A football frenzy: It's playoff/bowl season

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti: He has the 
No. 1-ranked, unbeaten team: the story of the season

       If you are college football fan, welcome to bowl/playoff season. Have fun.

      Some of us, much as we like football, will pick our spots. Don't have time, or desire, to watch 47 "major" college games remaining on the schedule.

      Frankly, we're concerned about the state of the college football world. Where are we headed?

      Think we can all agree -- unless you really are a fan-atic -- there are far too many bowl games. Count 'em; wait, we'll save you some time ... 41, including four College Football Playoff quarterfinals and two semifinals.

       So, pardon the cynicism, how many bowls fall in the who cares category? Depends on your interests, and the teams involved.

       Personally, of course, we'll check the four first-round CFP games, and the seven (six bowls) playoff games thereafter through the Jan. 19 national-championship game. 

        Sorry, Notre Dame, Texas, Vanderbilt and Duke fans, the playoffs -- without your teams -- still look interesting. 

        Sure it's not fair. All of the now-"outsiders" can make their arguments, can whine and complain, and tell the world how unfair the system is. And in a way, it is. 

        Do, say, Tulane and James Madison belong in the final 12? Are those teams better than Notre Dame and Texas and maybe Vandy? Probably not. But to put the 12-team CFP system in place -- expanded from a Final Four -- it was set up to reward two "Group of Five" teams. So that's that.

        Still, it seems petty to me that Notre Dame -- players, coaches and administrators -- chose to say "no thanks" to playing in any bowl game. Why not take it out on some lucky opponent in a bowl to show the world that the committee made a big mistake.

     Can understand -- a little -- Iowa State and Kansas State skipping their bowl opportunities, what with their head coaches leaving their posts in the last week. But if you are a player, wouldn't you want to play and compete and win another game?

      Also a little hard to figure: Instead of taking the financial reward for playing in a bowl game, Iowa State and K-State will have to pay the Big 12 Conference a half-million dollars apiece for the privilege of skipping out. 

       What's money in today's college athletics? A generous booster or two will take care of it.

       Just as they take care of so many of the powerhouse programs in the CFP (we're looking at you, Texas Tech).

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       Other college football/bowl observations:

       -- The College Football Playoff expansion creates more interest ... and arguably less interest in so many of the other ("lesser") bowls.

        We wonder how many of those games, being propped up by ESPN TV money and scrambling to find corporate sponsors will be able to exist much longer.

        -- A big detriment in recent years: Players opting out, either preparing for possible NFL careers and not wanting to risk a bowl game/practice injury, or players knowing they are going into the transfer portal. 

       Thus, bowl teams with depleted rosters and not looking like they did in the regular season. Good opportunities for young, upcoming talent. 

       -- Coaching staffs in flux. Prime example, of course: Ole Miss without head coach Lane Kiffin. Rumor has it, he's now recruiting for LSU. And head coaches at Tulane, James Madison and others have accepted other jobs.

       -- Oh, those bowl names (corporate sponsors). Won't bore you with all of them, just the first week's games (Dec. 13-19): Cricket Celebration, LA Bowl (hosted by Gronk), Salute to Veterans, Cure, 68 Ventures, Xbox, Myrtle Beach, Gasparilla. 

      -- Learned today that the Xbox game is a new one, Dec. 18, at The Star (Dallas Cowboys' facility) in Frisco (our area). It's a first-ever bowl for Missouri State; the opponent is Arkansas State. How exciting.

       -- There are 16 games the week of Dec. 22-27, half of them on Saturday (plus three CFP games that day).

       -- One neat aspect: The four traditional "major" bowls are the CFP quarterfinals -- Cotton on New Year's Eve, Orange, Rose and Sugar  (in that order) on New Year's Day. Cue the Rose Bowl parade that morning. 

     -- Know that the CFP committee made its first-round pairings based on its seedings. But two matchups, we think, are unfortunate. Ole Miss again plays a Tulane team it beat by 35 points (45-10) on Sept. 20. Oklahoma plays host to Alabama; the Sooners already proved they can beat the Tide, 23-21 in Tuscaloosa no less on Nov. 15. (Not fair they have to do it again.)

