I’m told there’s a little football game taking place in Columbus this weekend. I truly have no idea who will win.
But that doesn’t have to stop me from answering your questions about it.
(Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
There has been a lot of discussion about how this year is like 2006 for Ohio State and Michigan. Given both teams’ sketchy resumes, I wonder if the season will end the same, where both go on to lose in convincing fashion in the postseason? — Joel G. Ponca City, Okla.
By sketchy resumes, I assume you mean they haven’t played the caliber of competition to prepare them for the College Football Playoff? That was certainly one of the takeaways from 2006 when Ohio State went 12-0 but lost 41-14 to 12-1 Florida in the BCS championship, and 11-1 Michigan lost 32-18 to 10-2 USC in the Rose Bowl. The “Big Ten is slow” backlash prompted Jim Delany’s bizarre open letter a month later suggesting the SEC’s superior speed was due to lower academic standards.
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It’s certainly possible. Much like this year, the Big Ten that year (granted, an 11-team conference) was very top-heavy, with No. 7 Wisconsin (11-1) playing the role of this year’s Penn State as the only other team ranked in the final BCS Top 25. And the Buckeyes didn’t even play the Badgers.
But the reason 2006 was so jarring at the time was the Big Ten was considered to be as strong or stronger than any other power conference. In 2022, everyone knows the SEC is king. The fundamental question then is, can the best team in today’s Big Ten even compete with the best team in today’s SEC? Because the recent evidence suggests not.
It’s been eight years since Ohio State’s semifinal upset of Alabama in the first-ever CFP. The thought at the time was Urban Meyer’s program might put a stop to the SEC’s dominance, but that never came to be. In 2015, Alabama blanked Big Ten champ Michigan State 38-0. In 2020, Alabama annihilated Ohio State 52-24. And last season, Georgia thumped Big Ten champion Michigan 34-11.
None of this is to suggest by any means you shouldn’t bother watching Saturday’s showdown. It is still two great teams facing off in a storied rivalry game. And maybe this winds up being 2014 and the SEC, not the Big Ten, winds up getting exposed. If it’s the other way around, though, it doesn’t mean the Buckeyes or Wolverines were frauds, it’d just be the SEC champ doing the same thing in a Playoff game it’s done to Oklahoma, Washington, Notre Dame, Cincinnati … pretty much anyone not named Clemson.
Which four make it in if LSU beats Georgia, Ohio State vs. Michigan is decided in OT and TCU and USC win out? — Ron G.
I don’t root for or against anyone, but selfishly, LSU beating Georgia would make great content. I truly have no idea how the committee would handle it. On one hand, you have to think LSU would be ranked higher than the team it just beat to win its conference championship. But that means the final rankings could potentially have a two-loss team higher than multiple one-loss teams. To this point, we haven’t had any two-loss teams, period.
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But I don’t believe No. 1 Georgia would fall out of the top four under any circumstance. Remember, the Dawgs were undefeated and No. 1 last year, got drilled by Alabama in Atlanta and only fell to No. 3. If you’re the best team in the county through 12 games, you don’t suddenly become the fifth-best team by losing to a 10-win foe in Game 13.
You could argue the same thing about Ohio State, 11-0 and ranked No. 2 since the first committee rankings. The Buckeyes have been a top-3 team since the preseason, why would an overtime loss to an 11-0 opponent change that perception? Subjectively, I agree. Objectively, their loss would be at home, they would play one less game because of it, and Georgia’s resume will likely wind up looking slightly better than Ohio State’s.
And 13-0 TCU isn’t getting left out. So the four teams would be the Ohio State-Michigan winner, TCU, LSU and Georgia. USC would be a 12-1 Pac-12 champion with as many as four Top 25 wins. That’s hard to leave out. But the committee can justify its decisions any way it wants. Given his comments Tuesday night about USC’s defense, I can already hear Boo Corrigan saying “Georgia/LSU is the more complete team.”
The Pac-12 has six ranked teams this week, more than any other conference. Is that a fluke this year or a sign of any serious improvement by a conference that has been at bottom of Power 5 for a minute? — Drex H.
The Pac-12 was always at its strongest when it was churning out great quarterbacks, and this year’s lineup has been an embarrassment of riches. USC’s Caleb Williams, Oregon’s Bo Nix, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and UCLA’s Dorian Thompson Robinson would arguably all be first or second-team all-conference athletes in any league outside of the SEC (which has Hendon Hooker, Bryce Young and Jayden Daniels). Whether this year was a one-off will likely become clearer next year when possibly all but Williams will be off to the NFL.
