Habemus 12-team CFP!

What a fucking joke these people are.

The expectation is that the format will be the same if not very similar to the one proposed *15 months ago* by the CFP working group.

– 6 highest-ranked champs automatically qualify
– 6 at-large complete the field

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) September 2, 2022

All that Alliance posturing was total bullshit.

That being said, it won’t hurt my feelings if they can’t move up the change from 2026.

This week in entertainment

For Oregon fans coming to Atlanta that don't know, Dragon Con is also this weekend. People watching downtown is quite the experience.

— James Crepea (@JamesCrepea) September 2, 2022

Oregon fans, it’s also a great way to bump into Georgia Tech fans.

Reader poll: expectations time!

Toe meets leather tomorrow and it’s time to take your pulse on Georgia’s season.  Let’s vote.

Have at it in the comments.

Some more thoughts about the opener

Graham Coffey has a detailed breakdown of Oregon’s projected starting 22 you’ll want to read.

QB – Bo Nix #11 – Bo Nix is Bo Nix. We know him. Georgia has had a plan for him since his freshman season and it has always been a good plan. If you flush him he will press and make some mistakes. In his past two games against UGA he has been about a 50% passer and has about 5 YPA. Georgia pressured him 17 times last year. He was 5/18 for 39 yards on those throws. If Georgia wants to have a comfortable game on Saturday they will have to pressure him again. Nix is actually a pretty good deep passer.,,, When he has time. Georgia needs to get to him to get the ball out quick. When they flush him they will have to keep him from hurting Georgia with his legs. UGA will spy him a lot. I expect Smael Mondon to do that some, as well as Nolan Smith and Malaki Starks when he is on the field in DB heavy packages.

Lanning may know Kirby’s secret sauce on how to defend Nix, but that doesn’t mean he’s got any real answers on how to counter.

Reading Graham’s entire piece leads me to believe he’s nailed the biggest key to the game — if Georgia can run the ball successfully, game over.  The second most important key is whether Oregon’s offensive line is good enough to keep pressure off Nix in passing situations.

Graham points out that Oregon’s heralded inside linebackers are big-bodied, stout against the run types.  How they hold up in pass coverage may be a different story.  You can bet that Monken will be exploring that scenario and he’s certainly got the personnel with which to do so.

Got some talent rankings for you

As you look at the top of the 2022 247 Sports Team Talent Composite, keep in mind something.

The Most Talented Alabama Team in History

Last year, Georgia and Alabama were the first teams in Team Talent Composite history to eclipse 1,000 total points in the rankings. Alabama did it again this year, setting a record with 1,016. The Crimson Tide have also smashed a record with their average prospect ranking being 94.7, up from 94.3 a year ago.

Alabama’s recruiting success and roster building prowess can have a numbing effect. Just don’t lose sight of how loaded this roster is in comparison to previous years. For example, the Tide’s 2015 national title team had an average prospect ranking of 93.1. It was 93.3 for Alabama’s 2017 title and 93.5 for the 2020 national championship.

This Crimson Tide roster is LOADED.

Georgia’s Still Stacked

The Bulldogs might not be historically talented like they were a year ago, but they’re close. Georgia’s average prospect ranking of 93.4 is the fourth highest in history and is higher than every No. 1 team in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite prior to the 2021 campaign. So, while Georgia lost a ton of production off its national title-winning team, the 2022 version of the Bulldogs is no less talented. Georgia should be right back in the mix for a national championship.

Nick Saban had to dip pretty significantly into the transfer portal pool to maintain that position, while Kirby Smart stood pat.  Sure, there’s nothing wrong with that and the result is that Saban’s roster is, indeed, loaded, but it is an indication of which coach had more confidence in his recruiting.

As a side note…

… purely from a talent aspect, it sure looks like one can make an argument that the top of the SEC East has caught the top of the SEC West.

TFW you have to go out on a statistical limb to make a rhetorical point

Matt Hayes thinks he’s making an insightful point here.

Bo Nix was a 5-star recruit. Stetson Bennett III was a walk-on, and then a junior college transfer.

There couldn’t be more diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum in the life of a college quarterback, right?

Well, their career numbers are nearly identical.

So when Oregon and Georgia play Saturday in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, remember that stars aren’t everything.

Nix played 3 seasons at Auburn and was, at best, a decent SEC quarterback: a TD/INT ratio of 39/16, a career completion percentage of 59.4 and an average yards per attempt of just 6.9.

The ball didn’t get down the field and wasn’t accurate. And now he’s the Oregon quarterback.

Meanwhile, we give you the overachiever Bennett: a TD/INT ratio of 39/14, a career completion percentage of 62 and an average yards per attempt of 9.2.

Get that?  “Nearly identical”.  Let’s break that descriptor down a little more, shall we?  Here are Bo Nix’ career stats:

And here are Stetson Bennett’s:

Nearly identical appears to be doing a shit ton of heavy lifting there.  Stetson’s worst season would fit neatly into Bo’s career stats, but that’s about it as far as nearly identical goes.

