OT-Bama is annoyingly good
Watching them this year, reminds me of some of their dominant teams from earlier in the decade.
I know Clemson and OSU have been right there in talent and wins in recent years, but this Saban guy isn't going anywhere. The empire has not fallen, and they are annoyingly efficient.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:18 PM ^
This is why I don't worry too much about Nico and Ambry not returning. We're playing for fun. Bama and Clemson are playing for Championships.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:02 PM ^
yep, and you can throw osu onto that short list.
i have come to terms that we'll never beat osu again in my lifetime, makes football season much more enjoyable once your set those expectations.
October 3rd, 2020 at 8:51 PM ^
UNC, I’m not to your level of despair. I think it will be 5-8 years before we beat them again.
October 3rd, 2020 at 9:18 PM ^
We'll beat them at some point solely because weird things happen in CFB. Now getting to a point where we're even with them or consistently better? Yeah...that's probably not happening.
October 4th, 2020 at 11:24 AM ^
Yes, Michigan is capable of beating OH State. The recent recruits have more speed and have a higher ceiling than what I've seen in the past. Don Brown says his defense preps for OH State daily but admits they have a lot of work to do yet. That's one good sign about taking this rivalry more seriously.
October 4th, 2020 at 3:12 PM ^
Weird things happen but rarely in our favor.
JT was short...
He has trouble with the snap...
The list goes on and on.
October 4th, 2020 at 7:43 PM ^
I don't see any certainties for OSPU this year. Covid will cost the Big games. Its a crap shoot to even play the season.
October 3rd, 2020 at 9:46 PM ^
4 of the 5 power 5 conferences (less Clemson and Ohio State) should be lobbying non stop to reduce the scholarships limit to spread out the talent. Until that happens what we're seeing now will continue to be the status quo.
October 3rd, 2020 at 10:42 PM ^
Or the XFL or something similar to do what the G League and Overseas Leagues are starting to do with basketball.
October 4th, 2020 at 4:57 AM ^
I propose a 6 team "NFL Prep" league for top recruits 18-21 years old that can get paid. They play each other twice a year with three rounds of playoffs. That will skim the cream off the top and bring more parity to college football.
October 4th, 2020 at 7:36 AM ^
Once upon a time (circa 1990), limiting scholarships was supposed to bring parity to college football. It worked for a time. Even Georgia Tech won a natty. But the playoff and the SEC super conference seemed to deflate that. To me, the bottom line, is that the SEC, O$U and Clemson seem to prioritize and operate football programs now in a way that is far beyond everyone else. Saban (LSU & Alabama) and Urban (FL, then to O$U) set these models. Look at USC. No one has the recruiting base they have. They should be a top 5 program every year, and pulling in top 1-2 classes, like Carrol was doing. The fact that they would even consider not firing Helton with a 5-year record of 40-22 shows that they don't take it seriously enough. He'd have been fired at O$U after going 5-7 in his 4th year.
October 5th, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
100% agree. I’ll add that Carolls dominance @ USC was in the era of the Wild West in LA. The reaction to the sanctions was IMO similar to that at M post fab 5 era. I think it’s an institutional guilt that some just don’t even pretend to feel. It’s “fuck em. Win. Let the turtle necks & bow ties argue.about righteousness.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:21 PM ^
Does anyone else remember when college football was not so predictable? I member.
The last 5 years or so it seems like it's the same shit every year and the gap from the top four teams to the top ten has gotten huge.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:28 PM ^
Pepperidge Farm remembers
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:47 PM ^
There was a time when I thought no one would ever be on the same level as USC again -- ever. That's my only hope when it comes to competing in college football again. Eventually Clemson and Alabama have to fall back to the pack ... right? Probably not, but that's my shred of hope.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:38 PM ^
Excellent point, Pete Carroll had a mini-dynasty going and when he left, the wheels came off. Same with Saban, before him, 'bama was a mini train wreck since the Bear Bryant days. Once he leaves, pity the coach who comes after him as there will be a drop off.