Also, it’s an extremely top-heavy league, which raises the eternal question of what makes for a stronger conference, good teams at the top or depth down the board. I.e., TCU might not be undefeated if it was playing in a conference right now with six Top 25 teams, but it also wouldn’t get to beat up on Stanford/Cal/Arizona State/Colorado for half the season.
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But I’ve got to say: I’m frankly surprised at the respect the league has been afforded given its lack of signature nonconference wins. Oregon got creamed by Georgia. Utah lost to a Florida team that is now 6-5. Washington’s win against Michigan State seemed much bigger at the time than it does today. UCLA played three nobodies. USC’s opportunity comes this week against Notre Dame.
Having all those Top 25 teams looks great now, but the jokes will come right back if they get to bowl season and go 1-5.
Hey Stewart, the 2006 Michigan versus Ohio State game had 21.8 million viewers (a number not eclipsed since), while the 2016 game had 17 million. Does this year’s game exceed those numbers? And while I’m sure this year’s edition will be 2022’s most-watched regular season game, will it also top USA versus England on Black Friday? — Scott S., Cobleskill, Ind.
I don’t think it will reach the 2006 number, as that game was No. 1 versus No. 2, not No. 2 versus No. 3, and the winner was guaranteed to advance to the national championship. But it will definitely eclipse 2016 when both teams had a loss. I’ll pretend to be a TV ratings expert and predict just shy of 20 million, making it the most-watched regular-season game since the 2011 LSU-Alabama No. 1 versus No. 2 game.
But I will not even remotely pretend to be a soccer ratings expert. The best I can do is share that in 2014, the USMNT’s second Group Stage match against Portugal — played on a Sunday in June — drew 24.7 million.
They’re both going to be massive draws. I truly have no idea which will do better, just like I truly have no idea who will win the (college) football game.
You make fun of Rutgers/Maryland, but that might be a more competitive game than Michigan’s throttling of Ohio. — Bohdan P.
You know, Brady Hoke was not exactly a beloved coach at Michigan, but the “Ohio” thing sure did stick.
It looks like Jim Leonhard is a sure thing to be Wisconsin’s next head coach. Is Wisconsin doing itself a disservice by not conducting a nationwide coaching search? It reminds me a bit of Marcus Freeman last year, except Freeman had credentials as an ace recruiter. — Tim, New York
Leonhard is a pretty good recruiter himself, it’s just that he’s recruiting to Wisconsin, not Notre Dame. But I catch your drift.
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It’s a unique situation. Most times the interim coach is mostly a placeholder until the athletic director can hire someone else, though sometimes an interim does so well he winds up getting the job. In this case, by all accounts, Leonhard was made the interim specifically to allow him to earn the permanent job. Wisconsin likely fired Paul Chryst when it did in large part to avoid his presumed successor from getting hired away by someone else first.
But it does raise the question: If the program had fallen into such disrepair that the coach needed to be fired, are we sure promoting someone from that same coach’s staff — one whose only college coaching experience has come under Chryst — is the guy to usher it into a new era? Yes, he’s a native son, a great defensive mind, knows the state cold, etc., but he’s still a first-time head coach leading a program that expects to win conference championships.
I suspect AD Chris McIntosh never intended to go out and try to hire a Lance Leipold or Chris Klieman. Whether Leonhard went 5-2 or 3-4 coaching another guy’s roster that he took over midseason was not likely to influence McIntosh’s opinion as much as having watched him work up close for the last five years. To have that much confidence in an internal candidate, he must believe the program isn’t in need of a complete overhaul.
Can the Pac-12 media rights deal and an expanded NIL effort make Cal relevant again? — John R.
Only Cal can make Cal relevant again. Given their chancellor went before the UC Regents last week and said she “decries” the changing landscape of college athletics … not sure I like its chances.
Wondering about the Independents who are bowl eligible but without a tie-in. How can everybody be saying that UConn and Liberty are 100 percent going to a bowl? Are there that many bowl slots not tied to a conference, or is it just a given that enough conferences won’t fill all their allotted slots? — Pat from Manassas, Va.
It’s not 100 percent for either school, but it’s looking good. As of this week, Scott Dochterman and I are projecting there to be 80 eligible teams for 82 spots. That could obviously change one direction or the other if you get some upsets involving five-win teams this weekend, but right now I’d say it’s more likely to go under than over.
But even if we do go above 82, there should be room. Liberty has a deal with ESPN Events to backfill a conference that can’t fill all its slots in those company-owned bowls. Conference USA, for one, is going to fall short. In our latest projections, we have the Flames in the Myrtle Beach Bowl, though they could just as easily go to the Cure Bowl, Boca Raton or another in that range.
