2025 NCAA Football Thread

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Is former Utah coach Kyle Wittingham a realistic option in your mind? I like him a lot, but left him off of my list because I assumed at 66 years old he was done with coaching and truly retired when he left Utah. 

[MichiganCardinal]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Is former Utah coach Kyle Wittingham a realistic option in your mind? I like him a lot, but left him off of my list because I assumed at 66 years old he was done with coaching and truly retired when he left Utah. 

I think he took a gig in the Utah athletic department or administration.

[buddha]

37 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Is former Utah coach Kyle Wittingham a realistic option in your mind? I like him a lot, but left him off of my list because I assumed at 66 years old he was done with coaching and truly retired when he left Utah. 

no.

[buddha]

49 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

They never should have done what they did with the conferences. These aren’t even conferences in the traditional sense of the word. They’re just scheduling agreements. 

Back in my day *shakes fist at cloud* conferences were like-minded schools who shared academic and athletic values. Now they’re just about maximizing television revenues 9 days per year.

They could have just left conferences as they were but removed all scheduling barriers in football. Let everyone be as special as Notre Dame thinks they are. We’d get to the same endpoint of schools making lots of money, a 12+ team playoff, and someone (probably Notre Dame) being upset.

oregon, washington, usc, and ucla are all like minded academic schools with the rest of the big ten.  so are maryland and rutgers.

the two schools that arent are possibly usc and northwestern because they are private schools.  but all of the schools are flagship institutions in their states academically and mostly large state schools.

the real question is - of course - geography.

but times change.  its not 1965 anymore.  once you made it all about money for the schools and then for the players, it became a whole different world.  in that world, large conferences make sense.

[MichiganCardinal]

2 minutes ago, buddha said:

oregon, washington, usc, and ucla are all like minded academic schools with the rest of the big ten.  so are maryland and rutgers.

the two schools that arent are possibly usc and northwestern because they are private schools.  but all of the schools are flagship institutions in their states academically and mostly large state schools.

the real question is - of course - geography.

but times change.  its not 1965 anymore.  once you made it all about money for the schools and then for the players, it became a whole different world.  in that world, large conferences make sense.

I agree. To their credit, it’s not like the Big Ten has added a school that is well outside their academic mold. But I guess how much does that matter?

I think the historical component plays a large role in my mind too. As recently as 20 years ago, the Michigan-Ohio State and Michigan-Michigan State rivalries were almost ironic within departments where faculty had attended or done fellowships at both schools, or were invested in a research project that had components at both schools. That’s not the case between Michigan and UCLA, or Penn State and Oregon. Could it be the case in 20, 30, 50 years? Maybe. But I think conferences are now just synonymous with sports, and particularly football, in a way that probably isn’t good for the original role these conferences played.

[buddha]

8 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

I agree. To their credit, it’s not like the Big Ten has added a school that is well outside their academic mold. But I guess how much does that matter?

I think the historical component plays a large role in my mind too. As recently as 20 years ago, the Michigan-Ohio State and Michigan-Michigan State rivalries were almost ironic within departments where faculty had attended or done fellowships at both schools, or were invested in a research project that had components at both schools. That’s not the case between Michigan and UCLA, or Penn State and Oregon. Could it be the case in 20, 30, 50 years? Maybe. But I think conferences are now just synonymous with sports, and particularly football, in a way that probably isn’t good for the original role these conferences played.

the big ten should be excited about adding ucla, usc, and washington to the conference.  those are some of the best academic schools in the country.

oregon?  well....nebraska says hi.

[Screwball]

Maybe they should learn to count. 🙂

[gehringer_2]

what you are talking about is the AAU - not amatuer athletics but the American Association of Universities. Traditionally, the B10 and P10 were AAU schools that played major college football. AAU member schools was a main dividing line between the P10 and B10 and the other D1 football conferences. The screw up was that Nebraska, which had long been in the AAU though not in the B10 or P10, got bounced from the AAU in 2011 *after* they had been invited to the B10, leaving some folks with egg on their faces. AFAIK Nebraska still hasn't gotten back in but supposedly is working on it.

Edited 10 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Deleterious]

It's basketball, but still interesting.

 

[Tigeraholic1]

The playoffs have ruined bowl games outside of playoffs. Nobody watches and star players sit out. 

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

The playoffs have ruined bowl games outside of playoffs. Nobody watches and star players sit out. 

It's counterintuitive, but the arguments and lack of resolution in the old system may have produced frustration but it also drove interest.  By comparison, the playoff is rigorous but boring except at the very end. The problem in the old system was that there still it had gotten to where there were too many bowl games no-one wanted to see, which is still true people want to see them even less.