

[Patrick Bateman 3903]

49 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

This post is incredibly naïve. The NIL is only revealing what was already there. The average college football fan probably believes for the previous 120 years, the best players chose their team based on geography, school reputation, coach, strength of team, tradition. This is what everyone wants to be true. Tony 5 Star chose my school because we have a great school, and tradition, and we are the best! 

I am sure that is actually true for some players. 

Even if we ignore the long documented history of players getting paid under the table, from the recent 6 figure bags, Bama Booster Club, free cars, Clemson Church, 1000 dollar handshakes, SMU paydays, Aggy FedEx, whatever. Even if you pretend none of that existed. 

There is a reason for facilities arms race. New work out facilities, uniforms, dorms, smoothie bars, barber in locker room. Recruits usually choose the richer schools and always have. If I go to Ohio State, I get better meal plan, academic tutors, uniforms, free clothes vs going to Cincinnati and I get to help chalk the field before the game. 

In the 60s, before scholarship limits, rich schools would offer scholarships to players just to keep them off opposing poor teams. 

Kids were arguably never choosing based on allegiances. It was always because of money. And the teams (for the most part) that pay the most money, get the best players, and have the best teams. As long as they didn’t get caught. But there hasn’t been any enforcement for the past 15 years. The last one to get punished was USC. Ole Miss I guess, but that was self inflicted. 

Very much agree with this, although I'll say that the college football player community is not a monolith, and different guys choose for different reasons, but to think that the NIL is the creating this rift is naivety.  IMO, it's pretty simple.  Money changes everything and the more more money you insert into a system, the more it changes.  As college sports has increased in popularity throughout the decades after WWII, the way audiences consume the sport and the money involved have changed. Now, a bunch of old white guys tried to keep the money from disseminating into the overall system as best they could, but eventually, everything comes out in the wash and the volcano exploded to some degree. 

College football is in transition, not because of these rule changes, but because the problems and issues they had necessitated change.  Change happens slowly with most systems and that's what you're seeing now.  A 12-16 team playoff would much more enjoyable as upsets would be more prevalent and folks feel a true gauntlet was run with 3-4 games rather than 2.  It'll get there, give it time, but the system right now certainly isn't optimal.  The Bowl model can go the way of the NIT.

 

 

[Doc Sam Beckett 5784]

I actually feel a little sorry for those who don't realize how fucked college football is now. I thought I had ~10 years to go, but it died fast. 

A couple of things for the head in sand types, 

1) I've seen a few mention NIL leveling the playing field. That's lol bad, NIL has permanently killed all but ten or so teams. For every Travis Hunter, there are ten Jahmyr Gibbs. How can the Georgia Techs of the world compete when the players who used to build a foundation transfer now? Don't give me bullshit about Boise beating Oklahoma, those days are gone. The best the have nots can hope for is shooting the moon and making it the CFP and losing like Cincy instead of losing like Michigan. 

2) y'all think it's going to be fun again when Texas is playing the same game as Bama and Georgia, but it isn't going to be fun at all. What made college football fun was the regional rivalries. Tech, Baylor, aggy and the rest of the losers rising up and winning the conference every once in a while kept shit fun. That's not the case moving forward. You'll get random years like this one where OSU and Clemson don't win their conference as they rebuild, but the team that does is a G5 team compared to the NFL lite teams they will face in the playoffs. 

Y'all aren't going to like winning national championships when nobody gives a shit. Bama, Georgia, Ohio State and a few others will give you a high five, but everyone else will be done caring. Fuck off to an NFL minor league and the rest can enjoy college football the way it used to be 

[RomaVicta 29794]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

This post is incredibly naïve. The NIL is only revealing what was already there. The average college football fan probably believes for the previous 120 years, the best players chose their team based on geography, school reputation, coach, strength of team, tradition. This is what everyone wants to be true. Tony 5 Star chose my school because we have a great school, and tradition, and we are the best! 

I am sure that is actually true for some players. 

Even if we ignore the long documented history of players getting paid under the table, from the recent 6 figure bags, Bama Booster Club, free cars, Clemson Church, 1000 dollar handshakes, SMU paydays, Aggy FedEx, whatever. Even if you pretend none of that existed. 