As for UConn, the Huskies will likely be more attractive to a bowl game with an opening than, say, the seventh Mountain West team (the league only has six guaranteed spots) or sixth Sun Belt school (the league only has five). Last week, when we were still projecting 83 teams, we had UConn in the Gasparilla Bowl and 6-6 Utah State the odd man out.
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I know the committee’s rankings are subjective, but I have heard several analysts mention how Tennessee should be lower because of the loss of Hendon Hooker. To me, a ranking should be based on what you have done on the field so far and not based on what your potential is in the next game. What are your thoughts on this, and do you factor injuries into your rankings? — Drew S., Mobile, Ala.
I can see both sides of it. If I were just filling out an AP ballot with no real consequences, I’d rank Tennessee solely based on what it’s done to this point. Which, by the way, would not have the Vols five spots behind an LSU team with the same record that Tennessee beat 40-13 in its stadium.
But if I’m a committee member deciding the participants in real, extremely meaningful football games, I’d be conscious of the impact of seeding. Ideally, you want a tournament that’s weighted as competitively as possible — especially in a 12-team Playoff. If I rank Tennessee No. 7 on resume but know they won’t likely be the same team without Hooker, am I giving the No. 10 seed that would face them a huge break? If I’m the No. 1 team, I’d much rather see Tennessee with its backup QB in the 8-9 game than, say, Alabama with Bryce Young.
But I also get not trying to predict the future.
Both Ohio State and the committee were fortunate in 2014 that the Buckeyes got to prove themselves with Cardale Jones in the Big Ten title game. Had JT Barrett gone down one week later, it would have been a much tougher decision to include the Buckeyes in the four-team field. In this case, the committee gets to see Tennessee play another game Saturday against Vanderbilt, and the pressure is much lower. Whether the Vols are No. 8 or No. 10 impacts only whether they play in the Orange Bowl versus the Cotton Bowl.
I have no idea what they would have done had that injury occurred in the SEC Championship Game rather than a blowout loss to South Carolina that indisputably knocked Tennessee from Playoff contention.
Are you concerned at all that someone will pay $8 a month and create an @slmandle parody account and tweet out negative comments about Northwestern football, Weezer, and Curb Your Enthusiasm? — Dan K., Minneapolis
Well, I can’t imagine anyone besides Pat Fitzgerald has anything positive to say about Northwestern football right now. And I fully acknowledge Weezer is not for everyone.
But any Curb hate associated with my likeness will result in me driving up to San Francisco and having a chat with Elon.
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I know things will be largely decided this Saturday in The Game, but I don’t understand all of the pundits who are saying Michigan has been more dominant this year than OSU. OSU has two top-15 wins (PSU and ND) to Michigan’s one (PSU), OSU has larger victory margins against five of their six common opponents (PSU being the exception), and OSU’s average Big Ten score is 46-18 while UM’s is 33-14. Some are saying that OSU’s struggles against Maryland show that it is vulnerable, yet they seem to forget or ignore that UM had just a one-score lead on Maryland for much of the fourth quarter.
Am I missing something? — Adam Z., Philly
I know I said that. I didn’t realize anyone else was. The numbers you cite certainly suggest I’m wrong. Though I’d contend that final scores can be deceiving, especially when the two teams being compared play such vastly different styles. Nor do I particularly care how much either team beat Indiana, Rutgers or Iowa by.
Ohio State is 11-0, so anything negative I could bring up is just nitpicking, but you have to admit: The Buckeyes have messed around quite a bit. Especially on the road. They led Penn State 30-24 with three minutes left, had that absolutely bizarre performance at Northwestern (now 1-10) and got taken to the wire at Maryland. It’s quite fortunate for Ryan Day’s team that this week’s showdown is at home, where they’ve basically pulverized everybody since the Notre Dame opener.
When I say Michigan is more “consistently dominant,” I mostly mean the Wolverines have gone out and taken care of business every week with very little drama. There’s not much variance in their performance. You know they’re going to run it down your throat and play good defense. I never felt like they weren’t in control in the fourth quarter until last week’s Illinois game, when they lost Blake Corum, on top of Donovan Edwards, and had to fight to the bitter end before winning on a last-second field goal.
I really hope Corum is good to go Saturday so we don’t have any asterisks hovering over this one. Ohio State will win if it protects C.J. Stroud, so he and his receivers can hit big chunks downfield like they do against everyone else. Michigan will win if it can assert its will up front, get its running backs going and get in Stroud’s face.
I truly have no idea who will win.
Alright Stew, I’ll keep it simple. Ohio State, Michigan. Who’s gonna win, and why? — Sid H., Bellingham, Wash.
I truly have no idea who will win.
But I’ve got to make up my mind before Thursday’s picks column.
(Top photo: Tommy Gilligan / USA Today)
