B1G's Delany, Pac's Scott will try to weasel teams in CFB Playoff

[jbcarol]

ESPN SEC @ESPN_SEC  ·  46 minutes ago

SEC playoff tracker: Oct. 15 http://es.pn/1EY3wPW

Georgia
Record: 5-1 (3-1)
AP rank: No. 10
Next big obstacle: Oct. 18 at Arkansas (in Little Rock)...

Cause for concern: Even though Nick Chubb had the game of his life against Mizzou, Todd Gurley is arguably the best player in the country, and not having him reduces Georgia's chances of making it into the playoff. Chubb is good, but he isn't Gurley and he currently doesn't have anyone to really spare him like he did for Gurley.

[jbcarol]

Jimmy Hyams @JimmyHyams  ·  23 hours ago

[Archie] Manning said he will try to pick the 4 best teams - `that's what I'm going to vote for' -- rather than put emphasis on conference champions.

[jbcarol]

ESPN CollegeFootball @ESPNCFB  ·  14 hours ago

Who's In? @CFBPlayoff according to the Thursday Primetime Committee »

[jbcarol]

John L. Pitts @JohnLPitts  ·  Oct 15
CFB "Final Four" in Week 8 last season: Alabama, Oregon, Clemson, Ohio State. Florida State 5th, Auburn 24th in AP, unranked by coaches.

[jbcarol]

KState 31  OU 30  Final in Norman

[jbcarol]

Baylor 27  West Virginia 41  Final from Morgantown

Baylor set the Big 12 record for most penalty yards in a game.

[jbcarol]

SolomWi's College Football Rewind: Big 12 upsets could pay off for SEC

The date Nov. 8 was circled since the start of the season as a huge Big 12 day. Prognosticators believed Baylor would play Oklahoma as top-10 teams eyeing the Big 12 championship and a spot in the College Football Playoff.

Now it's not even the most important Big 12 game of the weekend, giving way to Kansas State-TCU. This is a significant development for the Big 12, which had a rough Saturday for its playoff chances when No. 4 Baylor lost 41-27 at West Virginia and No. 11 Oklahoma kicked its way to a 31-30 home loss to No. 14 Kansas State.

Auburn (possibly the SEC's fourth-best team) won a tight game at Kansas State (now the only unbeaten team left in Big 12 play), and Kansas State won at Oklahoma. Advantage, SEC.

Alabama (already with a loss to Ole Miss) won by 10 points on a neutral field against West Virginia, which beat Baylor by two touchdowns in Morgantown. Advantage, SEC.

It's likely the SEC West will have four of the top five teams in Sunday's polls between the Alabama and Mississippi schools, who still have four games between each other. The Big 12 has depth in its conference. But depth doesn't necessarily translate to having one of the four best teams in the country...

[jbcarol]

Manager of the AP Top 25:

Ralph D. Russo @ralphDrussoAP  ·  7h 7 hours ago

Playoff Pulse: Big 12 gives SEC trump card. Trending up: Ohio State; Out: state of Oklahoma. Projecting the final 4. http://collegefootball.ap.org/article/playoff-pulse-big-12-upsets-may-give-sec-edge ...

WHO'S IN IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY:

Mississippi State, Mississippi, Florida State and Auburn.

___

PROJECTED FINAL FOUR:

Mississippi, Florida State, Oregon and Ohio State.

[jbcarol]

Ralph D. Russo @ralphDrussoAP  ·  7h 7 hours ago

We have a little less than half a season left and there are four unbeaten teams. Two play each other and one is Marshall. Buckle up, folks.

[jbcarol]

From an outsider looking in, you guys look much improved even though the record doesn't show it - more so than I expected.  A lot of good teams would have a similar record given the same schedule.  You guys have a good team.  You just need a better pass threat to keep defenses more honest before you can have a great one.  I see a number of respected teams this year with multiple losses who have not played anyone as tough as any of the teams you''ve lost too.  Southern Cal fmes to mind.  How would Ohio State have fared?  Or even Oregon? Or even Florida State?  The schedule is murderous.

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  5h 5 hours ago
AP poll! Keith247Sports: Guy who covered FSU for years has Michigan State ahead of Miss State & Auburn at No. 11. http://collegepolltracker.com/football/pollster/gary-smits/2014/week-9 ...

