The Road to South Florida Week 10
Dear Football Fans,
Tuesday was Halloween. Some teams had their bags filled with candy - the good stuff, chocolate. Other teams got apples in their bags - real wormy apples.
On Tuesday night, the College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee announced their first set of selections. Halloween is a great holiday, adorable kids and their parents knocking on the doors. I live in Coconut Grove and my neighbors and I take Halloween seriously- we decorate our houses and vie for the most trick or treaters.
This year I was hoping for a 15 minute respite from trick or treat cuteness, because at 7:00 the first set of CFP ranking were announced. I didn’t want that doorbell to ring.
The big talking point from the first set of rankings is “How Bout Them ‘Dawgs?” The CFP selection committee chose the Georgia Bulldogs as the top team in the country, toppling University of Alabama. It’s the first time in three years Georgia has been ranked by the CFP. It’s good to start at the top! I get the reasons Georgia was chosen, but I wonder, if Georgia were playing Alabama, who would win? There’s a bunch of chatter that Alabama hasn’t played that tough teams. What can’t be ignored is week after week they annihilate their opponents. Some weeks it’s like watching an NFL team play a high school team.
After nine weeks of bringing you the AP Top 25, essentially people voting for teams based on win loss records, it’s time for the sophisticated stuff. Like going from box wine to a complex cabernet.
But let’s set the table first. After last week’s game, every team in the AP Top 10, except Alabama, changed positions.
On Friday, Stanford beat Oregon State by one point, 15-14.
Saturday at 3:30 there were three games that were important or interesting. The only solution, other than to be an obnoxious channel flipper, not something innate to my gender, was to have multiple TVs going.
The Penn State-Ohio State game was breathtakingly good football. Until the third quarter, it seemed as though the Nittany Lions would beat the Buckeyes. All that changed in the fourth quarter, with Ohio State beating Penn State by one point, 39-38.
The Buckeyes wore alternate uniforms that the football fashion crowd were dissing, with a few former Ohio State players saying they didn’t like them. SBNation called them “sick alternate uniforms” and described the shoes as “dope new LeBron cleats.” I believe the SBNation writer meant his remarks positively.
The gray uniforms were sort of drab, but the red shoes on the players’ feet looked like cardinals flying across the field. Kelli Pickler, an early contestant on “American Idol, has a song called “Red High Heels,” with a line, “I just kicked you to the curb in my red high heels.” Substitute cleats for high heels and you have the end of the Penn State-Ohio State game. Check out the YouTube video, parts of it are filmed on a football practice field.
The game was essentially an elimination game and the chances of Penn State making it to a semifinal are diminished, if not nonexistent.
Notre Dame beat North Carolina, 33-10.
Florida State was trounced by Boston College - yes, Boston College, 35-3. On Friday night, Mack Brown, the ESPN commentator and former Texas Longhorn coach, remarked that the players on the sidelines looked deflated and that it was carrying over onto the field. My dad, who, unlike his daughter, rarely swore, had an all-purpose saying, “Don’t Show Your Ass,” meaning that my brother Richard and I should never let on that something was bothering us. The Seminoles could have used that advice. My dad’s other frequent saying to us was “Look Alive.” That also would have been good advice to the Seminoles last Friday. With a 2-4 season record, they may not be Bowl eligible.
Last week I wrote quite a bit about the University of Florida. This week I will be brief. The Florida-Georgia game, billed as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” ended with the Gators having a massive hangover. They lost 42-7. Sad.
Coach Jim McElwain is out, replaced for the time by former University of Miami head coach Randy Shannon, who serves as the Gator defensive coordinator. A national search is underway for a new head coach. I have a front runner in mind, but it’s only conjecture. Howard Gutman and I discuss this topic frequently - he called this situation a long time ago.
If you want job stability, there are better jobs than being a head football coach. These guys should have their own “Turnover Chains.” According to “The Great S.C.O.T.T Show” website, nearly 83 percent of head coaches have been hired since 2011. The 2017 season started with 21 new head football coaches.
There are currently five head coach jobs waiting to be filled, with more changes expected at the end of the season.
An interesting factoid - in 27 states, the head football coach is the highest paid state employee.
But the coach situation, both big and small picture, is something to think about off-season. We are two third of the way finished with this season and we need to keep our eye on the football.
Let’s talk about the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. The CFP has been in existence since 2014, replacing the Bowl Championship Series. Now, 13 very well-qualified people get together once a week for the last part of the season. The members of the committee are Kirby Hocutt, Director of Athletics, Texas Tech (formerly UM Athletic Director); Frank Beamer, Former Head Coach, Virginia Tech (winningest active coach in FBS history at the time of his retirement); Jeff Bower, former Head Coach, University of Southern Mississippi; Herb Deromedi, former Head Coach, Central Michigan University; Chris Howard, President, Robert Morris University (Harvard M.B.A. and Rhodes Scholar who earned his doctorate from Oxford. He’s also a former college football player); Tom Jernstedt, former NCAA Executive Vice President (played football for University of Oregon); Bobby Johnson, former Head Coach, Vanderbilt University (39 years of experience as a coach and student-athlete); Jeff Long, Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics, University of Arkansas (more than 35 years of college football experience as an administrator, coach and student athlete and, a seriously nice guy with a great accent); Rob Mullen, Director of Athletics, University of Oregon; Dan Radakovich, Director of Athletics, Clemson University (more than 30 years of college football experience as an Athletic Director and college football player. He was the Associate AD at UM. His wife Marcie is one of the coolest, best people ever. Their son Grant plays for Clemson); Gene Smith, Director of Athletics, Ohio State University; Steve Wieberg, former College Football Reporter, USA TODAY (sportswriter for 30 years) and Tyrone Willingham, (former Head Coach of University of Washington, University of Notre Dame and, Stanford University).