There is a reason for facilities arms race. New work out facilities, uniforms, dorms, smoothie bars, barber in locker room. Recruits usually choose the richer schools and always have. If I go to Ohio State, I get better meal plan, academic tutors, uniforms, free clothes vs going to Cincinnati and I get to help chalk the field before the game. 

In the 60s, before scholarship limits, rich schools would offer scholarships to players just to keep them off opposing poor teams. 

Kids were arguably never choosing based on allegiances. It was always because of money. And the teams (for the most part) that pay the most money, get the best players, and have the best teams. As long as they didn’t get caught. But there hasn’t been any enforcement for the past 15 years. The last one to get punished was USC. Ole Miss I guess, but that was self inflicted. 

That's all I'm saying. Some of you guys need to understand the difference between absolute statements and qualified statements.

I knew opening this thread was an error and commenting an even worse one. 

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

the intrigue of college football cannot be matched:

Kansas beat Texas who beat Texas Tech who beat Miss State who beat Tx A&M who beat Alabama. 

How does this happen??

[bullet 1596]

On 12/31/2021 at 11:40 PM, dingleberryswitzer said:

I don’t know man, seems knee jerk because bamA and sabam have absolutely dominated the last decade and probably will win it all again.
 We got two teams that have never been in the playoffs including a g5 team.  

it’s gonna be this way until sabam retires.  I would like to see something like a G5 championship or maybe an NIT style Tournatment for football.  

Saban has won 7 and if he does it this year 8 in 19 years between Bama and LSU.

Someone said that every team other than Bama since 2005 has had to beat Bama to win the title with the sole exception of FSU 2012.

[bullet 1596]

On 12/31/2021 at 11:54 PM, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://theathletic.com/3045472/2021/12/31/vannini-another-year-of-semifinal-blowouts-illustrates-why-the-college-football-playoff-must-expand/

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

It won’t change the results at the end, but it’ll give us something to enjoy along the way.

Over eight years, the CFP has pulled off the remarkable feat of failing to give us good semifinal games while also devaluating the New Year’s Six games outside the CFP rotation. The result is that the sport’s highest-profile games miss the charm and excitement that comes with the regular season, and what should be the climactic moments of the season often feel like duds. Alabama fans are so used to this that most had cleared out before Friday’s trophy presentation even ended.

It’s not what anyone envisioned when the format was put into place with a 12-year contract in 2014. It was supposed to give more teams a chance and produce a new class of winners. Instead, it’s provided Alabama a second chance in some years, and the Tide have reached the championship game six times in eight seasons.

The night before this latest CFP blowout, Michigan State and Pitt played a Peach Bowl without two of the most exciting players in the sport, as Kenneth Walker III and Kenny Pickett opted out. Do you think that happens if both teams are in a 12-team playoff? Of course not. Ohio State’s star receivers opting out of Saturday’s Rose Bowl should tell you what that tradition means when your goal is a national title.

It’s why the format must expand again. Not to produce different champions, but to give us competitive, meaningful games and change the ultimate goal of the sport.

The 12-team model that is most favored by the sport’s power brokers would give us a slate of eight additional games, including a first round of teams 5-12 that assuredly would produce more exciting results than what we get now. By giving byes to the Alabamas of the world, we’ll get teams that are more even in talent on the field for something that matters.

And if we put those games on campuses, where the sport was meant to be played, we’ll get electric environments that’ll produce memorable moments and experiences.

Cincinnati won’t have to require a season full of chaos to get a spot and then go up against the most talented team in the sport. The Bearcats had plenty to be proud of on Friday — cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and Coby Bryant shut down Alabama’s receivers on the outside, for one. They just didn’t have the horses along the lines.

“We knew the battle in the trenches would be a big deal,” Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell said. “That’s where the game was won.”

The loss doesn’t take away anything from the Bearcats’ season, but I’d love to see them against an Oklahoma State or a Pitt, too. Imagine if we had Notre Dame and Utah playing in South Bend for a chance to move on.

Expanding would also provide everyone in the Football Bowl Subdivision with a tangible goal of reaching the CFP, giving more fans something to celebrate and enjoy before the games. That can be the ultimate goal. Like the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, reaching that is an accomplishment in itself, something every team could realistically point to in preseason camp. The 12-team format also gives stakes to a conference championship game between two teams already in the field, because a bye would be on the line.

