College football rankings following Week 10 - FBS

Here are the updated Following Football ACNC tiers and rankings for the FBS teams following the games of November 3-7...Alabama takes over the #1 spot, despite their early season loss to Mississippi State - and if that's a problem for you, ask yourself what the betting odds would look like were they to play any of the undefeated teams on a neutral field! (They were 6 1/2 point favorites against #1 LSU Saturday - and justified it in spades!). In fact, three of our four playoff teams have a loss, but more important is how you're playing NOW. Big movers include OU, moving up from #9; Stanford (#11 to #5), North Carolina (from #28 to #21); falling somewhat were LSU (just to #7) and TCU (to #13).

Notice that we've now ranked ALL 128 teams, all the way down to our Bottom Eight, with Eastern Michigan at the very bottom, losing to almost-equally pathetic Miami of Ohio.

FF tier	Team	Conf	CfRec		OvRec
A1	Alabama	secW	5	1	8	1
A2	Clemson	accA	6	0	9	0
A3	Notre Dame	ind			8	1
A4	Oklahoma	b12	5	1	8	1
B5	Stanford	pacN	7	0	8	1
B6	Ohio St	b10e	5	0	9	0
B7	LSU	secW	4	1	7	1
B8	Oklahoma St	b12	6	0	9	0
B9	Baylor	b12	5	0	8	0
C10	Mississippi St	secW	3	2	7	2
C11	Iowa	b10w	5	0	9	0
C12	Florida	secE	6	1	8	1
C13	TCU	b12	5	1	8	1
C14	Utah	pacS	5	1	8	1
C15	Michigan	b10e	4	1	7	2
D16	Michigan St	b10e	4	1	8	1
D17	UCLA	pacS	4	2	7	2
D18	Ole Miss	secW	4	2	7	3
D19	Temple	aacE	5	0	8	1
D20	Georgia	secE	4	3	6	3
E21	North Carolina	accC	5	0	8	1
E22	Houston	aacW	5	0	9	0
E23	Florida St	accA	5	2	7	2
E24	Auburn	secW	2	4	5	4
E25	Texas A&M	secW	3	3	6	3
E26	Navy	aacW	5	0	7	1
E27	Wisconsin	b10w	5	1	8	2
F28	Memphis	aacW	4	1	8	1
F29	USC	pacS	4	2	6	3
F30	Toledo	macW	4	1	7	1
F31	BYU	ind			7	2
G32	North Carolina St	accA	2	3	6	3
G33	Arkansas	secW	3	2	5	4
G34	Oregon	pacN	4	2	6	3
G35	Boise St	mwM	4	1	7	2
G36	Northwestern	b10w	3	2	7	2
G37	Tennessee	secE	3	3	5	4
G38	Northern Illinois	macW	4	1	6	3
G39	Washington	pacN	2	4	4	5
G40	Virginia Tech	accC	2	3	4	5
G41	Western Kentucky	cusaE	6	0	8	2
G42	Bowling Green	macE	5	0	7	2
G43	Duke	accC	3	2	6	3
H44	Pitt	accC	4	1	6	3
H45	Louisville	accA	4	2	5	4
H46	West Virginia	b12	1	4	4	4
H47	Louisiana Tech	cusaW	5	1	7	3
H48	California	pacN	2	4	5	4
H49	Appalachian St	sun	4	1	7	2
H50	Miami-FL	accC	3	2	6	3
I51	Washington St	pacN	4	2	6	3
I52	Georgia Tech	accC	1	5	3	6
I53	Minnesota	b10w	1	4	4	5
I54	Cincinnati	aacE	2	3	5	4
I55	Penn St	b10e	4	2	7	3
I56	Vanderbilt	secE	1	4	3	6
I57	Kansas St	b12	0	5	3	5
I58	Arizona St	pacS	2	4	4	5
I59	Missouri	secE	1	5	4	5
J60	Kentucky	secE	2	5	4	5
J61	Texas	b12	3	3	4	5
J62	Western Michigan	macW	5	0	5	3
J63	Texas Tech	b12	2	5	5	5
J64	Arizona	pacS	2	5	5	5
