TCU is probably going to miss a bowl game. They’re 4–5, they still have to play both Texas and Oklahoma, and their APR Ranking is in the toilet, which means that even though we’re poised to see a ton of 5-win teams make bowl games, TCU would need a lot of help to be among them.
There’s a funny angle here which ties back to Deion Sanders, and that’s that this TCU team—a TCU team we now know is kind of bad—would have beaten his Colorado Buffaloes in the teams’ season opener had TCU not shot itself in the foot, leg, and face. There was always going to be outlandish Coach Prime hype, but I don’t know if Colorado vs. Colorado State would have hosted Gameday had TCU held off the Buffs.
More seriously:
What happened?
The first thing to say here is that TCU isn’t that bad. If they do miss a bowl, they’ll be one of the top-rated teams to miss one. They’re 33rd in Movelor, 29th in SP+, and 29th in FPI. They’ve outscored opponents by 44 points on the year, or 8.8 points per game, and that usually doesn’t translate to a losing record. TCU is a little bad—they lost to Colorado and Iowa State and Texas Tech and West Virginia, and they got capital-S Smoked by Kansas State—but they’re not *that* bad. TCU is a decent team having a bad year.
The second thing to say here is that TCU wasn’t that good last year. Even after upsetting Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl, the Horned Frogs finished the season ranked 8th in the country by Movelor. Who’s 8th this year? At least right now? Tennessee. A change of conference and a few different bounces, and TCU’s 2022 looks like Tennessee’s 2023, or vice versa.
TCU’s comedown from 2023 is a reminder of how much they caught lightning in a bottle, and one side of that is the disappointing reality (for them) that this program has a long way to go to catch the biggest and baddest, even if the school is well-positioned to be a power player in the new Big 12. The other, though, is heartening:
The 2022 TCU run, from being picked to finish 7th in the Big 12 to playing in the National Championship Game, is a reminder that Cinderella can happen in college football. Those kinds of runs are so rare (and Notre Dame’s in 2012 was by Notre Dame) that we don’t think of the sport as a Cinderella sport, and for the most part, it isn’t. But they *can* happen, and that’s a big deal. Not everything in college football is preordained, and that doesn’t only apply on a week-to-week basis. Sometimes, a team can catch fire, and the breaks can go their way, and they can find themselves taking the field against one of the most dominant teams in the history of the sport with a trophy on the line. Of course, that might end with a 58-point beatdown, but maybe one day it doesn’t. The point is: TCU gives underdogs a reason to dream. That’s good for all of us.
James Madison Tries Again
In other potentially doomed causes, James Madison has again asked the NCAA for a bowl eligibility exemption. JMU’s president and athletic director petitioned the NCAA Division I board of directors, requesting a waiver which the NCAA said will be granted or denied “in a timely manner.”
I have no idea if the NCAA will or won’t give JMU this exemption. The arguments are strong on both sides.
In support of an exemption:
- JMU might be a better team than SMU, Tulane, Liberty, Fresno State, Air Force, or whoever else would get the Group of Five’s slot in a New Year’s Six bowl. This would give us a better game.
- JMU is already operating as a full FBS member, meeting all requirements on that front. If the purpose of the transition period is to force schools to get up to speed before they enjoy all the benefits of FBS membership, JMU has gotten up to speed.
- It is very, very unlikely another team will achieve this much success so quickly upon transitioning to the FBS, so the precedent of granting an exemption is unlikely to come back and bite the NCAA.
In support of no exemption:
- The NCAA had rules and a prescribed process, and JMU agreed to this process when they decided to transition to the FBS. If they wanted to be bowl-eligible in 2023, they should have begun transitioning a year earlier than they did.
- If JMU is granted full bowl eligibility, it could mean an otherwise deserving team is kept out of the New Year’s Six bowls, which would be a letdown and would be unfair.
- One of the biggest factors driving power conference schools towards leaving Division I (or requesting more special treatment, like the special NIT automatic bids) is that Division I has grown to be enormous. Division I is more than 75% bigger than it was when the FBS and FCS first split, and the FBS is more than 20% bigger. Power conference schools are seeing their power and income diluted, and there are legitimate fears that they will leave the NCAA altogether because of this. This is not as much an issue in football as in basketball, but it’s still a problem. It is good for the NCAA if it’s harder for teams to transition upwards. It is good for some “little guys,” because they keep getting to be in the same division as the “big guys.”
