2021 College Football Discussion and Pick'em Thread

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Upset alert: Purdue leads #2 Iowa 24-7 with 12 minutes left.  (Coincidentally, Georgia leads Kentucky by the same score at the end of the 3rd quarter, having just blocked a FG attempt.)

LOL, hopefully this causes Pedo State to drop as well.

[NewYorkExpress]

A couple of other games to keep track of right now.

Early in the fourth quarter, Baylor leads #19 BYU 31-14.

LSU pulled off the upset, and downed #20 Florida 49-42.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Georgia's NCAA-record streak of 363 consecutive made PATs just ended when the kick bounced off the right upright. 

[Dereich]

#4 Penn State @ #3 Iowa 4 PM EDT FOX I refuse to believe Kirk Ferentz teams are capable of anything more than being slightly above mediocre

I knew it, I've said for weeks that Iowa is only slightly better than mediocre.

[Santander]

I've said since pre-season that Purdue was a team to watch. Now you know why I was glued to Purdue-Oregon State. It was by far the biggest Week 1 game. (And as you can now all see, Oregon State are no pushovers either)

[Santander]

Cincy will probably be ranked #2, which is brilliant for their fans, but really, the Sooners deserve it more.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I mean, it's pretty clear Penn State is better than Iowa. They lost a road game only after Iowa took out their top players.

I thought Iowa would be losing to Wisconsin and either Minnesota or Nebraska - not Purdue! But can never tell when luck is going to dry up.

[Dereich]

Cincy will probably be ranked #2, which is brilliant for their fans, but really, the Sooners deserve it more.

Do they? Cincinnati has been much more consistent than Oklahoma has. Hell, Oklahoma barely scraped past 4 painfully mediocre Big12 teams as well as Tulane (who are now 1-5) before looking slightly better today. The only reason I'd put Oklahoma at #3 is because there's no one better at the moment.

[NewYorkExpress]

Cincy will probably be ranked #2, which is brilliant for their fans, but really, the Sooners deserve it more.

Do they? Cincinnati has been much more consistent than Oklahoma has. Hell, Oklahoma barely scraped past 4 painfully mediocre Big12 teams as well as Tulane (who are now 1-5) before looking slightly better today. The only reason I'd put Oklahoma at #3 is because there's no one better at the moment.

My Rankings (Top Five only):

1. Georgia
2. Alabama
3. Cincinnati
4. Oklahoma

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Holy cow, next week's slate is hot garbage. I'm sure College GameDay will pick Pittsburgh (vs. Clemson) or UCLA (vs. Oregon) for sake of giving equal airtime to the irrelevant P5 conferences, but it would be the perfect time to go to Princeton for a battle of the undefeateds with Harvard. Heck, they'd probably sooner choose NDSU or EWU with their barely top 25 opponents. The former faces Bobby Petrino, the latter had their red field on national tv just two weeks back. Might even resort to SHSU or SDSU as they are the top two but opponents get really meh.

[NewYorkExpress]

Holy cow, next week's slate is hot garbage. I'm sure College GameDay will pick Pittsburgh (vs. Clemson) or UCLA (vs. Oregon) for sake of giving equal airtime to the irrelevant P5 conferences, but it would be the perfect time to go to Princeton for a battle of the undefeateds with Harvard. Heck, they'd probably sooner choose NDSU or EWU with their barely top 25 opponents. The former faces Bobby Petrino, the latter had their red field on national tv just two weeks back. Might even resort to SHSU or SDSU as they are the top two but opponents get really meh.

If I were picking for Gameday, I'd go with Wake Forest @ Army, actually.

Also, it's a shame Coastal Carolina/Appalachian State is Wednesday Night, because that seems like it would be an interesting game to pick, especially with the rest of the slate being complete garbage.

Any chance of an exception to the usual no games before Friday rule for this one?

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Tennessee should be fined $1 million and banned from having live attendance for one year. Shocked NYE hasn't called for the death penalty and/or SEC Expulsion yet.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Tennessee should be fined $1 million and banned from having live attendance for one year. Shocked NYE hasn't called for the death penalty and/or SEC Expulsion yet.

The SEC fines for completely harmless (99.9% of the time) field stormings, so they better fine way more for something like this that actually disrupted the game, showed poor sportsmanship, and, most importantly, put people in danger.

[Donerail]

Gameday should take the next two weeks off to prepare for the long flight out to El Paso on the first weekend of November, when 7-1 UTEP will host 8-0 UTSA in the Sun Bowl in a game with major national championship implications.

Next week should probably be SDSU vs Air Force, but they won't do it because they don't support our troops.

[GeorgiaModerate]

WEEK 7 RESULTS

We had the 7th different sole winner in 7 weeks of play as Dereich won with 18-7, a game ahead of ExtremeRepublican.  (Illiniwek and I are the only two regular players who haven't won yet.)  Full results:

18 Dereich
17 ExtremeRepublican
16 Dingo Joe, Donerail, GeorgiaModerate, Illiniwek
15 NY Express, Terry
12 JGibson

There were only two unanimous picks, both correct:

Colorado-Arizona
Oklahoma-TCU

There were seven games with a single dissenter (asterisk means the dissenter was right):

Clemson-Syracuse
Arkansas-Auburn (*)
Georgia-Kentucky
North Carolina-Miami
Alabama-Miss. State
N.C. State-Boston College
Boise State-Air Force (*)

With the win, Dereich moves back into first place overall, but it's a very tight battle.  Year to date (175 games):

112 Dereich
111 Donerail
110 NY Express
107 GeorgiaModerate
105 Terry
103 ExtremeRepublican
90 JGibson
89 Illiniwek
77 Dingo Joe
12 Orwell

[GeorgiaModerate]

Tennessee has always had some of the most awful fans around.  Here's an idea for a penalty: allow no students to attend their remaining home games, and don't let them resell those seats -- leave them empty.

