Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Are Rematches Unavoidable In The College Football Playoff?

Transcript

Are Rematches Unavoidable In The College Football Playoff? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

0:00
Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning for Thursday July eighteenth. I'm your host, Tom
0:03
Moore. The Akron game in forty four days the game it gets michigand one
0:07
hundred and thirty five days. Today we are talking college Football Playoff again.
0:11
We're going to do it with their Buddykevin noon offuckehuddle dot Com. We've done
0:14
this a couple of times before and guns pretty good feedback on these shows because
0:17
there's a lot of interesting scenarios with this year's college Football Playoff, expanded field
0:23
games on campus sites, certain teams getting buys that you would think, why
0:27
would that team get a buy, and then trying to map out everyone's potential
0:31
path to a national championship. So we're going to do that today. We're
0:35
going to be using the Pick six previews rankings. Brett Siance does a great
0:40
job with that magazine. I buy that every year, bought it again this
0:43
year. Got my digital copy about a week ago, immediately started going through
0:47
it and then thought, I wish you did one of these shows of that.
0:49
So all right, Kevin, We're going to run through just the top
0:52
twelve right now. It all seems pretty reasonable to me. Number one,
0:55
Georgia, number two, Ohio State, number three, Utah. They were
0:58
not necessarily the number three team nation, of course, but they would be
1:00
the Big twelve champions, so they would get the number three spot in the
1:03
college football playoff. Number four Miami again, same thing, just the ACC
1:07
champion, Number five, Texas, number six, Oregon number seven, Ole
1:11
Miss number eight, Notre Dame number nine, Penn State, number ten,
1:14
Florida State, number eleven, Alabama, number twelve, Boise State. And
1:19
I think the first thing that jumps out to me is other than Utah,
1:22
which is kind of you know, become a power, you know, a
1:25
national power program in the last few years. Boy, there's a lot of
1:29
big names in that college football playoff field, and that feels like something that
1:32
a lot of people will be interested in watching. Yeah, oh no,
1:37
don't, don't expand the field. Don't give me more high leverage games to
1:41
watch. I see, once again, we are overvaluing Notre Dame, putting
1:46
them anywhere in the playoffs. You know, it's kind of that January swoon
1:51
that Chris Haltman went through, and I'm just kind of expecting that to happen
1:55
for Notre Dame again. But yeah, a lot of excitement. As you'd
1:59
mentioned, people i'm sure are circling Utah three in Miami four and how does
2:05
that happen? But the way that with the auto bids and everything else,
2:08
and not only getting the auto bid but also getting that first round by is
2:12
so important. And I'm sure our audience, being largely Ohio State fans,
2:17
probably have issue with Ohio State being two versus one, But I think that
2:23
even if they're saying Ohio State's two, that is probably inferring a win against
2:28
Michigan, obviously a win in Indianapolis, and probably an undefeated season to boot.
2:32
So you know, before you some of your knows at pick six previews,
2:37
who I think does a great job as well, just kind of look
2:39
at the subtext, and the subtext is that at this point Ohio State it's
2:44
probably unbeaten. Yeah, Ohio State unbeaten, maybe one loss, but yeah,
2:47
you're seeing the Buckeyes one two with Georgia, with the Bulldogs being number
2:52
one in most of those preseason previews. But you know, there is no
2:55
great shame in being number two in the preseason. And so let's run through
3:00
that first round again just to remind you the first round is on campus this
3:04
year. There's one game on Friday, December twentieth in the evening. Then
3:07
Saturday, December twenty first, there's three games in the early afternoon, late
3:10
afternoon and evening windows. So those those four games in some order are going
3:15
to be number five, number twelve, Boise State at number five, Texas
3:20
number eleven, Alabama at number six, Oregon number ten, Florida State at
3:23
number seven, Ole Miss, and number nine Penn State at number eight.
