Indiana made the most emphatic statement of the week. Google it!
Miami has torn through into the top 2 of the rankings this week jumping Penn State even though the Nittany Lions were off this week. The two marquee matchups this week include those Nittany Lions, with Gameday coming to Happy Valley and welcoming the Oregon Ducks to the east coast for the first time in awhile. Georgia and Alabama square off in a top-20 showdown, with the winner having an inside track to the conference championship game.
Luke Fickell isn’t doing himself any favors as Wisconsin’s offense floundered yet again. Perhaps the same can be said for Clemson and that boy Dabo Swinney. But speaking of prolific offense, Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola proves he can carry a team, and so can Michigan’s Justice Haynes. (Raiola had to bear the weight of several defensive linemen on him when he got sacked against the wolverines.) John Mateer of Oklahoma continues to lead the Heisman race in my opinion though.
Record through Week 4: 205-46 (.817)
Week 4 record: 46-16 (.742)
Predictions for Week 5
September 25 (1 game):
East Carolina (-5.5) def. Army, 38-28
September 26 (3 games):
8) Florida State (-6.5) def. Virginia, 41-27 (X)
24) TCU def. Arizona State (-2.5), 30-27 (X)
Houston (-13.5) def. Oregon State, 35-21
I will update this post later in the week with Saturday’s games. But it’s hard to wrap my head around how the Oregon State Beavers are suddenly a winless program after Jonathan Smith left for Michigan State.
September 27 (49 games):
16) Georgia Tech (-14.5) def. Wake Forest, 35-21
23) Illinois def. 21) USC (-6.5), 33-30
22) Notre Dame (-3.5) def. Arkansas, 35-31
Rutgers def. Minnesota (-4.5), 31-28
Syracuse def. Duke (-4.5), 33-27
Louisville (-3.5) def. Pittsburgh, 34-31
Kansas (-4.5) def. Cincinnati, 34-24
Kansas state (-5.5) def. UCF, 30-23
North Texas (-12.5) def. South Alabama, 38-24
Ohio (-7.5) def. Bowling Green, 27-24
18) Vanderbilt (-23.5) def. Utah State, 41-20
Central Michigan (-3.5) def. Eastern Michigan, 31-27
James Madison (-14.5) def. Georgia Southern, 35-24
UL Monroe (-1.5) def. Arkansas State, 34-30
1) Ohio State (-8.5) def. Washington, 35-26
4) LSU def. 13) Ole Miss (-2.5), 30-27
9) Texas A&M (-7.5) def. Auburn, 38-31
Iowa def. 11) Indiana (-8.5), 31-30
Northwestern (-5.5) def. UCLA, 30-24
Boston College (-5.5) def. California, 35-28
Baylor (-21.5) def. Oklahoma State, 41-27
West Virginia def. Utah (-12.5), 30-26
UConn (-3.5) def. Buffalo, 28-24
San Diego State (-1.5) def. Northern Illinois, 24-20
Navy (-13.5) def. Rice, 31-17
Toledo (-20.5) def. Akron, 38-14
Miami (OH) (-21) def. Lindenwood, 41-10
New Mexico (-15.5) def. New Mexico State, 35-24
Air Force (-6.5) def. Hawaii, 29-24
Tulane (-15.5) def. Tulsa, 34-17
15) Tennessee (-7.5) def. Mississippi State, 38-28
Kennesaw State (-6.5) def. Middle Tennessee, 31-24
Old Dominion (-15.5) def. Liberty, 41-24
Western Michigan def. Rhode Island, 45-17
14) Iowa State (-4.5) def. Arizona, 28-20
NC State (-9.5) def. Virginia Tech, 41-14
Southern Mississippi (-4.5) def. Jacksonville State, 31-27
Western Kentucky (-4.5) def. Missouri State, 38-31
Memphis (-13.5) def. Florida Atlantic, 38-21
6) Oregon def. 3) Penn State (-3.5), 32-26
17) Alabama def. 5) Georgia (-2.5), 38-34
20) Missouri (-44.5) def. Massachusetts, 51-7
Colorado State (-5.5) def. Washington State, 31-21
Stanford (-3.5) def. San José State, 28-21
Boise State (-16.5) def. Appalachian State, 41-24
Kentucky def. South Carolina (-5.5), 27-24
Marshall (-2.5) def. Louisiana, 29-23
Louisiana Tech (-3.5) def. UTEP, 27-20
25) BYU (-6.5) def. Colorado, 31-21
With NIL being rampant, I’m going to write here that I would advocate for even more than 24-28 teams to get into the college football playoff in the expanded future. In college basketball, there are about 350 division I teams, and 68 of them make the NCAA tournament, along with 32 others for the NIT and CBI events. That makes 132 teams playing in postseason action, which accounts for more than 1/3 of the teams. With that in mind, there are about 130 teams in the FBS, so I’d like to see for 45 to 50 teams in the playoff moving forward. The incentivizing players to play and earn their money, they’ll have more football to play. In my opinion, one of the problems with NIL is that virtually all the money is guaranteed, rather than at-will, and should not be up-front payments to the players or up-front income. NIL is not supposed to be a signing bonus for colleges to pay players, but rather compensating players for the product they will be expected to produce on the field. This is different from NFL contracts where players who did really well on rookie contracts are given larger guaranteed money as a second contract or later to perhaps make up for the fact that earlier great years weren’t compensated properly. Conversely, if a rookie contract is fully guaranteed and the player doesn’t do as well to justify that it was worthwhile, that player won’t get as much guaranteed money in the future.
Division I-A football is otherwise known as the “Football Bowl Subdivision”, so bowl games should in fact not be skipped. How can that be done? In my opinion, it’s to expand the playoff to have big enough fields for the playoff, but also fill all 41 bowl games. The way I see the sport, money is essentially cyclical, where it is exchanging hands based on the transactional aspect of playing a bowl game, players getting compensated in NIL money for the games, and sponsors of those bowl games / boosters getting paid for their services/responsibilities before it all repeats.
Football is the main source of revenue for most of the other sports in many, if not all schools, and even for the smaller ones, it’s important to have them get a share, instead of being a moribund program that never wins and never gets off the ground. This way, smaller schools also get more notoriety and exposure beyond the regular season, where many of them hardly ever get seen.
College Football Prediction Central with Paul Shen 