We're now a half-decade into the College Football Playoff era, and the initial returns are decidedly mixed. The uproar over location this year combined with another dip in semifinal ratings, culminating in a reportedly record-low title game viewership. The sample size remains relatively small, but don't think it's not enough to cause overreactions — including…
Levi's Stadium sucks. Were Gavin Belson to own an NFL franchise, Levi's Stadium is the monument to his ego he would have constructed: Luxury amenities for Silicon Valley executives; plopped in the middle of Hooli's office park, easily accessible only for developers walking from work; and awful in every other way, including as a football…
I wasn't trolling this spring when I wrote the College Football Playoff sorta sucks. Now, I really don't like to go into the first full Saturday of the season's Four Downs on a pessimistic note, but Week 1 offered plenty of reminder that the Playoff looms over everything with a Dracula-like presence, threatening to suck…
The NCAA announcing a RIP to the RPI for the men's basketball tournament committee came just days before the college football season starts. The replacement - NCAA Evaluation Tool or NET - may or may not be an improvement in helping the committee select and seed the bracket. Year Five of the College Football Playoff…
Wedding anniversaries are broken down with titles that also hint at gift suggestions. One year, paper; five years, wood; 10 years, tin or aluminum (off-hand comment: that's kinda cheap, no?); 15th, crystal; 20th, china. Sports anniversaries rarely receive a moniker unless its silver (25 years) or golden (50). The consistency is that the celebration of…
The Open Man countdowns to the 2018 college football season with 129 — in honor of the 129 programs participating in the Football Bowl Subdivision this year — things we love (and some we hate) about the sport. Click the 129 Things tag to see every entry. The College Football Playoff sucks. OK, that's not entirely true;…
Disappointment resonated in the tone with which Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton spoke to the small gathering of reporters around him outside of the Seminoles locker room in Los Angeles' Staples Center. His team came one game, four points, shy of reaching college basketball's Promised Land, the Final Four. And yet, despite the disappointment,…
UCF’s Peach Bowl defeat of Auburn capped the only perfect season in the FBS in 2017, punctuated the sheer stupidity of the Knights ending the regular season at No. 12. After not factoring into the College Football Playoff conversation whatsoever, UCF scored a win in some ways identical to the seminal Sugar Bowl that helped…
LOS ANGELES -- A single play does not shape a 12-win college football regular season on its own. Georgia wide receiver Terry Godwin is the first to stress that point. "It's just another play in a game," Godwin said of the catch. Now, if you know anything about the No. 3 Bulldogs' run to the Rose…
SANTA CLARA -- USC entered into its Pac-12 Championship Game matchup with No. 12 Stanford ranked 10th. Forget the College Football Playoff, a gridiron version of the Final Four -- sitting at No. 10 wouldn't land the Trojans in an Elite Eight. But after a 31-28 win to claim the program's first conference title since…
For the past five weeks or so -- essentially since Washington State beat USC, TCU topped Oklahoma State and Iowa State stunned Oklahoma -- the the Pac-12 and Big 12 appeared the Power Five conferences most likely headed for College Football Playoff exclusion. And, indeed, the path for a representative from either conference remains treacherous,…
Predicting or projecting the College Football Playoff final four with half the season played is a fool’s errand. And there are plenty of fools – apologies, fellow scribes – willing to run that errand. The carnage from this weekend is evidence enough that college football is our favorite sweetheart because she is so damn unpredictable.…
When the College Football Playoff announced plans to hold national semifinals on New Year's Eve, Bill Hancock promised to create "a new paradigm" for the holiday. A plummet in television ratings in Year 2 of the Playoff, and the first with New Year's Eve semis, forced the committee to immediately shift back. The Game Ball…
I am not pleased with the College Football Playoff, though not for the reasons bounced around the echo chamber for the last few weeks. Yes, the Playoff's second installment featured some abysmal semifinals, but that's not my concern. Neither is a dip in TV ratings. These are simply root causes of a more troubling element…
Plenty of outlets are peddling a College Football Playoff championship preview, but only CFB Huddle can offer you a cold sixer to go along with your national title breakdown. The Saturday 6-Pack goes out in a blaze of Playoff glory before officially goes dormant until next September. Sad times here at CFB Huddle HQ. But…
