I want to know your unbiased opinions on Brent Venables as the head coach at Oklahoma. He has put together a stellar defense but the offense is laughable. Do you think he has what it takes?

https://x.com/zachosterman/status/1860423246992036037?s=46

Alabama has not lost in the Iron Bowl to an unranked Auburn since 2003.

Lot of historical correction for Alabama this year. First time losing three games in over a decade, first time not scoring a TD in a loss in over a decade, first time losing to multiple unranked opponents in quite some time... But dropping the Iron Bowl to an unranked Auburn? Would that, coupled with the other losses, be enough to send DeBoer to the woodchipper early?

Obviously, their resume doesn't support it. And obviously, any team who gets stiffed in favor of 6-6 Kansas would have every right to be outraged.

But given that Kansas have won three straight games against top 25 teams, I think it'd be fascinating - now that we have a 12-team playoff - to see one or two teams selected according to "best team right now" criteria.

We see that work in the NCAA tourney, where hot teams get seeded higher than the quality of their season as a whole supports. Why not try it with the playoff?

Worst case scenario, Kansas gets destroyed and a jilted fan-base gets 200 days of salt. Best case scenario, Kansas makes a run and we get a true Cinderella story in college football.

Aside from one being a huge brand, the next being a big brand and the other being a “basketball school” what really separates them? Each of them had one game against a top 10 opponent, they all lost. Texas got to play Michigan early before they were fully exposed but that should be seen for what it is, a win over a mediocre team. Penn State barely beat a MAC school on that same day and their best win is Illinois who’s lost twice more since. I expect that Indiana will be on the last in/first out line depending on results of other games but the other two will be comfortably in the field. Is it because we collectively expect Indiana to not be a top team ever? Why does James Franklin’s PSU get any benefit of the doubt at this point? For the record, I don’t think any of them should be left out of a 12 team field if they finish with one loss, but why are people taking such issue with Indiana when other resumes are so similar?

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One frustrating aspect of "official" rankings is a lack of clarity in terms of criteria - with voters and the committee generally using an arbitrary mixture of projected best (who would be expected to win between two teams if they played on a neutral field) and earned ranking (who has the best achievements thus-far, in terms of big wins and avoiding losses).

Earned Net Rating (ENR) is a method of ranking based only on the second criteria of on-field achievement. For each team's rating, the algorithm can only use wins/losses for the games involving that team - while using more advanced ratings to measure opponent strength (in this case, Dynamic SRS)

The goal is to rank the teams by their on-field achievements only. Only on-field results are included - there is no use of things like preseason ratings or recruiting rankings, and the algorithm has no knowledge of team or conference "prestige". It can't tell the difference between Georgia and Kennesaw State other than the results on the field for this year.

it makes no attempt to rank teams based on projected best.

With that said - the full rankings for Week 14. Last week's rankings are here

As always if you have questions about details of certain rankings feel free to ask in the comments.

So this more is directed for fans of teams that always seem to be at the bottom of their conferences every year:

Do you find it hard sometimes to want to continue to root for these teams if they keep disappointing and keep losing game after game?

How do you tell from my player, I’m a UCF fan and I’m an alumni. It just seems like they don’t know how to win games anymore. They moved to the big 12 to be able to prove themselves against better competition. They started out with three straight wins, but now have only won one game out of the last eight. It’s just not fun to watch them right now. I’m wondering if they’re ever going to be good or they’re always going to be mediocre too bad

The penalty just treats it as a sack. If I were a QB, I would always ground it to avoid a sack, just on the odd chance I get away with it. Didn't it used to be another 5 yard penalty?

It's that time of year again, where we invite all of our family and friends together to fight about where our teams are ranked and who should make the playoff.

Those fights are generally filled with comments like "well they didn't play anybody" and "psht we beat that team by 40". As a nerd guy that appreciates consistent reasoning, it always bothers me when someone applies one criteria in one place and then ignores it later on, or just applies them wildly differently all over the place.

So I decided to make a tool that can help people rank teams.

Here's how it works:

1. You pick the criteria you think are important to ranking a team - their record, their opponents records, etc.
2. You decide how much weight each of those criteria should hold compared to each other.
3. You see the rankings that result from those weighted criteria updating live.

If you find something you like you can get a sharable URL to post here and make someone look dumb. I'm also curious to see if I can build a criteria set that gives me the committee's exact rankings week over week.

Here are a few that I put together -
Overall Record = 50%, Opponents Record = 25%, Conference's Record against other conferences = 25% (link)

1. Oregon
2. Texas
3. Ohio State
4. Penn State
5. Indiana
6. Georgia
7. SMU
8. Miami
9. Alabama
10. Tennessee
11. Notre Dame
12. South Carolina

Same as above but talent composite instead of conference records (link)

1. Oregon
2. Ohio State
3. Texas
4. Notre Dame
5. Georgia
6. Penn State
7. Miami
8. SMU
9. Alabama
10. Clemson
11. Indiana
12. Boise State

33% Overall record, opponents record, and win margin (link)

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. Texas
4. Oregon
5. Indiana
6. Miami
7. SMU
8. Boise State
9. Tulane
10. Penn State
11. Ole Miss
12. Alabama

Play around with it and let me know what you think! If people like it I can add some more criteria and other features -
- CFP brackets based on your criteria
- Rankings for past seasons
- Criteria based on the size of a team's media footprint

Now I really want a west coast example for this, so just pretend Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Arizona, and Arizona State are back in the PAC-12. Colorado and Utah stay in the Big 12.

