2024-25 College Football Season

[tazzmaniac]

The long wait is over.  Week 0 college football games start this weekend.  Unfortunately, Florida State at Georgia Tech in Dublin is the best game on tap. 

Going to be interesting to see how all the major changes (realignment, unfettered NIL, 12-team playoff, helmet communications) play out this season.  Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC makes sense but how will the Pac-12 teams fare in the Big10? 
Will the playoff committee actually take into account schedule strength, or will they continue to focus on number of losses? 

As a Bama fan, the biggest change of all is Saban's retirement.  Thankfully the DeBoer hiring, and transition has gone remarkably well.  If DeBoer can elevate Milroe's play and the secondary holds up, another championship may well be in the cards. 

[tazzmaniac]

Bama had to beat back a $1M per year offer from USC to retain Courtney Morgan as general manager (3yr, $825k/year).  Just a sign of the times with recruiting (high school, portal, roster retention) becoming even more important and time consuming.  Seems to be well worth it as, so far at least, the widely expected drop off in recruiting after Saban's retirement has not materialized. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/the-gm-arms-race-is-on-courtney-morgan-turned-down-over-1-million-annually-from-usc-to-stay-at-alabama/ar-AA1p9rAB?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[Donoghus]

Excited to see what Bill O'Brien can do with BC.  First time in several years there has been excitement in the program.

Gonna be an adjustment seeing this new conference alignment in effect.  The Big Ten is wild to me with ORE/WASH/USC/UCLA.    Also, we are dealing with our first season of no SEC on CBS. 

Traveling to Austin in October for Georgia/Texas.  Pumped for that.  Might try to do BC/SMU in Dallas in November too.

[Celtics2021]

It will be very interesting to see how Michigan does.  Obviously they?ve had a ton of coaching turnover, and have only one returning starter on offense, and the quarterback situation is a mystery.  But their defense should be elite, with multiple projected first rounders.  Michigan-Texas in week 2 will tell us a lot.

[tazzmaniac]

Excited to see what Bill O'Brien can do with BC.  First time in several years there has been excitement in the program.

Gonna be an adjustment seeing this new conference alignment in effect.  The Big Ten is wild to me with ORE/WASH/USC/UCLA.    Also, we are dealing with our first season of no SEC on CBS. 

Traveling to Austin in October for Georgia/Texas.  Pumped for that.  Might try to do BC/SMU in Dallas in November too.

The Bama offense was good overall the 2 years under O'Brien but I attribute a lot of that to Bryce Young.  Should have won the 2021 championship but couldn't overcome losing Williams and Metchie to injury.   

I'm fine with no SEC on CBS.  Very happy not to have to listen to Gary Danielson. 

[tazzmaniac]

I don't know how good Florida State will be but after that first drive it looks like it is going to be a long season for Georgia Tech fans.

Edit:  And then Georgia Tech drives the ball down the throat of Florida State's defense.  I love college football. 

[Donoghus]

59 yard FG?  Holy cow.

[Phantom255x]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

[Phantom255x]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

And there it is! Georgia Tech UPSETS #10 Florida State. What a start to NCAAF season 

[tazzmaniac]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

And there it is! Georgia Tech UPSETS #10 Florida State. What a start to NCAAF season 

Never liked Florida State although they are better than Miami.  Glad to see them go down after all their complaining about missing the playoffs last season.  If this had happened in a 4-team playoff season, they'd already be pretty much dead for making the playoffs.  Now they still have some chance albeit a difficult one. 

[Phantom255x]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

And there it is! Georgia Tech UPSETS #10 Florida State. What a start to NCAAF season 

Never liked Florida State although they are better than Miami.  Glad to see them go down after all their complaining about missing the playoffs last season.  If this had happened in a 4-team playoff season, they'd already be pretty much dead for making the playoffs.  Now they still have some chance albeit a difficult one.

I'll be honest, I did think Florida State got screwed last season. Even if their starting QB got hurt, what kind of message is that to the whole team who went undefeated and did their jobs.

But it's a new season. I think there's gonna be a lot of excitement especially with some of the conference realignments and such. It's still gonna be so weird seeing SEC games NOT on CBS this season among other things.

[tazzmaniac]

Too early to be sure but it looks like helmet communication is going to be a big improvement. I only recall one play where the offense had confusion getting setup which led to a false start.  It should also help NFL rookie QBs already having experience with helmet communication.  Haynes King was sometimes putting both his hands on his helmet to apparently block out sound so there may be some kinks to work out.   

[tazzmaniac]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

And there it is! Georgia Tech UPSETS #10 Florida State. What a start to NCAAF season 

Never liked Florida State although they are better than Miami.  Glad to see them go down after all their complaining about missing the playoffs last season.  If this had happened in a 4-team playoff season, they'd already be pretty much dead for making the playoffs.  Now they still have some chance albeit a difficult one.

I'll be honest, I did think Florida State got screwed last season. Even if their starting QB got hurt, what kind of message is that to the whole team who went undefeated and did their jobs.

But it's a new season. I think there's gonna be a lot of excitement especially with some of the conference realignments and such. It's still gonna be so weird seeing SEC games NOT on CBS this season among other things.

FSU went undefeated because they played an easy schedule compared to the other teams.  I think their SOS was something like 57 while both Bama and Texas were top 5-ish.  Put Bama or Texas against the FSU schedule and they would have gone undefeated too.  The #2 ACC team Louisville lost to the 8th or 9th best SEC team in the regular season.  Teams shouldn't be rewarded for playing weak schedules. 

[tazzmaniac]

In my starvation for college football, I will now be watching Montana State at New Mexico.  Two teams that I know nothing about other than the state they are from. 

[mobilija]

Great game so far, Georgia Tech is really outmuscling Florida State. Now driving for what could be the game-winning score.

And there it is! Georgia Tech UPSETS #10 Florida State. What a start to NCAAF season 

Never liked Florida State although they are better than Miami.  Glad to see them go down after all their complaining about missing the playoffs last season.  If this had happened in a 4-team playoff season, they'd already be pretty much dead for making the playoffs.  Now they still have some chance albeit a difficult one.

I'll be honest, I did think Florida State got screwed last season. Even if their starting QB got hurt, what kind of message is that to the whole team who went undefeated and did their jobs.

But it's a new season. I think there's gonna be a lot of excitement especially with some of the conference realignments and such. It's still gonna be so weird seeing SEC games NOT on CBS this season among other things.

FSU went undefeated because they played an easy schedule compared to the other teams.  I think their SOS was something like 57 while both Bama and Texas were top 5-ish.  Put Bama or Texas against the FSU schedule and they would have gone undefeated too.  The #2 ACC team Louisville lost to the 8th or 9th best SEC team in the regular season. Teams shouldn't be rewarded for playing weak schedules.

Like the Celtics?