I go back and forth on Saturday’s Peach Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl feels so straightforward—maybe I’m a fool, I’m often a fool, but there’s nothing about TCU that points towards them taking Michigan to the wire without a whole lot of shenanigans—whereas the Peach Bowl is more of an unknown. We don’t have a lot of data points this year connecting Ohio State and Georgia. Thanks to their respective wins over Oregon and Notre Dame, we can assume Georgia’s comfortably better than everyone in the SEC and Pac-12 while Ohio State’s better than everyone in the Big Ten and ACC bar Michigan, but there isn’t a ton of crossover between those collections of teams. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if Ohio State pulled off the upset. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if Georgia won by twenty.
That first result is desirable, not because there’s anything compelling about Ohio State (I would call Georgia, by what we know, the more morally upstanding program, given Georgia never employed Urban Meyer and never allegedly assisted Urban Meyer in an alleged coverup of alleged abuse) but because it would mean we’d finally get another good game in the College Football Playoff semifinals.
The thorough lack of competition in the CFP semifinals is, let me opine, hilarious. We’re bombarded again and again with how essential it is to get more teams in the playoffs, but the stratification within even the top four teams is so intense that the semifinals, almost every year, stink. College football is exciting. The College Football Playoff semifinals are not. In sixteen games, only four have been decided by two scores or less. The median margin of victory is 20.5 points. The mean is 21.1. The only two-score game among that bunch was a blowout until Alabama turned its attention towards Clemson after taking a 31-10 lead into the half against Kyler Murray’s Oklahoma back at the end of 2018.
There have been one, two, or three great CFP semifinals. The 2017 season’s Rose Bowl, when Baker Mayfield’s Oklahoma couldn’t hold a 17-point lead and fell to Georgia in double overtime, was a great game. The 2019 season’s Fiesta Bowl, where Justin Fields’s pass to the endzone was intercepted by Clemson’s Nolan Turner with less than a minute left, was a good or great game. The 2014 season’s Sugar Bowl, when Ezekiel Elliott (another point towards Georgia on the upstanding-ness rubric) and Ohio State came back from that early deficit to hold off Alabama, was a good or great game. The other 13? Every one of them has stunk.
So, even if Ohio State does pull off the upset on Saturday, maybe we shouldn’t expect it to be close. At the top of college football, the gaps get really large. We might not know how large, exactly, but they’re big ones.
Coach Cal: ???
Under normal circumstances, Kentucky getting whacked by Mizzou last night in Columbia to open SEC play would not be concerning. Teams lose conference road games all the time, and Mizzou’s tracking towards potentially being a first-round favorite come March. Under these circumstances, though, it’s a bit of a reassessment time for Kentucky. Ranked first in the nation by KenPom entering the year, the Wildcats have now fallen out of the top ten. In games against KenPom top-100 opponents, they’re just 2-4, and the wins have come against the worst two opponents on the list, Michigan and Yale, by an average of seven points. There’s about a 1-in-3 chance right now that Kentucky has yet to beat an NCAA Tournament team, and they’ve played at least three. The team is a disaster.
I do not know what to think about the Cats. They should be so good, Oscar Tshiebwe’s still so good, the ingredients are all there. But the results are not, and there’s tons of season left, but that could mean continued dissolution as much as it could mean a big bounce back. I want to have a take on them, and on John Calipari, but I don’t have it. They’re Arkansas right now. They should be Kansas.
Categories
Speaking of Arkansas and Kansas…
(No, this isn’t about the Liberty Bowl, though wasn’t that fun?)
The other noteworthy college basketball results last night were also in the SEC, where Tennessee edged Mississippi on the road with a big night from Santiago Vescovi, Auburn held off Florida in a frantic final minute on the Plains, Alabama whooped a solid Mississippi State team in Starksville, and LSU beat Arkansas at home. Of the five games, Alabama’s win would command the most attention were Kentucky’s trajectory not what it is. Instead, we’re talking about Kentucky, but—to talk Alabama for a moment—I’m not personally ready to start considering the Tide a national title threat, even as they push past Gonzaga in KenPom. They haven’t shown enough consistently enough over recent years, they haven’t forced our hand like UConn, they’re so young and it’s fair to ask how that will hold up against an SEC gauntlet which might lack a great team but has tons of good ones.
So, our three categories in the national championship picture, with Ohio State slipping past Duke in KenPom and getting themselves to the front lawn:
The Most Believable Teams We’ve Got: UConn, UCLA, Kansas
Each has at least one wart: UConn’s still rather unproven, UCLA’s only 1-2 in its marquee games, Kansas had one loud dud. But these are the three best well-rounded teams, and their flaws are less concerning than those of the group behind them.
Questions: Houston, Tennessee, Texas, Purdue, Arizona, Gonzaga
For all these but Texas, the questions are about one side of the ball. For Houston and Tennessee, it’s the offense, with Houston’s offense specifically under suspicion because of the tendency to completely no-show here and there. For Purdue, Arizona, and Gonzaga, it’s the defense, which is bad for their tournament chances but makes them all a lot of fun.
Good, Not Great: Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, Kentucky, Baylor, Ohio State, Duke
Kentucky’s off the doorstep and onto the lawn. Ohio State’s off the street and onto the lawn.
Of these sixteen, only Purdue plays today and it’s a buy game against Florida A&M. So, nothing to watch from the top sixteen.
The Packers’ Cowboy Interest
There’s a fairly plausible scenario—the one where the Packers and Commanders both win this weekend—where the Packers need the Commanders to lose to the Cowboys next weekend. A lot needs to happen to get there, but there’s a fairly plausible scenario where the Packers have a vested interest in the Cowboys still having something to play for. After last week’s results, the only way Dallas has anything left at stake next Sunday is if they win tonight and the Eagles lose to the Saints. So, Go Cowboys tonight.
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Viewing schedule for the day, second screen rotation in italics:
Bowl Games
- 2:00 PM EST: Pinstripe Bowl – Syracuse vs. Minnesota (ESPN)
- 5:30 PM EST: Cheez-It Bowl – Oklahoma vs. Florida State (ESPN)
- 9:00 PM EST: Alamo Bowl – Texas vs. Washington (ESPN)
College Basketball (sampler platter)
- 6:30 PM EST: Providence @ Butler (FS1)
- 7:00 PM EST: Iowa @ Nebraska (BTN)
- 8:00 PM EST: Florida Atlantic @ North Texas (ESPN+)
- 11:00 PM EST: Colorado @ Stanford (ESPNU)
NFL
- 8:15 PM EST: Dallas @ Tennessee (Prime)
NBA (best game)
- 7:30 PM EST: LA Clippers @ Boston (NBA TV)
NHL (best game)
- 8:00 PM EST: Dallas @ Minnesota (ESPN+)
EFL Championship (best game)
- 2:45 PM EST: Middlesbrough @ Blackburn Rovers
