Is this weekend needed for college football fans? As Irish fans (I wonder how many non-Notre Dame readers lurk out there!??) the answer for us is a convincing no. But as the 12-team playoff lurks just around the corner later this month, this feels like an especially boring conference championship weekend. From the big 4 conferences, 4 (and maybe 5?) teams are pretty much a lock for the playoffs. But we’ll play this thing out anyway.
2024 Betting Record
ATS: 53-56-1
SU: 69-35
Not a bad final week to the regular season with the picks. Against the spread we went 5-4-0 while straight up it was 6-3 for the weekend. My goal is to finish over 0.500 against the spread for the season, we are so close!
Week 15 Games to Watch
All times are Eastern. Rankings are from the CFP Committee.
Friday Games
Conference USA Championship
Western Kentucky [+3.5] vs. Jacksonville State
7:00 PM, CBSSN
Blindly making a pick here. I would normally take Western Kentucky’s offensive pedigree but quarterback TJ Finley was injured early in the year and they’ve been pretty stinky this season. They did just beat Jacksonsville State 19-17 last week though. Revenge game.
Jacksonville State 24
Western Kentucky 18
Mountain West Championship
UNLV [+4] at Boise State
8:00 PM, Fox
Boise State beat UNLV in Las Vegas back in late October by 5 points and we have a 4-point spread as the Rebels travel to the blue turf on Friday night. UNLV has been such a great story this season (10-2!) that was overshadowed by their quarterback transfer drama a while back. Unless the committee has something crazy up their sleeve this game will be for the G5 playoff spot. My heart wants to see UNLV so bad.
Rematch time.
UNLV 38
Boise State 35
American Athletic Championship
Tulane [-5] at Army
8:00 PM, ABC
So, this is weird. Tulane lost last week to Memphis, had already secured this appearance in the AAC title game, but fell out of the current top 25 playoff rankings. Yet, they are favored to beat Army. I don’t think either of these teams can get in the playoffs. I won’t disrespect the troops.
Army 27
Tulane 23
Saturday Games
MAC Championship
Ohio [+2] vs. Miami OH (Detroit, MI)
12:00 PM, ESPN
This is a golden era for Miami football, brought to you by Chuck Martin. The RedHawks are 14-2 in league play since the beginning of 2023 and won last year’s MAC title against a very quality Toledo squad. I have no doubt they will go back-to-back for their 24th league championship. Ohio lost this matchup by 10 points earlier in the year.
Ford Field is indoors so we should see the mock turtle/sweater vest combo.
Miami (OH) 32
Ohio 27
Big 12 Championship
Iowa State [+2] vs. Arizona State (Arlington, TX)
12:00 PM, ABC
Arizona State lost road games to Texas Tech and Cincinnati this season, but are favored to make the playoffs with a win on Saturday afternoon. What a world. A couple weeks ago, it looked like BYU was a near lock for this game, but no. Iowa State faltered down the stretch and kind of back-doored their way to AT&T Stadium, as well. I like this Cam Skattebo-led rushing offense getting the win and head coach Kenny Dillingham’s value skyrocketing this off-season.
Arizona State 39
Iowa State 35
SEC Championship
Georgia [+2.5] vs. Texas (Atlanta, GA)
4:00 PM, ABC
It’s been an odd Georgia season where they’ve looked shaky at times but played a pretty tough schedule with a couple really poor halves of football leading to a couple losses. But they’ve beat Texas already and the Horns (also flawed!) played a pretty lackluster schedule. I like Coach Boom in this big game atmosphere.
Georgia 23
Texas 17
Sun Belt Championship
Marshall [+5.5] vs. Louisiana
7:30 PM, ESPN
We transition to the night with the first of 3 matchups for conference championships that aren’t a rematch from the regular season. Remember that one time we lost to Marshall? Now it’s Louisiana’s turn.
Marshall 47
Louisiana 32
Big Ten Championship
Penn State [+3.5] vs. Oregon (Indianapolis, IN)
8:00 PM, CBS
This line looks way too small in favor of Penn State but I’m sure Vegas is anticipating a disinterested set of teams in a defensive battle. Nothing about this Penn State team makes sense (5th overall in FEI with the 5th ranked offense too!???) and I refuse to believe they have the muscle and talent to win the Big Ten.
How is this team averaging 6.8 yards per play???
Oregon 26
Penn State 19
ACC Championship
Clemson [+2.5] vs. SMU
8:00 PM, ABC
I’m done believing Clemson is going to sink away into mediocrity. Oh, they aren’t even favored this weekend against non-blue blood SMU? The Tigers are definitely winning.
