College Football Odyssey

Poaching in college football has been brutal to the Group of 5 Conferences — both in terms of its best teams accepting offers to greener pastures and in the exodus of its talent to the Power 5, thanks to NIL money, more TV exposure and the ability to insta-transfer.

Let’s consider the sad state of the once-proud Mid-American Conference.  Some of their biggest stars prematurely said goodbye:

Braden Fiske, 1st team MAC Defensive Tackle at Western Michigan, grabbed Florida State’s NIL money

A massive Western Michigan exodus to Minnesota included tw0-time 1,000+ yard rusher Sean Tyler,  LB Ryan Selig and WR Corey Crooms

Colin Schlee, Kent State QB threw for 2109 yards, left for UCLA

One of Schlee’s prime targets, Tez Walker, is now at North Carolina

UCLA, not content to settle for Schlee, also grabbed Ball State’s Carson Steele (1,556 yards rushing)

Dante Cephus, all-MAC wide receiver at Kent State, transferred to Penn State

John Paddock, Ball St. QB, transferred to Illinois — even though Paddock rates to be a backup

The MAC has become a farm club for the Power 5.  At least in Major League baseball, the farm clubs get some benefit from their relationship with the parent club.  Not so in the Wild, Wild West of college football.

The American lost Cincinnati, UCF and Houston.

Thus, Conference USA lost 6 teams for the American.  No offense to the 4 teams added to Conference USA (New Mexico State, Liberty, Sam Houston State and Jacksonville State), but this might be the worst Division 1 conference in 40 years (When the Missouri Valley was Division 1-A in the early 1980’s, that exercise in futility at the highest level comes to mind — Pre-North Dakota State and South Dakota State).

The Mountain West used to be an excellent conference in the days of Utah, BYU and TCU.   Boise State’s lost luster in recent years is another element in the conference’s decline.

Which leaves the one Group of 5 Conference that has thrived in recent years:  The Sun Belt!

Judicious additions to the conference, emphasizing regional rivalries, has been important.  The tradition of schools such as Appalachian State has been invaluable.  The darling of the pandemic in 2020 was the dramatic ascension of Coastal Carolina.  One of last year’s newcomers, Marshall, won at Notre Dame.  Another 2022 newcomer also has long-standing tradition in Southern Miss.  The other relative newbie, James Madison, was an established FCS power.

Sure, the Sun Belt will get poached by the big boys  (DE Josaiah Stewart flipped from Coastal Carolina to Michigan and all-Sun Belt DE, Isaac Ukwu, bailed from James Madison to Ole Miss) but the conference’s staying power is clear.  Aside from Louisiana Monroe and Texas State, no other teams in the conference have been perennial weak sisters.  Such depth makes for many weekly matchups of quality.

Saturday, the Odyssey will be at another Sun Belt team with great tradition in Georgia Southern.  Clay Helton performed a magic act in his debut year in Statesboro.  Helton successfully  and shockingly converted a triple-option team into a passing circus which resulted in a surprise bowl bid and numerous single season records by QB Kyle Vantrease.  Although Vantrease has graduated, expect Tulsa transfer, Davis Brin, to pick up the slack.

The Odyssey is not done weeping about the demise of the Pac-12. With our Midwestern roots, Rose Bowls involving the Pac-8, Pac-10 and Pac-12 are indelibly printed on our souls.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!! …………….

What a last act coming in 2023!!

In the 108th and lost year of this legendary conference, the Odyssey wonders if this will prove to be the best year ever for Pac QBs….That is a BIG comment given that the conference has given us John Elway, Warren Moon, Matt Leinart, Andrew Luck, Steve Bartkowski, Joe Roth, Aaron Rodgers, Sonny Sixkiller, Jake Plummer, Pat Haden, Gary Beban, John Brodie, Frankie Albert, Marcus Mariota, Dorian Thompson Robinson, Terry Baker, Jim Plunkett, Ryan Leaf, Drew Bledsoe……..The Odyssey could go on and on and on in naming legends but you get the idea.

One of the most earth-shattering stats of 2023 after I finished reading Phil Steele’s preseason publication: Steele lists the his all-conference picks and, in typically comprehensive manner, he lists the first four teams at each position.

Arizona’s Jayden DiLaura did NOT make the first four teams!! This is not a slight to DiLaura given who he slotted behind. DiLaura was named Freshman of the Year at Washington State before transferring to Tucson in 2022. All he did was throw for 3,685 yards and scare the hell out of defensive coordinators with his mobility and play-making ability. Although DiLaura has been criticized for trying to throw for a TD on each play, the Hawaii native is clearly one of the country’s most dangerous QB’s.

