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This will be the last poll taken until bowl season is complete and we crown our national champion. This week we have a lot of teams receiving votes but no Lagniappe Group due to low vote totals in that group. We have our four playoff teams selected. We expect this to be the same four selected by the CFB Playoff Committee. We are less certain that they will have this same, which is to say correct, seeding. We also have some some bold statements on behalf of the American Athletic and Sunbelt Conferences. The Mountain West and Conference USA get mentioned as well. Memphis, Appalachian State, Boise State, and even Florida Atlantic have been impressive this season. It’s easy to snark at their schedules but are they really much weaker than some of the others in the poll? Give these guys a chance on a larger stage this bowl season. Here’s to a fun and exciting bowl season! The ABG Poll 1) LSU 48 (3) 2) Clemson 45 (1) 3) Oklahoma 36 4 Ohio State 35 (1) 5) Oregon 25 6) Memphis 18 7) Georgia 17 8) Baylor 16 9) Appalachian State 13 10) Auburn 7 also receiving votes: Boise State 6, Utah 4, Florida 2, Florida Atlantic 2, Wisconsin 2, Miami-Ohio 1
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 The Dawgs and Tigers will compete for the SEC Championship in Atlanta Sam Burnham, Curator Conference Championship Weekend has quite the history of upsets and crazy happenings. We go into this weekend every season with expectations of what will happen and who the four playoff teams will be. But it seems like every year that something happens. What happens is due to one of my favorite factors of the sport. This is the thing that makes college football the greatest sport on Earth. The Intangibles. Go back to October 20th of last season. The undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes roll into West Lafayette, Indiana for what should have been a routine drubbing of the Purdue Boilermakers. What happened instead was an entire campus, inspired by a terminally ill student and Purdue super fan, Tyler Trent, encircled the Buckeyes and best then in every aspect of the game. On paper, Purdue wouldn’t have beaten the Buckeyes one time out of ten. On that night though, there was nothing the Buckeyes could have done differently. No matter what, they were going to lose that game.  Wisconsin and Ohio State meet Saturday in Indianapolis Intangibles are the building blocks of upsets. You never know when a favorite is going to show up flat, when an underdog is going to play like a champion, when a particular defensive scheme is going to foil a particular offense. This game has a depth that goes beyond talent, size, strength, and speed. It’s a magical thing when we look back at Flutie’s “Hail Mary” or Joe Pa’s Nittany Lions shutting down Miami to win the national championship. There’s that Statue of Liberty that Boise State used to stun the Sooners and Cal’s unlikely kick return with some help from the Stanford marching band.
Do not dismiss the underdogs this week. Expect the unexpected. Something crazy will happen. It will impact the playoff. When it happens homers will cheer or cry and the rest of us will smile, Shake our heads, and thank the Lord above for giving us this greatest of all games. These are the moments we long for. This is why we love this game. Headed into Conference Championship Weekend LSU still holds the top spot. They’ll face third-ranked Georgia in Atlanta on Saturday. Fourth-ranked Ohio State will be facing #7 Wisconsin in Indianapolis. And #6 Baylor will meet #8 Oklahoma in Dallas. The ACC Championship will feature #2 Clemson vs unranked Virginia. On Friday night #5 Utah will play #13 Oregon That means a lot of crazy things can and probably will happen this weekend. This particular weekend always dishes out more than it’s share of drama as teams pull out all the stops to snag one of those four playoff spots. Upsets, funny bounces, close calls, we’ll see it all. We’ll be discussing that later this week in Curator & Coach. Stay tuned for that. The ABG Poll 1) LSU 49 (4) 2) Clemson 42 3) Georgia 37 4) Ohio State 35 (1) 5) Utah 26 6) Baylor 18 7) Wisconsin 16 8) Oklahoma 15 9) Memphis 14 10) Florida 7 Lagniappe Group 11) Auburn 6 12) Alabama 4 13) Oregon 3 14) Penn State 2 15) [tie] Boise State 1 Louisiana 1
Due to the large number of teams receiving votes this week, we are including our Lagniappe Group again. Top Ten