We love our Duke’s Mayo Bowls and our Music City Bowls. Those don’t have to go away. But those second-tier NY6 games that get schools that aren’t thrilled to be there are caught in between, and they’re quickly becoming devalued.

Ten days from now, the sport’s commissioners will meet in Indianapolis, the site of the national championship. They will again try to come to an agreement on expansion. It’ll be their seventh meeting on the topic since a 12-team proposal was put forth in June. What once seemed like a sure thing was nearly derailed by conference realignment.

All of the commissioners say they want expansion. They just can’t agree on all the details, whether it’s eight or 12 teams or how many teams are guaranteed a spot by winning their conference championships.

If they want to expand by the 2024 regular season, this meeting in January might have to be the time. Waiting until after the 2025 regular season would allow a clean slate and get the CFP out from various bowl contracts. Can the sport afford to go through four more years of this, though?

College football succeeds despite itself. It put its marquee semifinal games on New Year’s Eve instead of New Year’s Day, a day the sport used to own, because of antiquated bowl contracts.

Cincinnati fans still showed out in Arlington. They were much louder than Alabama fans. Michigan fans outnumbered Georgia fans in Miami. There are fan bases craving the chance to reach this stage. But the collection of talent is so tied up in a handful of teams at the top that we’ll continue to get the same schools in the four-team field most years.

Expansion won’t change who wins in the end. It’ll probably continue to produce lopsided semifinal results. But the College Football Playoff is supposed to be the climactic moment of the sport, and it’s just not. It’s time to adjust. It’s time to open the door and reimagine what the sport’s crowning moments should be.

 

In 4 of those 12 blowouts, the underdog won.

And twice the favorite in the finals has been blown out.

[bullet 1596]

On 1/1/2022 at 7:22 AM, Catdaddyhorn said:

Has recruiting ever been this concentrated amongst just a few schools? I don't follow it as closely as I did in the 00s, but  I don't remember a time when 3 or 4 schools routinely locked up such a high % of the top 100. Bama, Georgia, & Ohio St dominate recruiting like no other period of time before. They get 3 or 4 five star players seemingly every year. Then throw in another 15 years of SEC propaganda and lesser teams like Kentucky tend to recruit way above their historical weight which hurts schools like Michigan and Michigan St that recruit Ohio kids who dont go to Ohio St.  

I don't think so.  Last year I think Ohio St. got the top 2 players in Washington state.  Alabama got 4 of the top 11 in Texas.  I think it was Bowlsby said, "We had no idea how damaging it would be not to make the playoff."  Playoff needs to expand ASAP.  Alabama, Ohio St., Clemson and Georgia are just mopping up all over the country, not just in their own territory.

[Gaffords 755]

On 12/31/2021 at 9:42 PM, GreenspointTexas said:

1) you are witnessing the greatest coach in cfb history having one of the greatest dynasties in sports history

 

2) the bcs is better than the playoff

 

3) i like you vic but fuck the notion that the nfl is better than cfb

 

4) texas sucks right now, that has more than 50% to do with it

What you are seeing is almost two decades worth of ESPN shoving the SEC down everyone's throat sending the nation's top recruits flocking to the SEC, especially to 'Bama, who ends up with the cream of the crop, as the top of the food chain.

And Saban is one hell of a coach, so his depth chart is full of players every year that would start at almost any other school, so injuries doesn't affect them like it does the mere mortal teams 

[bullet 1596]

On 1/1/2022 at 11:49 AM, David Dennison said:

I blame 2008 more on the Big 12. But I might be misremembering some things.

Part of it was Mike Leach.  That idiot who said his interest dropped when Leach tangled with the Tech admin better have been a Tech fan.

Leach fell behind and then tanked the game vs. OU giving the pollsters an excuse to rank OU ahead of us.

[bullet 1596]

On 1/1/2022 at 2:51 PM, hundredTT said:

Yep, every week there’s a crazy upset in the NFL. And the games are usually very competitive. I never in a million years thought I would say the NFL just trumps college football. Even if Texas would be good, the the game as a whole is just so lopsided for the most part. Can’t blame anyone, Saban just completely dominates the sport. College football def need Texas and USC to bounce back if it wants to start healing. 

