I Tell Ya' Herbie

  Back again with another column of thoughts on the college football world, a little thing we call I Tell Ya' Herbie.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            The season isn't over but my choice for coach of the year (and it could change) might be Kenny Dillingham of Arizona State.

Arizona State was predicted to be one of the cellar-dwellers in the Big 12 and the Sun Devils are 8-2 entering a home game against BYU that a win could clinch a Big 12 title game slot for the winner.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            If it's not Dillingham for coach of the year, the default winner could be first year coach Curt Cignetti at undefeated (just imagine saying that in November!) Indiana, who travel to Columbus to battle Ohio State.

I do think that it's fair to question Indiana's opponents (they haven't beaten a ranked team in their ten wins) and they didn't dazzle in beating a five and five Michigan team by five points last week but even projecting the Hoosiers to lose in Columbus, they will be heavily favored to beat rival and last place Purdue to finish 11-1.

I Tell Ya' Herbie: 

                             I'm not sure it's the best game of the week but it might have a case for the biggest if certain things come into play as unbeaten Army meets once-beaten Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium.

Army has beaten each of their nine foes by eleven points or more and a win here may move the Cadets closer to Boise State for the Group of Five automatic bid.

Notre Dame still has just one loss, that inexplicable loss to a 6-5 Northern Illinois in September, and with a win over Army, would have only a road trip to mediocre USC in the way of a CFP home game.

The Fighting Irish are fifteen-point favorites in the Bronx.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            I was surprised to see Florida Atlantic fire Tom Herman midway through his second season.

The Owls are 2-8 overall, 0-6 in the AAC, and were only 6-16 under Herman but Florida Atlantic isn't an easy place to recruit and play in a tougher conference than they did in their successful run under Lane Kiffin.

Herman must have wanted to get back into coaching badly to accept the FAU job for another reason.

Florida Atlantic places stipulations in coaches' contracts that if they are terminated and want to receive their full buyout, they must report to a mundane athletic department job away from the football program.

Herman's buyout is 4.1 million but the contract clause states that should Herman decide not to report to the job, Herman would paid a much smaller sum.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The ACC will go down to the wire with several possible scenarios.

SMU (6-0) holds their destiny in their hands needing wins over two 5-5 teams (Virginia and Cal) to clinch the league title.

Clemson is in the clubhouse at 7-1 and Miami is 5-1 with games against 4-6 Wake Forest and at 7-3 Syracuse, which could be a difficult game.

If Miami wins out and SMU splits their games, the league would have three teams at 7-1 for two title game slots.

If SMU and Miami win out, SMU is in but there will be a tiebreaker needed between Clemson and Miami at 7-1 and without a head to head option, I'm not sure which would earn the title game ticket.

 

                            

                            

                            

Cleaning out the Inbox: Football Rivalry Edition

     The end of the college football season usually brings rivalry games and The Athletic took a week-long look at some of the rivalry stories that make the game so great.

We begin with the Slab of Bacon, a trophy fought for between Wisconsin and Minnesota from 1930 and 1942 but disappeared in 1943 before being found in a Wisconsin storage closet in 1994.

The odd thing about the disappearance was that when the slab was found, the scores on the trophy had been filled in up to the 1970 season.

To this day, no one knows how the trophy disappeared in 1943, who filled in the scores in 1970, or how the trophy wound up in the storage closet in the Wisconsin Sports Information Department.

This article covers the Iowa Hawkeyes' various football rivalries (and the Hawkeyes certainly seem to lead the nation in legitimate rivalries) with one Iowa memory or note for each school in their wheelhouse.

For my money, the Floyd of Rosedale trophy between Iowa and Minnesota is the best in the game with the Paul Bunyan's Axe between Wisconsin and Minnesota a close second.

One rivalry that is especially fierce but doesn't always come up as one of the more bitter battles is between Arizona and Arizona State, which will be taking its rivalry to its fourth conference next year when both schools join the Big 12.

The battle for the Territorial Cup started in 1899 between the Wildcats and Sun Devils but had been missing from 1970 until being found in a church vault in 1983.

The Cup still didn't become the official trophy until 2001 and even today, the actual cup is delivered quietly to the winning trophy a few days after the game.

A same-size replica is awarded to the winning team for the post-game celebrations.

You don't really think of Houston and Central Florida as rivals but the deeper that you dig into the common history of the space program, Houston and Orlando (the home of UCF) have been rivals for a long time.

This ESPN article goes over the facts and history of NASA and how it could eventually be part of a rivalry between the two Big 12 schools.

After reading this article, the potential for a rivalry seems strong as it seems that the space folks have some legitimate disdain for the other from each side.

And it wouldn't be a TRS post on trophies without mentioning the Civil Conflict trophy, the much-derided rivalry idea of former UConn head coach Bob Diaco for the Huskies and Central Florida, which the Knights had literally no interest in fighting over.

