Jon Joseph

And Barrett Sallee is also loving the Pac-12 in its final go-round. 2023 College Football Conference Power Rankings: SEC at the top, but Pac-12 takes No. 2 spot - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM The SEC is loaded with teams ready to make a run at the College Football Playoff National Championship

NJ, you beat an old man to the punch! With a better and more specific post. Thank you!

Barrett Sallee (Auburn graduate) of CBS Sports agrees. Sallee has Oregon ranked 6 in his initial AP Poll vote. A guy from 'back East' IMO has a better handle on the Pac-12 this season than does Jon Wilner who has Oregon ranked 17. He doesn't 'get' Oregon's ranking with Bo Nix back. Sallee believes Oregon will put up 40+ points a game, and he also believes that via the transfer portal and experience, Oregon will be improved on defense. He also believes, as do I, that Florida State is way overrated and that Alabama, and Texas (shocking!) are also overrated. Let's tee it up and prove it on the field!

How about NO! College Football is working. Attendance was up in 2022. Viewership was up in 2022. With one hire Colorado has gone from averaging 17,00 fans in 2022 to all games being sold out in 2023. I do not like it but a Power 2 was the natural result of the NCAA losing its scheduling monopoly and the need (?) for 1 True Champion. Both decisions opened the floodgates for media enterprises to take over college football. You capitalize any enterprise, follow the money. The Pac-12 deserved to go away. Just like every poorly managed enterprise in the 'real world' goes away. The people in charge of the Pac-12 were happy to take the money but not to manage the Pac-12 like the business it is. Or, at least was. You do not pass on an opportunity to destroy a competitor on its last legs and be applauded for doing so, move into another time zone, and perhaps save a functionally insolvent network over academic concerns. Like Oregon State and Washington State, Kansas, K State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Houston and Iowa State have all graduated men and women who have excelled in every activity the world has to offer. Why is anyone surprised that 'The Elite Club' has lost the majority of its members? If the only criteria for a Premier League are wins and losses over a given period of time without taking into account schedule strength, with teams relegated on performance in the Premier League, how happy will Premier Media broadcast entities be when Kansas State located in The Little Apple replaces a school located in a top 30 media market. A school that has more folks watching in person and via media. What would the media deals look like for the lower leagues? Any difference in what we see today between the Power 2 and the G5?What happens to the athletic departments of schools dropped from the Premier League? This is not pro soccer owned by billionaires. Football carries the weight but I know of no college or university in the nation that sponsors only a football team. A Premier Conference goosed by college athletes being employees is coming. But when it comes it will not see relegation. The New York Jets are not dropped in favor of XFL teams. The Premier Conference will have 32 or so schools with the biggest brands and/or playing in the biggest media markets. Media rights will be negotiated collectively for football. Players will be union members. There will be a salary cap, but no cap on NIL, restrictions on transfers, player trades, and most likely a high school draft. I doubt that players in the Premier League will even be students. All other sports with the likely exception of men's basketball, will be played in existing conferences. Conferences that are likely to be further consolidated. Thanks for the post but this article is another reason why we need to kick the darn ball off and play ball.

I am liking this Magnificent 8 - QUACK! One of these 8 college football teams will win the national title in 2023 SATURDAYBLITZ.COM College football fans everywhere are craving its return. We're at the point in the summer in which it's felt like years since we last saw live co...

And, on the field. ESPN’s FPI predicts every game on Ohio State’s 2023 schedule SATURDAYTRADITION.COM ESPN's FPI is predicting a final record for Ohio State this fall.

ESPN+ (paywall) updated Top 40 2024 recruiting rankings as of 8/17/23 1. Georgia 2. Ohio State 3. Florida 4. OREGON! - Top O commit - QB Michael Van Buren (No. 23) Top D commit - Dakota (Out Here In The) Fields (No. 75) 7. Michigan 8. Penn State - leads the 2023 Freaks list with 6 players - legit dark horse to win the B1G in 2023 with getting nemesis Michigan in Happy Valley 18. USC - Traveler, don't hurt your neck looking up. 23. Wisconsin 25. Nebraska 30. Rutgers 31. Purdue 34. Iowa 35. Minnesota 37. Maryland Chipper? Husky? Brutus will be extremely hard to catch on the recruiting trail.

