College football winds down to the final weeks of the 2021 season to determine four teams to compete in the College Football Playoffs. Exciting! However, in College Football Week 11, what do we have to show for this? Alabama versus New Mexico State. Something’s wrong with college football – CFP No. 2 vs. No. 128? On the brink of selecting four teams to play for national championship?
That’s not by accident. That’s by design. Alabama plays the New Mexico Aggies again for the second time in three years (last year because of covid-19, teams the SEC stayed within the conference as did most others). The Tide crushed NMSU in 2019, 62-10. They also play them in Tuscaloosa again. This program has had two winning seasons since 2000. In each year prior to 2019 late in the regular season, The Tide has hosted college football FCS schools like Western Carolina, The Citadel, Mercer (who they played this season already), and Tennessee Chattanooga, each multiple times. Warm-up games for Auburn?
Prudent planning
Since the beginning of the Saban era, the Tide has won these games by a total score of 572-67. So, as we come down to determining the Final Four of College Football, Alabama gets another automatic pass even without a “signature win”. Why don’t they just take a bye week? Maybe a better opportunity could have been found on October 30 when they had a bye, or on September 11 when they played Mercer. Can’t find any real “competition”? Why doesn’t Bama take a lesson from Wake Forest and North Carolina? Last week the two played a non-conference game even though both play in separate divisions of the ACC. Wake got knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten, but they still are undefeated in conference play for the championship.
Why don’t Bama and Georgia come up with an agreement to do the same? Sooner or later, they’ve got to play each other. Georgia plays FCS Charleston Southern next week. Why bother? Are Georgia recruits currently showing interest in CSU going to de-commit from matriculating at Charleston to go to Athens instead? Are Alabama recruits teetering between playing in Las Cruces or in Tuscaloosa next year going to be more clear after this year’s meeting on where they will play? Who are we kidding? These opponents of these two SEC schools can’t entice the same players.
No doubt they’re good, but Bama on a cruise control schedule to get to the CFP once again.
BAMA-UGA rivalry – NOT!
Heck, The Tide and The Dawgs had to play last year during the regular season because of Covid. Bama won, 41-24. In their previous “regular” season game played back in 2015, they also won, 38-10. Before that meeting, in 2008, The Tide rolled, 41-30. Oh, wait though. The two previous times these two met on the field in 2007 and 2003, Georgia prevailed. Is that the issue? So UGA and Bama, neighborly rivals playing in the same conference ( located only 273 miles apart; Las Cruces ~ 1,500 miles) have only met on purpose five times in the last 18 years. Five times? Wonder why? If Bama would arrange a non-conference series against an Eastern division member of the SEC East, bet on them doing it with Vanderbilt.
The Very Smart and the Very dumb
Expect Bama to hold on to second in the CFP after they drub No. 128 New Mexico State (1-8) this weekend. A 20-14 win over struggling 4-5 LSU in Tuscaloosa didn’t cause them to lose any ground either. For “entertaining” team No. 128 this weekend, votes should be deducted just for that. Nick Saban, however, is smart. He knows how dumb voters calculate wins and losses. He’s ahead of “the game” in that respect – CFP No. 2 vs. No. 128? Why even take this game into consideration? Automatic win here. 51.5-point spread. A joke!
FBS expansion
With all the revamping of college football conferences, three new teams have been drawn into the Football Bowl Subdivision to challenge for conference championships for bowl money rather than for lesser playoff money. Collegefootballfan.com will add these once they officially compete at that level to assure that we’ve still “seen ‘em all!” James Madison, who we’ve seen compete twice in the FCS playoffs joins the SunBelt effective July 2023 at the latest. The FCS national champions of 2016 who interrupted eight in a row by North Dakota State will conveniently become a member of the SunBelt for our purposes. We will see them play again at home in Harrisonburg, Virginia, or when they visit Appy State or some other SBC campus in striking distance from us.
The Jacksonville State Gamecocks and Sam Houston State Bearkats will join Conference USA in 2023. Most likely, we will see both play at nearby Western Kentucky or Middle Tennessee. An announcement was made this week that these two programs will remain in CUSA and not realign with the Mid-American. The Gamecocks may become a “local trip” for us, and we’ll find a way to see the Bearkats who won the delayed 2020 FCS National Championship last spring.
The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders will continue their battles between each other and new Conference USA foes as they decided not to join the Mid-American this week as rumored.
CFF.com’s Ancient History
We’ve seen Bearkat HC K.C. Keeler not only coach at Delaware and D-3 Rowan during the course of our history. He actually started at LB for Delaware in our first game when we started this crazy, weekly college football adventure in 1979. In our opener of 627 games so far, UD defeated Rhode Island, 49-14. His HC Harold “Tubby” Raymond (300 wins) got inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The Fighting Blue Hens went on to win the D-2 national championship that year. Head Coach Keeler racked up two FCS championships – one at Delaware and one at Sam Houston. His Rowan Profs fell in the D-3 finale four times. We look forward to see what he can accomplish in the FBS.