The trophy that UCF abandoned on the field after a 2016 win in the rain, has rarely been seen again but there is what some claim to be the trophy but it has some differences in font and wood, which has been attributed to the rain damage needing to be repaired from the 2016 "Conflict".

The article tells the story of how the trophy was acquired and kept by UCF, the school that wanted nothing to do with the trophy and rivalry in the first place!  

Pac 12 Collapses! Oregon, Washington to Big 10

   The family picture to the left is suddenly outdated as "Black Friday" hit the Pac-12 conference in one day the elite conference in the Western United States lost five of its members as Oregon and Washington agreed to join the Big 10 and Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah decided to leave to become the newest additions to the Big 12.

These moves combined with USC and UCLA's Big 10 relocation to the Big 10 that was announced last year for a 2024 arrival and the recent decision of Colorado to defect to the Big 12 leaves the Pac 12 with only California, Oregon State, Stanford, and Washington State as members in good standing past the 2023-24 athletic season.

One of the requests by USC, when they joined the Big 10, was that Oregon not receive a future invitation to the league but clearly either the Trojans were pacified or reluctantly pushed into tolerating the Ducks entry into the conference.

I'm not sure if I'm thrilled with the Ducks and Huskies entering the Big 10 and while I do think it is ridiculous for travel and especially for the non-revenue sports, in the current climate it was a move that the Big 10 almost had to make.

The Pac-12's two most recent commissioners have made mistake after mistake with their television contracts and have basically sat the conference on a ticking time bomb that would eventually blow up.

I understand why the Big 10 wanted Oregon and Washington as the game continues down a path of two conferences that essentially separates the sport between North (Big 10) and South (SEC) with the Big 12 and ACC as fun lesser leagues with a few notable schools that can compete at the national level.

And while I don't either team will struggle in the Big Ten, I'm not sure that Washington will be more than a middle to occasional upper level such as Iowa in the league, I could see Oregon with their Nike money behind them becoming a top five league presence, although not perhaps a title contender every season.

It is a bit ironic that after dumping divisional play in the conference for next year, the Big 10 may have to return to divisions before they were even phased out.

Eighteen is a very clumsy number and doesn't fit well into a full league or schedule setup, so it is very possible the league could be forced into a two-division/nine-team alignment, which might be more to my liking anyway when you consider the four Pac 12 newcomers would bolster the western division.

My divisional setup;

East: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois

West: Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, Minnesota, Nebraska, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington

I actually kinda like that and if you really wanted to make the Big 10 title game worthwhile, there is a way to do so.

Play eight games in your division and play the ninth against a team that finished in the same place as your team did in the previous season in the other division.

Or use the ninth game as a semi-final for the Big 10 title game with the other teams playing 3rd vs 3rd, 4th vs 4th, and so on.

Using this setup, only one rivalry would be lost (Illinois vs Northwestern) and if you really pushed creatively, you could make sure they played much as possible (perhaps making that game automatic, if the two teams were within two or three places of each other in the standings) and you would save the special aspect for the traditionalist, along with the different matchups on the next to last week of the season.

The Big Ten likely has an end game of twenty teams and while they would love the academic cache' that Stanford would bring, California would be a Rutgers-like drag on the conference, and taking both would also take away the long-term pining that eventually they would land Notre Dame.

As for the Big 12, well they did very well for themselves as they grabbed some gold for their league.

Utah brings a solid top-twenty program and returns their rivalry game with BYU to a conference battle,

Arizona offers an elite-level basketball school to what is arguably the best basketball conference in the country.

Arizona State is always thought of as a potential giant with the right coach and commitment and Colorado will add lots of attention as long as Deion Sanders is the coach there.

All four make the Big 12 stronger and while they lack a top-of-the-league power such as Clemson or potentially Florida State and Miami, what they possess is many schools with breakout potential and what I think is the most competitive league in the nation, top to bottom.

As for the remaining four Pac-12 schools, Oregon State and Washington State appear to be headed for the Mountain West unless the American decides to make a move but even so, the Mountain West is a better geographic fit with Boise State as a built-in immediate rival for both schools.

Hopefully, both schools will be able to keep their in-state rivalry games intact and it does seem that there is a willingness to do so.

Stanford and Cal are different cases.

Stanford as noted earlier would have some appeal to the Big 10 but not at the cost of adding Cal and I could see them trying out independence in hopes of the Big 10 adding down the road.

As for Cal, I could see Cal deciding to de-emphasize athletics and dropping down to a lower level or at least maybe 1-AA for football only. 

In neither of those schools, do I see them going to the Mountain West (academics) or the American (same and travel), if the Big 10 wanted them, a bid would have been offered already, and the Big 12 isn't a fit on many fronts.

The ACC could make sense in theory with Stanford and Cal academic-wise but just imagine the travel costs for those two schools.

Does the logistics of adding those two add up to being worth either party's while?