Stanford will go independent before associating with what the Cardinal believe to be weak academic institutions. The Cardinal as a football independent would like BYU before this season, be a G5+ /P5- opponent. If this happens, drop Baylor and OK State like a hot potato and schedule Stanford as a permanent OOC opponent. Unlike the folks from That Team Up North, Stanford would welcome this. And it would be nice to throw PK's other alma mammy a bone. There is NOTHING to be gained playing B12 schools OOC. Without Texas and Oklahoma, the B12 is a glorified G5 conference. Oregon has no tradition with any B12 school, it has tradition and a history of great games with Stanford.

Great post! What happened to USC baseball? Headed to the B1G at least Ducks baseball knows all about rain outs.

But, what about Animal House?

What school will win the final Final 4 in 2023? Look to The Magnificent 7 for the answer. Since 2004, only 2 teams outside of the initial 7 ranked teams in the first AP Poll preseason ranking, have won a College Football (CFB) championship. 2010 Auburn ($cam was bought and paid for and Dyer's knee was down!) was ranked 22. 2013 - FSU was ranked 11. My initial reaction? Why does CFB need a Playoff Committee when it has the AP Poll? 2nd reaction: In the name of Cal, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington State, the Pac-12, and The Rose Bowl, did CFB need '1 True Champion?' 3rd reaction, What in the name of Dixie is going on out there? Brutus made an early showing (SIGH) but since then it's been chitlins, biscuits and gravy, and fried green tomatoes. The CFB Playoff brought to you by The Waffle House? 2014 Ohio State 2015 Alabama 2016 Clemson 2017 Alabama 2018 Clemson 2019 LSU 2020 Alabama 2021 Georgia 2022 Georgia Including 2014, the B1G and the to-be-B1G (B1G+) have a CFB Playoff record of 4-9. Ohio State - 3-4 OREGON - 1-1 Michigan - 0-2 Michigan State - 0-1 Washington 0-1. There is a Power 2 money-wise but CFB Playoff-wise? It's the SEC with a bourbon bullet. Will one of the B1G+ reverse this Championship free fall in 2023? According to The Rule of The Magnificent 7, below are the contenders and their respective initial AP Poll ranking; 2. Michigan/ 3. Ohio State/ 6. USC/ 7. Penn State - B1G+ Teams outside of The Magnificent 7 with a chance: 10. Washington/ 15. OREGON Saturday Down South, Connor O'Gara's, preseason list of the 25 impactful CFB Playoff games in 2023. Plenty of B1G+ games make the list. The Top 25 games that’ll impact the Playoff picture in 2023 WWW.SATURDAYDOWNSOUTH.COM Which games will decide Playoff berths in 2023? 40.4% of these games (11 in total) involve B1G+ Teams. 1. Ohio State at Michigan 4. UW at USC 5. USC at OREGON 9. Ohio State at Notre Dame 11. USC at Notre Dame 12. Michigan at Penn State 14. Utah at UW 15. Utah at USC 16. OREGON at UW 17. Penn State at Ohio State 18. Oregon State at Oregon - in what will be an Un-Civil War! And Oregon at Utah could have made the list. Let the games begin and come on B1G+ and win another one for Teams Up North!

In honor of Mr. Fish Duck's Man Cave, I refuse to allow comments to stay at 13!

Bill Connelly (ESPN+ paywall) final season SP+ rankings. 1. Georgia 2. Ohio State 3. Michigan 4. Alabama 5. LSU 6. Penn State 7. Clemson 8. Tennessee 9. Texas 10. USC - Ranked 2 on O and 47 on D 11. Notre Dame 12. FSU 13. OREGON - Ranked 5 on O and 50 (!) on D 14. UTAH - Ranked 12 on O and 26 on D 15. Oklahoma 16. Texas A+M 17. Washington - Ranked 9 on O and 48 on D 18. Ole Miss 19. Wisconsin 20. K State 21. TCU 22. Iowa 23. Florida 24. Kentucky 25. UNC IMO, way too much love for the B12. 28. UCLA - Ranked 13 O and 63 D 31. Oregon State - Ranked 35 O and 33 D 32. TEXAS TECH - ranked 15 O and 66 D - "Averaged 25 in preseason polls but only 32 by SP+." The SP+ predictive model likes Oregon's chances against Texas Tech far more than ESPN's FPI. It also likes Oregon to match up with USC in the Pac-12 Champ Game. Other conferences champ games - ACC - Clemson vs FSU B1G - Ohio State vs Wisconsin B12 - Texas vs Oklahoma (A B12 nightmare! Let this happen, PLEASE!) SEC - Georgia vs Alabama Let's Play Ball!

