2021 College Football Discussion and Pick'em Thread

[GeorgiaModerate]

College football is just a little over a month away!  The season starts with a handful of games on Saturday, August 28, but doesn't really get into full swing until the following weekend.  Terry the Fat Shark (aka dfwlibertylover) and I are planning to run a weekly pick'em game again this year; stay tuned for more details.

To kick off the discussion, here's an interesting article from CBS Sports indicating that Texas and Oklahoma are flirting with the SEC.  If those two do end up going to the SEC, it would create the first 16-team superconference.  It would also leave the Big 12 with only eight members, so they'd probably need to backfill with some of the stronger G5 schools (in both football and basketball) such as Houston, Memphis, Cincinnati, BYU, or Boise State.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I would prefer the Big 12 just go away rather than backfill, but are any of them likely to get interest from a remaining P5 conference other than maybe Kansas/Big 10 and maaaaaaybe West Virginia/ACC?

And how can Oklahoma leave Oklahoma State behind? I've always heard state politics won't allow it. Maybe Missouri goes to the B1G with Kansas and Oklahoma State takes the spot into the SEC? I think Mizzou's faculty would like that, but I think the fans have moved on from the Big 10 fantasies.

That might happen.  Now there are rumors that if Texas and OU leave, the Pac-12 is interested in Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas, and Texas Tech.  This would leave the Big 12 with West Virginia, Baylor, TCU, and K-State.  I suppose West Virginia might be attractive to the ACC; the other three would probably need to join forces with the American.

[GeorgiaModerate]

With another realignment looming, it made me think of how much the major conferences have changed since I started following college football in the mid/late 1960s.  These were the original conferences I remember:


ACC:

Clemson
Duke
Maryland (now in Big 10)
North Carolina
N.C. State
South Carolina (now in SEC)
Virginia
Wake Forest


Big 8 (now Big 12):

Colorado (now in Pac-12)
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Nebraska (now in Big 10)
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State


Big 10:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Northwestern
Ohio State
Purdue
Wisconsin


Pac-8 (now Pac-12):

Cal
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State


SEC:

Alabama
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
LSU
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Tulane? (now in AAC - I seem to vaguely remember them leaving the SEC in 1966.  Georgia Tech left in '64, but that was definitely before my football memories.)


SWC (defunct):

Arkansas (now in SEC)
Baylor (now in Big 12)
Rice (now in C-USA)
SMU (now in AAC)
Texas (now in Big 12, for the moment)
Texas A&M (now in SEC)
TCU (now in Big 12)
Texas Tech (now in Big 12)


WAC (it was actually a decent football conference back then, but membership has turned over several times since):

Arizona (now in Pac-12)
Arizona State (now in Pac-12)
BYU (now independent in football; WCC in other sports)
Colorado State (now in MWC)
New Mexico (now in MWC)
Utah (now in Pac-12)
UTEP (now in C-USA)
Wyoming (now in MWC)

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here's a creative idea for what the SEC should do if Texas and OU join to form a 16-team conference. 

Divide the conference into two divisions based on strength, with relegation and promotion each year like English soccer leagues do. For example, to start with it could be divided something like this:

First Division:

Alabama
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A&M

Second Division:

Arkansas
Kentucky
Mississippi State
Missouri
Ole Miss
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

At the end of each year, the bottom two teams in the first division swap with the top two in the second division. Teams could play a round-robin within their division (7 games) plus one opponent from the other division, for a total of 8 conference games. That would provide a way for natural rivals like Alabama & Auburn or the Mississippis to play every year even if they wound up in different divisions.

It will never happen, of course, but it would be interesting.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here's a creative idea for what the SEC should do if Texas and OU join to form a 16-team conference. 

...

It will never happen, of course, but it would be interesting.

Why in the world would anyone in your lower half ever agree to that? And why does a school who's been to 11 straight bowl games get slotted into the lower half anyway?

Note the bolded part.   I just think it's a fun idea.

