I Tell Ya' Herbie

    Here's our latest scoop from the college football bowl that we call I Tell Ya' Herbie.

I Tell Ya' Herbie: 

                             Another Power Four job is open before the end of September, as Oklahoma State removed long-time coach Mike Gundy after a loss to Tulsa.

Gundy was in his twenty-first season, and despite his status, the time was right for the Cowboys, who had won only four of their last fifteen games after a loss to the in-state Golden Hurricane.

The Cowboys were expected to be a power in the Big 12 after the defections of Texas and Oklahoma, but those plans have gone up in smoke over the last two seasons.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The firing of Mike Gundy leaves four jobs available for the 2026 season- UCLA, Stanford, Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma State, and there could be three times that by season's end.

What job could be next? The SEC has two contenders with Billy Napier at Florida and Sam Pittman at Arkansas.

Napier and the Gators have a rugged schedule while Pittman's Hogs have the harder place to win.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:   

                              The SEC is going to a nine game conference schedule for next year (good thing) but the schedule will undergo changes so each team plays everyone at least every four years (good thing, but) .

The conference has assigned each team three regular game opponents that they will play every year but even so there are some lost rivalries and some questionable selections for "rivals" for some teams.

Ole Miss gets Oklahoma rather than Arkansas, Florida loses their rivalries with LSU (Florida plays Kentucky), who loses theirs with Alabama, and Texas A&M plays Missouri rather than Oklahoma.

The league has stated that they will reevaluate the system before the 2029 or 2030 season.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             Indiana's run in 2024 was a cute story that ended with the Hoosiers making the CFB playoff bur their impressive thumping of unbeaten Illinois, who some thought could be this year's Indiana, could be a sign that they could be a candidate to return.

Curt Cignetti could be a candidate for bigger jobs should he desire them after the job that he's done in a short time in Bloomington.

Indiana travels to 3-1 Iowa this Saturday.

I Tell Ya" Herbie

   On tap for another edition of  I Tell Ya' Herbie, our weekly notes about the world of college football.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            The surprising rise of BYU to the top of the Big 12 after being listed as one of the bottom-dwellers in the pre-season predictions has been one of the better stories in college football this season.

However, the holding call against Utah on a fourth down, which would have ended the game with BYU out of timeouts and Utah up three, was controversial.

A BYU loss would have completely scrambled the Big 12 title picture and made roughly a thousand tiebreaking scenarios for the conference title game very plausible.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             When you watch the BYU-Utah game (every year, not this year in particular) and see just how heated this rivalry is, you wonder why this game isn't mentioned as highly as others are when you discuss the best rivalries in the game.

I would think it hasn't gotten the publicity for two reasons.

First, the two programs were in the WAC/Mountain West for so many years that the "power conference" elite didn't care just how great of a rivalry this was and the other reason?

The schools in the Western time zone often receive the short end of the stick on topics such as this as other great rivalries such as Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washington State, and Arizona-Arizona State have only in recent years started to receive credit as elite-level rivalries.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             Another Western rivalry might be the most vicious of them all, even though both schools are more often than not at the lower end of the standings every year.

The Rio Grande Rivalry between New Mexico and New Mexico State has heat on the field but even more off the field, where the Lobos of New Mexico have used their pull inside the defunct WAC and its spinoff, the Mountain West, to keep the rival Aggies out of their league at every turn.

The Lobos have always been in the bigger league and in the state's bigger media market (Albuquerque to State's Las Cruces), so they have been the bigger name of the two and the Aggies have struggled to find a long-term fit in a conference due to their size and location.

New Mexico State's programs have had their share of problems away from the field and court  (the two teams canceled their home and home hoops series last season) and that is a factor in their problems finding a home.

Still, the two teams play each season in football (New Mexico won this year's game 50-40) and home and home in basketball, so they do play each other without conference ramifications at stake.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The SEC race could be cleared up a little bit on Saturday with Tennessee's visit to Georgia.

The Volunteers, Texas A&M, and Texas are the only schools with one loss in SEC play but there are five teams with two losses (Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, and Missouri) and Texas plays Texas A&M, so there is a guarantee of six teams with two conference losses and there is a scenario (although highly unlikely) of eight teams finishing with two losses.