No game in the NFL is truly an upset.  its the imbalance that makes college football exciting, along with the intensity.  Although the intensity is decreasing as you get more players just in it to get ready for the NFL.  When was the last time you saw someone run like Earl?  They run out of bounds, go down, avoid contact.  There are real upsets in college football.

[Hank Chinaski 6310]

5 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

I actually feel a little sorry for those who don't realize how fucked college football is now. I thought I had ~10 years to go, but it died fast. 

A couple of things for the head in sand types, 

1) I've seen a few mention NIL leveling the playing field. That's lol bad, NIL has permanently killed all but ten or so teams. For every Travis Hunter, there are ten Jahmyr Gibbs. How can the Georgia Techs of the world compete when the players who used to build a foundation transfer now? Don't give me bullshit about Boise beating Oklahoma, those days are gone. The best the have nots can hope for is shooting the moon and making it the CFP and losing like Cincy instead of losing like Michigan. 

2) y'all think it's going to be fun again when Texas is playing the same game as Bama and Georgia, but it isn't going to be fun at all. What made college football fun was the regional rivalries. Tech, Baylor, aggy and the rest of the losers rising up and winning the conference every once in a while kept shit fun. That's not the case moving forward. You'll get random years like this one where OSU and Clemson don't win their conference as they rebuild, but the team that does is a G5 team compared to the NFL lite teams they will face in the playoffs. 

Y'all aren't going to like winning national championships when nobody gives a shit. Bama, Georgia, Ohio State and a few others will give you a high five, but everyone else will be done caring. Fuck off to an NFL minor league and the rest can enjoy college football the way it used to be 

Agree with this. Texas has sucked for a long time, and that has certainly chipped away at my interest, but I don’t think it’ll get much better if/when Texas gets back to where it was in the 00s. We may be good again because we’re paying players the most, and we’ll only be really “competing” with about 15-20 schools. Great?

It is also homogenous now. Every team runs essentially the same offense. There is no individual team identity anymore. You used to have these interesting games where, say, Nebraska (running the option) would play Spurrier’s Florida. Notre Dame (with Tony Rice) playing against Miami’s pro-style. That doesn’t really exist anymore.

Also, the transfer stuff has basically created free agency. The NIL stuff will add to that. Look, I have no argument against players getting paid or being able to go to whatever school they want - they should be able to do that. But it will make the sport even less interesting.

Also, I’m grouchy and old and get off my goddamned lawn.

[bullet 1596]

On 1/1/2022 at 6:58 PM, DougO said:

The old bowl system was great. No championship game, but we got to argue about the polls at the end. In exchange, we got great matchups, almost every bowl was entertaining, they mean something, they were all championships, they were all for bragging rights, players didn't opt out. The BSC was the horrible idea that kept getting worse, then the travesty of the "playoff system" which is nothing more than the ESPN Invitational football tournament.

You wanted it. You got it. It fucking sucks.

 

Youngster's post.  For an obvious Longhorn example, 1983.  Texas and Nebraska are the two best teams and didn't get to play each other and both slept-walked through their bowl games, launching the Miami dynasty.

[Treefidy 1463]

6 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

I actually feel a little sorry for those who don't realize how fucked college football is now. I thought I had ~10 years to go, but it died fast. 

A couple of things for the head in sand types, 

1) I've seen a few mention NIL leveling the playing field. That's lol bad, NIL has permanently killed all but ten or so teams. For every Travis Hunter, there are ten Jahmyr Gibbs. How can the Georgia Techs of the world compete when the players who used to build a foundation transfer now? Don't give me bullshit about Boise beating Oklahoma, those days are gone. The best the have nots can hope for is shooting the moon and making it the CFP and losing like Cincy instead of losing like Michigan. 

2) y'all think it's going to be fun again when Texas is playing the same game as Bama and Georgia, but it isn't going to be fun at all. What made college football fun was the regional rivalries. Tech, Baylor, aggy and the rest of the losers rising up and winning the conference every once in a while kept shit fun. That's not the case moving forward. You'll get random years like this one where OSU and Clemson don't win their conference as they rebuild, but the team that does is a G5 team compared to the NFL lite teams they will face in the playoffs. 

