college football under quarantine

the ACC will be very strong in non-football sports. The big football schools don't want to deal with playing Stanford and Cal in other sports, but it's inevitable.

they brought cal, stanford and SMU in mostly out of desperation and it wasn’t with any consensus. i think it was FSU, clemson & UNC that voted against the additions. if at any point those schools + miami and prob the virginia schools, NC schools, GT etc get a chance to join the big 10 or SEC they will 100% go

I agree that teams want out, but it's not clear they can break the contract for awhile. I suppose it could make sense to pay the pre-2036 penalty to leave if TV revenue continues to rise elsewhere.

At some point it becomes meaningless, doesn't it? When I was in college, my school (Colorado) was in the Big Eight, which later became the Big Twelve. We had meaningful rivalries, at least they were meaningful to us, although given the way things usually went we were no more than a speed bump to the better teams. Then we moved to the PAC-12, which made zero sense, at least in terms of geography and level of play. Now we're going back to the Big Twelve? Who cares?

lol @ ron desantis threatening to sue because FSU got snubbed

already know about chris christie's dad suingfor . . . baseball stardom i guess?, but i'd like to hear more

lol yeah the DeSantis thing is so desperate because he realizes everybody hates him.

He could be one of the Trump children.

with a win in tonight's Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl, in front of a 46% capacity crowd at tampa's raymond james stadium, georgia tech surged to a 7-6 record, leaving central florida eating shameful dust at 6-7

whatever might be said about the yellow jackets, fourth-place finishers in the ACC, no one can ever take away the pride and accomplishment these student-athletes and their fans earned with a Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl Championship

when is the pop tart bowl with the edible mascot? the winning coach gets to eat the pop tart!!

this is duke's prize for winning the 76 Birmingham Bowl

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GCDw4r0WwAALy_9?format=jpg&name=small

Firming Hams Bowl morelike

Explain this one to me, Michigan is still a 1.5 favorite against Alabama...even though, I don't think I have seen ANYONE giving the Wolverine's a shot against the Tide in the game. And most of the predictions have Alabama winning quite easily.

Seems like more money is on the Tide, but what the heck does Vegas know? I just don't get this line.

who is everyone? sp+ has michigan by 4

it has michigan by 9, actually - i guess the reason why vegas hasn’t budged is the advanced stats. they sense a massive money-making opportunity with the public opinion diverging so greatly from the numbers.

It's difficult to factor "Jim Harbaugh is a cheating asshole" into a computer model. Humans, however, are quite sensitive to that attribute.

what was that? i thought i heard something coming from the direction of the tony the tiger sun bowl

one of those coaches thinks it’s cheating to line up 11 players on defense

If Michigan loses and we don't embarrass ourselves in the frosted flakes bowl, I'll happily take our situation over Michigan's

perennial playoff contender is a pretty decent situation

unless you’re indulging in some ban hammer ncaa fantasy

I believe the USC fan's recent pain is greatly mitigated by having been more than a perennial playoff contender under Carroll. UM's season right now feels too much like Carroll's last at USC but with less preceding success.

but it will all be worth it if they win it all.

idk about that, we’ll see who returns but 3-4 of the best players on the roster are true sophomores and the offensive line will reload. much tougher schedule next year for sure, but they can prob lose 2 and make the playoff (especially if they beat ohio st again)

I do enjoy the Ohio State losing every year part of all this

Also I am playing a heel the bit here, as is natural. It will only make you feel better if they win. I won't get much joy out of Saban winning w/ our previous OC.

I do not like Jim, though. Any joy I feel will mostly be contained to Jim's losing.

Do worry if he feeds the chickens after losses.

That does seem like some Oceans 11 level of Vegas to somehow rook people betting on Alabama.