A Tennessee win over Georgia would clarify things a little but a Georgia win would really throw things into chaos.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            I write a lot in my boxing coverage about some fights being "crossroads fights", which means the winner moves onto bigger things and the loser takes a major step in their career.

I think one game this week could be a crossroads game in the Big 12 as 5-4 Baylor visits 5-4 West Virginia in Morgantown.

This year was looked to be a pivotal year by Neal Brown with West Virginia, who disappointed for most of the season before two road wins over Arizona and Cincinnati pushed them above .500 and perhaps put the Mountaineers into position to salvage their season.

Baylor's Dave Aranda looked to be moving on the hot seat with his Bears at 2-4 before they ripped off three wins in a row over Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and TCU to move them over .500.

The winner will be bowl-eligible and has a chance to finish strong enough to relieve the pressure on their coach for 2025, while the loser will need to perhaps win both of their remaining games to save their season.

I Tell Ya' Herbie

    After what might have been the craziest weekend ever for heavy underdogs defeating highly ranked favorites, we return with our notebook on college football- I Tell Ya' Herbie.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            That was one crazy Saturday as four top ten teams lost, including number one ranked Alabama and three of the four losing to unranked teams, with the fourth losing to 25th ranked Texas A&M.

I'm sure that hasn't happened often and in the playoff era, none of the losses will eliminate any of those team's chances for the new postseason.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            Both sides of the argument on the mighty SEC.

One side says the SEC is down with Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Tennessee losing in the last two weeks and only Georgia's close loss to Alabama as a defeat that didn't come with a gasp and a question mark.

The other is the conference is becoming more balanced as Vanderbilt (Alabama), Kentucky (Ole Miss), and Arkansas (Tennessee) as middle-of-the-pack teams to bottom dwellers dropping conference blue bloods prove that there is some catching up going on in the SEC.

My answer? I think the lower teams playing at home are gaining a little bit compared to the past as only Kentucky's win over Ole Miss was on the road but you will still have to prove to me in crunch time that SEC teams not named Alabama or Georgia are head and shoulders over the mid-range schools.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             It'll be interesting as the CFP evolves to see how schools such as Ole Miss, Tennessee, Missouri, and Texas A&M are graded when the season ends.

I'd think 10-2 will be enough for most SEC ( and Big Ten) teams to get in but if you are 10-2, lack big wins, and lost to Vanderbilt and Arkansas, are you an automatic entrant?

I could see that happening more often than not but not always as time goes on.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            This likely moved under most radars as two mediocre teams in Temple and Connecticut battled in Storrs, CT with an incredible ending.

Connecticut leads 23-20 with three seconds remaining but Temple has the ball on a fourth and goal from inside the Huskies one-yard line.

Temple tries a quarterback sneak, and just as it seems the Owls quarterback is going to break the plane of the goal line for a win, the ball pops up. UConn takes the ball ninety-nine yards for a score, giving them a 29-20 win.

The win moves UConn to 4-2 and in a position to make six wins for a bowl appearance.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                              Things are falling into place for the ACC for two teams in the CFP despite extremely disappointing seasons from Florida State and N.C.State.

Miami rallied from a huge deficit to nip California on the road to remain unbeaten, and Clemson has taken care of their business since their opening loss to Georgia.

Pittsburgh is still unbeaten and SMU has one loss, a three-point loss to unbeaten BYU.

The best news is for Miami, who doesn't play any of those three, and if they can get by Louisville this weekend on the road, the Hurricanes look to have a chance to win out.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The Group of Five with the biggest surprise has to be the 5-0 starts by Army and Navy that have both at the top of the AAC.

Navy has the more impressive wins with a win over pre-season favorite Memphis and road wins over UAB and Air Force.

Both teams will meet Notre Dame later in the season, so it's unlikely that both teams will be unbeaten entering their season-ending clash in December but imagine the stakes for the game if both teams could manage to be unbeaten.

The December 14th game is the only game on the schedule, and should the dream seasons continue for both, the game could have not only the Commander in Chief trophy at stake, the game would decide the AAC champion, and perhaps put the CFP on hold waiting for who might receive the Group of Five automatic bid.