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  18h 18 hours ago
Outkick's four playoff teams: 1. Mississippi State 2. Ole Miss 3. FSU 4. Auburn. http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/outkick-s-national-top-ten-for-week-8-101814 ...

[jbcarol]

Matt Fortuna @Matt_Fortuna  ·  7m 7 minutes ago

Column: Politics begin for Brian Kelly, #NotreDame after controversial ending http://es.pn/1rXcL8T 

Election Day is coming, in case you have not heard. One week before the Nov. 4 midterms, too.

Brian Kelly is no stranger to all of this. The Notre Dame coach is the son of an alderman. He once worked for Massachusetts state senator Gerry D'Amico. He was a driver for eventual presidential candidate Gary Hart.

A day after his Fighting Irish lost a 31-27 heartbreaker at Florida State, a defeat that kept the Seminoles' win streak alive at 23 and sent the 6-1 Irish down to No. 7 in the AP poll, Kelly took the initiative to play to his audience.

Not necessarily to his Notre Dame constituency -- unanimous in its frustration over an offensive pass interference call that wiped away a potential game-winning touchdown Saturday -- but to the College Football Playoff selection committee.

The 13-person committee will unveil its first top 25 rankings Oct. 28. Notre Dame has a bye this week, so its loss at FSU in what was arguably the best game of the year was, in effect, its last rehearsal for the committee before the group's initial rankings.

Kelly, ever the politician, made sure all noticed.

"Florida State blew the coverage and they got rewarded for it," is the line he trotted out Sunday that will draw the most attention, an assertion that has been (and will continue to be) picked apart endlessly.

"There's great disappointment," Kelly later added. "You never want to let the game be decided by a referee. You want to control the game yourself.

"What happened at the end was out of our control. We feel like we did the things necessary. We've got to be able to control finishes. That means make a couple more plays. If you've got the champ, you can't win by split decision, you've got to knock him out. I think that's what we want to take away from this."

[jbcarol]

Chris Mortensen @mortreport  ·  23m 23 minutes ago

Archie Manning resigning from College Football Playoff committee to focus on health due to complications from knee replacement surgery

[jbcarol]

Cecil Hurt @CecilHurt  ·  2h 2 hours ago

Today's column on the SEC and why Being Good is a far cry from Being In. http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20141019/NEWS/141019490/1015/sports ...

These are glorious football times for the SEC. Four teams from the league's Western Division are ranked in the nation's top 5. A fifth SEC team, Georgia, is just a couple of spots behind. The SEC-bashers around the country are having one big collective fit.

But SEC fans with visions of two teams in the upcoming playoff — some even talk, crazily, about three — need to cut the expectations back. Way back.

Over the past couple of weeks, in "mock selection" exercises conducted by the selection committee itself, with invited media members walking in lock-step, hints have emerged about how the committee, will operate.

We will never know for sure, since the selection will be a closed-door hush-hush zero transparency process. That should tell you something. But every criteria that was deemed "important" made it clear that the process will not be about picking the actual four best teams.

Need proof? Just listen to what people in the process are saying. There are more than three indicators, but three are enough to start.

First, there's the "conference championship" criteria...

[jbcarol]

CFB Playoff @CFBPlayoff  ·  2h 2 hours ago

The #CFBPlayoff Selection Committee will have 12 members for the rest of the season.


Archie Manning steps down.  Would not have gotten to contribute anyway.

[jbcarol]

AA: ACC perception does little to help FSU

There is a simple bit of clarity confronting the ACC and Florida State eight weeks into the season: Perfection seems the only way to get the Seminoles into the College Football Playoff.

No other Power 5 program will be held to such a standard. But no other Power 5 conference has its reputation in a sinkhole the way the ACC does. That is why it was so important for Florida State to beat up on Notre Dame on Saturday.

Melina Vastola/USA TODAY Sports

[jbcarol]

SEC has top three teams in Vegas rankings

For the first time this season, Mississippi State and Mississippi own the first two spots in the College Football Vegas Rankings...

If Mississippi State and Florida State were to play on a neutral field this week, the Bulldogs would be considered a 2-point favorite by our ratings.

[jbcarol]

Paul Finebaum @finebaum  ·  7 hours ago

In new Sagarin poll in USA Today, top 5 are from SEC (Ole Miss, Bama, AU, Miss St and Georgia). #cantmakethisup

[jbcarol]

College GameDay @CollegeGameDay  ·  6 hours ago

According to the FPI, there is a 61% chance that every Power Five team will have at least ONE loss entering bowls.