J65	San Diego St	mwW	5	0	6	3
J66	South Carolina	secE	1	6	3	6
J67	Nebraska	b10w	2	4	4	6
K68	Arkansas St	sun	5	0	6	3
K69	Illinois	b10w	2	3	5	4
K70	Indiana	b10e	0	5	4	5
K71	Central Michigan	macW	4	1	5	4
K72	Air Force	mwM	4	1	6	3
K73	South Florida	aacE	3	2	5	4
K74	Boston College	accA	0	7	3	7
L75	East Carolina	aacE	2	4	4	6
L76	Georgia Southern	sun	4	1	6	2
L77	Iowa St	b12	2	4	3	6
L78	Marshall	cusaE	5	1	8	2
L79	Southern Miss	cusaW	4	1	6	3
L80	U Conn	aacE	3	3	5	5
L81	Utah St	mwM	4	2	5	4
M82	Middle Tennessee	cusaE	3	2	4	5
M83	Virginia	accC	2	3	3	6
N84	Purdue	b10w	1	4	2	7
N85	Akron	macE	2	3	4	5
N86	Syracuse	accA	1	4	3	6
N87	Wake Forest	accA	1	5	3	6
N88	Tulsa	aacW	2	3	5	4
N89	Colorado	pacS	1	5	4	6
O90	Maryland	b10e	0	5	2	7
O91	Rutgers	b10e	1	5	3	6
O92	Ohio	macE	2	3	5	4
O93	Nevada	mwW	3	2	5	4
O94	Buffalo	macE	3	2	5	4
O95	Colorado St	mwM	2	3	4	5
P96	UNLV	mwW	2	3	3	6
P97	San Jose St	mwW	3	2	4	5
P98	Oregon St	pacN	0	6	2	7
Q099	New Mexico	mwM	3	2	5	4
Q100	Troy	sun	2	3	3	6
Q101	UL-Lafayette	sun	3	1	4	4
Q102	Rice	cusaW	2	3	4	5
Q103	Florida International	cusaE	3	3	5	5
Q104	SMU	aacW	0	5	1	8
R105	Tulane	aacW	1	5	2	7
R106	Ball St	macW	2	4	3	7
R107	Florida Atlantic	cusaE	2	4	2	7
S108	Idaho	sun	2	4	3	6
S109	Kent St	macE	2	3	3	6
S110	Hawai'i	mwW	0	6	2	8
S111	New Mexico St	sun	2	3	2	7
T112	Texas St	sun	1	3	2	6
T113	South Alabama	sun	2	2	4	4
T114	Old Dominion	cusaE	2	3	4	5
T115	Fresno St	mwW	1	5	2	7
T116	U Massachusetts	macE	0	5	1	8
U117	Kansas	b12	0	6	0	9
U118	Wyoming	mwM	1	5	1	9
U119	Army	ind			2	7
U120	UTEP	cusaW	2	3	4	5
U121	Miami-OH	macE	1	5	2	8
U122	North Texas	cusaW	1	5	1	8
U123	UT-San Antonio	cusaW	1	4	1	8
V124	Georgia St	sun	1	3	2	6
V125	UNC-Charlotte	cusaE	0	6	2	7
V126	Central Florida	aacE	0	6	0	10
V127	UL-Monroe	sun	0	5	1	8
W128	Eastern Michigan	macW	0	6	1	9

Thursday Thoughts - Braindroppings

Today, we want to jump all over the landscape and ask a ton of questions, point out a ton of interesting thoughts, and...well, if George Carlin were still around, he'd call these "Braindroppings"! So, here goes!

What makes a team a dynasty? Three titles in a row, like Hawthorn just achieved in the AFL? Does five in fifteen years count, like the NBA's San Antonio Spurs? What about the Patriots, who've won four and been to seven Super Bowls in the Belechick/Brady era (about fourteen years)? Certainly the 1950s-60s Boston Celtics count - they're the very definition of a dynasty! Eight in a row, eleven in thirteen years...but which of those is more important? Is winning over a long period of time, even if you missed a couple in between, "better" than the string over three or four years? What do you think?

