Joe’s Notes: TCU, Utah, and the Beauty of Conference Realignment

Conference realignment takes a lot of shit. It destroys historic rivalries, it lays bare the cash-grabbing nature of…everything, and it creates farcically named leagues like the 16-team Big Ten (which is outlandishly a conference proud of its academics, even with this 60% inaccuracy on its letterhead). This is fair. This is all fair. But conference realignment gives us something too, and not just pageviews on college sports blogs in July.

On Friday night, Utah dominated the hapless USC Trojans, eliminating California’s best-team-by-default from national title contention. It was a noteworthy result, but it wasn’t a giant shock. Utah had also beaten USC earlier in the year. Utah had also won the Pac-12 last season. Many picked Utah to win, even if the margin took all reasonable prognosticators by surprise.

On Sunday, TCU was selected for the College Football Playoff, even having lost their last game. It was hugely newsworthy, but it wasn’t a surprise in the slightest. TCU was the Big 12’s best team over the regular season. TCU was one of just three teams nationally to win at least twelve games. TCU was, more or less, a playoff shoo-in.

THIS IS INSANE.

THIS IS NUTS.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THESE THINGS ARE HAPPENING?

Let’s go back to 2004. Utah went undefeated, beat Texas A&M, Arizona, and UNC, won every game by at least two touchdowns, and never stood a national championship chance. TCU, meanwhile, was stuck in Conference USA, slumming to a 5-6 finish in Gary Patterson’s fourth full year.

Let’s go back to 2008. Utah went undefeated, beat Michigan in the Big House, beat Oregon State, stomped BYU at home, and took down Alabama by two touchdowns in the Sugar Bowl, and they still finished the year ranked behind a team who lost at home to eventual four-loss Mississippi.

Let’s go back to 2010. TCU was the one going undefeated this time, beating Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. As reward for their success, the Horned Frogs received a pat on the head and no shot at a national title.

This isn’t to hate on the BCS. The BCS was fine (this year it would’ve made all the sense in the world), but this isn’t where we’re going to pick that fight. This is to point out that conference realignment is a means to upward mobility in college sports. Without conference realignment, Max Duggan wouldn’t have been gasping for air at Jerry World on Saturday, undefeated season still in reach, yet another rabbit pulled from his magic purple helmet. Without conference realignment, Caleb Williams would have had something about Ducks painted on his fingernails on Friday while Utah ran roughshod over the WAC.

The mention of the WAC might bring up some nostalgia (again: fair), and many will point out that TCU was in a relatively major conference prior to the mid-90’s, when the Big Eight became the Big 12 and the Southwest Conference became no more. But how many titles, may I ask, did the SWC win after 1969? How many titles, may I ask, did the WAC win aside from BYU’s in 1984? Those were mid-major leagues. They were fun mid-major leagues, but they were mid-major leagues, and while plenty of fans fetishize mid-majors and demand playoff access for mid-majors as a “solution” to the upward mobility dilemma (various structures have their merits and their flaws), no mid-major in its right mind wants to stay a mid-major. Demands that conferences don’t expand and contract are demands that mid-majors never rise from their station.

There’s a piece of this which shouldn’t go unsaid, and we can address it by acknowledging that Utah and TCU didn’t only rise by winning. Utah is the state school in one of the fastest-growing states in the country. TCU is a moneyed private institution with plenty of football history and immediate access to one of the most valuable media markets in American football. But at the same time…winning was a part of it. Winning was a big part of it. Nevada isn’t in the Pac-12 right now. SMU isn’t in the Big 12. It’s not perfect promotion and relegation, like what we see in English soccer, but compared to the NFL, where certain dumbass owners run team after team into the ground with a salary cap to limit their expenses and revenue sharing to boost their income? How can you not like realignment?

I understand the sentiment that USC playing Rutgers is not a traditional conference game, and I understand the unwillingness to listen to arguments from nerds like me who say that this is college football’s equivalent of plate tectonics, a somewhat circular process which will eventually lead to a 24-team Big Ten that effectively functions as two regional conferences, similar to today’s but with cream on the top and schools that aren’t trying cast aside. But how about Utah? How about TCU? How about conference realignment?

(One last note on this: If someone was going to kick USC’s ass on its way out the door, it’s fitting that it was the school the Pac-12 grabbed long ago to stabilize itself against just this result. Good luck in the snow in Madison, Trojans. You just got bullied by a bunch of three-star recruits.)

Deion, Fickell, Etc.

We intend to spend the week catching up on all sorts of things as we resume our notes, but today’s just football. And there’s a lot going on off the field. Thoughts on every vacancy and hire on which we have thoughts:

Wisconsin: Luke Fickell

This feels like the best hire out there, because Luke Fickell feels like the highest-upside coach out there not already installed at a national power, and his downside seems in line with where Wisconsin’s already was. There’s a thought that had Cincinnati not been in the playoff last year, Fickell would have taken an interview with Notre Dame and then taken that job. That’s an endorsement—both that Notre Dame probably would have wanted him and that he was unavailable because he was in the playoff.

Cincinnati: Scott Satterfield

Taking over the job Fickell left behind is Scott Satterfield, ending one of the most awkward eras (even by Louisville standards) that was also…kind of successful? Louisville fans might react to that with rage, but Louisville’s got a top-20 recruiting class right now and it’s competitive within the ACC. We just talked about former mid-majors making moves. Louisville isn’t there right now, but they aren’t far away.

Given this, and given Satterfield’s success at Appalachian State, it’s probably a good hire at Cincinnati, but it also might be a bad one, because Neal Brown seemed like a good hire at West Virginia and that hasn’t gone well. Personally, I don’t love Satterfield’s chances at success at Cincy, but I’m having a hard time setting aside the South Carolina flirtation from a couple years back, which isn’t an indicator of a guy’s coaching prowess but does show that he’s kind of dumb and clumsy, two things that don’t help you in recruiting (especially when you no longer have Louisville’s famously rabid and insecure fans pumping every cent they have into NIL deals). Also, the ACC is really bad right now. If you aren’t winning it or making obscene progress, you have nothing to be proud of.

So, Cincinnati plucked a Power Five coach, which tracks because it is as of now a Power Five program, but they might have been able to do better.

Louisville: Vacant

We hinted at this, but: Whoever gets this job kind of has it made. There’s chaos and drama, but there’s also a deep desire to win, an engaged fanbase, and a hilariously bad conference that AP Poll voters and College Football Playoff committee members are failing to recognize as atrocious. What an opportunity.

Nebraska: Matt Rhule

“And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth Lincoln?”

I mean, if anyone’s going to turn Nebraska around right now, Matt Rhule isn’t a bad bet. There’s cause for hope here: Last year’s Nebraska team was pretty good and devastatingly unlucky. There’s also something possibly deeply wrong, and we’ve gone a long time without Nebraska being nationally competitive. Roots dry up when they don’t get watered.

Auburn: Hugh Freeze

A match made in college football heaven. A school and a coach on the exact same page when it comes to what’s acceptable (everything) and what isn’t (nothing). Shamelessness, through and through. Freeze has a solid chance at winning a title at Auburn, because kind of like LSU, people win titles at Auburn, and Freeze might not be the walking definition of integrity, but he wins games.

Liberty: Jamey Chadwell

Filling Freeze’s seat at Auburn is Jamey Chadwell, the Coastal Carolina guy. Tough blow for the Chants, who have a rivalry with Liberty that stretches back to FCS times, but also an assertion of where Liberty’s at. These guys can get coaches. This is a resourced program. Conferences won’t take them yet, but with Jerry Falwell Jr. out, it’s conceivable that Liberty could make itself palatable for people with moral compasses and also college presidents at larger schools in the next ten or twenty years.

Anyway, probably a good hire, Chadwell seems like a good coach, it’ll be interesting to see what he can do with Liberty’s resources.

Colorado: Deion Sanders

I’m gonna be an asshole here for a minute, but while the SWAC is very cool, it absolutely sucks at football. I’m sorry. It’s bad. It is not one of the better FCS conferences. Deion Sanders got Jackson State mostly dominating that league, but that isn’t saying much, and it’s self-evident that the guy can recruit. The smaller question with Colorado is going to be whether he can out-recruit bigger fish (his Jackson State numbers aren’t where his Colorado numbers need to be), and the bigger question is going to be what he does with them.

Stanford: Vacant

David Shaw stepped down a week or two ago, and David Shaw was once very successful at Stanford, and then David Shaw was no longer very successful at Stanford. What happened? Jim Harbaugh built an incredibly strong football program. Incredibly strong. In an incredibly unlikely place. Gradually, it returned to its natural shape.

At least, that’s my impression.

FAU: Tom Herman

Tom Herman was a great coach at Houston and more successful at Texas than he got credit for being. There was some weird stuff with him and the Texas locker room at the end, but following the Lane Kiffin route (great decision by that guy to stay at Mississippi by the way, at least in terms of personal and familial happiness, if he and his family are conventional human beings) isn’t the worst idea for a guy like this.

Texas State: GJ Kinne

This one is only noteworthy because Kinne is trying to coach Incarnate Word through the FCS Playoffs while also recruiting for Texas State. Rising star, too, but there are plenty of those.

UAB: Trent Dilfer

Who the hell knows, guys.

Iowa State, in Review

Ok, we’ve put it off long enough. The Iowa State season happened. The Cyclones went 4-8, losing seven games by one score and one game by seven scores (not entirely true, but close enough). Matt Campbell is staying in Ames, which is good, and the recruiting class is currently ranked 33^rd on the 247 composite, which is a step forward and part of why Campbell staying is good.

The team wasn’t actually much worse than expected. Coming into the year, there was widespread acknowledgment that this was a reset after finally graduating a ton of starters at the end of last season. The path, though—beating Iowa, losing to Kansas, all those close games, the oft-impotence of the offense—was bad, and anytime a team is a lot worse than they’ve recently been, it stings. Things that matter:

• Hunter Dekkers was not as good as at least I expected him to be. I was quietly optimistic he’d be better than even Brock Purdy (that was fun yesterday, by the way—would be great if he became the Mr. Irrelevant and retired the nickname), with whom the bad things often went unnecessarily from bad to worse. Dekkers was not better than Purdy. Nowhere close. He’s still the guy—talented as heck, great frame, seems to have a good makeup—but he is a focus for offseason improvement, not just the pieces around him.
• Tom Manning is out as offensive coordinator, having stepped down late last week. Nate Scheelhaase will take over that role, elevated from a job that included coaching both running backs and wide receivers. The former Illinois quarterback has the “rising star” reputation. I don’t have any reason to doubt it’s deserved, but not every rising star keeps rising.
• Jeff Meyers has stepped down as the offensive line coach, and this is an area in need of change, but it’s hard to know what was inexperience and what was coaching. Offensive line play was a bit of a strength before this year. Hopefully this is the right call.
• Dave Andrews is no longer the strength and conditioning director, so more turnover there. Strength and conditioning is highly important, but it’s deeper in the water than, say, offensive line play. Coupled with Meyers leaving, you’d imagine the goal is to start dominating the trenches, but that’s always the goal.
• The only notable transfer/draft developments so far are that MJ Anderson is headed to the draft and Sean Shaw is headed into the portal. Tough to lose each, especially Anderson, but neither is particularly surprising. We’re Iowa State. We’re going to lose guys to the portal. And losing guys to the draft is a great problem to have.

Is There Any Packer Playoff Shot Left?

To summarize the Packers season, or at least my experience of it:

• Disappointing start, but in a, “Haha, this is weird, guys. Ok, cut it out now,” way.
• They didn’t cut it out. Thank goodness they at least beat the Bears at Lambeau.
• They put everything together and took down the Cowboys to resurrect the season.
• The season promptly died again.
• They didn’t resurrect it a second time. Thank goodness they at least beat the Bears at Soldier Field.

There’ll be time later to talk about what’s gone wrong and what’s gone right and where things go from here, but with the bye week upon us, the first pressing question is whether there is anything left to play for this year.

My best impression of the playoff situation is that the Packers can finish 9-8 (technically) and if they do that, they’ll need two of the Commanders, Giants, and Seahawks to finish with eight wins or fewer. The Commanders are currently 7-5-1, with games against the Giants, 49ers, Browns, and Cowboys remaining. The Giants are currently 7-4-1, with games against the Eagles, Commanders, Vikings, Colts, and Eagles (again) remaining. The Seahawks are currently 7-5, with games against the Panthers, 49ers, Chiefs, Jets, and Rams remaining. It’s possible the Packers could win some tiebreakers, but they’ve lost head-to-head to both the Giants and the Commanders. That was a bad decision.

Still, ESPN’s FPI gives the Pack about a 1-in-20 playoff shot, and if the probability of the Packers winning out is 1-in-16, which is what you get if every remaining game is a tossup, that implies there’s a pretty decent chance two of those three really will finish behind the Packers if the Packers do win out, or that the Packers will get the tiebreaker help they need against the Seahawks if the Packers do win out. In short, then, the Packers don’t control their fate or anything, but at this moment, running the table would give them a chance. A chance does currently remain.

**

More catching up tomorrow, college basketball will be the focus. Not too much going on in the sporting world tonight, unless Kent State beats Gonzaga in which case a lot is going on and we will have even more to discuss in the light of day.