      -- Love this title I saw: Miami at Texas A&M is the "We Beat ND Bowl." (The Irish lost to both to open the season, then won the rest of its games. Not enough to erase the damage.)

      -- Can we all agree that Indiana -- unbeaten Big Ten champion, a first-ever No. 1 in the rankings -- is the story of this season ... so far.

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      Personal choices: Other than the playoff games, the only bowls that interest me:

     -- Dec. 27, Texas Bowl (Houston), LSU vs. Houston. Which Tigers team will show up? No offense to that thought.            

     -- Dec. 30, Alamo Bowl (San Antonio), Southern Cal vs. TCU. We live in Fort Worth, lots of Frogs where we are.

    -- Dec. 30, Music City Bowl (Nashville), Tennessee vs. Illinois. Family connection with the Vols.

     -- Dec. 30, Independence Bowl (Shreveport), Louisiana Tech vs. Coastal Carolina. Alma mater playing in my hometown. Ever Loyal Be (to Tech).

  -- Dec. 31, Citrus Bowl (Orlando), Texas vs. Michigan. Darned good matchup.

      -- Jan. 2, Armed Forces Bowl (only because it's in Fort Worth), Texas State vs. Rice. Won't watch it.

      Happy playoff/bowl season ... I think.

       

Thinking, writing about college football

     Let's take a timeout and cover some college football thoughts ...
     No, let's not take a timeout. We'll take the penalty.
     We will get to a number of quick thoughts in a moment, but first ...
     I don't pretend to be a football whiz, would not pass an Xs-and-Os test. But game-management strategy is something we can all second-guess. And I am real good at second-guessing two pieces of strategy.
     Those who have heard me rail for a lot of years know that two of my major pet peeves about college football (also high school football and the NFL) are:
     (1) Taking timeouts when the play clock runs down;
     (2) Settling for the tying PAT kick near the end of games instead of "going for it" -- trying for the winning (or losing) two-point PAT.
     About the "automatic" timeout calls ... you see them almost every game. Play call is slow coming to the quarterback or a team is slow getting lined up, QB looks at the defense and makes play-call adjustments, play clock is winding down toward :00, QB turns to referee and signals time out ... or frantic head coach runs toward the nearby official and -- PO'd -- calls the timeout.
     It is just a reflex action ... timeout.
     And almost always, here is my reaction: That is so stupid!
     My logic: The 5-yard delay-of-game penalty is not nearly as harmful as wasting one of the team's three timeouts per half. Take the damn penalty.
     Heck, yes, there are exceptions: A 3rd-and-short or 4th-and-short play, especially in the other team's end of the field, a crucial late-game down, maybe near the end of the first half with a timeout or two remaining.
     But most of the time ... automatic call ... stupid.
     We have seen the best of coaches do it, repeatedly. Tom Landry was the best of coaches. If I saw his QBs -- Meredith, Staubach, Morton, Danny White -- do it once, I saw it dozens of times. Wasted timeouts.

Arkansas head coach Chad Morris: Two "burned"
timeouts in the second half against LSU did not
 help his team's chances.