[jbcarol]

Bruce Feldman @BruceFeldmanCFB  ·  4 hours ago

New national title odds: #Bama 6/1; #MissSt 13/2; #FSU 7/1; #OleMiss & #Oregon 15/2, #UGA 8/1; #MichSt 9/1; #OSU 10/1 #Auburn 12/1--Bovada

[jbcarol]

Brian Davis @BDavisAAS  ·  3 hours ago

To clear up some confusion about a story from the DC forum, Texas is not about to start paying athletes $10,000. Court cases are ongoing

[Großer Kriegschwein]

Brian Davis @BDavisAAS  ·  3 hours ago

To clear up some confusion about a story from the DC forum, Texas is not about to start paying athletes $10,000. Court cases are ongoing

Thats refreshing to hear.

[jbcarol]

Counter to this earlier report:

The Dallas Morning News reports that the University of Texas will start paying its athletes a $10,000 stipend per year for cost of attendance and the use of likenesses and image.

The Morning News says the cost will total $6 million per year and will be produced by revenue from football and men's basketball.

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  7h 7 hours ago
Las Vegas top ten: 1. Bama 2. Auburn 3. FSU 4. Miss. State 5. Ole Miss 6. Georgia. Rest of top ten: http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/the-vegas-top-10-102214 ...

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  7h 7 hours ago
It's fair to say Vegas is the least biased of all college football polls. Based on Vegas SEC is underrated

[jbcarol]

Who is the best one-loss team in our nation?

ESPN Insider Brad Edwards used a metric called Game Score to rank the losses of each playoff contender. The best loss, with a score of 72, was Alabama's loss at Ole Miss. The worst (27) was Ohio State losing at home to Virginia Tech. ... Auburn's loss to Mississippi State [was] among the worst losses with a score of 46.

Notre Dame's recent loss to Florida State was among the best losses, but it still might have cost the Fighting Irish a shot at the playoff according to Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel. While it was a good loss, the Irish are lacking any good wins.

I tend to agree. I figured SEC fans would, too.

[jbcarol]

Kyle Tucker @KyleTucker_CJ  ·  18 hours ago

Yep. Quick research says VT's previous worst home loss in the Beamer Bowl Era (since '93) was 20 points (twice). Down 30-0 now. Brutal.

No, Ohio State, you don't get to be in the College Football Playoff. Not if you win the rest of your games by 100.

[jbcarol]

AL.com sports @aldotcomSports  ·  7h 7 hours ago
Here comes the real playoff among the SEC's own Power 5 Group of Death. http://ow.ly/DliyR

Scarblog: If you think the 2014 college football season has been fun so far, just wait. The SEC version of the Knockout Game starts next Saturday night in Oxford when Auburn visits Ole Miss.

Now that LSU has conjured up a little Saturday night magic in Death Valley by handing the Rebels their first loss in a Billy Cannon throwback kind of game, Mississippi State is the only undefeated team in the league. There are four teams with one loss each: Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss and Georgia.

How's that for a Power 5?

Those five teams huddled at the top of the No. 1 league in the land have at least one game left against each other. All told, there are five games remaining among that Group of Death.

So the question has to be asked as we await the first rankings Tuesday night from the College Football Playoff committee: Is the SEC headed toward two teams in the playoff or a two-loss champion for the first time since LSU in 2007?

Look at the schedule, and it should be a November to remember...

[jbcarol]

Bo Mattingly@SportsTalkwBo
Fox Sports' @BruceFeldmanCFB, Feldman: I don't think Pac-12 is as strong at the top as the SEC. Oregon might be able to play with anyone, but the rest is lacking.

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  49m 49 minutes ago
I've always liked idea of using BCS to rank top four over a committee. Here would be BCS rankings. RT @BCSKnowHow:

[jbcarol]

Bruce Feldman @BruceFeldmanCFB  ·  4 hours ago
PAC-12 announces four-year guaranteed scholarships in all sports.

[jbcarol]

Michael Bonner @MikeBBonner  ·  20 hours ago

Wondering how Florida State would fare with MSU's schedule? [Yes, I am.] Thanks to @predictmachine we have an idea. http://on.thec-l.com/1u4s9b1

The results showed the Seminoles finishing with an 8.3-3.7 record. They would be favored in nine games, with a 0.24 percent chance of finishing the season undefeated.

