Author: rickro51 Page 2 of 31

One byproduct of Nick Saban’s retirement:  Alabama has already lost 3 road games in 2024 that resulted in field storms by the delirious home locals.  Last night’s field storm in Norman, Oklahoma was understandable given that the Sooners had entered the game with an ugly 1-5 SEC record.

The Odyssey has been well aware of the conference’s field storming policy.  The school with the field stormers is assessed $100,000 for the first transgression, $250,000 for the second and $500,000 for subsequent field storms.  To whom such monies would go was a mystery to us until last week.  We had mistakenly assumed that such fines went to the conference office.  WRONG!  Monies go to the visiting team, strangely or not.  Who said there is no upside to losing?

We had felt a touch said  Alabama players have had to wade through throngs of fans at Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma.  However, we no longer feel sad as the folks in Tuscaloosa are getting all kinds of unexpected cash!

For those who wonder why such fines exist, the Odyssey’s strongly held theory is that the SEC office does not want to be party to an injury lawsuit caused by a field storming.  The existence of a fine structure is an excellent legal, lobbying point.  Deep down, we suspect that league offices do not mind the field storms as it provides even more evidence of fan passion in the “it just means more” conference.

A truly weird conicidence occurred last week that was MAC-related.

Ball State loses a 51-48 scoreathon to Buffalo in OT.

UMass is an honorary MAC member:  a past member, a 2025 member and scheduler of no less than 5 games versus MAC opponents in 2024.

Tied at 28, UMass kicker, Jacob Lurie,  could have walked it off with a 43-yarded.  No bueno.  Undaunted, UMass scores a TD in overtime.  Sadly, Lurie misses the extra point.  No bueno encore.

Liberty scores a TD and kicks the game-winning extra point.  Heartbreak for the Minutemen.

Both Ball State and UMass were SO close to winning.  One can only wonder if a reversal of said outcomes would have meant that Don Brown and Mike Neu would have avoided their firings early this week.

Baseball is a game of inches.  When it comes to job survival as head coach, it seems like the same adage applies to college football employment.

Two of the morgues of college football have been located in Palo Alto and Albuquerque.  What a tonic Saturday proved to be courtesy of upsets, weirdly by the identical 38-35 score!  In both cases, the favorites threw away double-digit second half leads.

The disinterest in football in Stanford football had become so high that former players had dubbed their playing locale to be “The Library” because it was so quiet.  When the Odyssey was in attendance at Virginia Tech’s visit last month on a beautiful afternoon, we were appalled at the lack of fannies in attendance.

Yesterday, a solid 6-3 Louisville paid a visit to a woebegone Stanford outfit totally out-of-synch in an NIL era where student athletes have been supplanted by paid merceneries.  The Cardinal surprisingly jumped off to a 10-0 over the plural Cardinals.  The Cardinals, a 21-point favorite, seemed to restore reality by rebounding to take a 21-13 lead at halftime.  2024 Stanford seemed ready to cave in for the second half.  Except the beaten down Stanford team fought back from a 35-21 deficit to tie the game at 35 with 45 seconds left as run-first QB Justin Lansom threw his only pass of the game, a 25-yard TD strike.  Louisville inexplicably left Stanford about 6 ticks on the clock with an ill-fated Hail Mary attempt. Normally, no big deal EXCEPT Louisville became guilty of a personal foul on the ensuing play.  Then,  a Louisville player was offsides on Stanford’s 57-yard field goal attempt.  A 52-yard field goal by Emmet Kenney provided a stunning walkoff upset viewed by almost nobody.  A real shame since the last 45 seconds were served on a platter from Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone.

Late Saturday evening, before we nodded off, Washington State was seemingly in control over New Mexico 28-14 in the third quarter.  Imagine our surprise when we woke up this morning and found out that their wunderkind QB, Devon Dampier, engineered a 38-35 comback over Wazzu and their wunderkind QB, John Mateer.

This was the 5th victory of the season for first-year coach, Bronco Mendenhall.  Sadly, a cold night in Albuquerque held down the crowd to an announced 14,000.  Which means that at most half that number stuck around for New Mexico’s fourth quarter heroics.  Albuquerque has been a football graveyard since they stupidly sheparded Rocky Long out as head man.  While non-playoff bowl season has become a joke, a sixth win for New Mexico in Honolulu on November 30rd would provide some meaningful bowl relevance for a school badly in need of all the good vibes thrown in its direction.