     It really came to mind last Saturday in Arkansas-LSU. Twice in the second half, Arkansas simply wasted timeouts with play-clock-winding-down reaction calls. First time with a 3rd-and-9 at the LSU 42 with 6:54 remaining in the third quarter; second time with a 4th-and-10 at the LSU 11 with 12:46 remaining in the fourth quarter.
     Both times, really, taking a 5-yard delay penalty would not have hurt the Razorbacks at all. 
      In fact, after the second one, they hit a touchdown pass. They could have done that about as easily from the LSU 16, and saved the timeout.
     They could have used those two burned timeouts in the game's final five minutes. Arkansas fought hard, but I never got the feeling that it was going to win that game. But it might have a better shot with two more late-game clock stoppages.
     And how times over the years have we seen LSU waste its timeouts on similar stupid calls? (Les Miles and staff were known for their clock-mismanagement gaffes.)
     Those timeouts should be treated like gold. They are so valuable. Protect them almost like you would your kids.
     OK, second point: Playing to win at the end of a game. So many coaches take the easy way out; have the extra point kicked and tie the game, so settling for overtime or -- if it is in overtime already -- another OT period.
     So, bless the coaches who "go for it." Over the years, we have not seen it often. Because the coaches -- in Jerry Byrd language -- have no guts. 
     But in recent weeks, we have seen three gutty go-for-the-win calls: It worked for Dana Holgorsen and West Virginia at Texas; it did not work for Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State at Oklahoma, nor for Tim Lester and Western Michigan (in overtime) against Ball State on Tuesday night.
     I am not enamored by Holgorsen or Gundy (or many college football head coaches these days), but props to them for those calls.        
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     Other matters ...
     Have I seen a better college football team than Alabama this season? I have not.
     The season is not over. Can any team can beat Alabama? Good luck. But Clemson (which was fortunate to beat Bama in the CFP title game two years ago) and Georgia (which came so close last season) have a shot. Maybe Notre Dame does ... but I doubt it.
     Keep thinking this, though -- in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram sports department, Oklahoma's 2003 team was being declared "the greatest ever" for most of that season ... until that rout by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl national-championship loss to ... LSU, coached by Nick Saban.
     Five more national championships later, Saban has his best team ever. As son-in-law observed during Bama's stifling victory against LSU a couple of weeks ago, Bama is taking the fun out of college football ... except for Bama fans.
     We don't have to like it, but more power to them. So Alabama fans are a bit spoiled. Can you blame them?
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     It is a little more than a week away, but LSU's game at Texas A&M -- always a great rivalry -- is going to be large. A major bowl game will be at stake for the Tigers. Beat the Aggies, and they almost certainly will be 10-2 and in a New Year's Six game. Lose, and it will a nice bowl game, but not a "major."
     It has been a surprisingly successful season for LSU, better than most could have anticipated. Do not think the Tigers are especially a top-six team -- too many lapses, too sporadic, especially an offensive line that some quarters can't block or protect the passer, and a secondary that is talented but spends too much time woofing at opponents and showing off.
     But victories against three Top-10 ranked teams at the time is impressive. We know now that Miami and Auburn were not anywhere as good as they seemed then, but Georgia is, and that victory was LSU's finest game this season.
     If LSU somehow loses to 1-10 Rice this Saturday, forget all this.        
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     Closing thought (for now): Like so many people, I believe the College Football Playoff field should be eight teams instead of four, three games for the title instead of two.
     Always going to be a debate over the final four (or eight) teams. But why not make it automatic for the champions of the Power-Five conferences (Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Pac-12, Big 12, SEC) and the other three best -- chosen by committee -- among independents and other "major/mid-major" conferences (hello, Notre Dame and Central Florida).
     Too much football? Sure. One option would be to (gasp!) eliminate the conference championship games, but they are so popular (and such money makers).
     It would be easier to eliminate one week of the regular season -- we have gone from 10 to 11 to 12 games for most teams. And a thought here is that for the "majors," it would be easy to knock off one non-conference game, especially those total mismatches against non-majors.
     Consider this week: Alabama vs. The Citadel. Are you kidding? (I am not a bettor, but how many points would you give here? Start with 50? 60? 70?)
     Just look at some other SEC "matchups" this week: LSU vs. Rice, Kentucky vs. Middle Tennessee, Georgia vs. UMass, Auburn vs. Liberty, South Carolina vs. Chattanooga. Not too challenging, is it?
      There is one good one, though: Alabama-Birmingham at Texas A&M. UAB is one of college football's best stories, from oblivion to Conference-USA West champs and title game, from out-of-business to 9-1 in two seasons.
      The Aggies, who have the resources to give new coach Jimbo Fisher a billion dollars or so on a 10-year contract, can afford to present UAB a big payday. Under my proposal, one less "money" game a year for the majors would be eliminated.
      Anyway, might have to peek at the A&M-UAB game. But if those head coaches burn a timeout or two, I will flip out ... and flip channels. 
                     

Picking a Final Four ... all just anyone's opinion

        I feel compelled and somewhat motivated to write about a matter of national importance.

