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This is what Les Miles must feel like when his team averages at least four yards per carry in a game. No team has a higher winning percentage in such games since the 2005 FBS season.

Coaching anti-clinic: LSU-Mississippi State was a theater of the absurd

0 comments by on 9/14/2015

Coaching college football is serious business. Coaching college football in the SEC is almost a sacred trust. You would think that in a billion-dollar industry, coaches — if they felt they couldn’t personally handle the task of managing endgame situations — would make a relevant adjustment. You’d think that coaches would delegate the responsibility to […]

BYU is so lucky! Angry about that? Welcome to college football, pal

0 comments by on 9/13/2015

Fans, when told that “YOUR TEAM IS SO LUCKY!”, often get upset. Indeed, it often feels like an insult to be told that your college football team won a game because it was fortunate more than anything else. I’ve been there. Before any of us who write about sports began to watch games as chroniclers, […]

Sep 12, 2015; East Lansing, MI, USA; Oregon Ducks quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. (3) gets grabbed by Michigan State Spartans linebacker Darien Harris (45) during the second quarter at Spartan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

New season, same magic for Michigan State

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The complete overhaul of Michigan State football under head coach Mark Dantonio continues, in every conceivable form and fashion. Clearly, the Spartans pull in better talent than they used to. Just as clearly, that talent is coached and deployed better than it ever was under a litany of predecessors, including a fellow by the name […]

When you consider Chris Fowler’s remarks, you’re free to arrive at your own conclusions. Just be sure to look at them from various perspectives: from a corporate perspective; from the GameDay production truck’s perspective; from Fowler’s own perspective; from the perspective of how different college football media coverage would have been if Ohio State had thumped Florida in January of 2007; and other vantage points you might not have previously considered.

The ideal college football schedule: week two

0 comments by on 9/10/2015

When the notion of an “ideal” college football schedule emerges, it’s easy to think about better matchups and fewer cupcakes. True enough. However, for purposes of this season-long series, we’re focusing on time-slotting for games so that fans get to see more fourth quarters of more games, thereby gaining access to more of the day’s […]

Suspensions, suspense, and a title defense: Ohio State gains revenge

0 comments by on 9/8/2015

“But they lost to Virginia Tech. They never should have made the playoff.” “You just can’t lose to Virginia Tech at home and be playoff-eligible.” “Man, how did THAT team lose to Virginia Tech?” “Virginia Tech wasn’t even all that good last season — you mean they LOST to those guys? At HOME? At NIGHT? […]

Week one affirmations, revisions and rebuttals

0 comments by on 9/7/2015

What follows is one of my favorite columns of every college football season. At a previous place of employment (I spent 13 seasons there), my centerpiece weekly column was called the Weekly Affirmation. The name wasn’t taken from Stuart Smalley of Saturday Night Live or from any (actual, not fictional) spiritual author or self-help guru. The […]

College football is great, but it chooses to remain stupid in many ways

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Every now and then, a columnist gets to write a raging rant of a column, an angry and passionate denouncement of something that’s absurd in the extreme… and it makes perfect sense to do so. This is not a normal situation, mind you. Angry-rant columns can only be used on selective occasions to begin with. […]

Clemson wide receiver Mike Williams lies on the field after he collided with the goal post while trying to make a catch during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Wofford on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015, in Clemson, S.C. Williams was injured on the plat. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

Major injuries reach across the college football landscape

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The reality of being injured is painful — beyond the realm of the physical — for any young athlete who has to live with the fact that he can’t step between the painted white lines on gameday. However, it must be especially wrenching for the athletes who are first on a depth chart, not third; […]

Texas A&M starts another season with a win, but from a different angle

0 comments by on 9/6/2015

The first Saturday of the 2015 FBS college football season was a day of repetition in certain ways. Earlier in the day, in Atlanta, an SEC West team in search of improved defensive identity under a new coordinator — playing in a neutral-site NFL stadium against a Power 5 non-conference opponent coached by someone who […]

Texas needs more than a Strong coach; it needs patience

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Texas. The state, the name, the university — they’re all shaped by football. The sport is so ingrained into the fabric of life for many Texans that it’s completely realistic to expect the flagship university in the state to be consistently excellent, or at least very good, in the province of pigskin. Texas — the […]

We are… waiting to see what James Franklin does at Penn State.

We Are… Not Good: Penn State gets its bell rung by Temple

0 comments by on 9/5/2015

In week one of a season, it’s never a good idea to lose. It’s especially not a good idea to lose when you’re Penn State and the other team is Temple. The Nittany Lions hadn’t lost to Temple in 39 games. The Blue and White had not suffered a defeat against the Philadelphia foe since […]

It all Fitz together for Northwestern in an upset of Stanford

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While most FBS college football teams went the cupcake route in week one — as is standard practice in the industry — the Northwestern Wildcats and Stanford Cardinal decided to tackle a challenge in week one. This approach naturally invites risks, chief among them the distinct possibility that if you’re sloppy or nervous or timid […]

Hawaii beats Colorado, and Wisconsin-Arizona State comes to mind

0 comments by TSS LOCKER on 9/4/2015

Remember this a couple years ago? This was another September game drenched in controversy, and more specifically, the unwillingness of an officiating crew to grant relief to a team which had done what it was supposed to do in an endgame situation: Now, one night into the 2015 college football season, we have another example […]

Minnesota loses a game but shows it belongs

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Everyone in Minneapolis and around these United States knew that the Minnesota Golden Gophers faced very small margins on Thursday night against the TCU Horned Frogs. When you’re a 16-point underdog, it only stands to reason that winning a game demands not just a spirited and resilient effort, but one imbued with enough airtight precision […]

North Carolina’s familiar tune echoes through Charlotte on opening night

0 comments by on 9/3/2015

Before every season, college football fans know the drill: Notre Dame, due to its brand name and immense cultural reach in the United States, generally gets rated highly in the polls and is accompanied by quite a lot of national buzz. No team is more a friend of fanfare — whether deserved or not — […]

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