Whether the school football season is a marathon or a sprint, Power Five meetings are located elsewhere incredibly on the race track as we enter week four of the 2020 campaign.
The ACC and the big 12 started betting two weeks ago, although four of the groups (Baylor, TCU, Virginia and Virginia Tech) have not yet played a bachelor game due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The start of the season will come this Saturday. The Big Ten may not start in another month. The Pac-12 may have an autumn season after all.
Following all this has been, in a word, exhausting. And given the lack of scoring matches in weeks 1 through 3, it’s a good chance you’ve eliminated maximum noise and can use a reminder about existing school football occasions now that the SEC is on the starting line.
Let’s attack them one league at a time, presented without any specific order other than to save the Pac-12 that is still evolving by the end.
SEC: Gentlemen, start your engines
I don’t need to denigrate the CCA, the big 12, the AAC, the US Conference. But it’s not the first time And the solar belt, but the return of the SEC will make it the first near-general Saturday of school football.
That said, that initial list of games looks like preseason SEC action.
Seven of the convention groups rank among the two most sensitive thirds of ap’s last Top 25: No. 2 Alabama, 4th Georgia, 5th Florida, 6th LSU, 8th Auburn, 10th Texas A
However, as things are, it’s the only weekend between now and December 12, so forgive them for looking with that glove.
Despite this, the Kentucky No. 23 at No. 8 Auburn is the most intriguing of the nearly 3 dozen games on the fourth week calendar.
Auburn replaces something like 14 starters from a 9-4-branded team, however, wonderful things are expected at the time of Bo Nix’s experiment. The quarterback scored his three favorite goals from last season, but this Kentucky defense is not a joke The Wildcats would be better ranked if there wasn’t so much uncertainty about the offense after Lynn Bowden Jr. left the NFL.
This may be the first SEC game with less than 14 points, but there’s a lot to consider elsewhere.
LSU begins its defense of the name opposing the reloading of a Mississippi state. right secondary Tigers.
Georgia is also starting over at key offensive points. Jamie Newman’s move of Wake Forest intended to be the quarterback for the peak of the off-season, but withdrew shortly after the USC movement, JT Daniels promptly ruled eligible. But Daniels is still regresando. de a torn anterior cruciate ligament, so it’s probably D’Wan Mathis’ paintings, at least at first.
It shouldn’t matter much unlike Arkansas, but between that winding one and the desire to upgrade D Andre Swift as the ball carrier, it can be a strange start for the Bulldogs.
Alabama may also have a war of quarterbacks in his hands Mac Jones is the supposed opener, but don’t be surprised if genuine rookie Bryce Young has many essays opposing Missouri and makes Nick Saban think twice about who he needs to oppose. Texas A
Big 12: pretty much the worst start imaginable
When the big 12 participated with a nine-game schedule that included an all-against-all list and a no-conference contest, he actually assumed that the “external” games opposed to AAFC, C-USA, Sun Belt and FCS served as a week of stressful minimum warm-up that led everyone to the league game with a 1-0 record.
So, yes, about that.
Pre-season AP No. 23 Iowa State lost at home by 17 to Louisiana. Cyclones were betting without one of their most productive offensive weapons, the closed wing Charlie Kolar (injury to the lower body), and perhaps that’s why they seemed lost in attack. When the turmoil occurred, the state of Kansas was busy losing just about 500 yards of general offensive in a house loss to the state of Arkansas. And in the last cup of Week 2, Kansas dropped the Big 12-0-3 opposite the Sun Belt in an anti-coastal Carolina game that never even tightened.
Prior to this season, the 12 existing big members had a 72-3 record against existing Sun Belt members, according to Winsipedia, meaning that everything that happens only once every 25 games has happened 3 times in a row. the odds are 1 in 15625.
That’s not all. Texas Tech allowed 572 yards per pass while about to waste Houston Baptist, and the state of Oklahoma, which purported to have one of the most productive offenses in the country, can slightly move the ball in a 16-7 win over Tulsa. .
Oklahoma very well opposed to the state of Missouri. (Or I was told I didn’t pay $55 to see this predictable rash. )Texas treated businesses opposed to the humble UTEP. And West Virginia beat Eastern Kentucky on 46, thirteen fewer issues than Marshall’s margin over Eastern Kentucky. But with three losses to the Sun Belt, two poor performances and two groups (Baylor and TCU) who haven’t even been able to play yet, big 12 just looks bad.
If Oklahoma or Texas are in the most sensible place in the standings, this team will move on to the school football playoffs, but if Sunday’s variety arrives and we wonder if a champion of a loss of the 12 grand deserves the fourth seeded striker of an undefeated AAC. SEC champion and finalist, it is better to believe that the legitimacy of the 12 grand will be continually challenged through this pathetic beginning.