Concussion protocols...without question, better than it's been in previous years, when you could convince your coach you were good to go play even when the other team seems to have twice as many players as they legally should have. But please, footy, football, every other kind of real contact sport - don't assume the problem's fixed! The iffy nature of concussions to begin with makes dealing with them nebulous in the best of times, and as we learn more and more about how much time it actually takes to recover from the hit, we have to change how we deal with it. Opinion?

Specials... which is what many coaches call "trick plays". Washington pulled a good one last night, a double pass which scored their first touchdown and led to an upset of USC in LA. SC State had a great one that I first saw the Rams pull on Seattle last year, where you have a punt returner fake like he's getting the punt, when in reality it's the guy on the opposite sideline who's catching the ball and (in last night's game) scoring a touchdown on the runback! (Bethune-Cookman won anyway, however, in a game which may have decided the MEAC.) So, the question that bugs some people is this - are "specials" basically cheating? If you can't win playing "correctly" (or "like men", if you want to really get machismo on this), you have to "resort to trick plays" to try to "cheat" your way to victory! My response - first of all, the plays are legal, so it's not cheating. Second of all, it's the brain versus brawn argument, and football has room for both. If you're okay with a team using the forward pass to win, which many in the early days of the AAFC and NFL weren't for the same reason (c'mon! Be a man and run at me!), you really can't complain about the double pass, or any other "trickeration", as our idol Chris Petersen would say. Petersen, of course, was the one who called the double pass that beat USC last night, and famously brought the house down in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl with a host of trick plays at the end of the game to pull out the Boise State victory over vaunted Oklahoma. What most people forget is that, until a great OU drive and a brainfade interception, Boise had OU soundly beaten (28-10, late in the third) with old-fashioned, hard-nosed, "my linemen are better than yours" football. You've gotta have the guys who can pull it off, too. Your thoughts?

Speaking of Boise v Oklahoma, the perpetual argument over whether a school from outside the Power Five conferences should ever play for a national championship rages, and will continue to until one gets in and then wins the tournament. The CFP folks threw the Group of Five conferences a nice bone by guaranteeing their best team a spot in the high-paying bowl games in the New Year's Six, which is more than they've had. But what if (to choose a team besides Boise, our personal favorite!) Temple or Toledo, both of whom look spectacular this year, goes undefeated in 2015, looks phenomenal in doing so, and two of the power conferences fail to produce any team the committee feels is worthy of a playoff bid? Who's to say that an undefeated Temple isn't a better choice than, say, a three-loss Florida State? What would be wrong with that? Think back to that 2007 Fiesta Bowl, which some say was the best game of all time (as much as I love Boise St, I'd go with USC/Texas in the BCS title game the year Vince Young won it for the Longhorns). Utah had been the first "mid-major" to qualify for a big bowl, but they played a five-loss Pitt team from a pathetic Big East, won, and proved nothing. Boise was the first mid-major to play in the spotlight against a top ten team - and not just any, but 7-time national champion Oklahoma, Big 12 champs, one loss, Adrian Peterson at RB. Somehow the screwed up rankings had BSU #7 and OU #9, but the Sooners were absurd betting favorites - David and Goliath was referenced multiple times in the intro. BSU dominated the game, and if it weren't for a Bronco punt coverage mistake late in the 3rd, Oklahoma was ready to give up. In fact, over the span of games that mid-major teams played in BCS bowl games, their record was 5-2. (And one of those losses was to another mid-major, when they pitted TCU and BSU against each other the year they both qualified. The other was Hawaii's debacle loss to Georgia, proving there's an exception to every rule.) Why can't a Boise St, a Houston, a Memphis, a Toledo, a Temple, a Navy, a Northern Illinois play for the title?

