I like the fact that the teams have just a week to get ready for one another as opposed to 4. I think we get a better feel for each team this way. In one corner, we have Alabama. I kinda like Alabama and about half their fan base. In the other corner, we have Clemson who I actually have nothing nice to say about so I'll just shut up. I think I'm taking the Tide in this one.
Clemson is a team with a good offense and a good defense, like Alabama. If the Alabama OL gives Tua time and the defensive line can pressure Clemson, we should be in good shape, but I guess that is the obvious.
Should be a good game to watch. I would like to see some different teams in the playoff next year. Guess all of our programs will just have to step up the ladder a bit and see that it happens!
No doubt there is some Alabama fatigue out there, the general fans of any sport don't really like it when 1 team becomes dominant year after year....Break up the Yankee's!
Bama is the Patriots of CFB and Saban is Bellichick. Every year.... same thing....but at least they are SEC...
They get to play for it until one of us knocks them off. Very obvious they were the best this year, so I have no issues with who's "in". Two very similar teams. The QB's have a little different MO, so that should make the chess match interesting. I'm with kp, I like that they only get a little over a week to get ready.
Yeah no doubt who the best 2 teams are this year. All you have to do is look at what happened to the rest of the pretenders. OU ..lost to Alabama ND ..hammered by Clemson Georgia...pantsed by Texas team that nearly lost to KU, did lose back to back to OK State and WVA Ohio State...scraped by vs 3 loss Washington Michigan..pantsed by Florida UCF...lost to LSU, outcoached by Eddie O..that's hard to do.
While worrying about the title game, hard not to look forward to 2019. As always somebody already has a "way too early top 25"... Top 2 are a shock to me! 1. Alabama ...reload 2. Clemson ... reload 3. Georgia ...those back to back classes of 4 and 5 5star players come to fruition. 4. Oklahoma ...who will play QB, will Ruffin McNeal be the DCoord, will they have a top 10 defense? 5. Ohio State ...new guy at HC. New QB, New Offense? 6. Texas ...big surprise here, based on the Georgia game I guess. We should be good though. 7. Florida 8. Michigan ...lose a lot of talent on defense to NFL 9. LSU 10. Texas A&M ... Aggies livin' the dream! 11. Notre Dame ...we should be good but unlikely to be a undefeated or even 1 loss team. https://athlonsports.com/college-football/way-too-early-top-25-college-football-rankings-2019
Nice to see my Gators getting some Top Ten love again.... I expect that will be the case now until proven otherwise.
Not surprisingly the Clemson players suspended for the ND game will not be able to play in the Alabama game. The kicker I hadn't thought about is that while Lawrence was going Pro anyway, the other 2 guys a freshman and a Jr will miss next season completely as part of their suspension. I didn't know it was a 1 year suspension.
Yeah Alabama has 3 guys suspended for NCAA violations. One was a starting OL. The other 2 were.not.starters. I still haven't heard what the infractions are.
Make that 4 LOSS washington. A 7 point loss by UCF to the mighty SEC overdog LSU after losing their starting QB a couple weeks ago? The coach may have been forced into some errors to make some things happen. 45 minutes in TOP is pretty amazing, though.
I thought about what a difference McKenzie Milton might have made, but then you look at all the defensive starters that LSU was missing, then add in the 2 guys who were ejected for targeting and that wasn't the same LSU defense as you saw in the regular season. I think they have 7 missing to either the NFL, suspension, injury before the kickoff then add the 2 guys ejected. That sort of evened it up and then some, but no doubt that backup QB was not up to the task.
These bowl games are such a crap shoot. Florida pounded next year's Michigan team with this year's Gator team. If you want to take it like that then yes.... next year's Michigan was no match for this year's Florida. But... the Gators are losing several stars also to the NFL so a game next year between Michigan and Fla would have completely different dynamics. I read a great article written by a sportswriter for the Detroit News that covered Michigan even when I lived there in the 90s and he was saying in this pre-game article that make no mistake... bowls at higher levels such as a New Year's Six are important in many different ways for a program...most especially for the loser even if they have players sitting out. So that's why post game Harbaugh has had to answer a lot of questions by the Michigan media and fan base about his team's ineptitude in Atlanta. Wojo: Wolverines better be ready to play like it matters
Kesley, I knew the missing qb disclaimer was.going to come out. UCF was undefeated and the reigning national champions. LSU had 3 losses, was lower.ranked in addition not having 8 of their defensive starters available. LSU made no claims to the national championship, maybe they should now?
Neither team was what they were at full strength and I thought the game played out as I figured it would. LSU had a defense even with those players missing that was a notch above what UCF was used to seeing and LSU was there to win the game... and happy about it. So they did.....
I dunno... it was a good game. That's the thing that keeps coming out of these rare UCF vs big boy games. They belong. They blew it this year. They whipped Auburn the year before. I hope to see UCF swallow a little pride and take some of these 2 for 1 deals like Florida is offering. That's how FSU and Miami became who they were during their reigns. They'd play anyone, anywhere at any time. UCF is gonna have to go the same route.