Howdy college football fans from the home of Ohio St (55), good old Columbus where I am working for the time being. It’s a nice area, but a tad somber after the Buckeyes couldn’t get past the Ducks (2) at home. There’s a lot of season left and early losses especially to good teams (see Clemson (108) week 1) may not mean much to the committee come selection time, but it does mean the margin of error is approaching zero. In the 4-team playoff (yes, it needs to expand), there has never been a 2-loss team selected. Non-conference champions? Yes. 11-2? No. For the Group of 5, a perfect season has never “earned” a bid and 46 of the 65 teams already have at least one loss. So, theoretically, 19 G5 teams still have hope. For the Power 5, 4 teams (California (139), Florida St (192), Illinois (82), and Washington (159) already have 2 losses so 61 of the teams still have a shot. However, 25 have a single loss leaving 36 perfect teams. 2 weeks in and the FBS has just 55 out of 130. It’s going to be a topsy-turvy season – am I the only one who can feel that?
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Three cheers for Jacksonville St!! The Gamecocks (150) were destroyed in week 1 by UAB (75) 31-0 and turned it around to beat Florida St (see above) 20-17 as time expired. On the same day Georgia (5) beat UAB 56-7. So does that mean if Georgia played the Seminoles the line would be -83? Fun times.
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Obviously, the answer to my question in the title is “NO, it’s never too early!” I put some information together to compare. The data is sorted worst to best by average ranking per conference. Note: the Ivy League is not listed because they haven’t played a game yet, the Pioneer League has 11 members, but only 10 have played a game, and Notre Dame is including in the Independents (if we pulled them out, BYU (21) would be the best indie. Here is the chart
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It’s not a surprise that the FCS schools tend to be at the bottom (or top of this chart), but I do find it interesting that the MAC has played so poorly that 3 FCS conferences have a higher average than they do. It’s also telling that the Pac-12 is not only behind the really strong Mountain West, but are just barely above Conf-USA and the Independents. The ACC has some recovering to do after some early disappointments, but the big 3 so far in this far too early to be realistic in a few weeks analysis are the Big 12, Big Ten, and the SEC. The 38 members of these conferences have combined to 56-10 in non-conference games.
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That’s it for today – it’s too early to dig into much more. Soon, conference games will start in earnest and all of this will change, as it does every year. In the meantime, whether you are a fan of one the 55 perfect FBS teams, one of the hanging by a thread FBS teams, one of the already out of it schools, or an FCS team, enjoy the next few months. We are just getting started. As always, thanks for the comments, and especially, the shares. G
