The Sunday Blog stayed up way too late on Saturday night/Sunday morning but it’s college football season and that’s going to happen a lot.
1. I wrote in the Back Nine last week that I wasn’t going to start talking College Football Playoff until we were deep in the season but that was before the Big 10ish had a Saturday of historical proportions. And not in a good way. The conference has basically been eliminated from one of the four spots two weeks into the season. And it could have been worse with Nebraska, Iowa, Maryland and Wisconsin pulling out wins over teams they were expected to seal club. The league is 36-53 against Power Five conference teams over the last five years. And the trifecta of losing all three big Saturday night games (Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State) by a combined 64 points must have kept commissioner Jim Delany up all night. It was the first time since 1988 that all three of those teams lost on the same day.
2. And the Michigan loss to Notre Dame means Brady Hoke has replaced Will Muschamp as having the hottest seat in America. The Wolverines, who have lost 11 straight games to ranked teams on the road, had not been shut out in 365 straight games. That was the longest streak in college football and the NCAA record. Now, the longest streak belongs to — you guessed it — the Florida Gators at 323. Quick Trivia — what team handed Florida its last shutout loss in 1988? It was Auburn 16-0. It was on ESPN. And it was Homecoming.
3. Certainly, Pat Haden was wrong to come down to the field Saturday and argue with officials. But to think he should be booted from the College Football Playoff committee is ridiculous. Of course, he’s going to be biased. Everyone on the committee is going to be biased. The hope is that they neutralize each other and we get the right four teams in there. Actually, the hope is that they screw it up and we go to eight teams sooner than later.
4. The SEC caught a lot of grief for having so many meaningless games this week and deservedly so. But the ACC kind of skated because Virginia Tech was playing at Ohio State. The other opponents Saturday? South Carolina State, Richmond, Old Dominion (which led N.C. State at the half), Tulane, Gardner-Webb, Murray State, Florida A&M, Troy and The Citadel. I have more sympathy than most for athletic directors because I know scheduling is a lot harder than most people think and revenues are way more important than our enjoyment. But no matter how many things they do to make game day more enjoyable, quality opponents are No. 1 on the list.