Bodybag games...New Mexico State is getting about a million dollars towards balancing its athletic budget ($4.4 M over, last year) to go to the University of Mississippi and be a forty-three point underdog to a top-notch SEC team. Basically, they're being paid to be the Washington Generals. Remember the Generals? The Globetrotters' perpetual opponents? Name anything about them besides that. Thought so... Ole Miss wants a week off from the gauntlet of the SEC, wants to fill their stadium, give their fans a "guaranteed win" (as LSU will tell you about Jacksonville St, "no such thing"!), and is giving about a one-seventh share of the profits to the opponent for the privilege of being beaten badly. Some teams are notorious for needing these games to stay afloat - Following Football's favorite team, the MEAC's punching bag Savannah State, played Oklahoma St and Florida St in consecutive weeks two years ago, lost the first one 88-0, and would've lost the second to the national champs by worse if they hadn't gone to a running clock in the second half to finish early and avoid a storm coming in. Up here in the Northwest, I always pity the Idaho Vandals, who moved to the big-time because Boise St did, but in little Moscow, Idaho, they don't have the fan base or the resources to afford the lifestyle of an FBS football program. So instead of being the top-notch FCS program they were for decades, rivals with the Montanas of the realm, they're stuck as a bottom-feeder in the lowly Sun Belt conference, taking two payday games a year (this year at USC and Auburn) to financially survive another one-win season. Where's the shame in moving to FCS before your entire program disbands (see UAB)? Why don't schools like NMSU, Idaho, and several others improve both their bottom line AND their competitive results and return to the FCS where their school setting suggests they should be anyway? Your thoughts?

"Big 12 expansion is not just a possibility..."

Not that it's going to happen just yet, but here's an article from a visit with OU president David Boren, laying out the timetable (in the next ten years) for the expansion of the Big 12 back to (at least) 12 - expansion which "is not just a possibility, but an inevitability" for the long-term survival of the league.

Is it too early to talk Top 30 in college football?

Yes. Yes it is.

However, Sports Illustrated doesn't think so, and they've put out their "post-spring camp Top 25" plus five more, and it's an interesting list to peruse...

1. Ohio State                                       11. Stanford                                           21. Georgia Tech
2. Baylor                                              12. Ole Miss                                          22. Oklahoma
3. Auburn                                            13. Arizona                                            23. BYU
4. Alabama                                          14. USC                                                  24. LSU
5. Michigan St                                    15. Boise State                                      25. Oklahoma St
6. TCU                                                  16. Clemson                                          26. Arkansas
7. Notre Dame                                    17. Missouri                                          27. Utah
8. UCLA                                               18. Georgia                                           28. Mississippi St
9. Florida St                                        19. Arizona St                                       29. Texas
10. Oregon                                           20. Wisconsin                                      30. Michigan

 I find this list absolutely fascinating to contemplate, which is why I post it. At Following Football, we do NOT rank football teams until somewhen in mid-October at the earliest. What we do do is group teams into what we call "tiers"; eventually there'll be about twenty tiers, A through T or so, even when they're ranked (that's also how we project game outcomes) but at the very beginning of the season? We'll divide them up into two, three, four tiers...then six or seven...then maybe eight or ten..until we have enough information to rank them all, #1-127. (UAB football, rest in peace.)

But about THIS list? Look at these crunchy tidbits!
> Auburn 3 and Alabama 4? Delicious!
> OSU deserves #1, but MSU isn't very far behind at #5...
> Baylor at 2 and TCU way back at 6? But TCU's the one bringing their QB back!
> How about this one? Everett Golson goes to perennial playoff contender Florida St, #9... but the team he left is #7!
> Look at the Pac-12! UCLA #8, Oregon #10, Stanford #11, Arizona #13, USC #14, and Arizona State at #19! (Even Utah sneaking in at 27!) THAT will be a packed conference!
> The "Group of Five" better figure out a way to defeat Boise State! They start the season ranked this year...even a loss or two may not knock them out of the top non-Power spot! (Only BYU sits on the list, at #23, to challenge.)
> Oklahoma 22 and Okee State 25? Fun!
> Arkansas 26 and Texas 29? (Or OU/UT? Or...)
> And look who they've got sneaking in at #30! High hopes, indeed, Mr. Harbaugh!

Hello, point-shaving possibilities!

The Big 12 now has a tiebreaking formula in case Baylor and TCU tie again at 8-1...unfortunately, it has a hint of disaster lurking underneath it in the case of a three way tie... check out this link.

Good review of where the colleges are...

As is often the case, ESPN is on top of the college spring practice scene, and more importantly, where teams are leaning as we look ahead to the fall. This piece by their Pac-12 man (and college go-to-guy!) Ted Miller does a great job surveying the landscape and looking at the BIG PICTURE in FBS football, as of March 2015!