Y'all aren't going to like winning national championships when nobody gives a shit. Bama, Georgia, Ohio State and a few others will give you a high five, but everyone else will be done caring. Fuck off to an NFL minor league and the rest can enjoy college football the way it used to be 

Its easy to forget the problems with the old system, if not for the BCS 2005 would have ended with UT playing whoever in the cotton bowl and USC playing fOSU or someone in the Rose, with a split MNC.  There was even less incentive to play a good OOC and thus the top teams from each conference rarely crossed paths.  
 

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the old bowl system and split MNCs would probably lead to fewer opt outs if there’s 3 or 4 games with the winner potentially sharing the title.  
 

 I would imagine 8&4 aggy is all for a return to the old ways, they have recently picked up 4 new titles decades after the fact from obscure computer rankings.   Under the current system they have no chance, but a return to split MNCs means they can add more titles 80 years or so from now when there’s no one left alive to dispute them.  

[bullet 1596]

23 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

I hear you and generally agree.  That said hypothetically.  You drop a few conference games by mid October.  The CFP is gone and more than likely so is any chance at a conference title.  Opt out ok then?  I mean the rationale would be the same right?  

That's what Oliver did at Houston.  He opted out of most of the season.

[C-Man 27058]

On 1/1/2022 at 7:40 AM, Landomatic said:

I don't follow this logic at all. If all the talented players wanted to just go to the playoff, Georgia (or any other SEC team) would never get any talent as they all have the hardest path to the playoff (most years) because of Alabama. Also, you claim Georgia always gets to the playoffs, and therefor gobbles up all the talent, yet this is only their second appearance in 8 years. And you say the 4-team playoff is an abject disaster, yet it has worked out right pretty much every single year. Does not compute.

Playoff appearances over 8 years...

Alabama - 7
Clemson - 6
Ohio St - 4
Oklahoma - 4
Georgia - 2
Notre Dame - 2
Oregon - 1
Florida St - 1
Michigan St - 1
Washington - 1
LSU - 1
Michigan - 1
Cincinnati - 1

College football has a parity problem. Not sure how expanding the playoff is going to change that. Maybe NIL will help it?

I was pretty deep into the bottle the other night. What I meant was that three-fourths of the four-team playoff was pretty much Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson for the last four or five years, and you could pencil it in. The fourth team was usually Oklahoma or a second SEC team like LSU or Georgia, maybe Notre Dame. This year was a bit of a disruptor with Michigan and Cincinnati getting in. I think expanding to 12 or 16 teams means more teams have a chance to win championships and that will help distribute some of the talent that is streaming to Bama, Ohio State or Clemson. I *hope* that would lead to a bit more parity at the top of college football.

Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[Hermanator 6944]

11 hours ago, immamac said:

people who say college football is stale and boring and we have a 4M+ pageview thread on just Texas Recruiting. We have a 100+ page thread on quinn ewers transferring and we have all kinds of really cool initiatives going on for NIL that we have combined to payout nearly 6 figures since August to players on the team.

We had a coaching carousel thread that was hundred pages, we have so many awesome great things going on in cfb right now. So yeah, if all you like is to turn on games on saturday and watch or turn on a game during bowl season and watch maybe the product is stale and boring, there has never been a more exciting time to give a shit about college football than today though. It's so incredibly complex and the dynamics of what it takes to be good have been flipped on their head overnight. 

Alabama and Georgia are going to have Clemson seasons, Michigan, Texas and USC are going to be back in the main conversation etc all in the next year or 2.

Following our team is still interesting but following the overall sport as a whole is repetitive and not much fun. 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8799]

None of this is even a thing if auburn goes for 2 in the iron bowl and converts it.

[Guest]

22 hours ago, immamac said:

people who say college football is stale and boring and we have a 4M+ pageview thread on just Texas Recruiting. We have a 100+ page thread on quinn ewers transferring and we have all kinds of really cool initiatives going on for NIL that we have combined to payout nearly 6 figures since August to players on the team.

We had a coaching carousel thread that was hundred pages, we have so many awesome great things going on in cfb right now. So yeah, if all you like is to turn on games on saturday and watch or turn on a game during bowl season and watch maybe the product is stale and boring, there has never been a more exciting time to give a shit about college football than today though. It's so incredibly complex and the dynamics of what it takes to be good have been flipped on their head overnight. 

