Well, I didn't expect to beat LSU. It was a good win. If you look at my last post (and the comment I added), I went through coaches with a better winning percentage than Kelly's winning percentage at Notre Dame. I assumed a loss yesterday, but the win puts Kelly at .692 at Notre Dame, which keeps him ahead of Paul Johnson and Kevin Sumlin. It was the best game Kelly has coached since Florida State. The offensive game plan was excellent. We ran the ball well and I think that helped us make some plays in the passing game when we needed to. We gave up two very big plays on defense and a kick return for a touchdown, but the offensive game plan kept the defense off the field. It was nice to beat an SEC team for the first time since I was a student (Tennessee in 2005). We've only played two SEC teams since I finished as a student in December 2006 (LSU in the Sugar Bowl that season and Alabama in the Championship Game two years ago), but we got blown out by both. I was skeptical about musical quarterbacks, but it worked. Zaire was very good. Golson was shaky early, but he made some plays to help us win also. I thought he wasn't coming back in the game at the end and he might not have if not for Zaire's helmet coming off, but he made a couple of plays at the end. And Kyle Bridza had a bad year, but he had been a good player for us in the past. He kicked five field goals against USC in 2012 to help us get to the Championship Game. I was happy that he got to finish his college career with a game-winning kick. It's still a disappointing season, but it's our best bowl win in 20 years. That's not saying much. We've only beaten Hawaii, Miami, and Rutgers in bowl games before beating LSU. We beat Hawaii and Rutgers because those games were a mismatch of talent. We beat Miami because their players didn't want to play because their coach had been fired and it was too cold for them. We were evenly matched with LSU in terms of talent and we just beat them. So I'll take it. Let's hope next year is much better.
The College Football Playoff Era is beginning and I'm really excited about it. I meant to post yesterday about the New Year's Six, but that post went on long enough anyway. Let's take a look at the bowl games played on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day last year.
New Year's Eve: AdvoCare V100 Bowl (Arizona vs. Boston College), Sun Bowl (UCLA vs. Virginia Tech), Liberty Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Rice), and Chick-fil-A Bowl (Texas A&M vs. Duke)
New Year's Day: Gator Bowl (Nebraska vs. Georgia), Heart of Dallas Bowl (North Texas vs. UNLV), Capital One Bowl (South Carolina vs. Wisconsin), Outback Bowl (LSU vs. Iowa), Rose Bowl (Michigan State vs. Stanford), and Fiesta Bowl (UCF vs. Baylor)
Now there were some good games in there (you also had North Texas vs. UNLV in there), but you had the Sugar Bowl (Oklahoma vs. Alabama) on January 2, Orange Bowl (Clemson vs. Ohio State) and Cotton Bowl (Missouri vs. Oklahoma State), and of course the only bowl that really mattered was on January 6 (Florida State vs. Auburn in the Championship Game).
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day will be much better this year.
New Year's Eve: Peach Bowl (Ole Miss vs. TCU), Fiesta Bowl (Arizona vs. Boise State), and Orange Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Georgia Tech)
New Year's Day: Outback Bowl (Auburn vs. Wisconsin), Cotton Bowl (Michigan State vs. Baylor), Citrus Bowl (Missouri vs. Minnesota), Rose Bowl (Oregon vs. Florida State), and Sugar Bowl (Alabama vs. Ohio State).
So we've sacrificed two games over those two days compared to last year, but the games are so much better and more meaningful (and their names have improved also). So I'm a big fan of the College Football Playoff. But I think they did something that doesn't really make sense. The playoff rotation doesn't make sense when you consider the bowl tie-ins.
Here are the bowl tie-ins when the games aren't playoff games:
Rose Bowl- Big Ten vs. Pac-12
Sugar Bowl- SEC vs. Big 12
Orange Bowl- ACC vs. SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame
Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl- displaced conference champions (the Big 12 champion this year), the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference (Boise State this year), and at-large teams (the second Big 12 team, Ole Miss, Arizona, and Michigan State this year)
So you got four at-large teams this year. At most, you could have had five if a Big 12 team had made the playoff and Florida State hadn't because then no conference champion would have been displaced.
But now let's think about what next season will look like. The Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl will be the playoff games. We know what conferences will be playing in the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. That leaves the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl for other teams. One of those spots goes to the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference. So that leaves three spots at most for at-large teams (if there are no displaced teams).
The season after that gets worse. The Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl will be the playoff games. We know what conferences will be playing in the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl. That leaves the Cotton Bowl. One spot in that game will go to the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference. The other will be an at-large team (nobody can be displaced since the playoff games don't have tie-ins).
So we go from having possibly five at-large teams the first year of the rotation to possibly three at-large teams the second year of the rotation to one at-large team the third year of the rotation. Here's what the New Year's Six would have looked like if the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl were the playoff games:
Orange Bowl- Alabama vs. Ohio State
Cotton Bowl- Oregon vs. Florida State
Rose Bowl- Michigan State vs. Arizona
Sugar Bowl- Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Fiesta Bowl- Boise State vs. TCU
Peach Bowl- Ole Miss vs. Kansas State
If the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl were the playoff games, it would look like this:
Peach Bowl- Alabama vs. Ohio State
Fiesta Bowl- Oregon vs. Florida State
Rose Bowl- Michigan State vs. Arizona
Sugar Bowl- Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Orange Bowl- Georgia Tech vs. Ole Miss
Cotton Bowl- Boise State vs. TCU
So you end up with not a whole lot of difference in the teams, but the games would be different. Of the twelve teams in the six games, only one would change in year two (none in year three). I actually just did the same exercise for based on last year's rankings (just using the BCS rankings). You end up with the same result (Clemson gets a spot two out of the three years, Oklahoma gets that spot the other year). So perhaps this isn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be, but I would still change the semifinal rotation to this:
Year 1- Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl
Year 2- Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl
Year 3- Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl
That way, you could always have up to three at-large teams. I'm biased. Notre Dame is an independent so I don't really like the idea of having one at-large spot. It would be nice if we could just make it to the playoff or Orange Bowl and not have to worry about that.
And there's one other problem I have with the College Football Playoff. This is not a huge deal to me, but I would still change it. This year, you have the semifinal games on January 1. The other two years of the rotation they will be on December 31. I would always have them on January 1 (except when it's a Sunday). I think the problem is the Rose Bowl. They want to be on January 1 and it's on the west coast. And the playoff wants to be the late games. So you could play the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl on January 1 next season, but one of them would have to be before the Rose Bowl (you're not going to have the Rose Bowl at 9:30 in the morning local time). That's not going to happen so you have the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl as semifinals on December 31 next season. People work on December 31 (I don't, but people do). One game will be starting at 5:00 or 5:30. Even if you live on the east coast, you're not getting home from work before the game starts. On the other hand, I always like being off the day after a big game. People are always off on January 1, but not always on January 2. I'm off on January 2 if it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. So the only way I'll have to work the day after the semifinal games is if those games are the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl and they're on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. It looks like for the 2017 season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the semifinals and they're on a Monday. That's really the worst case scenario. As of right now, this College Football Playoff setup is contracted for 12 seasons. Assuming the format doesn't change during that time (might not be a safe assumption, but still), it looks like I'll have to work the day after the semifinal games twice out of those 12 seasons. Not too bad.
Enjoy the football.
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