The CFB Degenerate's Newsletter: A New Era of Civil War
Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination.
- Henry Knox, Military Officer
ZERO. As things currently stand headed into week 13, there are zero RBs with 300 or more carries. The carry leader is BSU’s Ashton Jeanty with 256. With two games left, and Jeanty averaging 25.6 carries per contest, it looks likely that he will clear 300 carries on the season (and by extension making him eligible to receive a premium IHOP membership, iykyk).
TWO. There are two tight ends in the top four of receptions currently. SJSU’s Nick Nash leads all receivers at 95, Maryland’s Tai Felton is next at 86. The two TEs are BGSU’s Harold Fannin (83) and Ball State’s Tanner Koziol (79).
FIVE. Only five QBs have been sacked 30 times or more: Hawaii’s Brayden Schager, Cal’s Fernando Mendoza, EMU’s Cole Snyder, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, and UVA’s Anthony Colandrea. As far as I can tell, New Mexico QB Devon Dampier is the least sacked starting QB, with five sacks in 11 games played.
SEVEN. Among players in the top 50 of rushing yards, there are only seven players averaging over seven yards per carry, with Marshal RB AJ Turner leading the pack at 9.2! New Mexico QB Devon Damper is next at 7.7. The other five players are New Mexico RB Eli Sanders, BSU’s Ashton Jeanty, Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson, Auburn’s Jarquez Hunter, and Louisville’s Isaac Brown.
EIGHTY SIX. Marshall RB AJ Turner is the only runner in the top 50 of rushing yards with less than 100 carries. He has 86.
Hello pigs, welcome back. Apologies for my absence last week as IRL things got in the way of my usual writing (and no, it wasn’t the Taylor Swift concerts here in Toronto). We’re back like we never left this week, just like TSwift using her PJ to navigate back and forth between Toronto and LA in between shows.
Earlier this week I was fortunate enough with the weather to still be able to enjoy on my weekly bike rides, despite the fact that we’re in November now (apparently global warming is a thing… who knew?). I was equally fortunate enough not to get nearly killed by any nefarious drivers here in the city this time (so much winning this week).
Between the unity and cheer of the Swifties who are in town currently (and on my TV screen), and my good fortune with the weather, you could say things were pretty peachy—until I logged onto twitter. What I found during my internet sleuthing was a literal civil war being carried out via the CFB playoff discussion.
To be fair, there has always been some underlying tension between the SEC and B1G/other conglomerates, but this year more than ever it seems tensions have risen to a boil.
This is mostly due to the fact that playoff spots are limited, and a lot of B1G schools + ND are competing with SEC schools for the at large bids (who could have seen that coming). Within this war of words, there is a macro debate regarding the philosophy of the CFP, and who deserves to be in it. On one hand, you have one camp, we’ll call them “the games have to matter” camp, who argue in favour of cleaner W/L records. Others in the “Strength of record” camp, argue in favour of a more holistic view, taking into account who teams have played. Both have equal merits, but both are also equally unfair in opposite directions.
In times like these, I think it’s important to think about the ‘why’ behind why things are structured the way they are, and why decisions are made in the directions that they are. I think it’s easy to get lost in the weeds every year with the arguing over the IUs, TCUs, FSUs of the world vs. the Alabamas, UGAs etc. and lose sight of the big picture of what it is we want as fans.
I’ll try to exercise my thoughts out loud with an analogy that may or may not makes sense (hopefully the former): One of the rules in basketball is called traveling, and this rule says that if a player doesn’t dribble the ball every two steps, then they get called for a penalty.
This rule wasn’t created so that referees could call the play dead every 5 minutes when someone takes another half step, or even a third step in a non-consequential situation (like a runaway dunk, that wouldn’t be great for the viewer). Rather, it is because dribbling the ball up the court is more skillful than carrying it. By extension, this rule helps filter the play so that those who are more skilled can show that. Which, by extension makes the product a higher skill endeavour, and (again) by extension means the fans get to watch a more skillful game, which in theory makes it more entertaining. Win-win.
When it comes to creating a structure of how to choose CFP teams in CFB, I think one should approach the idea with the same mind set. What is it that you want in the end as a fan? How do you want CFB to look in the future?
This is my stance: based on how CFB is constructed, and how the CFP is decided, there is inherent subjectivity, bias, and unfairness, regardless of which decision the committee makes. It’s not their fault. What do you do with an environment that features wide disparities in schedules? The system itself is poorly constructed from the foundation.
However, as a fan, I know that I like CFB when there are interesting games being played throughout the season. When Ohio State played Notre Dame OOC last year, that was a ‘good’ outcome for me as a fan. When UGA played Clemson this year, that was another ‘good’ outcome for me as a fan. When UGA played UT Martin and Ball State to open the 2023 season, those were ‘bad’ outcomes for me as a fan. Likewise when OSU played Akron this year. For me, as a fan of CFB, my preference is to observe more good outcomes as defined above.
With that in mind—coming back to the original question of how should the CFP committee decide on CFP teams—and again keeping in mind that there is inherent subjectivity and unfairness no matter which direction you go, then I’d rather them lean into the side that means a better viewing product for me, the fan of CFB.
In other words, I’d rather live in a world where the system incentivizes and rewards teams that have big wins, rather than weighing clean W/L columns (i.e. weighing losses). Because in the former construction, what you have is a system that incentivizes ‘good’ behaviour as I would define it from the ADs and decision makers when it comes to scheduling. In the latter, what you’ll end up with is an environment that incentivizes politicking and gaming the system into backdoor playoff invites. Yuck.