No need to remind me that drop off didn't happen from tressell to urban to day. The fickell year was like 2020 to them.
October 5th, 2020 at 9:32 AM ^
Alabama will have a huge drop off from Saban to Dabo Swinney
October 3rd, 2020 at 9:22 PM ^
Except that USC was clearly cheating. I'm not sure that Alabama is cheating anymore. They might have cheated at one point in time, but they don't need to cheat now. They can recruit by telling kids that they are nearly guaranteed to be drafted. The best kids see Alabama as a sure thing to the league.
October 3rd, 2020 at 9:28 PM ^
No. The playoff changed all of that. The Pac-12 has proved they are a non-factor in the CFP which leaves you four spots for four conferences. Which drives players that want to play for a CFP title and be recognized on the biggest stage to the top four schools in those conferences. Clemson is the team for the ACC, Ohio State for the Big Ten, Bama for the SEC, and the four spot bounces between Oklahoma and other top SEC schools (LSU/Georgia) that have a legit shot at beating Bama.
No such legit threat exists in the ACC and doesn't really exist in the Big Ten either (PSU and WISC make it kinda close at times), so the divide just keeps growing.
October 4th, 2020 at 2:20 AM ^
Bama's road to dominance preceded the playoff
October 4th, 2020 at 1:57 PM ^
I know. Same with Ohio State and Clemson. All the playoff has done is lock in the teams that were good the first few years of the CFP and made them annual staples. If you're a top recruit why wouldn't you go to one of those three if you truly had the choice?
October 3rd, 2020 at 10:21 PM ^
Fsu isn't at the same level but look what's happened to them.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:04 PM ^
Yes I do remember when it was exciting and many different teams could actually win it all. Been saying for a while there is no intrigue in the game anymore. There is really only 3-4 teams that can win it all and I’m bored with watching it People who think recruiting is on a level playing field are kidding themselves and just a few teams are just on another level.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:53 PM ^
I’ve been watching college football since the late 70’s. In the 70’s & 80’s most fans loved the bowl format where anything could happen and 4 - 6 teams all had a chance to be voted champion after it was all done. And there was some variety between those 4 - 6 teams year to year. It resulted in split championships and a lot of questions about bias and fairness.
In the 90’s people started complaining about the old bowl structure and clamored for some form of playoff saying it was dumb to have a split championship. We got the BCS championship game and everyone thought the problem was solved. Their would be one champion. No one was satisfied.
In the 2000’s people were adapting to the BCS until that year there were three undefeated teams. Then people started demanding a playoff expecting things would finally be fair.
In the 2010’s we got the BCS playoff. Before the ink was dry there was a contingent asking for 8 games but everyone said 4 teams are better than 2. After the past 5 years, everyone other than the SEC, Clemson, OSU, and Oklahoma thinks college football sucks compared to what it used to be.
Point is, fans don’t know shit. We always think what we want will be better than what we have. We get it only to find out we created a whole new set of problems. Grow it to 8, grow it to 32 there will be some new problem. I’m about ready to go back to the old bowl system. It sucked, but at least fans of more than 5-6 teams had hope every year and everyone could eventually argue why it sucked.
October 3rd, 2020 at 8:06 PM ^
"4 - 6 teams all had a chance to be voted champion after it was all done."
That's not true. In the vast majority of years three teams at most had a realistic chance of being named NC, and in the years when #1 and #2 were matched in a bowl game, there were just two teams with a chance.
October 3rd, 2020 at 11:59 PM ^
Look through the team records and final rankings on sports-reference.com for 1980 - 1990. In almost any given year the top 4-5 teams all had a legit claim to hoping they would be voted champion if they won their bowl game and someone else lost because they all had similar records.
October 3rd, 2020 at 9:25 PM ^
Look at how many different programs won the NC in the 80s and 90s compared to now. It was VERY difficult for the same teams to show up every year. The playoff has made it so much worse than even the BCS.