The site gives Mississippi State a 9.3 percent chance of winning out. It lists MSU as underdogs against Alabama and Ole Miss. According to Predictmachine.com, MSU has a 48 percent chance of winning at Oxford. The number drops to 35 percent in Tuscaloosa.

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  34 minutes ago

Biggest gap between Vegas and playoff committee? Alabama. Tide is Vegas's top team, playoff committee's 6th best: http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/the-playoff-committee-s-hits-and-misses-102914 ...

[jbcarol]

ESPN B1G Blog:

The College Football Playoff rankings are going to change, that much is certain. But as a starting point, the first-ever edition is pretty useful for gauging where the Big Ten sits and what it must do hitting the homestretch over the final month of the regular season. The heavy lifting mostly applies to Nebraska and Ohio State, and the spots those programs hold at Nos. 15 and 16 might have revealed more about the thinking of the selection committee than just about anything else on Tuesday. For starters, at this point, it's hard to argue that the Huskers didn't deserve the higher ranking since their lone loss was at Michigan State and they own a reasonably attractive win over Miami. The loss to Virginia Tech is currently weighing down the Buckeyes, and despite how hard-fought the victory was at Penn State against its stout defense, there isn't much else on the resume right now worth getting too excited over for the committee. But it's important to keep in mind that even with all those teams standing between Nebraska and Ohio State and a playoff berth, there is a lot of football left to play -- and if either of them can win out, it still seems likely that a one-loss Big Ten champ is going to climb enough rungs to get into the field. Only one of those teams can do it since they would face off in the conference title game, but the Big Ten as a league remains very much alive in the race for the national crown.

[jbcarol]

Mark Schlabach | ESPN.com: Florida State doesn't look like the team that won a BCS national championship last season. It looks more like the Auburn team that lost to the Seminoles in the last BCS National Championship game.

To win a national title in the past, or now reach the four-team College Football Playoff, a team is going to need more than a few good breaks along the way. FSU seems to be getting them every week...

Georgia fans have every right to be upset that the NCAA didn't reduce star tailback Todd Gurley's four-game suspension... But Georgia fans shouldn't be upset at the NCAA or the UGA administration. Gurley knew he was breaking NCAA rules...

And, finally, the stat of the week from ESPN Stats & Info: Mississippi State is averaging a Power 5-high 188.6 rush yards per game inside the tackles...

[jbcarol]

Mississippi State and Florida State rank as the nation's top two teams, according to ESPN's weekly #1QFor128 college football poll of the FBS head coaches.

3. Bama
4. Auburn

[jbcarol]

ESPN SEC @ESPN_SEC  ·  28 minutes ago
My SEC picks this wk: UGA, AU, Ky, MS, A&M, Vandy, SC. Another reminder why I don't gamble.

[jbcarol]

Ralph D. Russo @ralphDrussoAP  ·  7 hours ago
Playoff pulse: Georgia, Ole Miss fall; Pac12 pecking order; projecting the rankings; projecting final 4. http://collegefootball.ap.org/article/sec-hopes-2-playoff-chomped-gators ...

Southeastern Conference's chance to get two teams in the College Football Playoff took a hit Saturday...

Big 12 avoided its own problematic upset Saturday when No. 10 TCU (7-1, 4-1), which was the conference's highest ranked team in the playoff top 25 at seventh, beat West Virginia on a last-second field goal.

The Horned Frogs return home to play Kansas State next week in a game that will go a long way toward determining the Big 12 champ. After that, TCU has a relatively smooth path with at Kansas, at Texas...

PAC-12 PECKING ORDER

No. 5 Oregon (8-1, 5-1) took control of the Pac-12 North by running Stanford out of Autzen Stadium. The Ducks seem like a good bet to move into the top four of the playoff rankings and replace Ole Miss, though it'd be interesting to see if the selection committee breaks typical poll tendencies. The Ducks have made a strong case since their loss to Arizona.

Over in the Pac-12 South, Arizona State (7-1, 5-1) is all alone in first after it beat Utah in overtime and UCLA topped Arizona.