If the NCAA does grant JMU an exemption, it’s going to twist a lot of situations. The Sun Belt has said they would reverse course and allow JMU to play in its conference championship game. JMU would become ranked in the official College Football Playoff rankings. There’s the New Year’s Six consideration, which stems from both those things (the NY6 takes the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion). JMU is probably going to a bowl anyway—the NCAA allows transitioning teams to fill spots when there aren’t enough 6-win teams, and there aren’t likely to be enough 6-win teams—but this would allow JMU to go to the Fiesta Bowl, or the Cotton Bowl, or the Peach Bowl, and to potentially play there against a top-10 team. We would rather see JMU play Texas than see JMU play Jacksonville State.
Michigan to the SEC?
As with the NCAA’s decision on JMU, I have no idea what to expect from Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti regarding punishment for Michigan. The latest ESPN report on the topic says to not expect any action “until Thursday at the earliest,” which leaves the door open for Petitti to hold off until after the season, and that same report calls the Big Ten’s sportsmanship policy, which it says gives Petitti this disciplinary power, “a brief and somewhat vaguely written document,” implying legal challenges might delay any implementation of discipline. It’s easy to see Petitti suspending Jim Harbaugh but saying Harbaugh doesn’t have to serve the suspension until next season. It’s easy to see Petitti suspending Jim Harbaugh, Michigan appealing (if that’s an option), and the Big Ten allowing the appeal process to “play out.” It’s easy to see Petitti waiting until after the Ohio State game to make any moves. My favorite possibility?
Michigan leaves the Big Ten.
The exit fee, we can presume, would be monstrous. The travel cost would be exorbitant. But if Michigan feels as unfairly treated as they’re claiming to be, what’s stopping Michigan from shifting the balance of power towards the SEC? Or at least threatening? I’m sure the chances of this happening are somewhere south of one in a million, but it would sure be entertaining. If it happened, it might finally be an edition of conference realignment we could all support.
The Cubs and Counsell
I am not personally a big fan of Craig Counsell, which undoubtedly biases me against the Cubs signing him to a record deal for an MLB manager. My initial reaction to hearing it was a record deal was concern that Tom Ricketts might say, “Well, Jed, there’s your big signing of the offseason,” even with the signing coming out to an even eight million dollars per year, less than what Drew Smyly will make. Upon reflection, though, I think it makes sense.
We’re strongly in the camp, here at The Barking Crow, that managers are unimportant strategically, especially during the regular season. We think most strategy comes from the front office. We think most decisions regarding batting order and bullpen usage only move the needle by a handful of percentage points of win probability, at the most. We think second-guessing regular season moves is a silly game to play, because there are so many ‘bumps and bruises’ and other hidden factors that we’re operating with fractions of the knowledge organizations possess. We’re open to managers being valuable in the postseason, but in the regular season? The strategy is a tiny deal.
What we do think, though, is that the manager runs the clubhouse, and that the clubhouse environment is an important piece of a winning team. Again, I’m no Counsell fan, but his teams were very successful in Milwaukee, and it’s possible some of this was environmental. If it was, that only needs to make the Cubs one win better to more than justify those eight million dollars. Eight million dollars is somewhere in the neighborhood of the cost of one WAR for free agent players. The labor market for managers is different from that of players, but should it be? Because money is fungible, and a win is a win, and given that manager salary doesn’t (to my knowledge) count towards the luxury tax threshold, I’m not sure the pricing is really all that different.
So, maybe the Cubs have identified a market inefficiency. Maybe I’ll be sitting here in a year thanking my stars my favorite team hired Craig Counsell. Most likely, it won’t matter in either direction. If anything, maybe it matters in that the Cubs now pick up a lot of organizational knowledge about one of the better franchises in the NL Central.
The Packers Are Bad, Right?
The Packers are a three-point underdog this weekend on the road against the Steelers, and I would like some assurances that I’m not missing something. The Packers are bad, right? We’re still in agreement on that? I know the Steelers aren’t great, and I know they could theoretically play teams artificially close because their offense is a crime, but if home field advantage is worth three points itself, I’m shocked and confused. Should I be feeling optimistic about the rest of this year for the Packers?
Welcome, Milan Momcilovic
We’re trying to get a weekly Iowa State newsletter/blog post off the ground, so I’ll save most ISU thoughts for that for the moment, in an act of faith (hopefully it comes this week, but we may be a ways out yet). Monday’s was a great first men’s basketball game of the season, though, and freshman Milan Momcilovic was especially good. He’s not the potential NBA lottery prospect Omaha Biliew is, but he did enter college with a reputation as being more of a finished product, and he looked great against his home-state team (Momcilovic is from Pewaukee). UWGB’s at the front end of a tough rebuild, but it’s hard to ask for more out of a season debut than what the Cyclones showed, and Momcilovic was the best part.
