I’m a broken record on this subject, I know. Every year it pains me how short the college football season is and now we have 222 days from today until the 2022 season kicks off with week 0 games. This 2021 college football season while still a bit strange did feel like much more of a return to normalcy with full schedules and a nearly complete bowl season. Sorry, NC State.

In the end, Georgia triumphed for their first National Championship since 1980 coming from 5th place in our pre-season poll thanks to some questions about the effectiveness of their offense. With the rat-face looking USC transfer JT Daniels standing on the sideline, quarterback Stetson Bennett delivered in the big moments while riding the momentum of one of the best defenses this century.

18 Stripes Top 20 Poll

RANK TEAM RECORD RESULT
1 Georgia (+1) 13-1 33-18 W vs. Alabama
2 Alabama (-1) 13-2 33-18 L vs. Georgia
3 Cincinnati (+1) 13-1 27-6 L vs. Alabama
4 Michigan (-1) 12-2 34-11 L vs. Georgia
5 Ohio State (+1) 11-2 48-45 W vs. Utah
6 Baylor (+1) 12-2 21-7 W vs. Ole Miss
7 Oklahoma State (+2) 12-2 37-35 W vs. Notre Dame
8 Notre Dame (-3 ) 11-2 37-35 L vs. Oklahoma State
9 Ole Miss (-1) 10-3 21-7 L vs. Baylor
10 Michigan State (+3) 11-2 31-21 W vs. Pittsburgh
11 Oklahoma (+3) 11-2 47-32 W vs. Oregon
12 Pitt 11-3 31-21 L vs. Michigan State
13 Utah (-2) 10-4 48-45 L vs. Ohio State
14 Louisiana (+1) 13-1 36-21 W vs. Marshall
15 NC State (+2) 9-3 Bowl cancelled
16 Clemson (+3) 10-3 20-13 W vs. Iowa State
17 Kentucky (NR) 10-3 20-17 W vs. Iowa
18 BYU (-8) 10-3 31-28 L vs. UAB
19 San Diego State (NR) 12-2 38-24 W vs. UTSA
20 Houston (NR) 12-2 17-13 W vs. Auburn

 

Kentucky, San Diego State, and Houston all slide into our final ranking of the season thanks to really nice bowl wins. That job in Lexington is looking awfully comfortable these days. Throw out the Covid year and Mark Stoops is 28-11 since 2018 and is making damn near $7 million per season. He’s not really expected to do big things, gets to coach in the SEC, makes a ton of money, and continues Doing Good Things™ with a bar that is set appropriately.

Out: UTSA, Oregon, Iowa

I can’t think of a program that has done more of an 180 this season than Oregon. My goodness, it seems like forever ago that they were upsetting Ohio State in the ‘Shoe and pushing towards a playoff spot. They finished their season losing 3 out of their last 4 (all rather soundly defeats) before their coach decided to bolt to the southeast to his hometown Miami Hurricanes.

At one point, didn’t we have Iowa ranked as high as 5th or something insane? Yes, it never smelled right and they finish outside our poll for 2021 after closing the season going 4-4 over their last 8 games. They scored a combined 34 points in those 4 losses.

The 2021 Surprises

We did not have Michigan, Michigan State, Pittsburgh, Baylor, or Oklahoma State ranked in our pre-season poll. Michigan was 32nd in the pre-season AP Poll with some votes while Oklahoma State was 26th so neither were completely off the radar.

Baylor was 2-7 during 2020 and turned things around to win the Big 12 and Sugar Bowl.

Pitt seemingly didn’t have a pulse as a program for several years and all of a sudden Kenny Pickett turned into a Heisman contender.

However, Michigan State going from 2-5 and the 5th worst Power 5 offense in terms of scoring in 2020 to 11-2 with a Peach Bowl victory was a heck of a run. In our gut, we know this is fool’s gold of course. The Spartans still finished 3rd in their division and probably have one of the worst resumes from a top 10 team in recent memory–aided by a Pickett-less Pitt victory in a major bowl game.

The 2022 Flops

Clemson (preseason #1)
10-3

The Tigers finished strong with 6 straight wins and avoided a complete tire-fire season but should be extremely shamed for throwing away another layup season in the ACC and no National Championship run to speak of in 2021.

Oklahoma (#3)
11-2

Dropping back to 11th in our poll isn’t terrible. Yet, I’m sure the Sooners didn’t envision Spencer Rattler falling apart and finishing the season with an interim coach for their bowl game because Lincoln Riley fled to USC only to be (likely) followed by Caleb Williams, too.

Iowa State (#6)
7-6

The Cyclones played 5 ranked teams, lost 4 of those, and suffered defeats to mighty West Virginia and Texas Tech. Matt Campbell still hasn’t been hired away to a bigger job and at this point it’s possible he morphs into the Big 12 version of Pat Fitzgerald.

Washington (#8)
4-8

Jimmy Lake proved to be way in over his head and was fired before the season ended. Hey, at least they beat Stanford!

North Carolina (#10)
6-7

Pound for pound this was probably the worst coaching job of the season. The Tar Heels have the talent and a very good quarterback and somehow still lost 7 damn games!

USC (#13)
4-8

It still makes me chuckle that USC fired Clay Helton after just 2 games. This record is a little bit deceiving in that way because the Trojans essentially quit and punted on 2021 thereafter.

Indiana (#14)
2-10

Holy hell, what do we have here? This was supposed to be the hot and trendy pick and once again the Hoosiers proved to the world they can barely function when quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. gets injured. I mean they didn’t look great in the 5 games he played, but they got those 2 wins. Without him, they lost their final 7 games.

Florida (#17)
6-7

This pre-season ranking looked more than fine if even a little low through September when the Gators were 3-1 and had a near-upset of Alabama on their schedule. Then, they lost 4 out of their next 5 games and decided that was enough for Dan Mullen.

TCU (#18)
5-7

TCU beat Big 12 champion Baylor but didn’t go to a bowl game and long-time head coach Gary Patterson stepped down and/or was gently asked to leave. Quite the year for the Horned Frogs who will turn to Sonny Dykes as their new head coach and maybe they’ll get back their spread offense swagger in 2022?