Jon Joseph

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?

This article from Bama Hammer addresses the influence that Greg Sankey is likely to have on re-formatting the playoff structure if not before 2026 then by 2026. He also by reference to the B1G acknowledges that B1G commissioner, Tony Petitti, will have a major say on how the playoff will be formatted and how playoff money will be distributed. e.g., The Power 2 will not be anxious to share the money. Reformatting before 2026 would require a unanimous vote of conference commissioners and the Notre Dame AD. It is unclear if the Pac12 (4) will retain a vote. The article also discusses whether the Pac-4, in some iteration or another, will be considered to be a 'Power Conference.' I doubt that the Pac-4 will retain Power Conference status. Stanford will go independent in football and perhaps, join the West Coast Conference for all other sports before it 'lowers itself' to play in the Mountain West or alongside G5 schools cobbled onto the Pac-Whatever. And Stanford has the endowment to pull this off. Cal? Not so much. Stanford has the Notre Dame rivalry going for it. And my guess is that Oregon, UCLA, USC, and UW would all be willing to schedule Stanford OOC in football. I'd much prefer to see Oregon play Stanford OOC than to play Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Baylor. One thing for certain, the Playoff format come 2026 will look different than the format for 2024/25. Alabama Football: CFB’s biggest future battle will be led by Greg Sankey BAMAHAMMER.COM No future Alabama football game, not even a National Championship Game, will surpass the struggle college football will engage in the next year or so. What...

You just made the list buddy! 3 teams outside of the top initial Top 25 that the author believes will finish in the Top 25. Texas Tech is his #1 team to crash the party. And why not, with TT currently ranked 26? TT takes care of business in its opener in Laramie, and there is a good likelihood that the Red Raiders will be in the Top 25 when Puddles flies into Lubbock. College football rankings: 3 unranked teams in preseason AP Top 25 who can crash the party FANSIDED.COM The latest college football rankings shorted these teams in the initial AP Top 25 Poll big time. With the first AP Top 25 Poll released on Monday afternoon...

Fansided AP Poll winners and losers. This just in. SC ranked at 6 and Utah ranked at 14 does not matter. The 2 play one another at least once in 2023. And while the game is in LA, the Utes get the Trojans coming off a game in South Bend. Utah will be coming off a home game vs Cal. College football rankings 2023: Winners and losers from preseason AP Top 25 FANSIDED.COM Let's dissect the winners and losers from college football's first AP Top 25 Poll of the season. With the AP Top 25 Poll being released on Monday...

Ranked Teams, Beware! College football rankings 2023: 5 teams in Top 25 who will be the first to lose FANSIDED.COM The preseason college football rankings have been set with the AP Top 25 announced. Which ranked teams will be the first to lose this season? The AP Top 25...

This is the guy who was hired by ASU President 'I never met a Larry I didn't like,' Crow. Who in turn hired Herm Edwards, a guy who Anderson repped when he was an agent before taking the ASU AD job. He is and was as unqualified as Hermie. The NCAA hammer is about to come down on his and Crow's head. The NCAA walking away from a plea bargain with Jim Harbaugh for COVID recruiting violations is not a good sign for ASU. I feel sorry for Dilly for being caught up in this mess. But I feel relieved that Oregon will soon be escaping this kind of idiocy.