This is a guest post by Roger Denning of San Diego, CA Great stuff, including some links you will want to hang on to to use later.
Stop what you’re doing. Sit back, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Do you feel that? There’s something different in the air today. An electricity, an excitement, an energy that has been missing since the early days of January. It’s been so long, you almost forgot what it felt like, didn’t you. But it’s there now. I feel it, and I know you feel it, too. It’s a feeling of anticipation, of exuberance, of joy. It’s the feeling of green grass, crowds cheering and a crispness in the air. It’s the feeling of the greatest time of the year. It’s college football season!
It’s the season of marching bands, cheerleaders and cannon crews.
It’s the season of Madison, Corvallis and Morgantown.
It’s the season of Chris, Kirk, Lee and Desmond.
It’s the season of Reveille, Smokey and Dubs. Uga, Bully, Handsome Dan and Blue. Sir Big Spur, War Eagle and the Air Force Falcon. Bevo, Ralphie and Tusk. Rameses, CAM and Bill the Goat. TOM, Mike and Leo & Una. Boomer & Sooner and Stryker & Ranger. Traveler, Peruna and Renegade.
It’s the season of visors, sweater vests and houndstooth hats.
It’s the season of Hail to the Victors, the Victory March and Fight On.
It’s the season of the Old Oaken Bucket, Paul Bunyan's Axe and the Little Brown Jug.
It’s the season of Camp Randall, Death Valley and the Swamp.
It’s the season of Sparky and Sparty. Albert, Alberta and Big Al. Bucky Badger, Goldy Gopher and Brutus Buckeye. Big Red, Lil Red and Otto the Orange. Sebastian and Puddles. Pistol Pete, Paydirt Pete and Purdue Pete. The Mountaineer and the Tree.
It’s the season of redshirt freshmen, homecoming queens and Senior Day.
It’s the season of the Ramblin’ Wreck, the Sooner Schooner and the Volunteer Navy.
It’s the greatest season of the year, and it all starts today.
There are well more than 50 televised college football games this weekend alone. That’s awesome, but it can also be overwhelming. You need to treat this weekend like an all-you-can-eat buffet: Plan your attack. If you just dive in, you’ll end up filling up on starches (i.e., Jacksonville State and Louisiana Monroe) and you won’t have any room left for steak and crab legs (i.e., Wisconsin and Florida State). I know you’re busy, so I’ve taken the liberty of planning your weekend for you. Here’s your TV schedule at a glance, with the “can’t miss” games in red:
· Thursday, August 28:
o 3pm PT Texas A&M at South Carolina (SEC Network)
o 5pm PT Boise St. vs. Ole Miss (ESPN)
o 7pm PT Rutgers at Washington St. (FS1)
· Friday, August 29:
o 4pm PT BYU at UConn (ESPN)
o 6pm PT UTSA at Houston (ESPNU)
o 9:30pm PT Get some sleep; you’ve got an early morning
· Saturday, August 30:
o 5:30am PT Penn St. v. UCF (ESPN2)
o 9am PT UCLA at Virginia (ESPN)
o 12:30pm PT Alabama vs. West Virginia (ABC)
o 1pm PT Arkansas at Auburn (SEC Network)
o 2:30pm PT Clemson at Georgia (ESPN)
o 5pm PT Florida St. vs. Oklahoma St. (ABC)
o 6pm PT LSU v. Wisconsin (ESPN)
o 7:30pm PT Washington at Hawaii (CBS Sports Network)
· Sunday, August 31:
o 4:30pm PT SMU at Baylor (Fox Sports 1)
· Monday, September 1:
o 5pm PT Miami at Louisville (ESPN)
Here is your 2014 College Football Toolbox:
o It’s great that there are so many networks broadcasting college football games these days, but you have to be careful. If you don’t know better, you could end up watching Boise St at New Mexico while Alabama at LSU is on the other channel. I don’t know why, but for many years, the lsufootball.net site has had the most comprehensive listing of televised college games. They even include links to websites where you can watch games that aren’t being televised. It’s a critical resource; consult it frequently.
