“They’re asking you to bet on whether the Gators make a bowl or not.”

David Wunderlich tries to make a mathematical case for Florida becoming bowl eligible.

Anyway, Florida averaged 31.8 points scored and 28.8 points allowed in the 2022 regular season. The former is one of the best figures for the Gators this century without Dan Mullen on the sideline. The latter is, as you know, one of the worst regardless.

… Now, I do think the offense will drop some without Anthony Richardson’s amazing athleticism behind center. It’s debatable by how much, since he had some real stinkers mixed in with his occasional brilliance, but let’s cap the regression by the same touchdown per game for simplicity’s sake.

If the offense does falter by a TD per game, that’ll drop them to 24.8 points per game. With the full potential defensive improvement to 21.8 PPG, you get an expectation of 6.9 wins. It’s a smidge better than last year. With only the half defensive improvement to 25.3, you’re still slightly favoring the over on the win total at 5.9 expected wins. It’s only when you take the full offensive fall and no defensive improvement that you land at 4.95 expected wins.

I’ve seen more than a couple folks suggest that this year’s attack will remind us all of the 2016 offense because of the quarterback situation. When people see Graham Mertz and Jack Miller, they can’t help but also see Luke Del Rio and Austin Appleby. In the regular season, that team only managed 22.1 points per game.

If you drop your projected scoring for 2023 to that level, you need the full defensive improvement to get to 6.1 expected wins. A half-touchdown defensive improvement only gets us to 5.1 wins, and no defensive improvement at all lands us at 4.2 expected wins. That kind of offensive collapse is how you get to the doom scenarios.

Maybe it’s just me, the partisan Dawg fan, but that doesn’t seem that farfetched.  Even if it is a bridge just too far, though, it all still adds up to another mediocre season for the Gators at best.  And even David doesn’t seem too excited about it.

In the situation where the defense is at least a field goal per game better and Mertz is the same fine-but-not-great quarterback he was up north, these calculations would lead you to favor Florida at least getting to the same six wins it had last year. I know that’s not going to get anyone excited, but it might take more bad stuff happening than you might think for Florida to hit the under on that win total line.

Here’s to the bad stuff!

They’re just haggling over the fee.

The on-again, off-again proposed transfer of Stanford, Cal and SMU to the ACC is apparently back on again.  How?, you might ask.  Sure, those three (especially the first two) are in desperate need of a P5 — soon to be P4– landing place, but what’s in it for the Atlantic Coast Conference?  Aside from some geographic snarkery, that is.

Well, it’s 2023 and it’s college football, so there can really only be one answer to that question.  And, no, you don’t get more than one guess.  Not that you’ll need it.

Money — and how that money is distributed — is the factor in changing minds.

The ACC’s television contract with ESPN includes a pro-rata clause requiring the network to increase the value of the deal by one Tier 1 share for every new member — believed to be about$24 million a share, or about 70% of a full ACC share, which includes Tiers 1-3.

The ACC would stand to earn about $72 million in new money with the three expansion shares. Cal and Stanford have agreed to each take about 30% of the $24 million share, or roughly $7-10 million. After Cal and Stanford’s share and travel costs are offset (roughly $1-2 million per school), the ACC stands to earn at least $30 million in revenue to redistribute, likely through an incentive pool based on athletic success.

I doubt that’s enough to stop FSU’s bitching and moaning about a revenue adjustment, but it’s at least a start.

Two of the three expansion targets, Stanford, the bell-cow of the group, and Cal, are proposing to take a significantly reduced revenue distribution for multiple years, starting at about 30%. SMU is proposing to take no distribution for as many as seven years, something Yahoo Sports reported more than a week ago.

Now that’s a helluva thing.  What’s next, schools paying to join a new conference?

Corch has some thoughts.

Honestly, screw this guy and the golf cart he rode in on.

… In particular, the SEC’s decision to remain at 8 league games while expanding to 16 teams in 2024 was particularly criticized.

Meyer also noted the nonconference schedules of some programs, specifically referencing Michigan and Georgia in his comments. Without the NCAA mandating teams to play tougher opponents, Meyer believes the incentive for games like Ohio State vs. Notre Dame is removed.

“Real quick: I just also think the NCAA should mandate scheduling. When I see the Wolverines and Georgia’s preseason schedule. I just think with this 12-team Playoff, if I’m the head coach at Ohio State, I could care less about my preseason schedule, the non-league schedule,” said Meyer.

“Your object is to get in the Playoff. I just worry — Why would Ohio State play Notre Dame anymore? Why not play a MAC conference schedule to keep everybody healthy and get to ripping and roaring into a season? I think there are some shortcomings. Just for the good of the game, I hope. You should play a top-25 — I think you should play a premier school, a middle school and then you can play a smaller school. But I think that should be some kind of mandate.”

That is some cynical bullshit right there and Urban Meyer knows it.  First off, the NCAA has no regulatory power over the CFP, so what’s the penalty for violating his proposed rule?  Second, if the CFP wants to ding schools over their strength of schedule, there’s nothing stopping the selection committee from doing so.

And that’s all before you get to the logistics of how a season plays out.  Some teams turn out better than they were thought to be in the preseason.  Others are worse.  How does Meyer propose adjusting the formula on the fly?

He doesn’t, of course.  But that’s because the real point of this exercise is just to take shots at a couple of rival programs he dislikes.  I’d call him an asshole for that, but he earned those stripes a long time ago.