October 4th, 2020 at 12:01 AM ^
And teams were cheating just as bad then as they are now.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:52 PM ^
Yeah, before the 4 team playoff
October 4th, 2020 at 8:52 AM ^
At least the BCS had some variability with the need to go undefeated. Some giants could get knocked out and some smaller teams could at least threaten. Now that teams can take a loss and still make it, the talent gap between the top teams and everyone else is very apparent
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:28 PM ^
Steve Sark is gonna take a head coaching job and he's gonna not do too well there.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:42 PM ^
Unfortunately for Sarkisian, he is going to have a hard time finding a head coaching job with all of the alcohol problems in his past, including allegedly being drunk at both practices and during an actual game.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:06 PM ^
Word on the street is it’s Dabo’s job
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:10 PM ^
Over/under $15mil a year for Bama to pull Dabo from Clemson?
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:42 PM ^
IMHO - not likely for 2 reasons - a) Clemson will empty out every piggy bank, coffer, loose change from all sofas in the entire state to keep him, and b) if Dabo is smart, he will stay at Clemson as it is almost impossible to follow a legend and be successful as he would constantly be compared to Saban.
October 3rd, 2020 at 10:38 PM ^
3) He’d be an idiot to leave Clemson because the ACC, compared to the SEC, has no depth. In the ACC, it’s Clemson and then the drop off to the next team is staggering. In the ACC, you get a perennially overrated ND team, a dumpster fire FSU program, a very boring and uninspiring Miami team, a VaTech team who’s best days are clearly behind it, and then the rest of the conference is just pure garbage.
In the SEC, you’ve got plenty of teams who recruit just as well as you or almost as good as you and could rise up in any given year and bite you in the ass. Winning the SEC is far more difficult than winning the ACC.
October 4th, 2020 at 4:16 AM ^
Well said. Miami and FSU has a ton of potential and local recruits, but they'll never have the resources of the SEC, nor the sheer size of fanatical fans and doners.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:39 PM ^
I hope Saban leaves soon, so sick of Bama, fuck them.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:04 PM ^
Not sure how good Texas A&M is though. I forget the details but they lost a lot of guys opting out or transferring. Seemed the rankings didn't change though. They barely beat Vandy last week.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:48 PM ^
Texas A&Ms D backfield is just awful.
October 4th, 2020 at 9:11 AM ^
It is not as awful as the Alabama WRs are good...plus they have a QB who can throw it to them. The rules favor the offense more than ever. How do you cover these guys??? There is really only one option-get pressure on the QB...and with that OL-good luck with that. Alabama is able to pull in the top talent and the coaches know how to coach them up.
Reducing the scholarships and number of regular season games and increasing the post season NC tournament teams is the only hope for leveling the playing field here. And the fact is, this would be better for both the players and the fans.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:05 PM ^
Just look at our weekly "welcome" posts. Mostly 3 stars. Some 4.
Bama has across the board 5 stars including guys on the bench.
October 4th, 2020 at 1:13 PM ^
While its popular to say, they don't get all 5 stars, in fact this years class has just as many 3 stars as 5 stars (4). Its just that they have so many 4 star players, some of whom will develop into 5 star talent.
The difference between UM and all these other top teams, aside from talent level, is that when we have a guy leave early or graduate, we rarely have someone just as talented or close to ready in the wings to take his spot. Those teams seem to have a plan so that they're rarely ever left without talent or experience in a position group. Seems like this has been the case at least since the late Carr years (safety anyone?).
I do think Harbaugh is getting us closer in this regard, nothing worse than seeing an entire position group having to be replaced in a recruiting class. Thats a rarity for top tier schools.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:06 PM ^
It's hard to beat the cheaters. . .
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:07 PM ^
Do you think A & M is getting their money's worth from Jimbo Fisher?
The 12th Man wants to know...
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:16 PM ^
Going to the SEC was stupid of them
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:00 PM ^
Yes but Florida State was already in a slide. I think he saw that coming and wanted to get out.
October 3rd, 2020 at 6:07 PM ^
It's so nice to see a completed long pass, I forgot what it looked like.