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Ranking$ $hake Up in Rivalry Week. Who i$ in?

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1. South Florida 10-2 (Covered all november games. quality non cover vs Navy is something that is helping them.)

2. Southern Miss 10-2 (They will look back at the non-cover vs UTEP at home as the one that got away)

3. Oklahoma 9-3 (5-0 ATS record in true road games is something committee love)

4. Ohio 8-4 (HUGE late season cover against #12 Northern Illinois)

5. Temple 9-3 (Not covering against super bad UCF earlier in season is what kept this from being a special season)

6. UVA 8-3-1(6 straight covers. Didn’t cover vs FCS team tho early…See Syracuse too)

7. Toledo 8-2-1 (When you are this good ATS it is no shock that your coach leaves for a better job)

8. Florida State 8-4 (5 straight covers and 6 of last 7)

Continue reading Ranking$ $hake Up in Rivalry Week. Who i$ in? →

Bowl Projections, College Football, Uncategorized

College Football Playoff Poll – Week 12

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North Carolina climbed from 23rd to 17th in the College Football Playoff poll on Tuesday night, and as we’ve come to expect each week, the committee’s comical explanation of the rankings clouds the reality that they pretty much have teams slotted appropriately. We projected the Tar Heels at 17th through a simple counting exercise of teams who should have dropped this week to allow UNC to move up. That’s going to be the only movement the Heels will see in a polls until a potential opportunity to beat #1 Clemson in the ACC Championship Game, and even then, UNC will climb no higher than the 5th spot, with the 7th spot being more of a realistic ceiling.

To understand the rankings, it’s important to understand what they determine. Teams ranked 1st through 4th will play in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl as the national semifinals. The Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl will host a combination of conference champions (or their replacements, if a conference champion makes the playoff), the highest ranked Group of 5 team, and three at-large teams pulled from the top of the polls. With the Orange Bowl being a playoff site this year, the ACC will not have a guaranteed spot for their next highest ranked team should the Champion make the playoff.

But here’s the catch … the bowls are very much involved in the rankings process. The playoff itself is a competition between the four most deserving teams while the rest of the poll turns into “okay, who do you want playing in your bowl?” If you’re looking for a justification of two-loss Florida State to be ranked ahead of North Carolina, that’s it. The committee will go into a convoluted lossplanation of the Georgia Tech game as a fluke for the Noles because of that crazy play, but when the doors are closed, Florida State is simply a more attractive bowl guest than North Carolina, and so are Baylor, Stanford, Michigan, Utah and LSU, for that matter. And that’s the end of that discussion, unfortunately.

Bowl Outlook

North Carolina

There are only three outcomes for UNC at this point, and all are pretty cut and dried:

Peach Bowl, if they win the ACC. Russell Athletic Bowl, if they don’t win the ACC. A Pool 1 Bowl (probably Belk) if they end the year 0-2 or 1-3 and FSU loses to Florida.

Duke

Duke is in a group of five teams fighting for three spots. To get to a Pool 1 Bowl, which would either be a spot in the Pinstripe Bowl or the Belk Bowl, the Blue Devils need to edge out two of Louisville, NC State, Miami, or Virginia Tech. Wins against Virginia and Wake Forest would likely get that done as the other four schools have much more difficult challenges over the final two weeks. Of course, Duke is facing its own internal challenges right now with an injured quarterback, a starting wide receiver kicked off of the team, and a three-game losing streak where the Devils haven’t shown much spark. A loss to Virginia on Saturday would likely wrap up a trip to Shreveport against an SEC team, or to Annapolis to play a team from the American Athletic Conference.

NC State

It certainly feels like the Wolfpack controls their own destiny as well. They’ll be a heavy underdog in the North Carolina game, but a matchup against Syracuse seems a lot easier than Louisville and Miami both having two losable games remaining on the schedule. NC State has similar challenges … a dismissed starter, a thin corps of wide receivers, and some personal demons from letting a few teams off of the hook when they had chances to win. Still, an 8-4 NC State team is not getting left out of a Pool 1 bowl, but just to be safe, maybe hope against the potential of a 7-4 Hokies team jumping into the picture. Both Duke and NC State have to find some obvious separation from Miami and Louisville because both would lose a prestige battle in a pool where bowls get to select who they want. NC State holds that tie-breaker over this year’s Duke team, but would hands down fall well behind Virginia Tech in Frank Beamer’s final year.

