College Football Odyssey

Perhaps the worst aspect of the transfer portal is that the “incubators” of underated talent gets left with nothing.  Not even a waiver wire fee for the team left behind.

Let’s consider a few cases:

Ahmad Hardy    Hardy  was a 0-star recruit from Monticello, Mississippi.  Hardy had a breakout season, rushing for 1,351 yards for an upstart Louisiana Monroe squad.

Fluff Bothwell  was not even on Phil Steele’s depth chart for the top 4 running backs going into the 2024 season.  Fluffy wound up with  750 rushing yards for South Alabama, scoring 7 TD’s in USA’s last 5 regular season games.  The timing of the transfer portal is so messed up that Bothwell declared before USA’s bowl game last Saturday against Western Michigan. (Transfer portal timing also caused Penn State’s backup QB to hit the portal before their CFP game this weekend against SMU.  YIKES!!)

Compared to Hardy and Bothwell, Washington State’s John Mateer, was a high school phenom as a 3-star recruit.  Mateer emerged as a breakout star for Washington State in 2023 after Cam Ward’s departure.  Mateer wanted a bigger stage than the Pac-2 in 2025.  Au revoir,  Pullman!

Transfer portal sadness has not been confined to the players.  Dave Clawson is an excellent coach who recently  waived the white flag after 11 years at Wake Forest.  The Demon Deacons had serious money issues that created key departures from Winston-Salem.

The transfer portal can work well for all parties when a player can get more playing time at another school.  And this is America, where money rules.  Still, the portal too often leaves a very bad feeling with the Odyssey.

No path to the title is easy BUT………

Penn State’s path to the semifinals looks to be the most manageable.  If the Nittany Lions can prevail in their home game against SMU, they have a second round encounter with Boise State.  Neither SMU or Boise has beaten a current Top 20 team.  Boise has beaten UNLV twice but you get our drift.

Based on Boise’s narrow loss to undefeated Oregon, the Broncos should not be taken lightly.  But other paths are more perilous.  Consider that the top-seeded Ducks may start off with a rematch against Ohio State.  OUCH!  The Odyssey considers Michigan’s win over Ohio State to be the flukiest of flukes.  Ryan Day probably won’t wear a dunce cap again.

Maybe the football Gods are taking pity on Penn State.  After close loss after close loss after close loss after close loss in recent years, the Committee chose to smile on the Nittany Lions.

Football fortunes in the state of Oklahoma have never been lower.  There may be no close second.  Consider:

Oklahoma State was a co-favorite to win the Big 12.  Unbelievably, their conference mark was 0-9, ending with a 52-0 shellacking at University of Deion.

Tulsa’s 3-9 record proved the catalyst in the firing of Kevin Wilson.  It is mind blowing to claim that the Tulsa finale might have even been worse than the Cowboys, losing 63-16 at home to underwhelming Florida Atlantic.  FAU came to Tulsa with 9 losses and romped with 665 yards of offense.  Four times the hapless Golden Hurricane D gave up at least 52 points in 2024.  This stinker was not the end of Tulsa’s bad news as 4 offensive line starters hit the transfer portal.

One silver lining in the Sooners’ 2-6 SEC record was a stunning 24-3 upset of Alabama.  Yet, even this pleasant November surprise could not keep 5-star recruit and starting QB, Jackson Arnold, from hitting the transfer portal.

The only good news is that Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King looks to be renewed for a third season.

OUCH!!

Texas won a huge game Saturday in the revival of their rivalry with Texas A&M….but Longhorn QB Quinn Ewers had one further accomplishment on Saturday.  He became the ONLY member of the Ohio State signing class of 2021 to experience a victory against Michigan!

Congrats, Quinn!

Voters in the November elections were worried about high levels of inflation.  Latest anecdotal evidence:  $20 million does not buy what it used to, given Ohio State’s latest faceplant against The Team Up North.

While Michigan fans are understandably boisterous, that does not silence grateful laughter from Syracuse.  John Cooper 2.0 ran off their starting QB, Kyle McCord, for a supposed upgrade in Will Howard.  Howard threw 2 costly interceptions against TTUN.  Meanwhile, McCord threw for 380 yards and 3 TD’s in Syracuse’s  42-38 upset of Miami that may knock the Hurricanes out of the playoff.

McCord’s brilliance caused a field storming in the Cuse.  A different type of field storm occurred in Columbus.  The two teams clashed after the game which involved the police macing some Wolverines.  A suggestion to Ryan Day:  Have your players mace the Wolverines DURING the game.  Just a thought.

Did OSU misallocate their $20 million?  Quite likely.  Did OSU get outspent in the Cam Ward sweepstakes?  Imagine the Buckeyes with Ward!  Instead, they spent a lot of bucks on Quinshon Judkins when they already had a stellar running back in Treyveon Henderson.  Hmmmm.  Especially when your all-world receiving corps suggests a heavy dose of passing.

Last night, the Odyssey did feel sorry for Ryan Day (although perhaps we should not after he said he wanted “to hang a hundred” on the dreaded Wolverines).  How well could he sleep?  If at all, horribly.

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