Solar

OSU 14, UT 13

With the exception of SMU I think there is little separation between these teams. Bring the popcorn!

Yeah, casually one could think he is a drop in replacement for Tez, but that's not close to reality. He has the natural feel for running with the ball, but not necessarily running routes and catching balls.

Any good coach is too good for that program unfortunately. I don't blame Dickert

Yeah, the article is a puff piece for CU homers. Sanders snagged a 5 star that idolized him and won an awards that is a popularity contest award, and somehow this changes anything at a team or coaching level. Oh and Dan has 5 five stars joining in the spring...

Let's not forget the Vernon Adams, and Cam Wards of the world that nobody knows about at a bottom dweller G4 or FCS school that can light it up. While high school to college seems to be crapshoot, low level college giant slayers translate very well to high level programs. And Bo wasn't exactly the hottest transfer QB when we picked him up. There are some excellent non high profile options every year. I'm pretty sure Dan is looking. Whether he actually ends up getting an experienced difference maker is TBD.

Even moreso it's their consistency that has separated them from the field, which bodes well for having to win multiple tough games.

That's what article based on SP+ shows. 20% chance still sucks. I'd put our odds closer to a 35-40% chance, which is still in the more likely to lose than win the Natty range. That's my head talking. My heart feels like we have about a 70% chance.

With Dowdell from Nebraska on deck...

Predicting the College Football Playoff: ESPN round-by-round predictions to the title - On3 WWW.ON3.COM ESPN has provided its projections for each team to reach the next round of the College Football Playoff, using the SP+. "What’s wildly interesting about the projections from the SP+ is how low the actual probabilities for any one team winning the title are. Oregon leads the way but has only a 20.4% chance to win it all." It's simple statistics: increasing the size of the playoff field increases the number of games that have to be played which increases the number of chances to lose. Think of it this way: During the BCS, if you were #1 or 2 in the country you had a 50% chance of winning it all, and #3 to everyone else had a zero percent chance. During the 4 team playoff if you were 1-4 you had a 25,% chance of winning the playoffs, and everyone 5 and lower had a zero percent chance. Now the #1 team in the nation that is favored can only muster 20% (statistically with out consideration of performance is 12.5%), while 11 others have some chance, and 13 and on have a zero % chance. Is the new system more fair? It depends what your rank is! Arizona State is saying heck yes! While we are looking back at the glory days of BCS saying if only things didn't change. Our odds of winning are not good. Think of how much of an underdog a one game 12-20% odds of winning is. Imagine being an Illini fan hoping you beat Oregon. That's the kind of odds we are up against to win it all. Enjoy every game we get!

I defend Hunter a lot, but best college player ever is a high bar. I'm not feeling it.

Like every other print media legacy product, they've had their struggles with staying relevant in the digital age. I wouldn't say they are irrelevant, but they don't stand out anymore than anyone else.

OSU has a higher ceiling than UT. Also, it is indeed tough to beat the same team twice. That being said, the winner will be the team that is playing the best right now, so whoever it is will be tough. That's one more disadvantage for the bye team. Your opponent is playing winning football lately, and they are revved up and ready to go at kickoff. Bowl games are notorious for one team not showing up. It's tough to give kids so many weeks off, have fun with the bowl festivities, then come on the field laser focused. I hope Dan and his sports psychologist can do it though.

I was going to make day trip to the Rose Bowl from San Diego, but took one look at $350 for seats in row 77 that can see the parking lot easier than the field and decided against it.

My worst PTSD are memories of Stanford in the regular season. We are 13-0 and I'm enjoying every minute of it. While every fan base in the country says you're nothing until you win a Natty, I don't feel that way. And certainly we are the best team in the country, but how many times in a row can you win with a single digit spread? The probabilities get worse with every game added to the gauntlet, and there have never been as many games to get through to win the Natty as there are now. Which is why traditional playoff formats err on the side of giving the best teams the easiest path, to be sure the championship does not end up with team Cinderella vs team Lucky Charms playing a garbage game. (ASU vs. BSU for the Natty?) We aren't even getting that courtesy. So speaking on statistics alone we are probably not going to win the Natty, but I don't want it to invalidate just how fantastic this season has already been.

BB was hapless after Brady left. Looked too old to succeed against the headwinds of being a successful team year after year. But now in modern day college football that takes 10 times the effort to build a team than the NFL he's going to succeed at an even older age? Dennis Erickson had some success with the Beavers in his older years, but that was a different era of college football. Regardless, happy to see UW as stepping stone U again after giving us so much crap about it.

Fantastic post. I think you meant 7 stages of grief, but that was an excellent Freudian slip, if I might say so. LoL

This is wrong on so many levels it's exhausting just thinking about refuting it, so I won't. I think they are trying to get clicks by hyping up something everyone hates.

Looks like the anti-parity in the B1G is set to continue for the foreseeable future. I'm pretty surprised to see Indiana and Michigan State do so poorly for their 2025 classes.

The only thing I know for sure is Mario is frosted about losing to teams he should have beaten. I think the pop tart bowl festivities are top shelf. It's become a cult classic overnight. Much better than the reliaquest bowl Bama and Michigan ended up with.

Jeanty kicked our defense's butt too. Everyone watches him and says he just plays against defenses that can't tackle to save their life. It's more that mere mortals can't tackle a ball of muscle with the balance of a ballerina and the speed of a gazelle. And RB performance is highly dependent on the OL. What if Jeanty played in the SEC with the best OL? I don't think his performance would be much different than it is with his current OL in a mediocre conference.

I like it. The coach keep his team at full strength, and the spring portal is a bad idea for players, because so many open spots are taken by then. He's got a lot of players that want to experience the playoffs but would be better served to get in the portal now to maximize their potential to find a good landing spot.

Tez was not a finalist for the award. Final three are Hunter, McMillan and some dude from SJSU I've never heard of. Perhaps the injury took too much away from his season performance at a most inopportune time. Then again, if you look at how different our offense performed with him vs. without him... but I don't think they think that way for this award. Other notable non finalists are OSU and Bama freshman receivers.

This. Travis was the top recruit in the country even as a non QB, for a reason. He's lived up to that as being the best two way player since playing both ways stopped being a thing. He produces at a high level both ways, doing things athletically that few can match. I think the only receivers more explosive as athletically are Tez Johnson And Ryan Williams from Bama. Playing defense he's a lock down corner as good as Muhammad on our team. So I think he wins, even though his team is irrelevant to the title race un like Boise State and Oregon. I love what Gabriel has done and expect him to play even better in every game from here on out. It is tough to really see him as special when Bo was clearly better than him last year, which is a weird thing to feel and say. If I could vote for a Heisman it would be Jeanty. He is the head and shoulders best, generational talent at a position as I've seen in a while. And Cam Ward.. don't care.

We are a very good team, but I am not sure we are dominant enough to keep surviving away games at top 7 ranked teams. Oregon has a significant advantage with the Rose Bowl being on the West Coast and our fans having 3 weeks to make the arrangements, vs a back east team having one week against existing holiday plans. That's the only thing going for us the rest of the way.