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I’ve been thinking about road rage and the internet lately, finding my temper inflamed by one too many college football takes. When someone is faceless, it’s easier to assume the worst. We give each other the benefit of the doubt more when we talk in person.
It’s possible to be too sympathetic to athletes, treating them as infallible them the way we sometimes inadvertently patronize people who are in need. The cultural realizations that professional sports owners make more money than players and that college athletes used to not have much agency have made it uncouth in certain circles to ever criticize an athlete for anything, a tacit decree which has only then intensified backlash against “the transfer portal,” which in its literal form is merely a piece of software. A social worker pointed out to me once that refugees can still be buttheads. The same is true—true a lot, frankly—for 17 to 25-year-olds raised to be stars. Some transfer portal backlash is reasonable, even if it’s easy to vilify athletes. Still, there are times when “the transfer portal,” which we figuratively use to denote the collection of all the developments which have made transfers so common, is a very good thing.
Last night’s roughing the passer penalty was a bad call. It didn’t necessarily decide the game, but it did directly lead to UNLV’s loss, and it’s fair for UNLV to be mad about it, just as UNLV should be mad at Barry Odom for his strategic miscues which cost them a shot at the game in regulation. There was a bad call. There were probably others which escaped such prominent notice. UNLV missed chances. Syracuse made plays.
The most noteworthy playmaker for the Orange was probably LeQuint Allen. Allen is a strong young man, and he deserves the praise he’s receiving. The second, though, is a familiar character. We’ve watched a lot of Kyle McCord football these last thirteen months. Kyle McCord has been a prominent thread in college football’s fabric despite never exactly being a star.
There was a clip from the Syracuse–Georgia Tech game where McCord yelled that the Yellow Jackets were “sorry as (expletive),” informing his teammates they could beat their ranked visitors. I’ve been fascinated by it. Maybe that side of McCord came out at Ohio State, but he was always a cog in the on-field machine there, and it felt like he was a cog off the field as well, dampened in both respects as a quarterback Ryan Day deemed too mistake-prone to be allowed to be fully himself. At Syracuse, he’s been asked to make plays. He’s maybe also been liberated to lead. At Syracuse, he’s been the kid from outside Philly again, the one who became such a touted quarterback throwing to Marvin Harrison Jr. back in high school.
After that Georgia Tech game, we were hoping a little bit for a Syracuse and McCord breakthrough. When Syracuse fell to Stanford, we punted on that angle. McCord’s shortcomings came through, and we were reminded of Syracuse’s shortcomings, and we realized this was not going to be some shock ACC run. But then, last night, there again was McCord. His shortcomings were there, but so was his playmaking. He was himself, and the himself who wasn’t enough to beat Stanford and wasn’t enough to be trusted at Ohio State got the job done on the road against a ranked, trendy UNLV. We were happy for McCord. We are happy for McCord.
There’s nothing wrong with being pissed about “the transfer portal.” It’s not fun to see guys transfer all over the place. We wish there was less of it, and we expect there to be less of it when the industry reaches a steadier state. Some sort of multi-year contract situation is likely on its way, at least occasionally, and through that and other factors we will start seeing more players stick around again. But McCord’s a good reminder of how, for as exhausting as the transfers may be, transfers can be a great thing.
McCord’s not a beneficiary of any recent rule change. He could have grad transferred if he wanted to, and maybe he did? (My impression is that he doesn’t have an Ohio State degree, but for a football player at Ohio State, it’s possible to get one of those in three years.) But this downward transfer, this pivot into a better fit, is the best thing about all this transferring. McCord was probably looking for some money, sure, but that money could only come in a better fit. The fit was the focus. Now, in that fit, he’s got a chance to be his full quarterback self again. He’s in a place that’s happy to have him. He’s no longer frustrating or frustrated. He’s Kyle McCord, the kid from outside Philly.
It’s even harder with football than with other sports to view these athletes transferring all over the place as the people that they are. Like a driver behind a windshield or a person behind even an onymous social media account, we don’t see a lot of football players’ faces inside their helmets. Are some of the athletes transferring dumb kids? Yes. Do we really need to defend transfers in the face of a now-unnecessary movement for athlete agency? Probably not. But now and then, we see a transfer and we are so, so glad he transferred where and when he did. It’s better for college football that Syracuse has Kyle McCord. It seems better for Syracuse and McCord, too.
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Can UNLV still make the playoff??
Ehh.
There are three problems with that loss, for UNLV:
The first is that it happened at all. Any loss is damaging, and in a race that’s largely about having the best record, one setback is meaningful, even with win–out probabilities rising as the length of the remaining season shrinks. This is the obvious one.
The second is that it’s not a very good sign for how good UNLV is. Bad call or not, UNLV put themselves in a position to get beat by a team Movelor ranks the twelfth-best in the ACC. Losing to the twelfth-best SEC team wouldn’t be so damning, but we’ve now got UNLV rated as only the 50th-best team in the country. It’s hard to win the Mountain West impressively when you’re a two-point underdog against Boise State even on your own field.
The third is that Syracuse isn’t going to be a particularly good loss when this is said and done. The Orange are aimed at a 7–5 regular season finish. Had UNLV split with Boise State and finished 12–1, they might have had a chance at the playoff spot ahead of hypothetical 13–0 James Madison. The same might have been true with an 11–2 vs. 12–1 situation. These are niche scenarios, but we’re getting to the point in the season where we can see the niches. These are possibilities. UNLV can edge JMU with its best wins, but their hopes of making up for a loss rely on that loss looking excusable to the College Football Playoff committee. This loss probably won’t be good enough to be wholly excused.
Overall, our model now has them at almost exactly a 1-in-20 playoff shot now. They’ve earned enough notoriety to not be ignored, but that’s a bad number.
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Resources for today:
- Week 6 Preview
- College Football Playoff Bracketology
- Movelor’s rankings and our model’s latest playoff probabilities
- Movelor’s spreads for Week 6
Bark.
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