This is what you get when a pundit is high from sniffing his own farts.  But maybe Matt’s right and we’ll come away from Saturday’s game seeing the two quarterbacks in a different, nearly identical light.

Playoff expansion doesn’t fix parity.

In reality, it does the opposite ($$).

… Though an expanded Playoff will be more entertaining and include more games at the end of the year with higher stakes, I think I’m one of the few national college football reporters who is against it. Why? Because college football’s parity problem isn’t because the Playoff field is too small. It’s because the best high school recruits in the country go to one of five schools every year.

… All you’re doing is creating a situation that allows the teams that hoard talent — Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and a few others — a mulligan. You’re taking away the beauty of the upset that could ruin a Super Team’s season. Not anymore. When the Playoff expands, all of the teams everyone is tired of seeing in the four-team field will make it every single year no matter what.

… Making the four-team field is a huge accomplishment. Making the Playoff by default because there are 12 or 16 teams feels participation trophy-ish to me.

… That said, the final fours we get now will look very similar to the ones we get even after the Playoff is expanded. The difference between the No. 3 team and the No. 12 team is enormous, even if there are regular-season upsets from time to time.

Of course, we know parity isn’t the real reason we’re about to get postseason expansion.

You’re creating more Playoff games that will be consumed at an outrageously high level on television, sure, but you’re stripping away the importance of regular-season upsets.

Money, unlike college football teams, is undefeated and will remain so.

Right out of the gate

“Erik Skopil, an Oregon insider with Duck Territory“:

What has to go right for Oregon to put itself in contention on Saturday?

A lot will have to break right, but three things will ultimately decide if they can keep this game tight and/or possibly pull of an upset.

For starters, they’ll need Bo Nix to be a plus and not a minus. His track record against UGA isn’t great. He’s lost all three contests and hasn’t really turned in a strong showing in any of them. He’ll need to be better on Saturday. That starts and ends with decision-making. As I noted above, Oregon fans will live with a gun slinging mentality, but their acceptance of that might not last long if it leads to game-altering turnovers.

Oregon’s defensive strength is its front-seven. To keep Georgia from having a field day on offense, they’ll have to show it. Georgia cannot be allowed to run wild and Stetson Bennett IV cannot be allowed to stand in a clean pocket. That’s not the recipe for success. Winning on run downs might be paramount, but I find it just as important to get regular pressure on the QB too. If Bennett gives it away more than Nix, that’s a big win.

Lastly, you can’t have any game one blunders. There’s a ton of newness on this Oregon roster. It’s head coach has never been one before. It’s offensive coordinators has never been a full-time play-caller. It’s quarterback hasn’t played in this offense or with this offensive line or these skill players. There are growing pains to be had each season. This team cannot suffer too many of them in this one or the game might slip away before it gets to halftime.

That strikes me as pretty rational analysis.  Which means Oregon needs to have a lot go right to make a game of it.  Ten weeks down the line this season, those issues might have better answers, if you’re a Duck fan.  But in an opener against the defending national champs?  That’s a pretty heavy ask.

“this time is different”

At least David Wunderlich hopes that’s the case for Billy Napier at Florida.

Florida is starting the 2022 season with a new head coach. It’s the sixth time it’s happened in the last two decades. Will this time be different?

Different is indeed desirable even when looking at the one success, Urban Meyer. It was a faustian bargain, winning a pair of SEC and national championships in exchange for a poisoned culture with high levels of player arrests and severe locker room dysfunction. Most fans of most schools would still make that trade, since national titles are so hard to come by for anyone not named Nick Saban. Nothing about how it happened was sustainable, however.

That’s no small thing, by the way. When Scott Stricklin discussed his dismissal of Dan Mullen, “sustained success” was a phrase he repeated in terms of what he wanted out of the football program. I’m sure all Gator fans would agree that such is preferable to the roller coaster the program’s been on since Steve Spurrier left for the NFL.

Is this time different?

Well, as he admits, Florida’s hiring track record since Spurrier left hasn’t been a story of sustained success.  Add to that your Gator fan’s typical perspective…

No one wants it to take three or four years to get there, though, especially in the transfer portal era. Napier’s contract is long and lucrative enough to give him a little extra leash, but Florida fans are demanding. Uncharitable commentators may call fans impatient instead, but enough Gators remember the ’90s and the mid-2000s that they know what excellence looks like.

… and you have to wonder how long they’ll go with Napier if things aren’t moving upwards quickly enough.  That doesn’t sound too different to me.

That coaching tree’s got some branches.

Man, this is some aggregation of coaching talent.

https://twitter.com/AJSchulteFB/status/1564992908884787201

No wonder coaches go to ‘Bama to rehabilitate their reps.