[GeorgiaModerate]

CBS Sports writer's prediction of where the remaining Big 12 teams will end up if the conference implodes:

Baylor: AAC
Iowa State: Big 10
Kansas: Big 10
Kansas State: MWC
Oklahoma State: Pac-12
TCU: Pac-12
Texas Tech: AAC
West Virginia: ACC

I'm skeptical that the Pac-12 would prefer TCU to Texas Tech, but who knows.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Moronic. One (Kansas), maybe two (Oklahoma State) make even a lick of sense. I think it's clear the conference won't totally collapse when they have 6-7 pretty serious options with P5 type budgets, two of which were top 10 in the nation for all of last season, another two that had top 10 teams in the last 5 years.

I believe it's also true that the Big 12, as long as it exists under that name, remains one of the "autonomy" (P5) conferences, which is not something to give up lightly.  So I expect they'll do everything they can to continue on as a conference, which brings us back to the original scenario, i.e. they'll probably add 2 to 4 of the top G5 programs (possibly more if they lose anyone else).

[GeorgiaModerate]

Most likely scenario in my opinion if Texas and Oklahoma leaves is Texas A&M walks out of the SEC and goes back to the Big Twelve, and they also get Nebraska back from the Big Ten.

I wouldn't call this likely

Me neither. Their current conferences are far superior to the Big 12.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Texas and Oklahoma take the first official step toward leaving the Big 12: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/31889044/texas-longhorns-oklahoma-sooners-tell-big-12-not-renew-grant-media-rights.

[GeorgiaModerate]

There's also quite a bit of discussion on this in the generic college football thread - https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=455592.0.

[GeorgiaModerate]

And there it is: Texas and OU officially ask to join the SEC.  This is moving fast.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/31897367/oklahoma-sooners-texas-longhorns-formally-notify-sec-membership-request

[GeorgiaModerate]

There seem to be two scenarios currently favored by the more credible sports commentators. The most likely involves most or all of the remaining Big 12 members hanging together and adding 2-4 teams from Cincinnati, Memphis, Houston, UCF, BYU, and Boise, in approximately that order of preference. The second involves several of the Big 12 teams bolting for other conferences (WVU to the ACC, Oklahoma State to the PAC-12, etc) and the AAC trying to absorb whatever’s left.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Eventually, the nucleus of the new SEC and other football powers are just going to drop the act and stop pretending to care about academics, institutional fit, geography, rivalries, fans, traditions, or feelings. Money is all that matters.

18-20 team super league that flips the bird to amateurism and retains only vague links to their university. University stadiums become no more representative of a university than the University of Phoenix Stadium, and the University of Phoenix itself becomes a shining example of capitalist endeavor, rather than dishonorable grifters. No more worrying about Title IX, and non-revenue sports only exist to provide travel opportunities and off-season entertainment to fans. Instead of scholarships, donations to the athletic department go towards salaried contracts for players. No need for scholarships when they don't have to pretend to attend class anymore or live on-campus with the plebs. In the words of the great champion Cardale Jones, "We come here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL" Players could use their signing bonus money to buy Lamborghinis and luxury condos, and large numbers of them commit suicide at age 25, penniless, forgotten, leaving behind perhaps only a trail of domestic violence and an illegitimate child or two.

I'm reminded of a science fiction novel I read that was written around 1960 and set in the early 21st century.  It had a sampling of newspaper headlines, and one of them was "Betting scandal hits half of professionals on West Point football squad" or something like that. 

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1420492650482970633
Yeah, that'll work. Not.

ETA: This is apparently what triggered the above:

https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/1420512136208568324

[GeorgiaModerate]

Well, the Big 12 is now claiming the AAC is trying to absorb all 8 of its remaining members after Texas and Oklahoma leave.  This seems far-fetched to me; it would effectively amount to a Big 12-AAC merger, and if that were to happen it would make a lot more sense to keep the Big 12 name and standing as an autonomy conference. 

The resulting conference would also have 19 football members, which would be unwieldy unless they plan to kick out the AAC bottom-feeders.

[GeorgiaModerate]

SEC unanimously votes to invite Texas and Oklahoma.  Even Texas A&M voted yes, although it had been widely reported that they were opposed.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I’m fine with starting on the 28th.