3:27
Notre Dame. And you were when you were talking about Notre Dame earlier,
3:30
I thought, you know, boy, they have not won a major bowl
3:32
game, ABCS Bowl game, a college football playoff bowl game since nineteen ninety
3:38
four. They won I believe the Cotton Bowl in nineteen ninety four against Texas
3:42
A and M. It has been thirty years. It would be somewhat appropriate,
3:46
Kevin, if Notre Dame was the first team to lose a home college
3:50
football playoff game, and you know, playing number nine Penn State, that
3:53
seems like that could very easily happen. Yeah, No real cold weather games
4:00
except for a game at you know, at in South Bend at Notre Dame
4:04
Stadium. Everything else kind of breaks into warm weather. I mean, you
4:09
know, I don't necessarily know what December is in Eugene. We're not talking
4:14
about Pullman, Washington or anything like that when we look at that. But
4:19
you know, it's really interesting to kind of view some of those games,
4:24
maybe some contrasts of styles. I will admit, you know, starting at
4:27
the bottom, I don't know a ton about Boise State this year other than
4:30
the fact that their field is blue, and that's about all that I know
4:33
about the Broncos. It has been a couple of years since they have had
4:39
any relevance to me in terms of following what's going on, So you can
4:45
just you don't know at that point. But I think that Notre Dame Penn
4:47
State game is by far. If you tell me that I can only watch
4:50
one game over that weekend in the college football playoff, that's the one that
4:55
I'm going to be most interested in, because obviously, in State you gotta
5:00
wonder with James Franklin. He's winning enough to keep the Wolves away, but
5:06
he's not winning enough to keep the Joe Bots happy out there, either,
5:12
So you know, you got that on one side. On the other side,
5:15
is this a referendum on on on Marcus Freeman as the head coach of
5:17
the Fighting Irish. I mean, they they win the games they should they
5:21
don't win the games that they shouldn't. Really, that's the one that I'm
5:26
I'm most interested in seeing. Well, we will, we will see if
5:30
we get to see that in December. But it you know, however those
5:33
games shake up, you're gonna end up with a couple of really really interesting
5:38
matchups there Alabama having to get it on an airplane and fly out to Oregon
5:41
in December. Yeah, I am like you, I don't exactly know what
5:45
the weather in Eugene is like in December. I can't imagine it's a warm
5:48
and warman Sonny out there in December. But we will, we will see.
5:53
So after that first round, then you get to the quarterfinal games quarterfinals
5:56
this year New Year's Eve and the Fiesta Bowl, and then that's one one
6:01
game and then on New Year's Day, January first starts with Peach Bowl in
6:05
the early afternoon, the Rose Bowl in its traditional late afternoon timeslot, and
6:10
then the Sugar Bowl in its traditional evening time slot. So just projecting forward,
6:15
it would likely be the winner of number twelve Boise State versus number five
6:18
Texas, So probably Texas playing against Miami, and I'm gonna guess that's in
6:23
the Sugar Bowl. Brett didn't project these. I'm kind of just sort of
6:26
going based on some of the other projections and where they've had teams slotted in.
6:29
So we'll say Boise is the Texas Miami game in the Sugar Bowl.
6:33
Alabama Oregon winner against Utah. That's probably to me, the Fiesta Bowl would
6:39
make sense. Utah not a huge TV draw, and you're gonna put that
6:42
on New Year's Eve instead of New Year's Day, where those those games typically
6:45
don't get quite the numbers they would normally that Utah geographically would make sense to
6:49
go to the Fiesta Bawl as well. Florida State Ole Miss winner taking on
6:55
Ohio State in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day, and then Penn State
6:58
Notre Dame winner taking Georgia in the Peach Bowl on at noon or one o'clock
7:03
or thereabouts on New Year's Day. You know, I look at that and
7:08
I think, O higher State Georgia winner, you know, probably should both
7:11
win somewhat comfortably, touchdown to touchdown something like that. But you know,
7:15
you know, let's say it's Oregon against Utah and the Fiesta Bowl, and
7:18
it's Texas versus Miami in the Sugar Bowl. It feels like we might be
7:23
down to two Big ten teams and two SEC teams heading into the Semis,
7:30
just as everybody would expect with the Big two. Uh. And you know,
7:33
I don't think that that is a stretch by any any part of the
7:38
imagination. That's where the power is. I mean, no, no disrespect
7:43
to Utah that we've already kind of put through at least into this second round.
7:46
But am Rising, you know, doctor doctor Rising. I mean,
7:50
he's ready for AARP at this point. You know, I don't know enough
7:55
about the utes. You know that certainly they they perform well in big games,
8:00
but I don't know if they're going to have enough in that one.
8:03
And you know, I think that you sit there and you put Ohio State
8:09
or miss against you know, you know, all the offense in the world
8:13
in that game with with with Lane Kippen, maybe you know, maybe Lane
8:18
Kippen will once again forget to run the running back, going back to the
8:20
twenty fourteen Sugar Bowl when he was OC at Alabama, or you could sit
8:26
there and talk about maybe homeless Explorida State with where you know, we don't
8:31
know exactly what their future holds at the time of us recording this. You
8:37
know, they're hurtling towards what Big twelve membership. I don't know if that's
8:41
necessarily what they were hoping for, but you know that's going to be really
8:45
exciting. And then then you know what, you know, what is with
8:48
what everybody's saying, Oregon is supposed to be this year and Oregon could have
8:52
a couple of losses, or could have a split against Ohio State or we
8:56
don't know, but you know, these teams seem to be on the track
9:00
to play a couple of times this year. It'll be interesting to see what
9:03
happens there because we're really getting into the longest type of seasons at this point
9:09
of where you're potentially playing fifteen games or whatever, and we're here at game
9:13
thirteen, game fourteen, what have you. It's you know, it's a
9:16
lot and you're going to have to kind of wonder what roster management looks like.