Also, Heather Dinich writes a really great piece about where the current thinking is regarding out-of-conference scheduling - why the Big 12 schools are taking a risk (SMU, Lamar, and Rice? Really, Baylor?), while the Big Ten has the right idea (in my mind) with their 1910 plan - 1 major non-conference game, 9 conference games, 1 championship game, 0 FCS patsies scheduled. 

Perfect. 

No one's demanding you play a top ten school every week, big boys. Remember, there is no preseason in college football. Your first warm-up game counts! When Boise played "at" Ole Miss in August last year and lost, that game counted against them - it took a semi-perfect run of the table in October and November to get them back into New Year's Six contention. You lose that first game, you're in trouble - so if your first game is against the Little Sisters Of The Poor, Ohio State, I'll grant you that. 

Just not the other two non-cons, okay? Play real teams.

Finally, there's a nice piece (also by Heather Dinich) which discusses the College Football Playoff system's successes and failures last year with the movers and shakers, decides that the former far outweighs the latter (and that they were burned by the constant 'tinkering' of the BCS formats), and that there won't be any changes in the near future to the CFP process. Four teams. Committee, some advance polls (maybe slight adjustments as to the when and how often), and no changes. The key word in the article is patience.

It's college bowl season - continued!

Here's week two of the FBS bowl season, from Dec 27 onwards (see our previous post for the first week's predictions), from ESPN, Sagarin, Vegas, and Following Football:

Dec 27                                           ESPN                  Sagarin                  Vegas           Following F
Cincinnati v Virginia Tech:       Cinc by 6           Cinc by 0.2           Cinc by 3         Cinc by 6
Duke v Arizona St:                      ASU by 4        ASU by 6.6        ASU by 7.5    ASU by 4
Miami-FL v South Carolina:     Mia by 7            SC by 0.3            Mia by 3           SC by 1
Boston College v Penn St           PSU by 3          BC by 3                  BC by 2.5         BC by 2
Nebraska v USC:                         USC by 11        USC by 2.1         USC by 6.5   USC by 1

Dec 29
Texas A&M v West Virginia      A&M by 1         A&M by 2.0     WV by 3.5        A&M by 2
Oklahoma v Clemson:                OU by 11             OU by 5.6             OU by 3           OU by 1/2
Arkansas v Texas:                       Ark by 7           Ark by 12.4       Ark by 6        Ark by 1

Dec 30
Notre Dame v LSU:                     LSU by 3            LSU by 12.7         LSU by 7          LSU by 5
Georgia v Louisville:                   Lou by 4             UGA by 11.5     UGA by 6.5   UGA by 3
Maryland v Stanford:                 Stan by 14      Stan by 11.2      Stan by 14     Stan by 6

Dec 31
Ole Miss v TCU:                           TCU by 3         TCU by 1.4        TCU by 3       TCU by 2
Boise St v Arizona:                      Ariz by 3            Ariz by 5.2            Ariz by 3.5       Ariz by 4.5
Mississippi St v Georgia Tech:  GT by 4           MSU by 10.2        MSU by 6.5     MSU by 1

Jan 1
Auburn v Wisconsin:                  Aub by 7            Aub by 10.3          Aub by 6.5       Aub by 2
Michigan St v Baylor:                Bay by 7            Bay by 4.6             Bay by 3           Bay by 3.5
Missouri v Minnesota:               Mizz by 4       Mizz by 6.4        Mizz by 5      Mizz by 2.5
Florida St v Oregon:                   Ore by 11        Ore by 9.7          Ore by 9        Ore by 3
Ohio St v Alabama:                     Ala by 7             Ala by 4.3               Ala by 9.5       Ala by 3
  Jan 2
Pitt v Houston:                              Pitt by 4           Pitt by 3.1             Pitt by 3            Pitt by 1
Iowa v Tennessee:                        Tenn by 11    Tenn by 6.3      Tenn by 3.5   Tenn by 3
Kansas St v UCLA:                       KSU by 3          KSU by 5              KSU by 3           KSU by 2
Washington v Oklahoma St:      UW by 14         UW by 5               UW by 5.5         UW by 7