[GeorgiaModerate]

For those considering playing the pick'em game, here are the rules.  I'll post these again at the start of the season.

The game will run weekly through the college football season including the bowl games and playoff.  Terry will post each week's slate of games in this thread.  There will usually be 25 games (schedule permitting) and may include some FCS games.

Make your picks by replying in this thread one or more times; don’t send them by PM to either him or me.  You can either copy the list of games and bold your predicted winners, or just post your list of winners.  

If bolding your winners, games with zero or both teams bolded will not be counted.  If listing your winners, slight errors in team names will be counted if the intent is unambiguous.  For example, in a Georgia Tech vs Florida State game, writing “Florida” would be counted as a pick of Florida State, but “Georgia State” would not be counted.  I (or anyone) may point out such errors so you have a chance to correct them, but this is not guaranteed to happen – ultimately, you’re responsible for getting your picks posted correctly.

Your pick for a game must be posted before the official start time for that game.  This is a hard cutoff.  You can change any of your picks by making a subsequent post, as long as it's before the game start time.  Please post a new reply for any changes; just editing your original post is easy for me to miss and could also raise timestamp questions.  

You don’t have to post your whole list at once.  For example, in a week with Friday and Saturday games, you could optionally post only the Friday game picks by Friday, and then follow up with the Saturday games on Saturday morning.  Or if you forget and miss the Friday games, you can still post picks for Saturday's games.

If a game is canceled or postponed due to COVID or any other reason: if it's just delayed within its originally scheduled week, it remains on the list for that week.  If it's pushed to a later week or delayed indefinitely, it becomes a "no contest" for the original week.  If it comes up again on a later week's pick'em list, that's considered a new game and you'll need to pick it again; the original pick will not carry over.

Each correct pick is worth one point.  After all of the week’s games are complete (usually on Sunday morning) I’ll post the results for that week and the year-to-date standings. 

It's really interesting to go back through the 2020 thread and read all the uncertainty leading up to the start of that season.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC have had preliminary discussions about forming an alliance, likely built around scheduling but possibly other areas, sources told ESPN.

Commissioners George Kliavkoff (Pac-12), Kevin Warren (Big Ten) and Jim Phillips (ACC) have been in regular communication and have had some in-person discussions. Kliavkoff and Warren were together this week for Rose Bowl meetings. Pac-12 sources said all three commissioners met last week in Chicago.

"I've been in frequent and regular contact with all of the other A5 commissioners the last few weeks about the four or five complex issues that are facing our industry," Kliavkoff told ESPN on Friday night. "Anything beyond that is just speculation, and I can't comment on it."

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32017916/sources-pac-12-big-ten-acc-preliminary-discussions-forming-alliance-likely-scheduling

[GeorgiaModerate]

AP preseason poll:

1. Alabama (47 first-place votes)
2. Oklahoma (6)
3. Clemson (6)
4. Ohio State (1)
5. Georgia (3)
6. Texas A&M
7. Iowa State
8. Cincinnati
9. Notre Dame
10. North Carolina
11. Oregon
12. Wisconsin
13. Florida
14. Miami
15. USC
16. LSU
17. Indiana
18. Iowa
19. Penn State
20. Washington
21. Texas
22. Coastal Carolina
23. Louisiana
24. Utah
25. Arizona State

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1427978201297571843

[GeorgiaModerate]

If anyone needs to review the pick'em rules (which are basically the same as last year's) they're listed here.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Check your list; you only picked 21 of the 25 games.  (This is why I recommend copying the original list and bolding your picks.)

[GeorgiaModerate]

LSU will require anyone attending Tiger Stadium who is 12 years of age or older to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within the last 72 hours, the school announced on Tuesday.
...
Those younger than 12 will not have to show proof of a negative PCR test. However, masks will be required for children between 5 and 11 years old and encouraged for those younger than 5.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32077089/proof-vaccination-negative-covid-19-pcr-test-required-enter-tiger-stadium

[GeorgiaModerate]

On the other extreme...sigh...

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1430238454617722883