First game program from 1979 when Sam Houston HC played LB at Delaware.
Wild Guess on our part
Collegefootballfan.com is a big fan and follower of Naval Academy football. Down these past few years, we hope that they will come around again soon. The membership of the American Athletic Conference they’ve competed in since 2015 will change drastically. Soon to be gone foes are Cincinnati, Central Florida, and Houston who will join the Big Twelve. New teams joining the AAC include Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas State, Rice, Alabama-Birmingham, and UT San Antonio. None of these are traditional programs of college football the Naval Academy has played over the years.
This college football program goal, despite their unique purpose (along with the Military and Air Force Academies) to develop leaders for America’s armed forces, has always been to play at the highest level of college football possible. In other sports, they play in the in the Patriot League against schools of high academic standards such as their own, all located primarily in the northeast. This arrangement has also allowed them to maintain their natural rivalry in all the other sports with Army, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, since it is also a member of the Patriot League.
With no disrespect to the new programs joining the American Athletic conference to play football as some, particularly UTSA, have made some developments to become very competitive recently. One of the primary goals of Naval Academy football has always been to show the country that the Navy wants to represent The Brigade of Midshipman as a major football program throughout the country – similar to what our Navy does around the world displaying our flag on our ships on the high seas and in foreign ports. They display our physical presence globally.
The reforming AAC seems somewhat limited geographically and competitively to allow the Navy to show the country similar intentions. Navy football needs to continue such exposure to the nation and succeed against the most formidable competition possible on the gridiron. When USNA joined the American Athletic Conference, it needed assurances to keep its traditional rivalries intact with Army, Air Force, and Notre Dame for such reasons. With all this in mind, we believe there are underlying discussions in place, and perhaps aligned with Army, that they may try to make a move to join a more competitive conference. Based on geography, their purpose, and some alliances developed in the past prior to current conference realignments, we see the possibility of Navy (and Army) trying to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Academics are more than aligned with current ACC members. Annapolis and West Point sit well within the geographic footprint of the current members. Navy has that connection with Notre Dame that has ACC membership in other sports. If Army also joins, that is a plus to maintain the rivalry in line with scheduling needs. Pitt, BC, Syracuse, Virginia, Duke, Wake Forest, and Georgia Tech have histories with Navy and Army over the years. Surely, there has to be some considerations going on here. If this becomes reality, we won’t be surprised.
Navy and Virginia faced off with another in the 2018 Military Bowl. Played in Annapolis, the Mids defeated the Cavs, 49-7.
WEEK 10, Review of our Top college football games
Tough picks for us last week among our best we predicted. For the game we covered, Collegefootballfan.com called for Western Kentucky to win a close one. However, we didn’t find out until right before that Middle Tennessee lost QB Chase Cunningham the previous week to a leg injury. Missed that one regarding the margin, but WKU came out on top, handily, 48-21. Read our game review from last week’s game clicking here…
Tough calls
We figured Air Force wanted the C-I-C Trophy more than Army since they had already beaten Navy and could take the hardware home after this one. However, they tied Army late with a field goal to take the game into OT, 14-14. Army recovered their own fumble in the end zone to score. Then, they broke up an Air Force pass on fourth down in the end zone to ice the game and go to 5-4. Army wins the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy outright if they defeat Navy in the Meadowlands on December 11 in memory of 9/11 twenty years later. We’ll be there.
We looked for the Wake Forest defense to hold UNC’s offense and win by two TDs. They led 48-34 going into the final period, but UNC reeled off 24 straight points, 21 on TD runs of 13, 21, and 50 by Ty Chandler among his 213 rushing yards. The Tar Heels (5-3, 3-3) outscored No. 13 Wake (8-1, 5-0) with Sam Hartman pitching for 398 yards and five TDs, 58-55. We’ll see the Deacs host NC State this week (7-2, 4-1) in challenge match for the ACC Atlantic division’s upper hand…We predicted Texas A&M, now No. 11, would defeat Auburn, now No. 16, by ten. They Aggies won at home, 30-3…
SEC close calls
We were misled to believe big, bad No. 4 Alabama (8-1,5-1), seeded No. 2 in the latest CFP polls would destroy unranked LSU (4-5, 2-4) at home. Instead, LSU held them down at the start and almost came back in the end, but fell in a close one, 20-14. Double standard for sure. Alabama still holds at No. 2 this week. No problem for them to struggle nor have any win of significance yet to be held in such high regard…
Bama defeated No. 12 Ole Miss (7-2, 4-2), you say? Figured the Rebels should be good by three TDs over independent Liberty (7-3) in Oxford last week. They won, 27-14. Good win here, but nothing dominant for a team that’s supposedly in the best conference in the nation. We’ll be able to make a better comparison regarding Ole Miss against another good team we’ll see Liberty play. On November 20, we’ll see them host No. 24 Louisiana (8-1, 6-0) of the SunBelt. The Ragin’ Cajuns continue on an 8-game winning streak, and face a good Troy team next week. They should provide a pretty good barometer on the road to compare what an SEC squad did to The Flame only a few weeks before.