In both upsets, all the ingredients existed for a great field storm except for one key element: people.

……the concept of Fake News??  If one listens to a few members of the media even discussing the possibility of Washington State’s making the playoff, the concept of Fake News is alive and well.

True, the Cougars have lost only 1 game (a decisive defeat to a fine Boise State team) but where are their quality wins?  As the Beatles once sang, “Nowhere Man.”  Wazzu’s two best wins are against Washington and Texas Tech.  A so-so San Jose State team took the Cougars to overtime in the Palouse.

Given that Tuesday’s CFP rankings exclude a couple quality SEC teams such as Georgia and Texas A&M, the idea of WSU sneaking in the back door into the CFP are as laughable as giving the Heisman Trophy to one of the Michigan QB’s.

Perhaps such drivel was the byproduct of slow news days.  Or genuine empathy for the Pac12 kneecapping Washington State.  Regardless, the Cougars could win each of their remaining games, 70-0, and there is zero chance WSU will be in the CFP.

Which is the same as the chance that Mizzou will be in the playoff despite the nonsense emanating from the mouth of the Drink!

Jacksonville State was in desperate straits yesterday.  The Gamecocks were at midfield, trailing 37-31, with time only for a last-gasp Hail Mary.  Against all odds, Cam Vaughn gets behind all the Louisiana Tech defensive backs in the end zone and catches the fling from QB Tyler Huff for a game-tying TD.

Ecstasy!   Except Jax State misses the PAT.  Overtime.

Now both teams feel that victory has been cruelly grasped from their grip.  JSU’s kicker will be saying 1,000 prayers today as Jacksonville State won in OT, 44-37

Last Tuesday, the first playoff rankings were announced.  If a team winds up at #5, that position can be a prime one to make a serious run at the national championship.

The 4 highest ranked conference champions get first-round byes.  The balance of the playoff teams are seeded.  Suppose that two highest ranked teams were either in the SEC or the Big 10.  In such case, the conference runnerup would be the #5 seed.

Being #5 has two advantages.  The #5 squad will have home game against the #12 seed.  Usually, #12 will be the Group of 5 representative, although this year’s Boise squad may prove the exception to this generalization.  The Group of 5 has been greatly drained of solid programs in recent years due to conference expansion and limited NIL funds.  The Group of 5  will likely produce no more brilliant Boise State squads led by the likes of Kellen Moore.

Assuming that the #5 team survives, their next opponent would be the #4 seed at a neutral site.  The #4 seed will be almost always be the least imposing conference champion from the “Power 4” conferences.  Thus, the #5 team’s route to the semifinals may well be as easy or easier than for any other squad.

Nobody is going to be aiming for the #5 spot.  But in many years, this seed may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

In August, The Odyssey predicted a wild free-for-all in the Big 12 featuring a dozen competent teams but no squad that would take your breath away:

In one of the shocks of 2024, let’s take a look at the Big 12 records of 4 of the preseason favorites to win the crown:

Oklahoma State                  0-5

Utah                                      1-4

Kansas                                  1-4

Arizona                                 1-4

3-17 overall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, BYU was projected to have a losing record in 2024.  Instead, the Cougars are undefeated and in the Top 10.  The Mormons, strangely featuring a Jewish quarterback, have handed SMU and Kansas State their only defeats.

Arizona State’s rise come 1-2 years earlier than anticipated.

Coach Prime now has some semblance of a defense.

A supposedly downtrodden Houston squad has upset TCU and Utah (as well as giving Oklahoma a scare).

There may only be two non-surpriing elements in the Big 12 bizarro world:

1. Iowa State and Kansas State are both quite solid and are trending toward an epic Farmageddon showdown.
2. Texas Tech gives up points as rapidly as it puts them on the scoreboard

One of Pink Floyd’s songs capsulizes this year in the Big 12: “Shine On, You Crazy Diamond.”

College Football Odyssey started in earnest on Thanksgiving night in 2000 on a rainy night in Oxford Mississippi.  That Ole Miss was playing archrival, Mississippi State, added spice but so many other highlights energized us into getting to all the FBS campuses for a game based on that rainy evening in Oxford.  The 10-acre tent city that is called The Grove provides a friendly, surreal backdrop to an Ole Miss home game.  The magic of the Grove was supplemented by pirouetting cheerleaders on a bandstand, a wonderful small town, the band playing Dixie and some crazy, crazy fight song with “Hotty Toddy” in it.