Let’s consider another Pac-12 QB who could not crack Steele’s top 4, WSU’s Cameron Ward. Ward had an incredible 2021 at Incarnate Word before deciding to sample the Palouse. In Pullman, Ward completed 64% of his passes for 3,231 yards. Consider Ward the #6 QB in the Pac!!

An incoming transfer QB at Oregon State, DJ Uiagalelei is relegated to the second tier in pre-season analysis. The heralded 5-star recruit from Clemson had some poor games, including in a 31-30 home upset loss to South Carolina, BUT the talent is still there.

Who are considered Steele’s top 4 QB’s who sent this esteemed trio to the back of the bus?

1) USC Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams
2) Washington’s Michael Penix threw for a ridiculous 4,197 yards
3) Oregon’s Bo Nix
4) Utah’s Cam Rising

The Odyssey believes DiLaura will have a better year than Nix or Rising but, regardless, the Pac-12’s 2023 curtain call rates to nothing short of epic.

Growing up in Michigan, I was the son of Wolverine alumni. As big as the Ohio State finale was, the gold at the end of the rainbow was winning the Big 10 and playing in the Rose Bowl. The glittering venue would offer the Pacific Coast’s best squad as a more-than-worthy opponent. A great bowl at an unsurpassed venue befitting two great conferences.

RIP to the Pacific 12 Conference. Yesterday’s death at 108 years old was as needless as a traffic fatality involving a drunk driver. Just as tragic car accidents can leave orphans, the implosion of the Pac 12 has left 4 orphans: Stanford, Cal, Washington State and Oregon State. While the Bay Area schools might deserve their fate due to indifferent fan interest, Wazzu and Oregon State are well-supported schools that happen to be located in rural locales. In 2023, Fox and ESPN thumb their noses at schools that are not located in major markets.

RIP to any more Big 10-Pac 10 Rose Bowls. The Rose Bowl is now an active participant in a playoff system that has greatly cheapened other bowls.

Undoubtedly, the certainty of an undisputed national champion certain has its attraction. However, the collateral damage has been considerable. For the majority of schools that are in football’s highest division, being crowned national champ is an impossibility. Such reality has served to diminish the brands of many schools as well as the Group of 5 conferences.

That the demise of the Pac 12 actually happened will always be extremely hard to fathom. In 2011, the Conference adopted the ill-fated Pac 12 Network that had difficulty getting in sufficient households. In 2018, ESPN offered to take the Pac 12 Network off its hands. Nope! Both decisions lay at the doorstep of the worst commissioner ever, Larry Scott.

The relative lack of primetime exposure on ESPN and Fox to eyeballs in more Easterly time zones resulted in many prominent California preps heading to colleges back East. One can easily lose count of the number of heralded prep QBs from California who became “reverse” Lewis and Clarks.

Scott’s successor, Gene Kliavkoff, did not prove to be Ivy League material either! A modern-day Nero, he fiddled as the Pac 12 burned. Among his black marks:  His refusal to timely expand and more aggressively pursue a contract with a “linear” TV partner left the conference more vulnerable to being poached.

The Odyssey weeps. One of the bedrocks of a great sport is no more.

3 months have passed since the NFL Draft and the college football fan in me is still left with a bad taste in his mouth. While college football has always had its “haves” and “have nots” , NIL and the transfer portal have greatly deepened the divide.

Jahmyr Gibbs was the #12 overall pick in the draft. He fled a losing Georgia Tech team to be the feature back at Alabama.

Vanderbilt had a decent offensive lineman in Tyler Steen. He fled Nashville for the Crimson TIde and became the #65 overall pick in the draft.

Before Tennessee had its renaissance 2022, linebacker Henry To’oTo’O transferred to, you guessed it, Alabama. To’oTo’O was a 5th round draft pick.

Does it help college football that Nick Saban gets to cherry pick from lesser squads? Like Alabama really needs the help after each year’s premier recruiting class!!

This is not just an “Alabama” thing. The MAC has become a de facto farm club for the Power 5. Kent State’s best 2 offensive players said adieu. QB Collin Schlee transferred to UCLA while his primary receiver, Dante Cephas, left for Happy Valley. Ball State’s Carson Steele was probably the MAC’s best back in 2022, as he rushed for 1,556 yards. The Indiana prep will be Schlee’s running mate in Westwood in 2023.