I've seen some people say it is a pick em game, but there are boodles of people talking about the game thinking Alabama is going to beat the snot out Michigan. Which considering TCU last year and past peformance...sure.

voodoo kinda alluded to this but vegas odds track almost exactly with publicly available advanced stats models like SP+ these days and those stats have loved michigan all year and were relatively down on alabama w/in the context of alabama, as was most of america until like a month ago

i think the difference is that where people see bama houdini escaping from auburn and are like “oh boy here come the tide!” the advanced stats see them playing about even with a deeply mediocre squad. and they’ve had a number of games like that this year — arkansas, texas a&m etc — whereas michigan has ass consistently from the first snap of the season to the last

so the question is how much you believe in the meaning of those alabama games (as the models do) vs how much you look at alabama as alabama and think “you know they pretty much always win these games and it’s pretty much always a bloodbath.” i’m in the latter camp, as are most people, and i think saban showed in the SEC title game when he apparently scrapped his entire defensive game plan after the first drive and came up with a new one on the fly that he is still bringing a lot to the table in these games

anyway i’m very very excited for this game it could honestly be a classic

it has michigan by 9, actually - i guess the reason why vegas hasn’t budged is the advanced stats. they sense a massive money-making opportunity with the public opinion diverging so greatly from the numbers.

mich and bama are much closer this year in true talent than usual. that means coaching is even more important and yeah, saban is the best there is.

it really comes down to Qb play tho, michigan will have to bother milroe with mixed coverages and consistent pass rush. jj will have to put the offense on his shoulders for once on the other end (i think he can, we will see)

i agree bcuz nobody can ever just line up and run the ball on bama. but i also don’t think bama can just line up and run it on michigan either

the main question i have is whether michigan has the athleticism on defense to hang with milroe’s legs. the QBs on the two best teams they’ve played this year (mccord and allard) are, aside from just not being very good in general, statues in the pocket. i don’t think they’ve seen a QB in the same stratosphere of athleticism as milroe. are we gonna be a quarter way thru the game like “michigan’s LBs and safeties can’t tackle this guy in the open field”? milroe is def raw as a passer but he’s a total freak as a runner. i think bama’s path to victory is thru his legs. their skill talent is not very scary.

also bama’s secondary is really strong this year, my understanding is that they don’t have as many first round picks across the depth chart as normal except at CB and safety where 3 of their 4 guys are studs. so while i agree that a lot rides on JJ i do wonder if michigan’s WRs will be able to consistently get open against these DBs. i don’t think any of michigan’s WRs are considered real NFL prospects?

michigan has roman wilson at wr, whose game is speed (and he can really fly, unofficial 4.3), but their best skill players are running backs and tight ends, which theoretically match up well with bama’s relative weakness of linebackers in coverage over the middle of the field

michigan’s best nfl pass catching prospect is almost definitely colston loveland, the giant tight end who was their leading receiver vs osu.

running back donovan edwards is also a former five star who is an excellent receiver, but their usage of him has been incredibly frustrating this year

Do advanced stats take injuries into account? They must if correlated with betting lines?

i'm sure that advanced stats and injuries etc. affect the *initial* line, but

they need a certain level of balance in wagering and if this line was even like michigan -3 let alone the SP+ spread there would be way too many ppl betting on bama and the odds are somewhat designed to limit exposure on either end

is otm

Do advanced stats take injuries into account? They must if correlated with betting lines?

and correlation is an important word here. not causation! the correlation is because there has been so much work done over the last 10+ years in college football advanced stats, much of it publicly in particular thanks to bill who runs SP+, that there is a parallel synergy between the models vegas is using and the ones we can see online. both the secret vegas number crunchers and the public facing online ones all basically agree on what the important data is (success rate etc) & thus the models more or less spit out the same stuff. and then vegas does its own adjustments based on its needs

Best sports moment of 2023 pic.twitter.com/hbm3PBiN4b

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) December 29, 2023

I got to say this Michigan/Alabama game has my curiosity probably the most since USC/Texas.

Now THAT was a game. I'd put that on the all time list.

Tony has all of the same tools as the pop-tart man. El Paso simply doesn't know how to use them.

Steve Angeli busting out the Miller Mossy Oak to try and blow Leonard back to Auburn

Kyle McCord is a genius

Will Howard should send him a christmas card

a mixed bag for the sec vs big 10 narratives today

suppose Auburn only showing up for the iron bowl is tradition

Playoff committee probably breathing a sigh of relief at Florida getting absolutely pancaked right now

fsu had something like 14 opt outs, including seven starters on defense. third-string qb started on offense, future nfl draft skill players keon coleman, trey burton, and johnny wilson not playing.

it's not the same team.

lol okay I did not actually know the extent of it, once again a reminder that CFB is mostly a farce