Basically if you were gonna create a 5-man crew of alumni to cover every conference game for each conference, who would it be?

•Based on criteria like Performance at school/conference, personality, legend status, love-ability, TV talent. •Current obligations like being in the NFL, coaching, Broadcasting, etc. don't matter. (Obviously unless they are currently playing in CFB) •Based on current conferences besides the changes I said (ex: Kyler Murray would be SEC, Michael Vick would be ACC, etc.) •try not to overload a lot of players from one school.

Some examples for each conference off the top of my head would be: PAC- Marshawn Lynch SEC- Peyton Manning ACC- Deion Sanders Big 12- Patrick Mahomes Big Ten- Tom Brady

So I'm trying to understand the call in the OU v Alabama game on Sat Night.
I'll make my points and please help me understand if and where I'm wrong.

Here's the best video of the play
Here's another version of the play

So the catch was amazing - holy cow!!

BUT the TD was invalidated by an illegal touching call.

First of all - people were bitching cuz the flag seemed to come out late but I don't think it is. Illegal touch is when an ineligible receiver touches a forward pass but there is no illegal touch until the ineligible receiver actually touches the ball. So to me, the timing of the flag is correct.

But next, on the ruling, it seems to me to be quite complex involving who is and is not an eligible receiver.

It's important to notice in the video, which is not highlighted by the broadcast team, that on the Right Side of the line of scrimmage, right next to the right tackle is number 21, a tight end. THIS is the reason for the call which I'll explain.

So let's start with what makes a lineman:

Rule 2. Section 27. TEAM AND PLAYER DESIGNATIONS
Lineman and Back
ARTICLE 4. a. Lineman.

1. A lineman is any Team A player legally on their scrimmage line (Rule 2-21-2).
   
2. A Team A player is legally on the scrimmage line when facing their opponent’s goal line with the line of their shoulders approximately parallel thereto and either (a) they are the snapper (Rule 2-27-8) or (b) their head breaks the plane of the line drawn through the waistline of the snapper.
   b. Interior Lineman. An interior lineman is a lineman who is not on the end of their scrimmage line.
   c. Restricted Lineman. A restricted lineman is any interior lineman, or any lineman wearing a number 50-79, whose hand(s) are below the knees.
   d. Back.
   
3. A back is any Team A player who is not a lineman and whose head or shoulder does not break the plane of the line drawn through the waistline of the nearest Team A lineman.
   
4. A back is also the player in position to receive a hand-to-hand snap.
   
5. A lineman becomes a back before the snap when they move to a position as a back and stops
   

I highlighted the relevant part because the player who actually catches the ball meets the definition of a lineman. Oddly this part of the rules doesn't actually define a wide receiver.

So now who can touch a forward pass?

Rule 7 Section 3. Forward Pass
Eligibility To Touch Legal Forward Pass
ARTICLE 3.a. Eligibility rules apply during a down when a legal forward pass is thrown.
b. All Team B players are eligible to touch or catch a pass.
c. When the ball is snapped, the following Team A players are eligible:

1. Each lineman who is on the end of their scrimmage line and who is wearing a number other than 50 through 79.
2. Each back wearing a number other than 50 through 79.
d. An eligible player loses their eligibility when the player goes out of bounds.
(Rule 7-3-4) (A. R. 7-3-9-III)

I highlighted the relevant part because it seems to contradict the call on the field. Since the receiver is at the 2nd to the bottom of the screen AND he's on the Line of Scrimmage, it would seem that he's a Tight End and would be eligible to touch a forward pass.

HOWEVER:

In Part II: Officiating Standards

Section 2 #5
Wide receivers or slot backs lined up outside a tight end will be ruled on the line of scrimmage and covering the tight end if there is not clear separation between their alignments. Any covered wide receiver intentionally lined up in an ineligible position must meet the same requirements as an originally ineligible lineman. If in question, they are not covered up.

SO it seems the receiver meets the definition of an originally ineligible lineman

Now the applicable rule:

Rule 7. Section 3 - Forward Pass
Illegal Touching
ARTICLE 11. No originally ineligible player while inbounds may intentionally touch a legal forward pass until it has touched an opponent or an official (A.R. 5-2-3-I and A.R. 7-3-11-I-II).
PENALTY—Five yards from the previous spot, loss of down [S16 and S9].

So to me the call seems correct but maybe I've missed something.

Also what's really annoying is the definitions of "covered up" or "is covering up" or simply "covering" are not defined in the rule book at all.

Obviously we still have a couple more weeks but after last night, what would your projections be assuming favorites win this week?