Options dwindling as California, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State prepare to take financial hits - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM No matter how this round of realignment plays out, the remaining Pac-12 teams will be losing money

It will not be all that lucrative through 2030 but come 2031, Oregon and UW have been promised a full share of the then-new B1G media deal. This will be a B1G time payday for Oregon and UW. As to travel, among others The Athletic's Stewart Mandel sees the 4 West schools as permanent B1G opponents with the games against one another to kickoff for the most part at 7:30 Pacific time. He believes that any game involving an Eastern time zone school will kick off earlier in the day so as not to kick off at 10:30 PM East Coast body-clock time. Games against Central time zone schools are also most likely to kick off at 7:30 Pacific. BUT, the games will not be played on Larry's Loser Network and will get Full Monty media coverage on the B1G Network and also ESPN which cannot ignore B1G conference games. Late tee times stink, but you take the money ...

FPI Underdogs in 2 games: at Utah and versus USC. The Ducks IMO win at least 1 of these games. TEXAS TECH (TT) - FPI gives the Ducks a 51% chance to win in Lubbock. In 2021, Michigan came from outside the Top 25 in the AP Poll (AP) to make the Final 4. In 2022, TCU did the same. Ironically, these 2 met in a Playoff semi-final with TCU coming out on top. (Jim Harbaugh, kick an opening drive FG!) Stewart Mandel TT, ranked 26 in the first AP, to be the leading dark horse (fits the color of the horse the Red Raider rides into the stadium) to come from out of the AP Top 25 and make the final Final 4. From Mandel's (paywall protected) 8/16 Mailbag.) Tyler Shough is back for his 4th season as a starting college QB. (1st season Tyler played at Oregon.) In Shough's final 2 games of 2022, he went 31 of 50 for 436 yards in TT's OT win over Oklahoma, then threw for 242 yards and ran for 111 in the bowl win over Ole Miss. Shough has often been hurt but TT is 8-0 in the 8 games, Tyler started and finished. TT returns its top 5 receivers. And a home run hitter in RB Tahj Brooks. 3 players on D made Bruce Feldman's Freaks List, safety Tyler Owens, DT Jaylon Hutchings, and edge rusher Myles Cole. B12 Honorable mention DT Tony Bradford is back. This will be a very tough game in a hot, hostile environment. I do expect TT to win its opener at Wyoming and TT will likely be in the AP Top 25 in Week 2. Friend Mike West, whose opinions I always respect, sees Puddles having few problems in Lubbock. I wish I was as sanguine about the Ducks chances as is Mike.

And come 2031 the accountants at Oregon and UW.

Par for the course for this guy who hired his former client Herm Edwards and for the guy he reports to, Michael Crow, president of The Larry Fan Club.

I love this kind of proactive marketing that I don't believe we've seen from the Athletic Department for some time.

Need a unanimous vote to change the current 2024 format. Does the Pac-4 still have a vote? In 2024, I see 5 and not 6 conference champ automatic qualifiers, 7 and not 6 at-large teams, and perhaps the top 4 ranked teams getting the 1st round bye as it should be IMO. If this doesn't happen in 2024/25 it will happen in 2026. 2026? The B1G and the SEC will define the playoff format and the distribution of the money. With a Power 2 do you need a playoff other than the top 4 B1G schools playing the top 4 SEC schools? Especially if Notre Dame and UNC are in the B1G and Clemson, FSU, Miami, and NC State are in the SEC. If need be in order to keep the pols off of the back, have a 12-team field and throw a spot to the B12 champ and the best G5 team.

'And George, have a really nice day.' Fox was involved no doubt but Fox and ESPN were both contractually committed to fund P5 team additions to the B12 at the full $31.7M a year share. Yormark jocked the fiddling while the Pac burns, Kliavkoff. How is it possible to massively screw up with the hire of Larry and then hire a guy with, like Larry, no college sports experience? If I were GK, when these bozos said, "George, get us $50M each," I'm headed back to the MGM. George did not have the gravitas to convince the members of 'The Elite Club' to expand into the Central time zone which likely would have saved the conference and to tell the Pac-12 presidents to get a grip when it came to the evaluation of media money.

I'm blessed. I did visit this man-cave; one of the all-time greats!

Below is, hopefully, a non-paywall article from ESPN looking at the opponents the Top 25 teams play in September. AP college football Poll reaction - What we'll learn about teams in September - ESPN WWW.ESPN.COM What will the first month of the college football season teach us about each team in the preseason AP Top 25 poll?