The Odyssey is torn. Some transfers are more than understandable (One can totally understand why Charles Jones’ ditched Iowa’s staid offense for pass happy Purdue. He had a much better 2022 in West Lafayette than he ever would have had in Iowa City). However, some of the transfers are thumbing their nose at the teams that believed in them coming out of high school. This scent of disloyalty does bother the Odyssey.

We are also concerned about the fan experience. If the “have” versus “have not” divide continues to widen, fans will be subject to more blowout games. In Ann Arbor, among other college football palaces, fans will be paying lots of money for a second straight season of paying for laughable non-conference sacrifices (The Wolverines’ non-conference victims in 2022:  Hawaii, Colorado State and Connecticut; 2023: East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green).

Unless the transfer portal gets tightened, maybe the only solution is to have one or two elite conferences whose schedules consist solely of playing each other.  For  other teams, the Odyssey would be very open to a promotion/relegation approach now employed by Britain’s Premier League.

The Odyssey would generally prefer a return to the “old days” but that horse has left the barn. Let’s hope the powers that be will be able to limit the damage.

Congrats to Georgia!

Condolences to the majority of college football teams.

A quality team from the Big 12 was decimated from one of the titans of the imperial bosses of the SEC.

Compound this with the rich getter richer via the transfer portal from the lesser schools.  Competitive balance is waning in a sport that richly thrives on competition.

The Odyssey likes a degree of competitive balance.  Monday night’s TCU trainwreck was not in any way healthy for college football.

We will be flying our flag at half mast until we start posting again in August.  TILL THEN!

FINALLY!!! Two semifinal CFP games that both delivered.  

Just when it seemed like the January 2 bowl games felt like yesterday’s leftovers, Tulane scores 16 points in the last 4 minutes to shock USC, 46-45, for the very biggest win in Green Wave history.

Another January 2 shocker from a betting standpoint. Mississippi State kicks a last ditch field goal to go ahead 13-10. The Bulldogs started off as small favorites but the line rose to 3.5 in the hours leading up to the game. Imagine having a +3.5 or -3.5 ticket. On the ensuing kickoff, Illinois attempted the standard throw-the-ball-around-like-a-hot-potato on the ensuing kickoff. At one point, an alert MSU defender intercepts an errant toss and runs it back for 6 on the game’s final play. 19-10 final. Assuredly, there were “Oh my Gods” and “F*ck mes” in the betting world.

Even with some truly meaningless games (IE, LSU beat an undermanned Purdue team, 63-7), college football always seems to deliver.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from the Odyssey!

Mike Leach is gone at age 61.  Shocking.  Unfair.  An irretrievable loss.

That Mike Leach could win at 3 of the most challenging jobs in the Power 5 (Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State) is enough to put him on the Mount Rushmore of college coaches.  Sure, perhaps Nick Saban is the college GOAT but have you noticed where Alabama’s recruiting classes ranked every year.  Sure, Saban also won a national championship at LSU but talent down on the Bayou is always as ample as Dolly Parton’s cleavage.

I doubt that you could ever find one of Leach’s recruiting classes in the Top 25 but that just made his magic that much more singular.  He won 11 games at Texas Tech in 2008 before being forced out by yelps from the family of Craig James.  After Leach’s firing, football in Lubbock went into hibernation for the next decade . He resurfaced on the Palouse and after a rough 2 years, also got Wazzu to an 11-win season.

The Odyssey is happy for the Leach legacy that his last game coached was a 24-22 thriller over hated arch rival, Ole Miss, in Thanksgiving’s Egg Bowl.  Leach was an innovative pioneer in the Air Raid passing offense. All great stuff BUT what really set Leach apart were his outlook on life and his press conferences.  Both various shades of mesmerizing.  He had a fixation on pirates and wisely counseled couples on the wisdom of eloping in lieu of a formal wedding.  He was so unconventional and so hilarious!!  How many coaches have commented on his team’s “fat little girlfriends?”  If he had used his law degree, Leach would have been a brilliant lawyer.  He also would have been excellent as a stand up comedian.

Leach’s teams could be maddening in two regards.  His disdain of the run game caused occasional issues when his offenses were in the Red Zone, facing a compressed field.  Occasionally, the lack of said run game was costly in the sense that his offense could not “run out the clock” with a lead.  The most memorable Leach defeat in this regard was the 2013 New Mexico Bowl.  Washington State had a 45-30 lead over Colorado State with slightly over 4 minutes to play.  An inability to run the ball and a costly fumble cost dearly as the Rams came back for a stunning 48-45 win.  Sadly, Leach’s 3 Mississippi State teams were each steamrolled by the Nick Saban machine.  A few pimples on a terrific body of work.