· Everything you need to know about the playoff.
o This season marks the beginning of the four-team playoff, selected and ranked by a committee, to determine the national champion. But that doesn’t mean the NCAA is doing away with the old BCS bowl system. Instead, they are trying to merge them in a new system with 7 games. Tuesday’s San Jose Mercury News had a decent explanation of the new system:
§ Six bowls are involved in the rotation. This season, the Rose and Sugar will host the semifinals. Next season, the Cotton and Orange get their shot, then the Fiesta and Peach. In 2017, the rotation starts over.
§ The championship game, played on a Monday -- this year, it's Jan. 12 at Cowboys Stadium -- is not part of the rotation. It's a separate entity with a bid process all its own.
§ The rotation bowls that aren't involved in the semifinals in a given year will host major matchups on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, combining with the semifinals to form back-to-back triple-headers.
§ The selection committee will create the pairings not only for the semifinals (based on its final rankings) but also the other four rotation bowls, with an emphasis on competitive matchups and the geography.
§ The major conferences will continue to send their champions to contracted bowls if that team isn't involved in the playoffs: the Big Ten and Pac-12 champs to the Rose; the Big 12 and SEC champs to the Sugar; and the ACC champ (and Notre Dame, the Big 10 and the SEC) to the Orange.
§ The highest ranked Group of Five champion (American, Mountain West, C-USA, MAC and Sun Belt) is also guaranteed a birth in one of the big bowls.
§ When a contracted bowl is hosting a semifinal, the league champ will be sent to one of the four other major bowls (unless it's involved in the playoff).
o Beware, you could spend a lot of time playing with all the cool data at this website.
o SOS: You can tell at a glance from the cool chart on the home page that Auburn has the toughest schedule, but then see what happens when you sort by rank or sort by conference. I’ve already spent way too much time at this site. (Thanks to Tom Melsheimer for showing it to me. Is it a coincidence that they rank Notre Dame’s SOS very high?)
o FEI: FEI stands for Fremeau Efficiency Index, and it measures the efficiency of every offense in college football, based on starting field position and the outcome of non-garbage drives, adjusted to account for opponents. I think pre-season rankings are silly and a waste of time, because nobody has any idea of the chemistry, drive, and other intangibles that a team might have until mid-season at the earliest. These guys do pre-season rankings one better; they actually have projected FEI scores for all 128 teams in FBS. New Mexico State fans, you might as well give up now. The Aggies have a projected FEI of -0.291.
o Using FEI, they also determine a team’s likelihood of winning each week. This week, the best game would seem to be Boise St. at Ole Miss, as Boise has a 50.1% chance of winning. No need to watch Michigan host Appalachian State, though, as the Wolverines have a 98.5% chance of winning. (Wait, I seem to recall….)
· Cartography:
o Have you ever wondered where all the FBS colleges are located on a map? Wonder no more: http://nocoastbias.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CollegeMap.gif
· Great read:
o Here’s a great, lengthy excerpt from Bill Connelly’s book, “Study Hall: College Football, Its Stats, Its Stories”: http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/8/27/4652132/why-we-love-college-football
· Armchair referee
o The NCAA is adopting the Tom Brady rule this year, meaning that it is now roughing the passer to hit a quarterback at the knees or below while in a passing posture. This seems to me to be the only new rule of much consequence.
o You can download a pdf of all of the official rules for college football at this link: http://www.ncaapublications.com/p-4309-2013-and-2014-ncaa-football-rules-and-interpretations.aspx
o Quick, what’s the officiating signal for sideline interference? You don’t know? Then you need to print this chart of officiating signals and put it in your gameday binder. http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/rules/football/2009/fbsignals.pdf
o This website is chocked full of interesting tidbits. Did you know that the NCAA is considering increasing the fees paid to game officials in the national championship game from $450 to $750 next year, while decreasing the fees paid to the instant replay official from $750 to $500? Did you also know that last season’s bowl games generated a profit of $212,159,861. Seems like it might be a good idea to pay the referee more than the average cost of a ticket to the game, don’t you think?
· History and Tradition:
o This site has every helmet every college football team has ever worn: http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/
o Crank up the speakers and go here for all the college fight songs: http://www.fightmusic.com This year, I’ll put in a good word for “Go ‘U’ Northwestern.” Underrated. Great dogfight.
Fight on!
Hans