Tennessee Vs. Kentucky turned out to be thrilling as we expected. The excitement definitely met our expectations, but the final result didn’t. We picked Bourbon over Whiskey, but the Volunteers (5-4, 3-3) came up with the victory, 45-42, over the Wildcats (6-3, 3-3). Kentucky’s third straight loss knocked them out of the Top 25. They should recover over the next two weekends though. They visit Vanderbilt (2-7) and then of all teams, host Alabama’s favorite patsy, New Mexico State! If they win over both of these pushovers, will they be ranked again? Don’t be surprised.
WEEK 11, Preview of our Top college football games
So many great matchups this week. Too bad Alabama decides they won’t play any meaningful games this time of the season. CFP No. 2 vs. No. 128 – 51.5-point favorites. Short and sweet assessing nine significant contests here:
Night visions
No. 17 Pitt (7-2,4-1) hosts a tired UNC Thursday night after last week’s upset over Wake. Kenny Pickett outduels Sam Howell in this by a TD. ACC Coastal to be determined…No. 2 Cincinnati has to score a lot and win big on Friday night over South Florida (2-7) to impress pollsters. They can then compare scores of USF losses to NC State, Florida, BYU, SMU, and Houston – some close, some not… Our game, No. 13 Wake hosting No. 23 NC State for key ACC Atlantic battle at 7:30 Saturday night. The comeback lost to UNC has to wake the Deacs defense up. NC State plays tough defense as usual. However, they have faced no team with as much offensive firepower with QB Sam Hartman at the controls. We look for Wake to be ready for the challenge and win by two TDs.
Going down?
No. 4 Oklahoma (9-0) due for luck to run out against No. 18 Baylor in Waco. Bears coming off a two-point loss to fired up TCU last week. BU’s turn to be fired up. QB Gerry Bohanon, RB Abram Smith, and WR Tyquan Thornton are among the top players in the Big 12 at their positions. Baylor is one of the top three defenses in the Big 12 that the Sooners haven’t faced yet.…
No. 18 Baylor’s pass break-ups like this limited the Texas State passing attack in their opener for their 29-20 win.
No. 9 Michigan (8-1) at No. 23 Penn State (6-3) in a noon start on Saturday. PSU QB Sean Clifford playing at full strength again and Jim Harbaugh seems more focused on claiming how Michigan State beat this team because of bad calls two weeks ago. The tough PSU defense shuts them down and shuts Harbaugh up. Lions put the Wolverines out of reach regarding any CFP hopes…
Purdue (6-3,4-2) at No. 6 Ohio State (8-1, 6-0) has proven to be no slouch with wins over Iowa and Michigan State now. The Buckeyes are aware, but Boilermaker QB Aidan O’Connell seems to be on a roll and the Purdue defense can be stout. This game will be close, but we look for OSU to pull this one out in the end.
Close encounters
Texas A&M (7-2,4-2) at Ole Miss (7-2,4-2), a game in which we cannot root for either coach. For A&M, this is only their third road game of the year. Ole Miss is 5-0 at home, but no win has been overwhelming. Ole Miss lost to Bama and to Auburn on the road. A&M beat both the last four weeks. The Aggies should win here by a touchdown…No. 7 Notre Dame (8-1) travels 6-3 Virginia off a bye week and a 66-49 loss we attended in Provo, Utah. Supposedly QB Brennan Armstrong will play for UVA after suffering a rib injury late in their last game. ND won their only two away games by three points at campuses visited against mediocre Florida State and Virginia Tech. We figure they win this game by one point if Armstrong is at full strength. Otherwise, more.
Inspiration from above and “benevolence” from below – CFP No. 2 vs. No. 128?
Nevada (7-2, 4-1) visits San Diego State (8-1, 4-1) in a Mountain West battle. Both lost to Fresno State. We won’t go against the SDSU Aztecs like we did once before as we know our late pal, Tom Ables, Mr. San Diego State, will not let us pick against them. Aztecs beat this Wolfpack by more than a TD…
Alabama holds its annual late season, fund-raiser for New Mexico State this weekend. Surely it will be fun – NOT! NMSU does get a big paycheck to take home at least. Nick Saban will probably complain that the Alabama student body didn’t show up for this one. Who can blame them? Hopefully some college football pollsters will see the light here. Real college football fans already do. CFP No. 2 vs. No. 128? Definitely there are better things to do this weekend, even in Tuscaloosa!
Steve Koreivo, ed. – Author of “Tales from the Tailgate: From the Fan who’s seen ‘em all!” Click on the title to learn more about our book on Amazon.com
The college football beat goes on in 2021!
