There are some obvious things of course, like Ohio State has a good offense. The top teams are mostly the same as preseason polls had them except for Tennessee. Teams in the preseaon top ten that have dropped hard include Notre Dame, A&M, Oklahoma, and Baylor. The second ten had some drop hard as well, Miami, Pitt, Wisconsin, Arkansas.
So, about 40% of the preseason top 20 at this point don't look very good at all. LSU will get some notice now. Clemson won't play another ranked team in the regular season now. So, the playoffs may be shaping up?
Clemson
Ohio State - Michigan winner
Alabama - UGA - Tenn winner
TCU??? One of the above? Oregon?
I think I've learned that Marcus Freeman might be in over his head at Notre Dame- for a really young guy who has never been a head coach and barely a co-ordinator to take over a job like that- tough thing to do, that Jimbo continues to outright FLEECE A&M for $100 mil, and that Oklahoma might've hired the wrong guy.
I kinda knew that Miami, Pitt, and Arkansas would all stink and are pretenders. Miami at this point should just close down the football program. They ain't ever coming back and are straight up an embarrassment. Not that they were ever going to be good, but Arkansas is kinda screwed with Oklahoma and Texas coming into the SEC. They might never be good again. There are only so many players to go around- and they'll all be going to UGA/UF/OU/TX/Bama/LSU/Ole Miss before they even consider going to Arkansas.
Clemson is a lock to get in bc: ACC is god awful and they've eeked out wins vs some mediocre teams and no one left can get them imo. Who left can maybe beat? MAYBE Notre Dame? Doubtful though.
OSU-Michigan winner is in. One not both, is getting in. So you've got two of the 4 slots locked in- OSU/MICH and Clemson.
SEC has a really good shot at getting two teams in. BAMA wins out they are in- and then one of UGA/Tenn could backdoor in.
B12/P12 going to fight over the last slot. I'll say this if USC runs the table and is 11-1 and gets into the PAC CCG and wins and is a 12-1 PAC champion with their only loss being by 1 point @Utah - pressure is going to mount to include them. Media loves them some USC, Lincoln Riley, and Caleb Williams. Even if I happen to think the latter two are seriously overrated. Riley is an insanely awesome OC, but he doesn't care about defense at all. Caleb Williams is pretty damn good- but he's not otherworldly good. That system makes QBs look better than they actually are. Think we're seeing that play out with how god awful Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray are in the NFL- and while Jalen Hurts is doing pretty well with the Eagles he's far more game manager than he is bus driver. He's just not screwing things up- which is all that team needs right now bc it's loaded everywhere.