Jan 3
East Carolina v Florida:             ECU by 4          Fla by 13.6        Fla by 7           Fla by 4

Jan 4
Toledo v Arkansas St:                 Toledo by 4       ArkSt by 0.3    Toledo by 3   Toledo by 1

Now, if the predictions hold true, we'll be previewing the Oregon/Alabama national championship game on January 12th in the new year. And remember, not only will we be tallying our Following Football predictions compared to that of the casinos, but also running a pure count of how many games each of the four predictors does forecasting 39 games where the teams have had a month to both rust and prepare.

Givin' a little love to the Broncos...

While we cover football on a national international level here at Following Football, we're really just a very small contingent based in Idaho, USA - and when you talk football in Idaho, you have to start with the Little Engine that Could, the Boise State Broncos college football team. From its roots as Boise Junior College in the 30s through the early 60s, through the BSC years in Division II, and then as a university moving into what was then called "Division 1-AA" (where they won a national title in 1980), and finally moving up into Division 1A in the lowly Big West, then to the WAC, and finally (so far) into the Mountain West conference...Boise State's football program has been amazingly and consistently successful at every level. 

For most non-potato-bred fans, their familiarity with the Boys on the Blue starts with arguably the Best College Football game of the Century (at least it's in the conversation) - the 43-42 "upset" of Oklahoma in their first Fiesta Bowl appearance on New Year's Day, 2007. (We say "upset" because most folks fail to remember that while OU was a huge betting favorite, Boise was undefeated and actually two spots ahead of the 10-2 Sooners in the polls.) Watch the game again - Boise actually dominated the game, controlling the line of scrimmage on offense AND defense, and led 28-10 in the third quarter, looking to put away the disgruntled Sooners with ease...when they muffed a punt return, giving OU the ball for a short field, a quick TD, and the game was on. From there, re-invigorated, Oklahoma kisked a FG to bring themselves within eight at the start of the fourth quarter, and scored a TD with less than two minutes to play, followed by the wackiest set of two-point attempts you'll ever see (they succeeded - called back on OU penalty; they failed - called back on a BSU penalty; they succeeded the third time to tie at 28-28).

Then the fun began.

Given the ball with 1:06 to go, Boise QB Jared Zabransky immediately threw a pick-six and "lost" the game, 35-28. The narrative became, "The plucky little team held fast against the big bad seven-time national champs all game long, but eventually it was just too much for them." And then, first-year coach Chris Petersen started in on his bag of tricks. (Until then, he'd not needed them - as I said, they'd been winning 'conventionally' all game long.) Facing fourth and eighteen at midfield, down to under twenty seconds to play, they called the "hook-and-ladder" play: Zabransky to Drisan James, who tossed it to Jerard Rabb running full speed the other way and barely made it into the corner of the end zone for the tying TD.

Still not over. Tie game: Overtime.

Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson (great college running back - wonder whatever happened to him?) sliced through the exhausted Bronco defense like warm butter. Uh-0h, thought coach Petersen. We can't keep going like this. So when the Broncos scored their touchdown (on a halfback pass on fourth down, of course...), Petersen went for two and the chance to win or lose right there. One play, for the Fiesta Bowl championship.

The Statue of Liberty.

Famously, receiver Legadu Naanee, standing on the sideline when the play was called, immediately said, "We just won the game." The combination of the audacity of the call, as Pat Forde puts it, and the upset victory itself drove the stadium (and the country) into pandemonium...ratcheted up one more notch a few minutes later when, during an interview on national TV following his game winning two-point scamper, running back Ian Johnson proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend and shocked the poor interviewer. I love Johnson's casual explanation for the timing: "There's no better time than on national TV after the game-winning two-point conversion."

After that game, the Bronco legend took on steam. They went 12-1 and 11-1 in back to back seasons without returning to the BCS (but while watching Hawaii go and fail completely), until they returned in 2010, as the first team to "earn" a berth from an 'inferior' conference (rather than get the automatic non-power conference bid for being top 12)...only to play the OTHER non-power conference team, TCU (at the time, still a Mountain West member, while BSU played in the WAC), and win 17-10. 

