0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/11/2015
Houston, we have a problem: The Army-Navy Game is making college football respond poorly to a logistical squeeze. Houston does not currently refer to the Cougars, but if Tom Herman’s team goes 13-0 and makes a case for the fourth playoff spot, we might really have a problem with the Army-Navy Game. If Notre Dame […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/10/2015
The new college basketball season begins with a number of amazing streaks intact. In two seasons, Kansas is likely to surpass North Carolina (27, from 1975 through 2001) for the most consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. The Jayhawks sit at 26 and show no signs of slowing down. Currently, Stephen F. Austin is working on a […]
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The hot seat is an uncomfortable position for coaches to occupy. What’s especially unnerving for these men is that in many cases — more than what seems to be typical — they’re set up to fail. What does this mean? Here’s the explanation: A classic “hot seat” situation is one in which a talented team […]
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The Student Section begins College Basketball Preview Week, a crash course on the coming season. In this piece, we provide a list of the five coaches — legends and lurkers alike — who have the most to prove: * Mike Brey and Mark Few parked themselves in the Elite Eight for the first time in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/9/2015
This time of year — the middle of November, a few weeks before Thanksgiving and the end of the regularly-scheduled portion of the season — represents the perfect time for college football to adopt and implement the “Bracket Buster” event from past years in college basketball. Matching teams of note in non-conference games — late […]
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The college football season is close enough to the finish line (*weeps uncontrollably*) that the conference championship game matchups are beginning to take shape. Clemson is officially in the ACC title game, which means Florida State is out. Florida is in the SEC title game, which means… good God, the SEC East is awful yet […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/8/2015
Saturday night’s annual early-November showcase between LSU and Alabama started slowly, enough to create thousands of references to the 2011 game between the two schools. If you follow college football on Twitter (as I do, using our Student Section account to live-tweet the action on Saturdays), you saw plenty of “9-6” or “2011” or “3-0 […]
Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo, left, reacts with safety Emmett Merchant following a turnover by Notre Dame during the third quarter of an NCAA college football game in South Bend, Ind., Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Conference affiliation for independent FBS schools always lurks in the background when college football is discussed. It moves to the foreground when a high-profile figure chooses to mention the subject. Such was the case this past summer, as Gary Pinkel of Missouri and Dabo Swinney of Clemson both said that Notre Dame needed to join […]
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What an absolutely unhinged college football season this has been in terms of producing ridiculous game-defining plays. Arkansas just entered the hall of honor with its Houdini on Saturday evening against Ole Miss. I’m calling it “Woo Pig Lateral.” This play joins TCU’s “Flea Tipper” against Texas Tech; BYU’s two Tanner Mangum-produced “Mormon Miracles”; Michigan […]
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Sports offer many lessons about life, and “The Games People Play” certainly conveyed one important lesson to the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday: Don’t put yourself in position to get jobbed by something out of your control. * It is true that sports can be overrated as a teacher of life lessons. Coaches so reflexively […]
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Earlier in the week, colleague Bart Doan sized up the coming clashes in the American Athletic Conference, the league poised to grab the New Year’s Six bowl spot in the Group of Five conferences. Naturally, the prospect of a College Football Playoff berth also existed for the Memphis Tigers entering this weekend. They defeated Ole […]
STILLWATER, OK – NOVEMBER 7 : Wide receiver James Washington #28 of the Oklahoma State Cowboys runs a reception in for a touchdown in front of cornerback Corry O’Meally #2 of the TCU Horned Frogs November 7, 2015 at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/7/2015
First things first on a significant college football Saturday: The main reason the TCU Horned Frogs lost their first game of 2015 is that the Oklahoma State Cowboys played brilliantly. The Cowboys played this game the way they wanted to on both sides of the ball. They produced more home-run plays on offense and forced […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/5/2015
LSU and Alabama, united in 21st-century history by Nick Saban and the contentious 2011 season, have carved out a golden age in their football rivalry. Yet, even for a clash as celebrated and scrutinized as this one, can it be that Tigers-Tide is — dare we say it? — underrated as a rivalry? That’s a […]
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In the latest 20 for 20, three box scores all deserve “box score of the week honors.” Traditional football box scores haven’t generally included the number of scrimmage plays each team runs, but if you incorporated that statistic into a modernized box score, Colorado-UCLA deserves to be on the short list. Colorado ran 114 plays to […]
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All season, you’ve read what — in my mind — constitutes the “ideal college football schedule” for each week of the season. This week, with so many important games, it seems more appropriate to simply lay out the schedule than to talk endlessly about it. Sound good? Here’s how I would take all of Saturday’s […]
