0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/15/2015
If the College Football Playoff semifinals share a fundamental similarity, they own a basic difference as well. The Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl are both revenge games for the lower seeds: Oklahoma will try to wash away the bitter taste of a 40-6 loss to Clemson in the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl, and Michigan […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
There are so many ways to crack open and compare the College Football Playoff semifinals. You’ll get all the angles in due time over the course of the next two and a half weeks. Today, consider one of the foremost similarities between the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl: the presence of revenge as a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/14/2015
In the 2016 Sugar Bowl, Hugh Freeze of Ole Miss will not coach for his job. He won’t coach a game he has to win for purposes of maintaining top recruiting classes in Oxford. No, this game in New Orleans is not about Ole Miss’s future as a program. When the Rebels face Oklahoma State […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Some coaches step into a cauldron of bowl-game pressure because their teams are doubted. To a certain extent, this is the situation Kirk Ferentz of Iowa enters as he prepares his team for the 2016 Rose Bowl against Stanford. Yet, while doubt forms a part of the backdrop to the Granddaddy, the bigger and more […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Not every bowl game is equally important on a larger scale. Not every bowl means the same to each of the participating teams. These realities exist for various reasons. In many cases, the urgency attached to a bowl game diminishes because a coaching departure, combined with the interim coaching situation which flows from it, creates […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/11/2015
The convergence of the past and present is constant in college football, and the Heisman Trophy — to be given to its 2015 recipient on Saturday in New York — has a way of forging that connection quite often. For fans of the snubbed players on Saturday, past snubs of note — Gino Torretta over […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/9/2015
Plenty of college football writers — including some at this very site — don’t care much for conference strength debates. I actually don’t mind them at all. This is bread-and-butter water-cooler sports talk. While that kind of conversation can easily turn into a junk-food debate with lots of unsubstantiated and highly selective knee-jerk comments, it’s […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/7/2015
When conference partisans say their league has X amount of bowl games — as though that’s something to trumpet from the highest scenic overlook, rolling into the valley — I always like to do something in response at this time of year. The bowl lineup is set. All the bowl teams — 80 of them, […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
If Clemson has the best head coach in college football for 2015, Oklahoma has the best assistant. If Dabo Swinney deserves to be the 2015 Coach of the Year in the FBS, Lincoln Riley deserves to be the recipient of the 2015 Broyles Award, given to the top assistant in the sport. As is the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The college football regular season — save Army-Navy — is over. It is time to honor the year’s best, and few topics are more paramount at this point on the calendar than the best coach over the past three months. Saturday, the Big Ten and ACC Championship Games matched the four best power-conference coaches in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The bowl selection process demands improvement. It demands improvement for reasons that go far beyond the reality of seeing Georgia State play 5-7 San Jose State in Orlando on CBS Sports Network before Christmas. Yes, bowl matchups can and should be better, but it’s about so much more than that. I have long believed bowl […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/6/2015
What to make of the now-concluded push for the College Football Playoff? Four teams clearly made the cut, but that’s not the same thing as saying that we know these are the four best teams in college football for the 2015 season. Is Alabama better than 11-1 Ohio State? Is Oklahoma better than 10-2 Notre […]
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In the coming days, college football reporters will sift through the drama which unfolded Saturday, as University of Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne didn’t merely say that Rich Rodriguez would remain his program’s football coach: It is currently a point of dispute as to whether or not South Carolina made an offer to Rodriguez, only […]
AMES, IA – NOVEMBER 14: Quarterback Mason Rudolph #2 of the Oklahoma State Cowboys breaks away from linebacker Willie Harvey #16 of the Iowa State Cyclones as he scrambles for yards in the first half of play at Jack Trice Stadium on November 14, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. (Photo by David Purdy/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Mason Rudolph; Willie Harvey
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/5/2015
History breathes so deeply in college football, this realm in which schools carry the memories of past glories and slights with a passion the pros can’t match. History acquires a larger shadow and a longer life than in professional sports. Ancient feuds, special seasons, crushing heartbreaks — they’re all harbored with more concern and care. […]
Brigham Young head coach Bronco Mendenhall talks to his team in the second half during action against Texas Christian at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, October 16, 2010. TCU defeated BYU, 31-3. (Sharon Ellman/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/4/2015
Yes, the University of Virginia very handsomely compensated former head coach Mike London. Yes, the school will give new head coach Bronco Mendenhall a highly competitive financial package. Yes, Mendenhall is a noticeably better coach than London. Virginia football improved on Friday evening. However, one must ask if the Cavaliers improved enough in an ACC […]