As you'll read in this article from long-time ESPN Bronco writer Andrea Anderson, that Fiesta Bowl legacy is what drew many of the current players to Boise State. It's a heritage that they're eager to live up to. Personally, although Arizona will be higher ranked and essentially playing at home, although this 11-2 Bronco team objectively isn't as good as the previous BCS teams they've sent, I won't bet against the Boys from the Blue. The Wildcats probably don't realize what this game means to Boise St. They'll think of it as a home game.

A home-away-from-home game. 

Thoughts from championship Saturday....

As the game between TCU and Iowa St is reaching its 55-3 conclusion, with the Horned Frogs having made their statement to the playoff committee, two tweets retweeted by TCU reporter Stefan Stevenson caught our eye. The first remarks on the ethics of coach Gary Patterson: 

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  3 hStefan Stevenson@FollowtheFrogs

  #Classystylepoints "@calexmendez: TCU has 55 points, kneeled on a fourth-and-goal at the 6.... with 4:05 to go."

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• Immediately thereafter, the opposing viewpoint, or at least ONE opposing thought, was presented:

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  3 hStefan Stevenson@FollowtheFrogs

  Yep. "@byjoelanderson: If I played for Iowa State, I'd be way more offended that they treated us like a Make-A-Wish squad."

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As we discussed Tuesday night, the committee has already made their decision, and 55-3 isn't going to give them any reason to change their minds... TCU will be in the playoff.

Congratulations to the SMU Mustangs! After the season from hell, in which their coach quit on them, two games in; in which game after game, their opponents have dominated them on both sides of the ball; in which, on the one occasion that they looked like  should win, South Florida drove the field for a touchdown, made them punt, and then finished the game with a ridiculous 21-play, eight-minute, three 4th down conversion drive that ended with a six yard touchdown pass on fourth down with six seconds to play to win 14-13...after all of that, they finally came up with a fourth quarter score to break a 20-all tie and defeat conference foe Connecticut 27-20. They end the season 1-11, break a thirteen game losing streak, and prevent the 2014 season from having a winless season this year.

Think about this: The 1-11 SMU Mustangs will enter the 2015 season on a longer winning streak than THREE of the four playoff teams will!

Good on you, Oklahoma St! On a five-game losing streak, down 35-21 to their Bedlam rivals Oklahoma, it would have been easy and understandable to simply let down and give in. Instead, they scored a touchdown, stopped the Sooners, and ran a punt return back to tie the game and send it on to overtime, where they just kicked a field goal to not only upset their rivals but become bowl eligible. 

The FCS playoffs are in the Round of Sixteen, and besides the Sam Houston St upset of Jacksonville St (that we predicted, thank you!), the home teams have rolled. Except for the defending champs, North Dakota St, who hosted their cross-border rivals from South Dakota St. The game was neck and neck, and SDSU moved ahead 24-20 with just over three minutes to go. The Bison did what all great teams do - they showed their greatness by driving the length of the field when they HAD to, scored that must-have touchdown with a perfect pass with fifty-four seconds to go, and intercepted the first pass SDSU threw to seal the victory. 

Hard to argue with the shows that three of the four CFP top four teams put on over the last twenty-four hours: we talked about TCU's victory, but Alabama and Oregon both won conference championships at neutral sites over division title winners with disarming ease. Last night, the Ducks avenged their only loss by annihilating Arizona 51-13, with Marcus Mariota clinching his impending Heisman Trophy win with five TDs with his arm and his legs. This afternoon, the Crimson Tide rolled over Missouri, 42-13, with Blake Sims confirming his coaches' faith in him when they surprised folks by naming him the starter. Now, it's up to defending champion Florida St to complete the picture tonight by beating the teams they beat exactly two years ago to start their 28-game winning streak, the Georgia Tech. If they win, the committee WILL NOT remove them from the playoffs. It just won't happen! But if they LOSE, they're gone. Period. Then,...who? Ohio St? Baylor? Both have tough games (Wisconsin and Kansas St, respectively) that they'll have to win to give the committee the opportunity to move them up into the four-spot.