NCAA Football 2024-2025

[grumbler]

This is probably too "insider" for most here, but I found this discussion between Joel Klatt (the head Fox Sports NCAA Football analyst) and the VP of sports programming at Fox interesting, because of the way the new Big Ten TV contracts worth (instead of signing on with a network, like the other conferences, they divvied up the schedule and had the networks bid for what amounted to draft positions).  Fox bought the first three picks, and picked The Game (duh) and Texas at Michigan (again, duh), but traded away OSU at PSU.  Some interesting scheming, especially as these commitments were being made while teams were still reshaping themselves via the portal.

They seemed to have finagled Nov 10th anyway, and will get to choose between OSU-PSU and Oregon at Michigan.  I'm guessing that the way the season goes for those four teams will determine which game they pick.

Lucky Michigan gets to play not just OSU and PSU as usual (both likely top5 to top 10 teams), but also Oregon, USC, and Washington from the Pac add-ons, and Texas in the non-conference.  That's half the schedule against likely top-10 teams.  Thank god the defense is going to be lights-out.

[grumbler]

Valmy should be happy about the relative performance of Michigan and Texas in week 1.  I can only hope that Michigan was  playing a better team than analysts predicted.  If not, then next week could be a bloodbath.

[PDH]

Wyoming's season started off as predicted - the trip to ASU was not pretty but it is the way Wyoming gets to pay for football now.

[Valmy]

Valmy should be happy about the relative performance of Michigan and Texas in week 1.  I can only hope that Michigan was  playing a better team than analysts predicted.  If not, then next week could be a bloodbath.

Obviously I am more confident than if Michigan had run over Fresno State 50-0 or something. But I am not going to do a week 1 overreaction either. Texas struggled to get it going against Rice last year and then played its best game against Alabama. Texas lost its powerful interior DL after last year so it will be interesting to see if they can stop Michigan on the ground and prevent them from controlling the clock. Likewise the Michigan defense is stout.

I think it will be a tough game.