On Saturday, the Odyssey paid its sixth visit to Ole Miss to see Oklahoma limping to town for the first regular season tilt between the 2 schools.  The Sooners offense has been MIA this year due to injuries, disappointing QB play and a sieve of an offensive line.  Offensive coordinator, Seth Littrell, paid the ultimate price last week and was replaced by Joe Jon Finley.  take a bow, Billy Bob,er, Joe Jon!  The change worked as OU’s offense returned from the dead in the first half, garnering 16 first downs, 234 yards and a 14-10 lead at the break.

Coaching is paramount in football as Indiana and Michigan will tell you in 2024 – Indiana happily and Michigan not so much.  For one half, take a bow Mr. Finley.  The Odyssey was intrigued by how much former 5-star hot shot, Jackson Arnold, ran the ball.  We wondered to ourselves if QB’s repeatedly putting themselves in harm’s way would upset their family and the player’s agent in our moneycentric age.  Arnold would be credited with 24 carries, although 10 were bogus, due to sacks (primarily in the 4th quarter when OU was playing catchup).

Both the Rebel D and their QB Jaxon Dart, were exceptional in the 2nd half as the Rebels clawed back to win 26-14.  Dart was 22 for 30 for 311 yards against the vaunted Sooner D.

The Rebels need to win out to have any shot for the playoff.  Going to Fayetteville this week and hosting Georgia on November 9 will be severely testing.

Every time, the Odyssey visits Oxford, we feel we are in heaven.  In our quarter century of scouring college campuses, our opinion in 2000 remains unchanged.  The Ole Miss experience is unmatched.

Winning is a wonderful drug.  Lots of happy people after each college football weekend.

But there are degrees of happy! The Odyssey can confidently pick the happiest team and happiest individual in the past 7 days:

The individual:  Sawyer Robertson, Baylor QB

That Robertson threw for 5 TD’s as Baylor upset Texas Tech in Lubbock would be enough to make any QB happy.  But, for Robertson, other circumstances made his performance much much sweeter.  Robertson is a Lubbock product going to Coronado High School.  He wanted to go to Tech but the ill-fated Matt Wells regime opted to recruit Behren Morton.

Robertson went to Mississippi State and transferred to Baylor.  He started 4 games in 2023 but evidently did not sufficiently impress Dave Aranda.  Baylor grabbed Toledo’s DeQuan Finn in the transfer portal to be QB2024.  However, Finn got hurt to give Robertson his opportunity.

How magical it had to be for Robertson to hang 59 on the Red Raiders and saddle Tech with their first Big 12 loss.  Even sweeter, the Tech starting QB was the aforementioned Moron.  Must have been a hell of a homecoming celebration for Robertson and his family Saturday night in West Texas.

The team:  Kennessaw State

How many winless teams beat undefeated teams this time of the year?  Virtually never but it happened on Wednesday night as Kennessaw handed Liberty their first regular season loss in almost 2 years.  The victory was so sweet that the Owls’ home fans celebrated with TWO field stormings.  The first storming was premature as the refs put 1 second back on the clock.  If ever any fan base deserved two stormings, it was Kennesaw State.

In August, we posted an article which was somewhat skeptical as to how the Sooners would do in the SEC.

The near-term answer is in:  HORRIBLE!!

Oklahoma should be thankful that Auburn and Peyton Thorne imploded on The Plains.  Otherwise, an 0-8 SEC mark would be in view.

Check out the Sooners’ remaining SEC games:

Saturday  at Ole Miss

11/9 at Mizzou

11/23 Alabama

11/30 at LSU

OUCH!  DOUBLE OUCH!

It is almost humane that on November 2nd that Oklahoma is served up an FCS morsel when Maine’s Black Bears come to town.

Brent Venables is not at fault for a spate of wide receiver injuries.  However, that does not explain a putrid offensive line that could not block most grandmothers.  Nor does it excuse the regression of Sophomore QB Jackson Arnold.  Or getting blown out twice at home by Tennessee and South Carolina.

Last month, the Odyssey paid good money to snare a ticket to this Saturday’s game at Ole Miss.  Guess we should have waited.  But, no worries, when the Grove becksons, all good!

Lane Kiffin’s Rebels have already fluffed away two games that were eminently winnable.  But Ole Miss should not have a tough time on Saturday and should cover the 20 point spread – unless their paid mercenaries have thrown in the towel after 2 defeats.