However, his legacy will  easily transcend his solid won-loss record.  Given that the Odyssey’s Godmother is currently in hospice at age 96, Leach might have had one final blessing.  His death was quick and, hopefully, relatively painless.  His death will never erase his memory.  RIP, my friend.

The Oklahoma Sooners just finished a dreadful 6-6 season that actually is better than the reality in Norman. When you lose 49-0 to Texas in the Red River Rivalry, such beatdown should count as 3 losses.

So, where did the 6-8 Sooners excel? Grooming QBs for massive success elsewhere. Caleb Williams rates to win the Heisman. Spencer Rattler went crazy in South Carolina’s last two games as the Gamecocks arguably knocked TWO teams out of the playoffs, Tennessee and Clemson. Tanner Mordecai excelled in SMU’s pass-happy offense.

Actually, the breeding did not stop there if you consider that Lincoln Riley’s first gig as head man was at OU. Now, Riley gets to watch the waves at Manhattan Beach while attracting droves of quality players to the Coliseum. In comparison, will Brent Venables turn out to the Sooners’ booby prize? Stay tuned.

The Odyssey gets more upset with each passing day at how the portal disadvantages the “have nots.” Not to mention that it is a touch disloyal for an emerging star to bail on a team that had faith in him even when others did not offer.

Some examples: Braden Fiske has been a stalwart defensive lineman for Western Michigan. The Michigan City (Indiana) prep is paying a visit to nearby Notre Dame though many other Power 5’s have offered.

Ball State’s Carson Steele rushed for 1,376 yards this year as a Sophomore. Bye, bye, Ball. Maybe we should just say, bye, bye, MAC.

Vanderbilt’s 5-win renaissance did not resonate with their starting QB, Mike Wright, and their leading rusher. Bye, bye Nashville.

Spencer Sanders and Sam Hartman were both quality starters for what seemed like a zillion years at Oklahoma State and Wake Forest, respectively. Neither will be staying put in 2023.

The Odyssey was excited about Arizona’s prospects in 2023 thanks, in no small measure, to a sizzling passing attack. Passing whiz, Jayden de Laura, and stellar receiver, Dorian Singer, had words on the sideline during a late-season game. Au revoir, Dorian!

Indiana’s 2020 renaissance was surprising and very temporary in the brutal Big 10 East.  Dasan McCollough took note and became the Hoosiers’ highest ranked recruit – EVER.  The linebacker had a standout Freshman year but will not be in Bloomington in 2023.  McCullough’s exit follows two other entrances into the portal by potential 2023 Hoosier starters.  That McCullough was a hometown prep makes the wound even deeper  A sobering time to be Tom Allen.

There needs to be balance between individual liberty and mass exodus from programs who offered an initial opportunity. The Odyssey hopes that the powers-that-be can find such balance.

On the day that the College Football Playoff committee announced the semifinal pairings (kudos to the committee for getting everything right — including no immediate Ohio State-Michigan rematch, thank you very much), the Odyssey is till lamenting the anti-best:  ie, a terrible down year for the Mountain West.

Fresno State won the title by winning at Boise State.  Let’s consider two incredible blots on the resumes of  the division winners.  Fresno State lost at UConn, albeit with no Jake Haener.  Boise State got smoked at UTEP.  Two telling faceplants.  At least Fresno had an excuse.  Haener is a helluva quarterback.   Boise’s upset at El Paso was considered so seismic that the offensive coordinator was fired and the starting QB, Hank Bachmeier, immediately went into the transfer portal.

Four of the conference teams were beyond terrible:  Hawaii, Colorado State, New Mexico and Nevada were all utterly embarrassing.  Wyoming might have had a decent team this year but the Cowboys were one of the biggest losers in the transfer portal.  We fear that both the portal and NIL will continue to be an enemy of the Mountain West.

San Diego State’s offense was so awful in the first half of the year that the Aztecs had to resort to a converted Safety to be a partial solution at QB in the 2nd half of the campaign.  Even so, SDSU scored only 3 points in its finale against Air Force.  The Aztecs have been a flagship program for the conference over the past decade, noted by their frequent successes against the Pac12.  In 2022, SDSU was easily swept aside by both Arizona and Utah.

We hope the Mountain West is stronger in 2023 but are worried about the growing gap between the “have” and “have not” conferences.