Greetings oh wonderful fans and readers. Halloween is coming and then the scary month of November when the good fall away and only the great remain. Tomorrow, as part of this weeks G’s Expectations, we’ll talk about who the undefeated teams are playing and their chances of staying that way one more week. Before we get into some analysis I’ve been looking at let’s explore the NCAA’s completely and totally expected news release. First, as soon as California’s let the players make money off of their images and signatures came out (I’m pretty sure that the name of the bill, but might be mistaken and don’t care enough to look it up), we knew the NCAA would budge. They had to – the archaic view that tuition is enough had to go. A small percentage of these players (especially at schools who know they have a snowball’s chance to make the playoffs without divine intervention) make it to the pros and, because the NFL does not have guaranteed contracts, are often an injury or a bad game or two away from being a normal person (albeit a really large normal person). I think it’s safe to say that the majority of college football players are not from the independently wealthy and, like many of us who went to college, had very little spending money. The time for practice, film, weights on top of the schoolwork limits the ability for these kids to get jobs off campus and they aren’t allowed to have a job on campus. I personally think this is a good and fair move – even if it’s 20-30 years too late.
Here’s what I think should happen (and it might create a little more parity especially if the NCAA doesn’t adopt my ultimate plan to fix college football – see my post on Oct 3 for details https://gettyscollegefootballranking.com/a-day-late-controversy-abounds-college-football-solved/ ): create a salary cap type thing. Each team can have up to 5 players on scholarship who major in football. These are the highly ranked players. Doesn’t matter if the 6th guy wants to go to Ohio State or Alabama, they can only take 5. These students are paid higher stipends (more on that in a minute) than other scholarship players, and have only the basic coursework (6 hours each of English, Math, History, Science, and Finance)plus a bunch of football stuff. They are studying to play or coach the game. Period. The next tier would be the scholarship players. Each team gets x number of them (similar to current) and those players get tuition, room & board, and a smaller stipend – spending money, date or movie money. Then walk-ons who don’t get anything now and have to earn the scholarship benefits. The most elite players now have to make a choice on what they want to learn and what they are willing to give up to play in college.
So that’s two alternatives – certainly the NCAA will be calling me anytime now so that I can make this happen. Perhaps they are spending too much time auditing silly, obscure, and conflicting rules to see reason – the G way. Yep, that’s probably what’s happening. Any day now. Just waiting. Probably soon. I’ll just be over here reading. It’s ok.
Crud, in the meantime, I did do some analysis this week. It’s easy to think that the team with the easiest schedule in a conference would have the best results and the hardest, the worst, right? Of course, a question like that is ideal for analysis or G’s Examination (this G’s Ex’s thing is strangely kind of fun – or I could just be punchy – doesn’t matter). As it turns out, of the 5 Power 5 and 5 Group of 5 conferences, it happened just twice. Utah (19) has the lowest SOS Score in the Pac 12 – an SOS Rank of 106). And Georgia Tech (116) has struggled with the hardest ACC schedule (8). Interestingly Miami of Ohio (59) is the highest ranked MAC team but has played the toughest MAC schedule (23). Go RedHawks! Below is a breakdown, first the Group of 5 and then the Power 5 conferences. I did not include the independent teams (which are mostly forgettable except for Notre Dame (21)(10))
The way to read the parenthetical figures in each entry is Team Name St (GCR Ranking)(SOS Ranking).
The most interesting pieces of data here are that 2 of the highest ranked teams have played top 25 schedules. The difference in GCR rank is Cincinnati is 6-1 and Miami is 4-4. The other sort of sad thing is Akron is 0-8 and played a below average (128.5 is the middle) SOS. That is why every Division I school (except Texas Southern) is ranked higher than they are. The final interesting bit is the comparison between Ga State and Ga Southern. State is 6-2 and bowl eligible for the second time in their history but are ranked 33 spots below 4-3 Southern.
Minnesota is one of 3 undefeated Big 10 schools, but this shows there may be a reason. Ohio State’s SOS Score is a HUGE 90 spots higher. Hmmm, wonder if that could be the difference between number 1 and number 10? Compare Baylor and Kansas: the SOS is very close but 7-0 vs 3-5 against that similar schedule makes all the difference. The other call out here is Auburn, the only team in this matrix in the top 10 in both GCR Ranking and SOS Rank. Oh, and they have the most difficult schedule in November. Whoo hoo War Tiger Eagles!! Seriously, at 6-2 playing Oregon (20) in a neutral site, at Texas A&M (29), at Florida (6), at LSU (2) and facing Georgia (22) and Alabama (4) down the stretch is a bit of a feat.
That’s it for this edition. Tune in tomorrow for G’s Expectations with what games to watch, how many perfect teams will remain, and upsets of the week (note: there are only 7, but most of them are big games). Subscribe, comment, question, challenge, but most importantly, share with others.
Thanks, G
I really like the super-scholarship idea. I’m thinking those super-elite football majors are not in a pre-identified pool. The schools just fight over recruiting them the same way they do now. What schools could be eligible to have these five super-slots? Just the Power 5 conferences? Or anyone if they can afford it? If you have 130 FBS schools with five slots each, it kind of waters down the meaning of super-elite. In your world, maybe it’s just the 48 playoff-eligible schools. (But if some schools rotate in and out each year, how does that work for a 4-year football major at the descending school?) Maybe just keep it at the Power 5 schools. (How many of those are there?)
Ok so you caught the fact that this isn’t completely worked through yet. There are 65 power 5 teams: ACC (14), Big 10 (14), Big 12 (10), Pac-12 (12), SEC (14), and Notre Dame. Maybe lower the max to 2 per school per year. That’s the top 130 by one of the player ranking groups. Those 130 do not have to accept and schools are not required to offer. If a player leaves early, quits, fails out, is injured or for whatever reason doesn’t finish his obligation, the school is just out of luck. Better plan carefully.