1) LSU 49 (1) 2) Clemson 41 3) Georgia 37 4) Ohio State 35 (1) 5) Utah 28 6) Alabama 21 7) Minnesota 16 8) Oklahoma 13 9) Florida 7 10) [tie] Baylor 6 Memphis 6 Oklahoma State 6 Lagniappe Group 13) Cincinnati 4 14) Michigan 3 15) [tie] Appalachian State 1 Oregon 1 Coach Drew Burnham is on assignment this week. Game picks will return next week. Curator Sam Burnham Game of the Week: Penn State @ Ohio State Thus one should be an easy choice. It should be a no-brainer. But the truth is that I shopped around before deciding this one. This is just not a great week for games. And even with Ohio State being overrated and prancing through a schedule of daisies and petunias, two facts stand out about this game. 1) The Buckeyes are a good football team. & 2) Penn State is not an elite program. Ohio State’s offense is going to fly all over the field with no serious interference. Penn State will score, but not nearly enough and TV commentators will discuss what went wrong. This is the best matchup of the week but don’t expect too much from it. Upset Alert Illinois @ Iowa i feel odd picking both of these games from the Big Ten. But the SEC & ACC matchups this week should be sponsored by Hostess Cupcakes. Just pitiful. Iowa is coming off a big big win over Minnesota and should have momentum. With an unranked Illinois team coming to town, this will be an easy week to underperform. Illinois has won four in a row including wins over Sparty and Wisconsin. The Illini have real momentum and will take advantage of it and stun the Hawkeyes before dismantling Northwestern to finish 8-4 and land in a respectable bowl game. Coach Drew Burnham
GAME OF THE WEEK PITT @ VIRGINIA TECH This little matchup has flown under the radar with Penn St and Ohio St getting all the hype for the week. These 2 are currently tied for 2nd in the Coastal Division and Tech will play Virginia next week who sits in 1st place. In my opinion, this is the Coastal division Championship game (because Tech just doesn’t really lose to UVA.) There’s plenty of “football reasons” why this game matters, but if you know this coach you know he’s a sucker for a good storyline. Saturday’s matchup will be Coach Bud Foster’s final home game in Lane Stadium. Coach Foster is an anomaly in our business. He graduated from Murray State (Go Racers!) in 1980 after playing there for Coach Frank Beamer and mover into a graduate assistant role. He was promoted to a full time role there and followed coach Beamer to Virginia Tech in 1987. That’s it. That’s the job experience. No bouncing around. No clout hunting. No ball chasing. The man has been in Blacksburg, VA for 32 years. Coaches are hard pressed to stay in one place for 32 months. It’s absolutely unheard of in our business. He is a personification of loyalty, one of the supposed make-or-break qualities in this profession. His stint wasn’t caused by lack of opportunity to leave. Countless head coaching opportunities have come to him and all have been returned to the sender. He’s at home in Blacksburg. On top of all of that, he is a LEGEND. 11 times he has lead a top 10 national total defense, twice #1. 13 times he has lead a top 10 scoring defense, also twice #1. In 2006 he was awarded the Broyles award as the top assistant coach in the country and in all the other years the committee was kidding themselves. One last run out of that tunnel to Enter Sandman will certainly be an emotional one for many. Ill be cheering hard for the Hokies Saturday and you should too. UPSET ALERT OREGON @ ARIZONA ST This is a big one! Arizona St has defeated 2 of the 3 ranked teams they’ve played this season. Old Herm just seems to find a way to pull the best out of the boys when the deck is stacked highest against them. The Sun Devils have struggled on defense recently and while you would be correct to say that’s not really the area you want to be weak in against an explosive Oregon offense, State also returns a couple key offensive players from injury this week. That will allow them to use Jayden Daniels at QB, Eno Benjamin at RB, and Brandon Aiyuk at wideout to really balance out their attack. True balance is difficult to defend and leads to dominating the time of possession. If Arizona can limit the possessions for Oregon and just manage to get a few stops along the way, they could win this one in a pseudo-shootout. It’s a night game at the #1 party school in America. The atmosphere will be elite. Can Herm and the boys pull out their biggest one of the year? This week’s poll sees a bit of movement after losses by Baylor and Minnesota. Georgia takes a step forward after beating yet another ranked opponent. Ohio State takes the third spot by virtue of receiving a first place vote. Utah and Oregon both climb as the PAC 12 looks to finish strong. Alabama drops a spot leaving us to think the voters are unsure how the Crimson Tide will finish without Tua Tagovailoa or their typical defense. Bama hosts yet another cupcake, Western Carolina, this Saturday before their Iron Bowl matchup with Auburn. We have a three-way tie for 10th this week. The voters have pitched in to include someone other than the usual suspects. We’ll see if these teams can hang in there. 1) LSU 49 (4) 2) Clemson 41 3) Ohio State 35 (1)* 4) