At long last, after six days of games across a ten-day span, college football’s first week is over, and the season is fully underway.
More or less.
We still don’t know how good Texas A&M is.
There wasn’t much in the way of surprises, and if you’re looking for the weekend’s big learnings, we had most of those by Sunday morning, so you can read about that there. What we’re going to deal with today is where the hierarchy stands. Let’s begin.
The Favorites: Alabama, Georgia
These are, to be clear, national title favorites, not necessarily playoff favorites. There is so much that can go wrong across an SEC schedule that mentally locking in both these teams would be foolish. One regular season loss followed by an SEC Championship loss to the other? That’s going to leave the two-loss team needing quite a bit of help.
You can, however, probably mentally lock these teams into at least one of the four slots, and the other isn’t a bad bet to grab a second slot for itself. Most importantly, whichever team or teams gets or get there are likely to be the best in the field. These two really look to be a cut above the rest.
The Main Characters: Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma
Behind Alabama and Georgia in the pecking order we have these three, our traditional foils. Each is probably the best team in its conference, and as such, each has a very clear route. Clemson may have a quarterback controversy on its hands, but that might be good for it. Ohio State’s defense may still be a concern, but it sure held Notre Dame in check. Oklahoma carries some big question marks, but it’s drawn a remarkable Big 12 schedule, with trips to Fort Worth, Ames, Morgantown, and Lubbock accompanying the nonconference journey to Lincoln. What does that mean? They get both Baylor and Oklahoma State at home.
A lot can go wrong, and a lot might go wrong, but at the moment, a sea change doesn’t seem imminent. The top of our pyramid is much as it has been.
Good Teams, Good Paths: Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas A&M
As playoff appearers or contenders in recent years, these three are also top of mind, and that’s justified as well.
Notre Dame has no margin for error remaining, but it’s likely good enough to comfortably win every remaining game save the Clemson and USC games, and those are not ones where I’d expect the Irish to be underdogs by more than a score, unless the offense really is as bad as it looked in Columbus on Saturday night. It’s a low probability route—if you make eleven rolls, odds are decent you’ll hit snake eyes, and almost every Notre Dame game bears higher risk than snake eyes—but it’s very simple. It’s easy to conceptualize. And while the Irish have long, long odds, who doesn’t, aside from the five listed above?
Michigan and Texas A&M each have intriguing routes to 11-1. They play Ohio State and Alabama on the road, respectively, but while there are plenty of other challenges, they’re currently favored in all those other challenges. A debate we haven’t had often in the College Football Playoff sphere is what happens if there’s an 11-1 team from one conference and an 11-2 team from the same conference who lost the conference championship. It’s unlikely to have everything work out in this way, but we could see that with Texas A&M and Georgia.
The Field
After these eight, it’s wide open. There are good teams (Tennessee) and there are good paths (BYU) and there are teams who will get a lot of attention (USC), but if you try to list them all out, it’s hard to draw the line. You’re splitting hamster hairs while elephants walk by.
Collectively, the field has a pretty good shot at taking one of the four playoff spots. This is what happened with Cincinnati last year, and with Washington in 2016, and even with LSU to an extent in 2019 (that team played a lot of top-ten opponents, and it had to go to Tuscaloosa, making it about as similar to this year’s Tennessee as it is to this year’s Texas A&M). Individually, though, it’s too early to start naming teams who could surprise. It’s a shot in the dark.
In Sum
Overall, after one week, we’ve learned that Georgia can score a ton of points, we’ve confirmed that Notre Dame still isn’t on the perennial Ohio State level, we’ve gained some confusion surrounding Ohio State’s offense and defense (and Notre Dame’s, as the associated party), we’ve watched the Pac-12 almost entirely eliminate itself from the race, and we’ve watched Cincinnati lose in its attempt at an encore. There have been plenty of thrilling games, and possibilities still abound, and through that the impact of this week may turn out to be quite large, in hindsight. But we’re still mostly gathering information.
Iowa State vs. SEMO, Iowa State @ Iowa
Iowa State’s offense looked great against Southeast Missouri State, which is good. It should have looked great. Anything less than great would have been concerning. Its defense was questionable, and while it looked better in the second half, it’s a cause for concern.
Across the state, Iowa’s defense of course looked stupendous while its offense of course looked stupid. The Hawkeyes scored more points on safeties than they did through all other means, winning 7-3 against a solid South Dakota State team but one a team like Iowa should beat by more than four points (and should score more than three points against, offensively).
The script for Saturday, then, is pretty well set: Iowa State’s seeming strength will oppose Iowa’s strength, Iowa State’s seeming weakness will oppose Iowa’s weakness. The Cyclones will need to keep their composure better than last year (talking smart plays, not fights or anything like that), and the thing we’re hoping on is that Iowa’s offense is just as inept as it appeared in the opener. ISU’s a three-point underdog, implying the teams are about equal. That seems like the fair assumption, and what it signifies is that the team which does the small things—wins the turnover battle, wins third down, wins in the kicking game—is probably the one that’s going to get out of Kinnick victorious. Plenty more to come, I’m sure.
Houston Chose Offense
Dana Holgorsen and his staff evidently think taking the ball first in college overtime is the way to go, flipping the bird to conventional wisdom when they chose to play offense against UTSA on Saturday after winning the post-fourth quarter coin toss.
The logic here seems to be, at least from my guesses, that if you score a touchdown, the other team will change its play-calling to be too aggressive, and if you kick a field goal, the other team will change its play-calling to be too conservative? I’m not sure. I’ve seen the numbers on the team with the ball first winning more often recently, but I do wonder how much of that is a small sample.
When teams change approaches and claim analytics, it sometimes works and it sometimes doesn’t. The Opener didn’t last as long in Major League Baseball as many feared. Its use has widened but receded. On-Base Percentage? That’s stuck around. So, we’ll see with this one. I’d like to see a game theorist and a psychologist tackle it. Ideally good ones.
Aaron Judge Keeps Going Yard
Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge hit his 52nd, 53rd, and 54th home runs of the season over the last three days, keeping the Yankees above water in a rapidly tightening AL East race while making it now more likely than not that he does, indeed, pass Roger Maris’s 61-home run mark. He may even pass Babe Ruth’s 60-home run mark within the first 154 games of the season. Meanwhile, he’s hitting .302 and he’s getting on base more than forty percent of the time. His overall numbers, using wRC+, are 102% better than the average major league hitter’s. He’s been so good that even Shohei Ohtani, doing ridiculous things on both sides of the game, has not matched his measured performance, using WAR. This isn’t to put down Ohtani. It’s to try to describe how great Judge’s 2022 has been.
Around the game:
AL East
We said it was tightening, and we meant it. Since Friday afternoon, when we last noted, the Yankees have split four games (lost two to the Rays, beat the Rays once, beat the Twins), the Rays have won three of four (took two of three from the Yankees, beat the Red Sox), and the Blue Jays have won five (swept the Pirates, swept a doubleheader yesterday in Baltimore). That leaves us with the Rays five back of New York, the Jays five and a half back, and those numbers just four and five in the loss column. That’s striking distance, with double the worry for the Yankees because it’s two teams, not just one.
Not to be outdone by Judge, Bo Bichette homered four times for the Rays and drove in twelve across the Blue Jays’ five wins, pushing the Jays to a four and a half-game Wild Card lead over Baltimore (with Minnesota, Chicago, and Boston behind the O’s). The playoff field isn’t set, but the three current AL Wild Cards are all 95% likely or better to make the cut, per FanGraphs Playoff Odds.
The hits keep mounting for the Yankees, and not just Aaron Judge’s hits. Andrew Benintendi’s likely lost for the year after his wrist inflammation turned out to be a broken bone, and Anthony Rizzo had an epidural late last week before going on the IL today. The Rays, meanwhile, get Yonny Chirinos back today after a two-year absence involving Tommy John surgery and a fractured elbow, though J.P. Feyereisen is likely out for the season.
The Red Sox have extended Kike Hernández for another year, agreeing to pay him ten million dollars. If I had the money the Red Sox have, I’d also pay Kike Hernández ten million dollars to hang out with me for a year.
AL Central
When the White Sox made a big deal of picking up Elvis Andrus to fill in for Tim Anderson, there was some eye-rolling, but the guy’s been good, with a 137 wRC+ for Chicago and, this weekend, multiple home runs as the Sox took a series from the Twins and then beat the Mariners last night in Seattle. With the Guardians swept by the Mariners (but winning yesterday), this leaves the Sox two back in the Central, with the Twins right in the middle of the gap.
This isn’t exactly the prettiest race. Right now, FanGraphs projects the AL Central champion to finish with an 84-78 record and then host an 89-win team in the Wild Card Series, and that’s despite getting to play a bunch of games against AL Central opponents all year. But, at least it’s a race. We don’t have too many of those this year.
Tyler Mahle’s back on the IL, and to save themselves, the Twins are turning tomorrow night to Louie Varland. Louie’s brother’s name is Gus, and he plays in the Dodgers’ system, and they’re from St. Paul and with names like Louie and Gus Varland, how could they not be? Louie is not a great prospect, and pitching in Yankee Stadium in your debut while Aaron Judge makes a run at Roger Maris isn’t what you want, but somehow this feels like the perfect thing for the Twins to do. If nothing else, it will be incredible for Twins fans if it works out.
Further down the division, Bobby Witt Jr. has reached the 20-20 mark, joining Julio Rodríguez, Adolis García, Marcus Semien, and Kyle Tucker on that list. Is there a really bad catcher somewhere in the AL West? Also, how does Christian Yelich have 16 steals? That man is hobbling like a corpse out there.
NL East
Atlanta has cut things to a game with the Mets, sweeping the Marlins while New York dropped two of three to the Nationals. The Mets have the better remaining schedule, and they do have the lead, but a game is only a game. They got Carlos Carrasco back on Sunday.
NL Wild Card
The Nationals didn’t stop with the Mets, shutting out the Cardinals yesterday, but before they did that St. Louis swept the Cubs, Jack Flaherty pitched well, and the NL Central’s pretty buttoned up. Which, with Atlanta leaving the non-obvious World Series contenders in the dust, leaves the Padres, Phillies, and Brewers fighting for two spots.
Both the Padres and the Phils have now dropped three straight, San Diego turning around from a Friday night win in Los Angeles to drop the last two and now one against the Diamondbacks while Philadelphia was subjected to a straight sweep at the hands of the Giants (who remain out of the race). Even with that, though, the Brewers only gained a game and a game-and-a-half on the pair, respectively, losing the four-game set to Arizona before winning last night in Colorado. Another uninspiring race. The Crew is two games back now.
The Brewers are a scary team for October opponents, because those top arms—when they’re good—are on a unique level. Aside from Jacob deGrom, I’m not sure there’s a pitcher you’d rather avoid at his best than Corbin Burnes. And while he might not be at his best in October, the threat is there.
Injuries are mounting above Milwaukee, with Brandon Drury going on the concussion IL for the Padres and Nick Castellanos going on the regular IL with an oblique strain for the Phillies.
Meanwhile, quite the rotation is being built in Arizona. Ryne Nelson had a good outing in his debut, and both Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen are under club control for multiple seasons. They’ve got a Madison Bumgarner problem, but there’s a lot going right, and the team’s still battling with the Giants for third place in the West, which isn’t entirely meaningless.
The Cubs
Rough weekend, and the team has now lost seven of eight after what had been a competitive few weeks there after the trade deadline. Looking at season-to-date stats, the Cubs rank 19th in wRC+ and 26th in FIP, which mostly tells the story. Also telling the story is that this team is only 22nd in baseball in expected rest-of-season WAR, going by FanGraphs’s Depth Charts. Some of that is that Willson Contreras is on the IL, but the bigger thing is that the roster isn’t very good. There’s a long way to go. And if the idea is not to spend in free agency until the team is close to contention (I don’t think that’s the actual idea, but it’s been communicated that way a few times), we’re going to spend this offseason waiting.
News:
- Wade Miley starts tonight, returning from the IL as Contreras goes on it with that ankle injury. Also coming off the 60-day IL is Michael Hermosillo, who’ll be available off the bench. Hayden Wesneski, the acquisition in the Scott Effross trade, is coming up as well. To make space, Justin Steele’s going on the IL with his back issue, and Luke Farrell, Kervin Castro, and Nicholas Padilla have all been designated for assignment.
- Ok I guess that was the only significant news. There are multiple Cubs minor league teams in their respective playoffs (which is a great sign), but those don’t start for a week.
Bakhtiari Should Play
Rob Demovsky reports that David Bakhtiari is going to play on Sunday against the Vikings, but that Elgton Jenkins’s status is still up in the air. I don’t think we get an official injury report until tomorrow, but they’ll be two names to watch, alongside Allen Lazard, who unexpectedly evidently wasn’t fully practicing the other day.
In transaction news, Ramiz Ahmed is indeed on the practice squad. No unexpected losses there.
Harrell to Philly
Montrezl Harrell, legal charges diminished, has signed with the 76ers, deepening the bench behind Joel Embiid and further shaping what hopes to be a championship team, but is still a long way behind Boston/Brooklyn/Milwaukee in futures markets, and that’s just in the East.
F1: Something Interesting
Well, Sunday went exactly as expected, with Max Verstappen winning his home game, but there was at least some strategic interest when Mercedes pulled George Russell in for a pit stop, trying to put him in a position to potentially win but in the process leaving Lewis Hamilton out there as a sitting duck. It was a weird decision, and it didn’t sound like Toto Wolff really understood the decision he was making (based on him saying they had to pit one of the two drivers, which they did not). But if the decision was made with some degree of consciousness, it was a decision that showed prioritization of Russell over Hamilton, and that’s intriguing on two levels.
First, there’s the real world level. Does Mercedes prefer Russell to Hamilton? Is Hamilton’s time done? Is that because they think Hamilton isn’t good enough anymore, or is it because they think they won’t be good soon enough for Hamilton to compete under their banner?
Second, there’s the psychological side of this. In F1, it makes a lot of sense to have a clear second fiddle. A sidekick. But it isn’t explicitly set up that way, and the emotional side of that dynamic might be the best thing about F1. We saw Ferrari try to thread this needle with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at Silverstone. We’ve seen Red Bull decline to leave any doubt with Verstappen and Pérez all year. Now, we’re seeing Mercedes address it differently than we’d have ever expected them to handle such a thing in 2022.
On the NASCAR side, the Southern 500 was an endurance race, true to form. It was a 500-mile race on a challenging racetrack, and it looked that way, with some cars failing to hold up and some drivers managing to battle back after early calamities. Erik Jones winning it was impressive, and a testament to all three of 1) Jones as a driver, 2) Petty GMS’s progress with GMS added, and 3) NASCAR’s ability with this new car to challenge the old powers in new ways. With a non-playoff driver winning, no one is locked into the second round of the playoffs, and with it being such a challenging race overall, no one is even close to a spot of needing a win in these next two weeks to advance.
Finally, IndyCar: Scott McLaughlin did everything just about perfectly, and so did Penske with him, and now we’ve got him and Marcus Ericsson mathematically alive for next week but the real competition going down between Will Power, Josef Newgarden, and Scott Dixon, three of the sport’s biggest drivers in the current era. There aren’t that many IndyCar fans, but for those there are, this weekend should be a blast.
Model Update
The college football model’s getting closer. We’ve mostly built out the rating system we’re using to simulate the games themselves (there is, unfortunately, no KenPom equivalent in college football), and once we finish that we just need to build the simulator and run the thing, but there is no ETA. We haven’t done this enough to know exactly how long everything will take, and there are too many external factors to know how much time we’ll be able to give it. One day, hopefully, we will be an established enterprise who knows such things. Right now, we try to plan but we mostly take it day by day. I guess that’s how it goes when you start something entirely new, even if you’re five years into that something.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics (Yankees/Twins has been postponed):
- 6:35 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Pittsburgh, Walker vs. Keller (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Boston @ Tampa Bay, Hill vs. Chargois (MLB TV)
- 6:45 PM EDT: Miami @ Philadelphia, Luzardo vs. Nola (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Toronto @ Baltimore, White vs. Bradish (MLB TV)
- 7:40 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ Cubs, Dunn vs. Miley (MLB TV)
- 7:45 PM EDT: Washington @ St. Louis, Espino vs. Quintana (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Cleveland @ Kansas City, Bieber vs. Bubic (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Texas @ Houston, Otto vs. Valdez (MLB TV)
- 8:40 PM EDT: Milwaukee @ Colorado, Woodruff vs. Kuhl (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Arizona @ San Diego, Kelly vs. Musgrove (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Atlanta @ Oakland, Wright vs. Irvin (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Seattle, Cueto vs. Gilbert (MLB TV)
- 10:10 PM EDT: San Francisco @ Los Angeles, Brebbia vs. Anderson (MLB TV)