The new national-championship trophy, the
College Football Playoff payoff. (Actually,
I liked the BCS crystal ball football.)

      I like the College Football Playoff. There, I said it.
      It is so important. I have seen so much written about it for months and months, and have (not) heard so much said about it (because I try to avoid all the sports talk shows, except son-in-law's when I'm in Knoxville). And the interest is only ramping up day by day.
      Who's in (thank you, ESPN).
      Who will be in the first-ever Final Four -- the two semifinal bowl games, with the winners playing for the national championship right down the road from here (Fort Worth) at Cowboys Stadium, JerryWorld or whatever they call it?
      I am not here to debate the Final Four rankings -- the TCU or Baylor question, the Oregon-jumping-Florida State issue, the Alabama in-or-out talk, the what-about-Ohio State/Arizona State speculation.
      I will leave the debates to (1) all my media friends and (2) more importantly, the committee. (More on the committee below.)
      But this CFP is important enough to bring in a former U.S. Secretary of State to help settle matters. It is more important than which party is running Congress, than U.S.-China relations, the fight with ISIS, Russia-Ukraine, the Middle East's never-ending conflicts, immigration reform, gun rights, tax reform. It's more important than the New York Yankees' off-season roster moves; it's even more important than the frickin' Super Bowl.
       That's right.
       I purposely have avoided writing about this, or speculating about it, or talking all that much about it because I figure there is enough of that on TV, radio and the Internet.
       But, really, I love the idea because I love college football -- and the idea of one true national champion, decided on the field after a playoff game or three playoff games is perfect. Beats the heck out of "mythical national champion."
       Here is the gist of this piece, though: There is no perfect selection system. OK, you got that? As long as the human element is part of the selection process, it won't be perfect.
       But humans -- a committee of 12 people deciding the Final Four teams -- is a helluva lot better than computer-based selections (uh, humans do input the info into the computers, don't they?).
       So scrapping the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system, with its computer rankings as part of the process, was fine with me. I'm glad the bowl-game honchos -- who have had so much control and so much financial clout -- for years and years are willing to play along with the CFP.
        So why am I writing about this now, what prompted me to force my opinion on you? Because there are stories and talk shows all over the place concerning this, and I want to get my two cents in. Because, in my extensive research for this piece, I came across -- on Facebook and AOL search -- two columns by sportswriters who I know and respect and whose work I admire.
         And they are both blasting the College Football Playoff system, and even embracing the much-criticized BCS.
         Matt Hayes, who writes college football for Sporting News and, in my opinion, knows as much about it as anyone and writes it as well as anyone, began his professional career as a prep writer at The Florida Times-Union where he was regularly and enthusiastically advised -- maybe that should read "chewed out" -- by a prep sports editor. Hmmmm.
         This week, Matt wrote: "The best part of this now-spectacular mess is this new, everything-will-be-better playoff is no better than the BCS. In fact, three polls in, it’s mirroring the most controversial product ever used by the sport."
         David Climer is the talented, very readable veteran sports columnist for The (Nashville) Tennessean. He wrote: "Looks like the BCS formula was less flawed than the current committee structure."
         Look, those are one-paragraph items lifted from a whole column, and I'm certainly not picking on Matt or David because there are hundreds of stories/columns/talk-show debates of the same nature.
        Here is what I am saying: What did they expect?
        There is always going to be controversy on NCAA playoff selections or polls/rankings, no matter what sport. There always has been. It's not perfection; it's just subjective.
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       The biggest problem I have with the new College Football Playoff system is that I think they should have started with a Final Eight -- four quarterfinal games, two semifinals, one title game. Picking eight teams rather than four might've eliminated a lot of this BS speculation.
        If eight teams were picked, you think the teams left out -- say, the Nos. 9-10-11-12 teams -- wouldn't feel slighted?
         Look at the NCAA men's basketball tournament. There are 68 teams in it now, and every year several teams not selected are unhappy (SMU, for instance, last season). Every year there are debates on the No. 1 seeds. And I can remember when only 24 teams were selected, and then only 32, and there were no seedings.