The Pac-12 grinder sends Oregon to Utah next week. Best case scenario for the Pac-12 in the playoff race is the Ducks and Sun Devils playing for the league title with one loss each, but that might wishful thinking.

"Our teams are in great shape if they win," Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scot said at halftime of the Oregon game...

PROJECTING THE NEXT RANKINGS

Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn, Oregon.

___

PROJECTING THE PLAYOFF

Florida State, Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State.

[jbcarol]

Ralph D. Russo @ralphDrussoAP  ·  50 minutes ago
So SEC fans, you want two teams in the playoff? Root for Auburn and Mississippi State. I think that's the most likely path.

Auburn at 11-1 against K-State 11-1 favors Auburn. Auburn at 11-1 vs. B1G 12-1 probably favors Auburn. Auburn at 11-1 vs. TCU 11-1 ..

Of course, all that stuff would require a lot of winning out and it's just as likely we're debating 2-loss teams than 1. Fun stuff.

[jbcarol]

Cecil Hurt @CecilHurt  ·  22 hours ago

#SECBias RT @ESPNStatsInfo: The team on the left is TCU, the middle is Alabama and on the right is Oregon.

[jbcarol]

Chris Low @ClowESPN  ·  22 hours ago

According to ESPN's Strength of Record metric, it's harder for an average top 25 team to go 7-1 against Auburn's sked than 8-0 against FSUs


Or 6-2 against Arkansas' schedule.

[jbcarol]

ESPN SEC @ESPN_SEC  ·  18 minutes ago

Arkansas used for and against SEC powers http://es.pn/10ifuTO

[jbcarol]

Todd Fuhrman @ToddFuhrman  ·  1 hour ago

VEGAS TOP 10: Alabama is still #1, Oregon is now the favorite in the CFB playoff, and a top 5 team on Upset Alert http://www.foxsports.com/college-footba

Alabama would be favored against every college football team in the country. Let that sink in before you try to fully digest the newly unveiled college football playoff rankings.  Another week of college football is in the books... meaning we're one step closer to knowing the 4 real playoff teams, at least in theory. I can say with confidence that 3 of the nation's 4 best teams are currently included in the second mock bracket.

The Ducks are now listed favorites to win the college football playoff by virtue of their favorable remaining schedule.

Bama, Auburn, and State are the Vegas top 3.

[jbcarol]

Chuck Dunlap @SEC_Chuck  ·  4 hours ago

Visuals sometimes better than words RT @SECstats: CFB Playoff Top 10 vs. currently ranked opponents: Week 11

[jbcarol]

Mike Hall @BTNMikeHall  ·  Nov 5

Know why I Hate the "eyeball test"? Cause eyeball said GEO beats FLA. Said Tex A&M was a top10 team. Eyes are wrong. Facts matter

[jbcarol]

Oregon Ducks fans should be happy the old BCS computer ratings aren't being used to help select the four teams for the inaugural College Football Playoff.

According to BCS proxy ratings compiled by Wes Colley, the Ducks would be No. 5 in the BCS ratings, behind No. 1 Mississippi State, No. 2 Florida State, No. 3 Auburn and No. 4 Alabama.

The CFP selection committee and BCS proxy ratings agreed on the top three teams this week, but the 12-person selection committee had Oregon ranked No. 4, one spot ahead of the Crimson Tide.

The computer ratings that used to make up one-third of the BCS formula (the coaches' poll and Harris Interactive poll made up the other two-thirds) aren't currently big fans of Oregon. In fact, four of the six computer polls have the Ducks rated outside the top five. Colley's ratings ranked them sixth, and Kenneth Massey, Jeff Sagarin and Peter Wolfe each had them seventh.

[jbcarol]

College GameDay @CollegeGameDay  ·  29 minutes ago
Florida State's Remaining Schedule.



Wonder if there are any prop bets?

[jbcarol]

 Cecil Hurt retweeted
Dan Wolken @DanWolken  ·  42 minutes ago
Brian Kelly's frustration with Everett Golson boils over in tense scene after Notre Dame loss. http://usat.ly/1uaT6rM  via @USATODAYsports

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  15 hours ago
I'd like to congratulate Urban Meyer on his first top 15 win in three years at Ohio State.

[jbcarol]

Clay Travis @ClayTravisBGID  ·  23 hours ago
Worth pointing out that FSU's best win was at home over this Notre Dame team by 4 thanks to a late flag or nah?