I don’t want UGA to stop scheduling Clemson and Oregon to open its seasons. But it seems like there are a lot of fans right now who have a very myopic view on W/L records and scheduling. They seem happy to watch big games involving other teams (where inevitably one loses in the end), so long as their team keeps their clear path to the CFP. There are UGA fans saying P4 OOC games in the future should be cancelled by the AD. I’ve seen other members of other fanbases suggest the same for their teams.
And if you’re a fan of a team that has never been to the CFP, or won a natty, this is understandable. It makes sense to me that a fan of IU, PSU, Texas, Miami, etc. would be in favour of simply ranking teams based on the W/L column this season, regardless of who those teams have actually played. But that isn’t a good precedent to set for CFB in my opinion for the long run, as it incentivizes poor behaviour from decision makers.
In my opinion, an outcome where ADs are falling over themselves to schedule huge OOC matchups every year, and are making sure that their in conference schedules are equally juicy, is a good outcome for me, and for CFB as a sport.
Imagine a world where every season, all of the big boys of CFB scheduled marquee matchups with each other OOC, and politicked in favour of hard in-conference draws for fear of missing out on the CFP due to a lack of marquee wins? That’s a lot better than the alternative in my opinion.
And, this idea is not all that unprecedented in collegiate sports. In fact, one only has to look at College Basketball to observe this. Pictured below is the seeding of one side of the bracket in the March Madness tournament last year (2024 tournament).
There is a team (ironically it’s Alabama, lol) that has more than double the losses of the 12 seed, and more losses than the team behind them and in front. There are other examples of teams ahead of others with multiple more losses. There’s even a team at #9 that barely has a winning record.
Why would the voters do this? Because they’ve most likely acknowledged the disparity in strength of schedule and accounted for that in a way that is definitely not fair, nor is it perfect, but, it at least incentivizes good behaviour from it’s programs. Grand Canyon can rectify their poor conference/schedule problem by scheduling more games vs. teams like Alabama in the regular season. And in the end, what do the proponents of College Basketball want here? Probably to have more interesting basketball games played throughout the season.
Somewhere, someone out there is screaming “but the games have to matter!” right now. They definitely have to matter, but the big games should matter more.
We saw NIU beat Notre Dame earlier this year. But does anybody actually think NIU is better than Notre Dame? This example is somewhat cut and dry since NIU are a G5 team who currently sits at #7 in possibly the worst conference of the G5 with five losses, so no-one would argue in favour of including them in the CFP.
While I think ND is fraudulent, I do think it’s better for the sport to signal that ND’s win over A&M is the most important factor for their seeding, and that the loss to NIU, while damaging, is not the be all end all to determine their season. Why? Because it’ll heavily incentivize ND’s decision makers to continue scheduling teams like A&M—that’s a win for me.
If a team goes 11-1 with its only loss to the only ranked team they play, even if it’s a close loss, leaving them out of the CFP is incredibly unfair. But someone has to be unfairly left out regardless, and at least this outcome prompts movement in the direction of outcomes that are good for me as a fan.
The message will be clear to the AD and decision makers of that program: make sure you do everything you can to strengthen your schedule each season, lest you find yourself in this position again.
Among the impossible tasks the committee was faced with this past week was the issue of seeding top teams that have a H2H game that was a close outcome. I don’t have a problem with the committee honouring head-to-head matchups all else equal, but it is in contrast to what they say their process is, which is supposed to (paraphrasing) “start with a clean slate each week”.
Unfortunately for them, the two-loss SEC teams make honouring head-to-head games impossible, as you just end up going in circles if you follow that logic. Ultimately, in a case like this I think Joel Klatt actually put forth a good idea of judging teams based on ceiling (which is sort of a loose construct of my proposal of judging teams mainly on their big wins) to break the ties.
In the current construction, one can actually make the argument that if UGA lost to unranked opponents (like Alabama and Ole Miss did) the two weeks they played Alabama and Ole Miss (instead of losing to those teams), they’d be better off in the CFP seeding because the committee wouldn’t feel beholden to honour head-to-head matchups, which they aren’t even doing consistently because Tennessee has the same record as Alabama with a win over them.
Perhaps one good thing that I hope CFB coaches everywhere will take away from this year’s CFP rankings is: winning in style matters. Blowouts are good for the resume, even if it’s over a borderline high school team.
I don’t have to tell CFFers how annoying it is during these lopsided OOC games early in the year that you have to constantly worry about your players being taken out of the game, or not relied on at all. Maybe coaches will be less reluctant to keep the foot on the accelerator all game and run up the score now. One can hope, at least.◾
Coaching Carousel News
Charlotte: The 49ers fired coach Biff Poggi.
FAU: The Owls fired coach Tom Herman.
UMass: UMass fired coach Don Brown.
Temple: Temple fired head coach Stan Drayton.
Wisconsin: The Badgers fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo.
Ball State: Ball State fired coach Mike Neu.
Matt Rhule officially named Dana Holgorsen the offensive coordinator at Nebraska.
Florida State coach Mike Norvell dismissed offensive coordinator Alex Atkins.
Kennesaw State: Owls head coach Brian Bohannon is out.
Rice: The Owls have fired head coach Mike Bloomgren.
Fresno State: interim head coach Tim Skipper is expected to be the frontrunner in keeping the job permanently.
Poll of the Week
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Really well written (except for the several instances of Canadian spelling! 🇨🇦😋) and all points well argued. Agree 💯!