Alabama and Georgia are going to have Clemson seasons, Michigan, Texas and USC are going to be back in the main conversation etc all in the next year or 2.

This is a weird argument to me. "Sure, college football is boring if you only watch the football games."

The stuff with recruiting, NIL, and coaching carousel that you mention is interesting and gets eyeballs because it's a train wreck -- not because it's good for the game. 

[immamac 42519]

5 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

This is a weird argument to me. "Sure, college football is boring if you only watch the football games."

The stuff with recruiting, NIL, and coaching carousel that you mention is interesting and gets eyeballs because it's a train wreck -- not because it's good for the game. 

Weird. Stale and boring now has qualifiers of being "good for the game" 

[chitown bevo 17]

15 hours ago, Gaffords said:

What you are seeing is almost two decades worth of ESPN shoving the SEC down everyone's throat sending the nation's top recruits flocking to the SEC, especially to 'Bama, who ends up with the cream of the crop, as the top of the food chain.

And Saban is one hell of a coach, so his depth chart is full of players every year that would start at almost any other school, so injuries doesn't affect them like it does the mere mortal teams 

this has led us to the sh!t show of a playoff scam that is taking place next week. will not watch. more people should think about skipping the deal. low rating might motivate change.

[alincoln 2364]

Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson have won 18 of the 23 playoff games (LSU, UGA and Oregon the other 5).  Absolutely riveting competition. 

The past decade of college football has arguably been its worst, but the future should be much improved.  Players will be compensated for their efforts, the playoff will expand, and Saban will retire.   

[alincoln 2364]

53 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

The stuff with recruiting, NIL, and coaching carousel that you mention is interesting and gets eyeballs because it's a train wreck -- not because it's good for the game. 

Recruiting, NIL and the coaching carousel (and conference realignment and playoff expansion) elicit interest (arguably more interest than the actual games) because they represent opportunities for changing the stale and boring status quo.  Most college football fans (and Texas fans in particular) are desperate for change/evolution in the sport.  

[Brothahorn 10085]

Has recruiting ever been this concentrated amongst just a few schools? I don't follow it as closely as I did in the 00s, but  I don't remember a time when 3 or 4 schools routinely locked up such a high % of the top 100. Bama, Georgia, & Ohio St dominate recruiting like no other period of time before. They get 3 or 4 five star players seemingly every year. Then throw in another 15 years of SEC propaganda and lesser teams like Kentucky tend to recruit way above their historical weight which hurts schools like Michigan and Michigan St that recruit Ohio kids who dont go to Ohio St.  

I don't think so. Even when the Florida 3 were running things, talent was still spread out.

Alabama, especially, benefits from all three of those schools not being a national player any longer.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, immamac said:

Weird. Stale and boring now has qualifiers of being "good for the game" 

And stale and boring evidently also has a qualifier of "only if you watch the actual football games."

[immamac 42519]

4 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

And stale and boring evidently also has a qualifier of "only if you watch the actual football games."

College football is very rarely about the football being played in the games. It never has been. That's why it's awesome. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, immamac said:

College football is very rarely about the football being played in the games. It never has been. That's why it's awesome. 

College football is not about football. Makes sense.

[immamac 42519]

Just now, FirstTimeCaller said:

College football is not about football. Makes sense.

Yeah dude. It's why there are so many regional rivalry games and mini trophies in the season. Stop being a dense fuckwad. NFL is a far more pure game. College is full of insanity and crazy shit happening. It's why maction is fun to watch. 

 

[alincoln 2364]

2 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

College football is not about football. Makes sense.

Most Americans prefer the sideshow and gossip to the substance

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, immamac said:

Yeah dude. It's why there are so many regional rivalry games and mini trophies in the season. Stop being a dense fuckwad. NFL is a far more pure game. College is full of insanity and crazy shit happening. It's why maction is fun to watch. 

 

So let me get this straight. College football is stale and boring only if you watch the football games. What's really entertaining are the coaching searches, recruiting, NIL, etc... and that's why the MAC is fun to watch? The league that plays on Tuesdays and is known for having entertaining football?

Sorry I'm being a "dense fuckwad" for not understanding your point. First you say the football isn't the real focus and then you highlight arguably the conference that is the most drama-free and focused on the game. It's all over the place.

Edited January 3, 2022 by FirstTimeCaller