Predictions:

UNC – Russell Athletic Bowl

Duke – Pinstripe Bowl

NC State – Military Bowl

 

 

 

 

College Football

UNC Football Eyes New Years Six Eligibility

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A week ago, we took a look at the one-loss and two-loss teams in college football and felt like UNC would be a lock for the top 12. Unfortunately, the College Football Playoff committee completely ignored nearly every important factor in ranking the Tar Heels and left them at 23rd, doomed to spend the next four weeks completely hopeless of moving into the money zone for a potential at-large bid to a New Years Six bowl game. Then Saturday happened, completely flipping college football upside down and making room for Carolina to move towards the spot they should have been ranked last week.

Undefeated Teams

College football is now down to five undefeated teams, four of which will absolutely be ranked ahead of North Carolina tomorrow night. Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma State are name-brand programs with perfect records, and Iowa sat at number five last week. Houston is the wild card after a win against 21st ranked Memphis, likely allowing them to leap-frog North Carolina in the polls.

One-Loss Teams

There are now 10 one-loss teams, including North Carolina, after the fallout from this weekend’s action. Alabama, Notre Dame, Florida, Oklahoma, Michigan State, and TCU will, and should, be ranked ahead of the Tar Heels. That leaves the following:

Toledo: unranked

Navy: 20th

Baylor: 6th

UNC: 23rd

The biggest question here is how far Baylor will fall after losing to Oklahoma. If the committee is consistent, they’ll reward a good loss by not dropping the Bears behind teams that did not earn their way up in the pecking order. Obviously, consistency is asking a lot from the committee, so who knows?

Two-Loss Teams Who Matter

There are 12 two-loss teams, and three of them were ranked ahead of North Carolina last week: Michigan, Florida State, and Northwestern, all three with ugly wins on Saturday. Utah, Stanford, LSU and Temple were all ranked head of North Carolina last week as one-loss teams, and should plummet this week.

Ranking Outlook

Just like last week, a simple count puts North Carolina in the range of 12 to 14. Factoring in the criteria likely used to justify last week’s ranking, expect the Heels to fall somewhere between 15th and 17th. With only the top 12 being eligible for an at-large bid, it still seems that UNC will need five or six more teams to drop a game in the next few weeks to move into that range of eligibility.

Bowl Projections, College Football

College Football Playoff Poll – What it Means

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The 2nd edition of the College Football Playoff poll was released last night with disappointing results for the UNC Tar Heels. Coming off of their most impressive win of the season, the committee slotted the Heels at #23, ahead of undefeated Houston and two-loss Wisconsin. The biggest concern for UNC is the committee’s rating of the teams ahead of them … one-loss Temple, one-loss Memphis, and one-loss Navy. There are five two-loss teams ahead of North Carolina, including Northwestern, Mississippi State, and most concerning, two-loss Florida State.

The Message

The SEC Factor:

Not only is North Carolina’s loss to South Carolina in the first football game of the entire 2015 season bad, it’s impossible to overcome. Why? Because a team’s performance against the SEC in non-conference play is a significant litmus test for playoff ranking.

Oklahoma – win against Tennessee

Memphis – win against Ole Miss

UNC – loss to South Carolina

The Name Brand Factor:

There’s no other explanation for Florida State to be ranked ahead of North Carolina than the name-brand factor. With wins versus Texas State, Southern Florida, Boston College, Wake Forest, Miami, Louisville and Syracuse, there’s not a single impressive win on the resume. The committee does show a tendency to reward good losses, like the Noles’ loss to Clemson, but does anyone believe North Carolina would jump Florida State after a potential loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game? Certainly not if Florida State beats Florida, which would give them the edge in the SEC factor as well.

Lossplaining

College Football Committee chair Jeff Long on 7th ranked Stanford’s loss to Northwestern: “Yeah, I think it is a significant thing. Now, every committee member would weigh that differently, but I think it is worth noting that they play at 9AM Pacific Time. Weather certainly plays a factor. When games start, certainly. I think we would not be doing our due diligence if we didn’t recognize that a team was playing at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, and I recall last year we had a game, I believe UCLA traveled to Virginia. So we look at those things. They’re a factor. How big of a factor? I can’t quantify that for you, but I know it was discussed by the committee members and probably should have been.”