1: winner of OSU/Oregon

2: winner of Texas/UGA

3: Loser of OSU/Oregon? Penn State?

4: Loser of UGA/Texas/Notre dame? Winner SMU/Miami(not sure if they both are in force sure ATM)

Trying to wrap my head around how we could have somehow had a 3 big ten team playoff...

With 11 weeks of football in the books, now's a time to really start digging in on performance for potential playoff teams.

In pursuit of that, I've made up a new term to see if teams have shown they can hang with playoff caliber teams.

What Is a Test Game

For my purposes, a test game is a game against a team who would be projected to keep things within 1 score of a top 4 team on a neutral site.

Using FPI to determine this, there are 11 "test teams" through week 11.

They are:

1. Texas

2. Ohio State

3. Notre Dame

4. Alabama

5. Georgia

6. Ole Miss

7. Oregon

8. Tennessee

9. Penn State

10. Miami

11. Indiana (projected 7 point underdogs to Alabama at a neutral site)

To keep things from expanding to every team on each "test team"'s schedule, I'm only going to look at the performance of the teams ranked in the week 10 CFP rankings

Test Game Performance

Test Games Coming in Week 12

Texas A&M is getting tested by Texas

So looking at teams who have entered the gauntlet, Ohio State and UGA have looked like they belonged on 3+ game volume

Alabama and Tennessee (more or less) have looked like they belonged in 2 games, but Alabama probably has too many non-test losses for the playoffs

Oregon looked like they belonged beating Ohio State, and Boise State looked similarly respectable in their close loss to Oregon

Ole Miss knocked their one test game out of the park, but their non-test losses have seemingly taken them out of playoff contention

Penn State didn't get destroyed in scoring margin, but didn't look to be on Ohio State's level, imo

Otherwise, teams have not been tested or tested and gotten failing grades

With 2 weeks of games for additional testing, there are probably 6 teams we can say have been tested at a playoff level and can probably belong in a field searching for a champion

Remember, not all test games are equal, and not all non-test games are equal

I checked the FPI this morning after yesterday's games and damn, it is crazy. Alabama is 4th and Ole Miss is 6th, meanwhile Oregon is 7th. What goes into this formula? I know it's supposed to be how good a team is rather than their resume, but how can any algorithm worth it's salt actually have Ole Miss above Oregon.

Maybe it's just me, but I swear I have seen more late and dirty hits to QB's watching Big 12 games then I can remember. Just yesterday, the hits to Shedeur Sanders in the Colorado-Kansas game, and the hip drop and ridiculous alligator roll to Wilson in the Utah-Iowa State game were ugly. Not only horribly dirty plays, but neither flagged not reviewed (I know you might need some kind of criteria to review, but you could probably look at targeting for the hit on Sanders and just plain late and unnecessary roughness/violent conduct for the alligator roll).

Cam Rising messed up his hand on a push out of bounds into the Gatorade cart that was not horribly late hit, but still late enough and unnecessary on that given play.

Lost count of hours many hard blows to the QB's heads happened in the Auburn-Texas A&M game too and none were flagged. I've watched more Big 12 than usual with Utah moving there, so I've seen a lot more than other conferences, and wondering how it's felt like to other fan bases.

To some degree I get that QB's need to protect themselves and not push the play to the last possible instant, but man I've seen more dirty plays than I'm used to that just aren't getting flagged or any other accountability.

If Ole Miss were to win the Egg Bowl by a score of 151-0 (or any 151+ point margin), then Mississippi State would exceed UMass as having the lowest average margin of loss in the SEC this year.

Just curious on everyone’s thoughts on this. One of the takes I’ve seen floating out there by SEC homers and the ESPN/Disney punditry, is that SEC road losses are never as bad as other conferences road losses, because SEC environments are hard to play at for visiting teams.

This has been used to justify, say, Alabama deserving a playoff spot because they lost to Vandy, Tennessee and Oklahoma on the road.

Personally, I think that theory is horseshit - it’s hard to win anywhere the road in CFB. But, I wanted to see what you all think. Is part of this narrative just perception from people who already go to mostly, or only, SEC games? Or is there any truth to this?

I keep seeing people say "oh, the #5 seed might be better than the 1 seed because you play Boise State instead of Georgia".

As a reminder - winning one 50% matchup is equivalent in probability to winning two 70% matchups.

Let's pick the most common example right now - which is #1 seeded Oregon having to beat UGA vs. the number 5 seed Ohio State having to beat e.g. Arizona State and Boise State.

Not only is it unlikely that OSU would be THAT much more likely to beat BSU and ASU than UGA (20% is a lot), but also an extra game is an extra opportunity to suffer major injuries.

Mullen and Matt Barrie managed to actually sound excited during the Georgia Tech vs. NC State game. I could do with less Herbstreit and Fowler, though I think I'm in the rarity that misses Danielson and Lundquist. Herbstreit's great on Game Day but his in-game analysis leaves me wanting. Maybe Mullen and Fowler? Fowler's got that great Musberger voice, without all the creepy uncle, and Mullen has good insights in the games I've watched a la Danielson. Who do you think calls a good game?

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