9:20
Yeah, that's going to be a big challenge. I feel like we
9:22
talk about that just about every second or third show about the challenges of roster
9:26
management this year, but it is it is going to be. I promise
9:28
a big storyline as the season goes along, managing snaps, managing injuries,
9:33
all that kind of stuff as you play a longer season than you've ever played
9:37
before. And so then you get to the semi finals and this is typically
9:41
the weekend where you would have seen the season end. Now there's another round
9:45
after this, but the semi finals Thursday, January ninth in the Orange Bowl,
9:48
Friday January tenth in the Cotton Bowl, and this would have Georgia facing
9:54
the Texas Miami winner in the Orange Bowl, so you have potentially a Georgia
9:58
versus Texas, could be the third time those teams are playing this year,
10:01
and then in the other one in the Cotton Ball, you could have Ohio
10:05
State versus Oregon for potentially the third time this year as well. Well,
10:09
you know, can you get too much of a good thing? This might
10:13
be the year that we find out, because it feels like with those two
10:18
teams, you know, Georgia Texas and then also Ohio State Oregon playing in
10:20
the regular season and then potentially setting up for a conference championship rematch. And
10:26
then potentially setting up for another matchup in the College Football Playoff. It feels
10:30
like you might see three matchups between at least one of those pairs and potentially
10:35
both this year. I hope that we don't see the committee cook the books
10:41
to try and move things around to you know, to prevent this, you
10:46
know, from happening in the semis and well, we can't handle if we
10:50
can't do anything about it. If it happens in the championship game. It
10:52
is what it is. You've you've you've cleared all the hurdles. But I
10:56
hope we don't see any cooking of the books on that on that instance.
11:03
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how I'm gonna write a third tail
11:05
the tape on Ohio State Oregon. I'm probably just going to post the other
11:09
two together and say somewhere between these. I don't know, but you know,
11:15
I think that we will all have very good working knowledge of the Oregon
11:20
Ducks by that point, if that is the third time that they play.
11:22
And then obviously on the SEC side, you know, having Georgia in Texas,
11:28
Texas being in its first year in the conference, the conference holding its
11:33
media days and in Dallas. I mean, it just seems like it's just
11:35
all kind of shaping up for that, and then you know, you Georgia
11:39
is Georgia, and until until you really, you know, pick them out
11:45
of that top spot, it's hard to you know, it's hard to bet
11:48
against the Bulldogs. I mean, I guess for everything except you know,
11:50
a driving safety course. Well, and what's interesting is, you know,
11:54
if they if the committee does kind of cook the books, as you were
11:58
saying earlier, and maybe you flipped Georgia and Oregon to avoid having a potential
12:01
semi final rematch, then you can get the Buckeyes facing Texas in the Cotton
12:07
Bowl in you know, having to play Texas in Texas, and then in
12:09
the Conference in the National Championship game, if they advance there, you have
12:13
to play Georgia in Georgia. That's something that we have seen in one of
12:16
the other projections that we did a couple of weeks ago. But you know,
12:18
certainly certainly would not be the route that Ohio State would choose. But
12:24
you know, there's really no precedent right now in terms of how the committee
12:26
is going to sort these things out. Are they going to try to avoid
12:28
rematches. Are they going to just do the straight seating. Are they going
12:31
to get cute and set up matchups of you know, potentially a former coach
12:35
with a you know, with his new team or something like that. We'll
12:39
see how that all shakes out. Then the National Championship Game January twentieth in
12:43
Atlanta, we'll say it's we'll say it's the Buckeyes and the Bulldogs. But
12:48
there's a lot of there's a lot of football to go between here and there
12:50
to get to that point and that that football season really sort of kicks off
12:56
in Big Ten country next week, Kevin and I'll be in Indianapolis with Tony
13:00
covering Big Ten Media Days, a three day event this year with a new
13:05
eighteen team conference, There's going to be a lot of football to talk about.
13:07
A lot of exciting stuff, a lot of exciting storylines, new coaches,
13:11
new teams, new players, lots of exciting stuff there across the Big
13:16
Ten and of course in Columbus, Ohio as well, where there is a
13:18
lot of anticipation for the season. If you want to be get the at
13:22
ground, get in on the ground floor, get great access, insider information,
13:26
and much more. A great place to do. That would be at
13:28
buckey Huddle dot com. That's where Kevin, Tony and I cover the team,
13:31
Mark covers recruiting, get our whole team of ex's nose, Guruz making
13:33
you a smarter football fan. All at bucke huddle dot com. We hope
13:37
to see you there. Let'll do it for today. Thank you guys all
13:39
for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk kay tomorrow.