          Picking a Final Four this season is so much better than the BCS' final two.
          Southern Cal thought it should have been in the national title game in 2003 (LSU was fortunate to be chosen, through the BCS system, to face Oklahoma). Auburn was the undefeated team left out in 2004. TCU and Boise State, both unbeaten and both in "minor" conferences, had to settle for a Fiesta Bowl matchup in 2009.
           And the worst BCS finalist ever was Nebraska in 2001. It didn't even make the Big 12 Conference championship game, having lost to Colorado 62-36 in its 12th game of the season. But a few weeks later it was playing Miami in the BCS title game. That was absurd.
            LSU, of course, was quite fortunate to be in the 2007 season BCS title game. It took final regular-season losses by Missouri and West Virginia to give the Tigers a reprieve. But, no apologies; that was a great Tigers team, which lost twice in triple overtime. If they'd been picking a Final Four that year, LSU would've been one of the teams.
             There is lots of criteria for the College Football Playoff committee to consider, and I hope one thing it can avoid in a Final Four is a repeat of a regular-season matchup.
              In 1996, Florida State beat Florida 24-21 to end the regular season, but the then-Bowl Alliance had them matched up again in the Sugar Bowl (designated as the national championship game). Florida won the rematch 52-20.
             More significantly for me, LSU won on Alabama's field 9-6 in overtime in the classic 2011 showdown and unbeaten LSU won the SEC title while Alabama watched. But the BCS system had them rematched in the national-title game. We know how that came out. Am I bitter about LSU having to replay a team it had beaten on the road? You bet.
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              I almost never look at the college football rankings; the rankings don't matter when teams line up to play.
              I have not watched the College Football Playoff show revealing the committee's rankings the past three weeks. I never read one of the preseason and regular-season Final Four speculation stories. My writing buddy Teddy Allen points out all this was "interesting, but not significant."
              But Teddy and I agree that late in the season -- and from this point -- the CFP rankings do matter. I'd be a lot more interested if LSU was in contention. It's not. And it lost its final chance to be a "spoiler" when it let the game with Alabama slip away, despite a great effort, last Saturday.
              No question, though, the CFP and the rankings make for great interest, give the media great fodder. It helps make college football important to millions of people.
              I have no problem with the 13 people selected for the CFP committee, not even with Condoleezza Rice being a member. They're all very qualified, in my opinion, and very willing. Too bad that Archie Manning had to withdraw because of physical woes because few people love college football more and know more about it.
              About Condoleezza: We've all seen the criticism that she "doesn't know football." Such bull. She as smart as anyone on that committee, smarter probably, and more studied. Uh, she's dealt with more serious issues, OK. Sure, she might have a Stanford bias, but I think her opinion on college football (and most things) is to be valued.
                Here is what I'll remind you: For decades and decades, the "mythical" national champion was decided by (1) The Associated Press poll, which means 25 or 35 or whatever the number of media members -- writers and broadcasters -- or by (2) the coaches' poll; football coaches who might have had a bias for their own team or against another coach's team for one reason or another.
                I've been in a group of 25-35 sports media types. Ask them to rank, say, the best college football teams from 1 to 25 ... and you might have 25-35 different rankings. Never seen a media group -- two people or 50 -- who agree on all that much.
              (I'm just thinking -- suppose the committee consisted of Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, Steny Hoyer, Ted Cruz, Dick Durbin, John McCain, John Cornyn, Elizabeth Warren and Carl Levin. Think they could decide anything with a consensus?)
               Politics, sports ... it's the human element; it's just people's opinion. It's not perfect; it's never been perfect. It never will be.
                 There is much more that can happen in these last few weeks of the regular season (and conference championship games). Hey, I think Mississippi State, Florida State, Oregon and TCU belong in the Final Four right now. That's just me. Next week I might think it's Alabama, Baylor, Arizona State and Ohio State.
                They didn't ask me to be on the committee. But I'm not going to spend much time trying to figure out what the committee has to figure out, and I'm not going to spend time criticizing what they do. I'll leave that to my media friends ... and to you. Good luck.