Only the grant of rights held by the ACC is holding that league together as the ACC would love North Carolina and Virginia with Georgia Tech, Miami, and Duke as possibilities and the SEC would covet Clemson, Florida State, and North Carolina, although I could see the SEC picking up N.C. State in the event that North Carolina would be unavailable.

The real certainty is that college football is changing to a national sport rather than a regional sport with occasional national interests and while the sport continues to evolve, its changes aren't going to stop anytime soon.

Things I think: College Football

Time for the weekly thoughts on college football and even though it seems like even when I try to get away from Fred Landucci's beloved Tennessee Vols, I just can't after this excellent ESPN article looking back at Lane Kiffin's one year in Knoxville.

1) The ESPN article on the crazy one season spent by Lane Kiffin was not only excellent, but it also made me think about what could have happened had Kiffin remained as the coach of the Volunteers.
Looking at the various messes since with Derek Dooley, Butch Jones and currently Jeremy Pruitt, I'm not sure that things could have been worse for Big Orange. but I'm not sure that they would have been much better either.
Kiffin was only 34/35 years of age as head coach of the Vols and I'm not sure he was mature enough to be a top-notch head coach.
Tennessee would have likely recruited well under Kiffin and that would have helped give them a chance at success, but could they continue to recruit well if the drop off in record occurred?
My guess as to the most likely result? Tennessee wins some games that they likely would have been the underdog in, lost others to teams of lesser talent and would have had lots of entertaining media events and clashes with other teams.
I would think that Lane Kiffin would have a shorter shelf life even with success and he would be unlikely to still reside in Knoxville.

2) The Arizona State-Michigan State game from East Lansing (10-7 ASU ) was a snoozer until the last three minutes or so, but two notes on the contest.
Mark Dantonio might need to either accept that offensive schemes for Sparty need to be updated because what the Spartans have been doing over the last three seasons just isn't getting the job done.
Dantonio might be so stuck in his Jim Tressel-like ways that he may not be able to make the changes that need to be completed, but Michigan State needs to at least talk to him about those potential moves.
The officials botched the final field goal attempt after Michigan State seemed to have tied the game at 10, a review saw Sparty called for 12 men on the field and another field goal try to tie the game.
On that kick, the kick drifted wide, but Arizona State had a player that should have been called for leaping, which would have given Michigan State another chance to force overtime.
The visiting team's conference provides the officials, so the mistake was by Pac 12 officials and an apology issued, which as always is too late.

3) The big run by Maryland sputtered to a stop after a 20-17 loss in Philadelphia to Temple.
It's not only the loss to a group of five school, but it is also that after showing a great deal of offense against Syracuse, the Terrapins had multiple chances to win this game.
Temple slammed the door twice on Maryland back Anthony McFarland from the one-yard line with three and a half minutes to go and again stopped Maryland at the ten with seconds remaining.
Now the conference schedule starts for Maryland against Penn State this Saturday and even though Maryland's four games that follow Penn State are all possible victories (at Rutgers, Indiana, at Purdue and Minnesota), the end of the season is brutal as they finish up with Michigan, at Ohio State, Nebraska, and at Michigan State.
The season's not lost, but it feels like a missed opportunity for Mike Locksley's first Terrapin team.

4) And there is the ACC, who deservedly pats itself on the back for the number one rated team in the nation in Clemson, but collectively appears to be about as competitive as the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters.
Other than 25th ranked Virginia (3-0) the conference doesn't have another ranked team and other than Wake Forest, doesn't have another undefeated team, which is pretty sad only three weeks into the season.
Last Saturday saw N.C. State lose at West Virginia by 17, which isn't a terrible loss, but also saw Virginia Tech need a rally in the fourth quarter to defeat 1-AA Furman, Pitt throw away a chance to upset Penn State and the two worst losses of the day with I-AA Citadel defeating Georgia Tech at home and Kansas, who hadn't won a road game against a power five team in eleven seasons, crunching Boston College by 24 in Boston!
I would say it is very likely to that the Clemson opponent in the ACC title game will have three losses and possibly four.
Not a great matchup to attract fans to your title game.

5) The hottest coaching seat has to be occupied by USC's Clay Helton after the Trojans road loss to BYU in overtime.
It's not just the loss to the Cougars, it's the next three games, all against ranked teams (Utah, Washington, and Notre Dame) that they will be underdogs against and two on the road.
A 2-4 start isn't out of the question for Helton and with a new AD to be hired soon after the resignation of Lynn Swann, Helton is more likely to be shown the door than stay around for 2020.

6) I found it interesting that former Northern Illinois and Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill has been brought on staff at Virginia Tech as a special assistant to Justin Fuente.
Kill was forced from the Gophers head job after 2015 by doctors that recommended he leave coaching to avoid neurological damage from epileptic attacks.
Fuente's Hokies finished 6-7 last season and their 2-1 record is less than impressive with a near loss to Furman and a road loss at Boston College, who as mentioned earlier was blasted by hapless Kansas at the same stadium.