College Football Follow up

Well, the season is over.

It's time for the lucky ones to take their chances and the rest to take their shot.

What did we learn?

1. There are too many damn bowl games.  We are to the point that there are teams that are leaving bowl games with losing records.  It seems that a team should have to enter a bowl game with a winning record as a minimum requirement for playing in a bowl game.  Dilution is not a good thing

2. Alabama really was better the first time, just like it looked. What do you want to be they recruit a new kicker?  Their special teams was much better in the title game, but it should have cost them a shot at the title.

3. Nick Saban is a great coach, but Bill Snyder is one of the best in the history of College Football.

4. Pre-season predictions don't mean shite.  That said, I don't think they should even post or vote on them until after the first month.  Forcing voters to form an opinion that early does one very bad thing, it forces them to have an opinion.

5. The changes in the rookie compensation are going to have an interesting effect on players declaring for the draft.  There is no great benefit left to working to be the top guy, or the top guy at your position.  That means that the positions with short shelf lives are going to be more prone to declare, and the positions which have longer shelf lives will more likely to come back.  Look at the running back who declared and the QB's who came back and you can see the trends.

RUNNING BACKS




Alvester Alexander, Wyoming
Projected: Free Agent

Edwin Baker, Michigan State
Projected: Sixth Round

Mike Ball, Nevada
Projected: Free Agent

Jewel Hampton, Southern Illinois
Projected: Free Agent

Ronnie Hillman, San Diego State
Projected: Third Round

LaMichael James, Oregon
Projected: Second Round

Lamar Miller, Miami
Projected: Late First, Early Second Round

Bernard Pierce, Temple
Projected: Third Round

Chris Polk, Washington
Projected: Second Round

Trent Richardson, Alabama
Projected: Top Ten Overall

Darrell Scott, South Florida
Projected: Free Agent

Robert Turbin, Utah State
Projected: Fourth Round

David Wilson, Virginia Tech
Projected: Second Round

As you can see, there aren't very many of those guys who are going to be terribly exciting, but they are coming out while their stock is relatively high because, as a running back, each game could be your last.  There is no huge payday with that first check to maximize, it's getting to the second check that matters.

QuarterBacks:

Andrew Luck, Stanford
Projected: Top 5

Robert Griffin, Baylor
Projected: Top 10

Brock Osweiler, Arizona State
Projected: Third Round

Darron Thomas, Oregon
Projected: Free Agent

The first 2 have no more to accomplish in college.  Luck is losing his offensive line to graduation which would have all but eliminated Stanford's chances to win the title or for him to win the Heisman.  Baylor is not going to win their conference, let along the title and Griffin already has a Heisman....Oh, and they both are done with school or about to be.

The last 2 are unique situation.  Osweiler is losing his coach and OC and likely is in as good a position as he would be next year, especially with the guys who stayed in college.  Thomas' situation is much more like the runningbacks' than the other QB's.  He takes a beating because Oregon runs the ball so much and with the new wrinkles in the league with running QB's getting more of a look, he may never have a better chance to make a team.  Though, he will not be drafted early, the chance of injury has to be why he came out.

Now let's look at the QB's who stayed in who could have come out.

Matt Barkley, USC
Projected: Top 15

Landry Jones, Oklahoma
Project: Last First Round

These last 2 are guys who would have come out last year because the payday would have been huge.  But, as quarterbacks, one more year in college is much less likely to shorten their careers.  That leaves them with the chance at glory and big man on campus for one more year, possibly even a title, with the same kind of money waiting for them when they decide to go.  This new Collective Bargaining agreement is going to change the dynamic of the NFL draft for years to come.

6. Automatic Qualifying is a joke.  3 of the 6 AQ conferences had overall losing records in bowls.  That tells me that at least one of the following items is true.
     1. They are not better than the mid-major conference like C-USA and MAC which both at 4-1 records.
     2. Too many of their teams are getting into bowls, which is obviously true in cases like UCLA, which as a specific example is sooooo easy to fix that it's ridiculous.  Just put in something that is there is not a team with a record/ranking of X, the 2 teams with the highest BCS rankings will play for the conference championship.  Go ahead, tell me that you wouldn't have liked to see Stanford and Oregon play again rather than Oregon vs. UCLA. 
     3. The bowls are focused too much on the history/reputation/fanbase of the AQ teams and are placing lesser competition in the big games because they think it will market better.  This is putting teams in games that they can't compete in. 

7. And finally, lucky number 7.  Looking at those bowl records, something becomes quite obvious.  The SEC and Big 12 are playing at another level relative to the rest of the country right now.  And the rich are going to get richer with both of those conferences picking up a pair of bowl game winners with Texas A&M and Missouri going to the SEC and West Virginia and TCU coming into the Big 12.  You can argue which is better with the SEC being better at the top and the Big 12 being better top to bottom, but with the SEC having the worst record at 6-3, there is really no arguing with the results.