Clemson 40
SMU 30
So, if your predictions were to hold, it seems to me we’d be either #6 against Bama or possibly even #7 against IU. The latter would be a better first game, but would send us to face #2 Georgia in the second round. Not ideal
If Penn State loses, I would think we’d get the 5 seed. Face the highest non-bye conference champion in the first round and the lowest bye champion in the second (maybe UNLV, then Clemson?).
If TX. and PSU both lose close, it’s possible they both stay ahead of ND. With TX. most likely to, I’d say. We probably want TX. to win and PSU to get beat bad.
I agree, especially if PSU loses a close one
Seems wild we’d end up playing Bama as the 5 or 6-seed. I like the idea of seeding but CFB just does not have enough games where seeding feels consistent with team quality. So it goes.
Does Miami OH and army winning their conferences have any bearing on ND standing at all? Like ND wrecking those two conference champs would be a tie breaker of sorts against penn state.
Does a horrible no good loss to a mac school get cancelled out by beating their champ pretty good?
the most important thing to remember about the playoff seeding criteria is that the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
I’ll be rooting for BSU, so next year’s matchup can be a game between 2 playoff teams.
I think UGA is the lock of the week straight up. The last non big 6 (Auburn, UGA, Bama, Tenn, Fla, LSU) to win the SEC in football was 1976 when they split the title with UGA. The last outright winner was Ole Miss in 1963. I know conspiracy theory time, I just can’t imagine the SEC is ok with Texas winning the conference in their first year when it hasn’t happened in 61 years.
I’d wager, only Bama since 1963 has a better resume than Texas. (Maybe FLA. but for a shorter span.) But, I get your point on them being a new bee. Texas is a threat to all of the big 6.
I didn’t watch Tx.-Ga. in season game but neither offense had a great day (both under 300 yds. TO) and there were 7 turnovers in the game. Being in ATL. certainly favors the Dawgs. Should be a good one.
So Army wins big and with toughness. Makes our D shutting down that QB more impressive to me anyway.
If we have to host the Tide, maybe we have a better lineup vs Milroe than against a pure pocket thrower like Maiva? Just pondering.
Another path I guess if PSU gets whooped big by Oregon is we would host Arizona State? In which case they won’t like the cold any more than Bama.
Army is a good team. They are part of the reason ND had issues in LA. It took a great effort for ND to do what they did to Army. Add in all the travel and ND was less than fresh vs. SC. Unfortunately their schedule is extremely weak and the ND score makes it look even worse. I think they hammer Navy next week, using no playoffs as motivation.
Good points. But their strong tough win v Tulane might help the perception world a tad. Won’t make any difference though. Totally agree on Navy.
Hadn’t thought about the impact of the Army game and the travel, but especially for the defense, you have a real insight.
I saw that score vs. Tulane and thought, “Any team that doesn’t take this Army team seriously could find themselves in big trouble”.
Given how the games went, here’s my prediction (seeding, not ranking):
I think Penn St has to end up behind OSU given H2H. For the same reason I could see SMU and Clemson flipping, but that would mean Clemson would have to jump from 17 to 10 (rank) (with SMU pushing to 11 and Bama to 12). I don’t think Clemson can climb that high, but I do think SMU can hold onto 10 given how close the loss was (with both Ariz St and Clemson making it in from outside the top 12).
That would mean ND’s path would be:
I’d be really happy with that. But I suspect that they’ll keep both PSU and Texas above us (and PSU above OSU, ridiculously) in order to stick to their guns on the “not unduly punishing CCG losers” thing.
That would land us at 7, facing IU most likely. That is an uninspiring matchup, followed by Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and I guess what we’ll see is how much ESPN is going to put their thumb on the scale to create matchups for ratings.
Such are my thoughts and fears after the GU tight end tackled the Texas DB after that last interception. So close!
Anyway, whoever it is, it’s the first ever CFB playoffs, and we are hosting a game in SB in December. BTW, our USC series used to end at the end of the year every year, which meant they had to finish their season in SB every other year. As a kid I was at the 1957 40-12 beatdown, with over a foot of snow on the ground and like below zero temperatures, where the SC wideouts kept dropping the ball (like literally). Too bad if it’s Indiana, what a waste of a cold weather game…
Anyway, I’ve got my plane ticket and game ticket and a place to stay. No matter who we play, I hope to join some of you there!