You may or may not like the subjective ranking system, but the people making these decisions have great football chops. I like the system because it gives all of the folks who work in and listen to, sports talk radio, something to gloat or complain about.
The Selection Committee ranks the college football teams, ultimately deciding who makes the final four that play in the two CFP semi-final games. The winners of the two semifinals play for the National Championship.
LATE BREAKING NEWS FLASH! Yesterday, the CFP announced that Miami-South Florida is the site for the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship. It’s a big deal for a community to host a National Championship game. Communities compete to have the game awarded to them by placing bids. It’s similar to the Super Bowl process. Many organizations and people contributed to this successful bid, but the laboring oar was taken by The Orange Bowl Committee and Judge Michael Chavies and his group, Adolfo Henriques, Howard Greenberg, Bill Davis and Leslie Pantin.
Judge Chavies, who has shown incredible leadership for years trying to land the National Championship for Miami-South Florida had a big day yesterday. He also won a $24 million summary judgment. The other side never knew what hit them.
Members of the Selection Committee, all football heavyweights, sit for three year terms. Beginning at the end of October, once a week they get together in Texas and consider who the Top 25 teams are going to be for that week. The committee considers factors such as strength of schedule (playing tough schools instead of candy-ass schools), conference championships, team records and head-to head opponents (Penn State versus Ohio State for instance). There are multiple secret ballots, with discussion in-between each ballot. At the end of each meeting, like white smoke coming from the Vatican to indicate that a new Pope has been selected, the head of the CFP Selection Committee announces on ESPN on Tuesday nights the CFP Top 25.
There are no rankings the same in the top 10 of the CFP and AP - different points of view and different placements of the teams on the hierarchy of excellence.
There are some striking differences.
Notre Dame is #5 in the AP poll, but #3 on the CFP poll. That’s the sugar I was talking about. Ohio State is #3 in AP poll, but #6 on the CFP rankings - the wormy apple. Going forward, when I mention the polls, it will be the CFP rankings.
My dear friend, the aptly named Tom Cash, the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in South Florida and the Caribbean, has many “Cashisms,” which include “where you sit depends on where you stand”, “you can’t get a good splinter from a bad piece of wood and, my personal favorite, “unless you’re the lead dog the view never changes.”
Mr. Cash also frequently says, “It’s not the money, it’s the money.” In 2012, ESPN paid $7.3 billion over 12 years for the broadcast rights for seven games a year. People love to watch and talk about college football. Football is currently the most widely watched college sport, according to “Statista,” a statistics website. Yes, there is such a website, as boring as it sounds.
Games to keep an eye on this week.
Clemson, back where they should be at CFP #4 plays #20 NC State. Clemson wants to hang on to their high ranking. Coach Swinney is going to keep this team of his fired up - he’d like that rematch with Alabama for the National Championship.
A big game is #5 Oklahoma playing their rival, #11 Oklahoma State.
University of Miami, #10, takes on #13 Virginia Tech Saturday afternoon at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. UM, despite the high ranking and their unbeaten status, has a lot to prove and a lot to lose. This will be a great game to watch. UM has a chance to show that their winning season hasn’t been a fluke. The real test, the battle to watch, will be the UM-Notre Dame game, which will be played on November 11. Both teams have their doubters as well as their deliriously devoted fans. Assuming they both win this week, next week is going to be a huge showdown. Of course, there is that “if.” Notre Dame plays Wake Forest this weekend, which should be a team handily beaten.
The #19 LSU Tigers takes on #2 Alabama. Will Alabama finally get beat? Stranger things have happened this season, like Syracuse beating Clemson.
THE WAHL TRIVIA QUESTION: Scott Wagner won last week’s trivia question, correctly answering that only once has a Big 10 team won a game after playing Michigan and Ohio State back to back. The answer was Penn State in 2008. The question was difficult, arcane and somewhat geographically specific. That’s the problem when you ask a smart guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of football for a trivia question. I asked for an easier question this week. This is supposed to be fun, not college course work. Larry gave me a really tough question and a not so tough question. Here’s the not so tough question.
The CFP’s initial rankings came out last week. In the first three years of rankings (2014-16), one team in each year’ initial rankings ended up in the Capital One Orange Bowl? Who are they? Bonus for what their initial ranking was.
The prize this week is a super duper Christina Ramos Orange Bowl gift bag. If you correctly answer the bonus question, you will also receive a Traveling Wilburys CD.
Success in college football, as in many of life’s endeavors, is created by team effort. However dear sports fans and friends, in at least one aspect of your life:
BE THE LEAD DOG!
Enjoy Game Day.
Lee