[Dereich]

Tennessee has always had some of the most awful fans around.  Here's an idea for a penalty: allow no students to attend their remaining home games, and don't let them resell those seats -- leave them empty.

A big empty gap in the stadium would be worse for the SEC brand than a fine (or even this happening again!) would be so no way the SEC goes for it.

[NewYorkExpress]

Tennessee should be fined $1 million and banned from having live attendance for one year. Shocked NYE hasn't called for the death penalty and/or SEC Expulsion yet.

The NCAA Death Penalty and/or expulsion from the SEC seem excessive.

I do believe the students in question should be expelled from the University of Tennessee.

[GeorgiaModerate]

538's playoff predictor now has 12(!) teams with at least a 10% chance of making the playoff:

Georgia 76%
Oklahoma 52%
Alabama 38%
Cincinnati 34%
Ohio State 29%
Michigan 21%
Oklahoma State 15%
Michigan State 14%
Pittsburgh 14%
Oregon 13%
Iowa 12%
N.C. State 10%

The first eight would become virtual locks if they win out except for Cincinnati, which only gets to 65%. Penn State (98%), Wake Forest (96%), Baylor (92%), Iowa (91%), and Oregon (87%) would also become close to locks by winning out.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Poor Ed Orgeron. Just as soon at the SEC West was about to get easier by replacing Alabama and Auburn with Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri.

[GeorgiaModerate]

UTSA enters the AP poll at #24, its first ranking in history.  The Roadrunners have only been playing Division I/FBS football since 2012.

In other poll notes, there are no Florida schools ranked, the first time this has happened since 2011.  None of the seven schools has a winning record in their last 10 games; UCF is even at 5-5 and all the others are underwater.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Week 8

Friday, October 22nd

Memphis @ UCF 7 PM EDT ESPN2

Saturday, October 23rd

#16 Wake Forest @ Army Noon EDT CBSSN

Kansas State @ Texas Tech Noon EDT FS1

Northern Illinois @ Central Michigan Noon EDT ESPNU

Syracuse @ Virginia Tech 12:30 PM EDT ESPN3

Texas State @ Georgia State 2 PM EDT ESPN+

Wisconsin @ #25 Purdue 3 PM EDT BTN

#8 Oklahoma State @ Iowa State 3:30 PM EDT FOX

#10 Oregon @ UCLA 3:30 PM EDT ABC

LSU @ #12 Ole Miss 3:30 PM EDT CBS

Clemson @ #23 Pittsburgh 3:30 PM EDT ESPN

Maryland @ Minnesota 3:30 PM EDT ESPN2

Miami (OH) @ Ball State 3:30 PM EDT ESPN+

Buffalo @ Akron 3:30 PM EDT ESPN+

Colorado @ California 3:30 PM EDT PAC12

BYU @ Washington State 3:30 PM EDT FS1

Boston College @ Louisville 4 PM EDT ACCN

East Carolina @ Houston 4 PM EDT ESPNU

Tennessee @ #4 Alabama 7 PM EDT ESPN

#22 San Diego State @ Air Force 7 PM EDT CBSSN

Nevada @ Fresno State 7 PM EDT FS2

USC @ #13 Notre Dame 7:30 PM EDT NBC

Georgia Tech @ Virginia 7:30 PM EDT ACCN

West Virginia @ TCU 7:30 PM EDT ESPNU

Utah @ Oregon State 7:30 PM EDT PAC12

[Terry the Fat Shark]

After this week, things start heating up quickly, October 30th features top 10 ranked matchups Michigan State vs Michigan and Ohio State vs Penn State

[NewYorkExpress]

Ed Orgeron out at LSU at the end of the season.

Looking at who LSU might consider to replace Orgeron, I'm thinking Kentucky Head Coach Mark Stoops, Oregon Head Coach Mario Cristobal, Cincinnati Head Coach Luke Fickell or Wake Forest Head Coach Dave Clawson.

[NewYorkExpress]

UCF

Wake Forest (I want to believe in an unbeaten ACC Champion Wake Forest. Would that be enough to get them to the playoffs? I don't know. They didn't pick a good year for Clemson to have a down year)
Texas
Northern Illinois
Kansas State
Virginia Tech
Georgia State
Purdue (If Purdue can beat Iowa, they can beat a mediocre Wisconsin team at home)
Oklahoma State
Oregon
Mississppi (let the Ed Orgeron farewell tour begin)
Minnesota
Ball State
Buffalo
Colorado
BYU
Louisville
Houston
Alabama (This one won't even be close)
San Diego State
Notre Dame (needless to say, Cincinnati fans will be rooting for the Fighting Irish)
Virginia
TCU
Utah