I can assure you that the committee also discussed how Florida State probably wins in overtime if Georgia Tech doesn’t block the kick and return it for a touchdown. I’m guessing it was not discussed that UNC probably beats South Carolina if Larry Fedora doesn’t take the ball out of his best running back’s hands in Week 1. Or that UNC also plays most of their games at 9AM Pacific.

The Outlook

The dream of finishing in the top 12 is probably dead, barring an upset of Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. There’s certainly an opportunity to move into the top 20 as Temple and Memphis play each other, and Temple still has to play Houston. The bottom of the poll will work itself out, but the bottom of the poll is irrelevant beyond the “Group of 5” teams who are all competing for the top spot in the rankings among that pool of teams. The committee simply doesn’t rate North Carolina, and as we saw last week, that could also play itself out in the AP Poll who may drop North Carolina just to align with the committee’s evaluation. Two games against FCS teams and a loss in the most high-profile game in the season is just too much to overcome at this point in the year.

Adjusted Big Four Bowl Projections

UNC: TaxSlayer

Duke: Belk

NC State: Military Bowl

College Football

Where Should UNC be Ranked?

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SportsChannel8 was the first to call Clemson the best team in the country, so we’re firing up the hype machine once again to be the first on the #UNC4CFP bandwagon. Let’s look at the criteria generally used for selection into the top four teams picked to compete for the national championship:

  1. Play in a power conference – check
  2. Have an explosive offense or a dominant defense – check
  3. Have a serviceable offense or defense good enough not to negate step 2 – check
  4. Be undefeated or have your only loss being to an SEC school – check
  5. Be in the SEC – DAMN IT

The Tar Heels are golden until the 5th and final criteria, so the biggest focus for UNC is to look to try to crack the top 6, which would guarantee a berth in the New Years Six bowls, or at least get into the top 12 which would make them eligible for an at-large bid (the ACC is not guaranteed a NY6 spot outside of the conference champion as the Orange Bowl is a playoff site this season).

Undefeated Teams:

Clemson, Baylor, Houston, OK State, Ohio State, and Iowa.

UNC will play Clemson in the ACC Championship Game – barring a situation where Miami wins the head-to-head tie breaker with the Heels, and NC State wins the end-of-season rivalry game putting the Hurricanes into the championship game by virtue of the touchdown that shouldn’t have counted against Duke that amused so many Tar Heel fans when it happened. That possibility being out there is completely terrifying, but moving on …

Iowa and Ohio State will likely play in the Big Ten Championship Game which would give an opportunity to move above one of the undefeated teams down the road, but not now. Each of these teams will be ranked ahead of UNC, except for Houston who we predict the Heels will pass.

One-Loss Teams:

Utah, Oklahoma, TCU, North Carolina, Temple, Notre Dame, Florida, Stanford, Michigan State, Alabama, and Memphis.

Utah, Stanford, Notre Dame, Florida, and Alabama will all be ranked ahead of UNC this week. TCU and Michigan State should and will move down for losing this weekend. Memphis will disappear completely after losing to Navy. That leaves Temple and Oklahoma as UNC’s main competition for this one-loss tier.

UNC: Loss vs. South Carolina in Week 1, best win 66-31 vs. 6-3 Duke

Oklahoma: Loss vs. Texas in Week 5, best win 31-24 vs. 5-4 Tennessee

Temple: Loss vs. Notre Dame in Week 9, best win 27-10 vs. 7-3 Penn State

Added note – UNC has the benefit of playing in a better conference, and a 2nd quality win vs. Pitt. Temple was ranked 21st in the CFP Poll last week.

Two-Loss Teams (who sort of matter):

Wisconsin, Michigan, Northwestern, App State, Florida State, Mississippi State

Not seeing anything here better than what UNC has put together so far. 6-2 Michigan was 17th in the CFP Poll last week, Mississippi State was 20th.

Expected Rankings

Five of the six undefeated teams, and five of the 11 one-loss teams will without a doubt be ranked ahead of UNC on Tuesday. The Tar Heels should expect to be no lower than 13th in the CFP poll this week. What does this mean for North Carolina’s post-season hopes? We discuss here.