ACC: Fun to watch in Miami; Notre Dame at a convention is strange to see
It’s too early to say the U is back, but the U has been seamlessly one of the most entertaining teams.
Led by former Houston quarterback D’Eriq King, Miami has the offense that has had at least 3 moves for 60 yards or more. Cam’Ron Harris had a 66-yard landing in the first game opposed to UAB and a 75-yard landing. On Miami’s first move after Harris’ 75-yard run, Jaylan Knighton received a landing from the same distance (as a smart move alone, the Hurricanes also had a 74-yard gain overturned by penalty).
Fun fact: Throughout the 2019 season, Miami has played only one game for 65 yards or more: a landing of 67 yards through Dee Wiggins as opposed to Louisville. Having 3 of those games in two games is a transparent indicator that this offensive is much greater. of what it has been in recent years. It’s funny how it works when you have something different as a quarterback.
And the great story of the ACC continues to be the addition of transience to the league.
Notre Dame had a painfully slow start to his first convention game, completing the first quarter against Duke with only seven total offensive yards, but Fighting Irish turned the shipment around for a 14-point victory and then decimated South Florida. .
Clemson is still obviously the ACC team to beat, however, this Notre Dame career attack led by Kyren Williams and C’Bo Flemister seems deadly Once Ian Book starts pitching as he has in the last two seasons, the game continues.
Big Ten: Program 3. 0
During the first few months of the off-season, we had to digest the same calendar of 12 Big Ten games. Then, on August 5, just six days before the season postponed, Big Ten released an updated schedule of 10 games for and after a little over a month not knowing when we would see Big Ten playing football again, we had another new calendar last weekend.
The final plan (aggressive but necessarily for the wishes of the PSC) is to play 8 normal season matches in 8 weeks from October 23, followed by a state-of-the-art “Champions Week” in which the 14 groups will play a definitive cross division. game based on ranking.
For all it’s worth, I love this idea, because it gives the Finalist of the East Division one last chance to present anything to the PSC committee. If the state of Ohio remains undefeated and Penn State finishes the regular season at 7-1 with a loss to the Buckeyes, the Nittany Lions can sneak into the playoffs as the fourth seed with a declared victory over Minnesota or Wisconsin on December 19 in the convention title game.
As for the new schedule, the first two weeks of the season (the last two of October) will be dynamite.
Nebraska in Ohio State and Michigan in Minnesota from the start will be fun. Coming back the following week with the massive Ohio State game at Penn State, as well as Michigan State in Michigan and Wisconsin in Nebraska is the beginning.
Things are calming down a little over the next 3 weeks (especially for the state of Ohio, much to the chagrin of many). But Penn State in Michigan and Minnesota in Wisconsin will climb into the Thanksgiving weekend football buffet and complete the regular season. with The Game on December 12 is a must-have proposal.
Let’s just hope the COVID-19 quickly proves that this third iteration of the Big Ten calendar will be the safest and most definitive maximum.
Pac-12: Oh no, honey, what are you doing?
Pac-12 postponed its fall season on the same day as big ten (August 11), but although Big Ten has changed course and plans to return in a month, we still don’t know what will happen in the West. .
Local fitness restrictions (and ongoing wildfires) have made the procedure much more complicated for the Pac-12, while Big Ten schools monitored the pandemic internally and while they decided how to proceed, the 4 Pac-12 schools in California and Oregon were banned from practice for more than six months due to a court order. Prohibit “cohorts” of more than 12 people.
Last week, Jon Wilner of Mercury News spoke to a California Department of Health official, who warned that intellectual exercises, mannequins, and virtual truth can be appropriate contactless tactics for playing games while following local guidelines.
Of course. Well.
Still, it turns out there’s traction for an early-season plan on October 31, part where the league might not be in a position to play at the time, according to Josh Newman of the Salt Lake Tribune. -12 honestly looking to send a team to the playoffs?
It’s bad enough that Big Ten is already presenting a 9-0 or 8-1 champion to the CFP committee to compare it to the VAC, Big 12, and SEC groups that have played double-digit games. The USC can’t even start until November 7, its best situation is six regular-season games and a convention championship on December 19.
It is up to the committee to choose a team that will play only seven games, especially at the convention that is already considered the worst of the Power Five leagues.
That said, the Pac-12 can still give you the old college essay.
The concept of betting in a spring season failed when other leagues announced their fall seasons. Electives would be a common place on those charts as the boys prepare for the NFL draft or save their bodies for the fall 2021 season. That’s right now or never. While the league has no realistic hope of reaching the playoffs, it may only minimize devastating profit losses through the game at least one six- to eight-game season this fall.
We will see if pac-12 presidents and chancellors reach the same conclusion in the coming days, if not hours, time is not on their side.
Kerry Miller covers school basketball and school football for Bleacher Report. You can stay with him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.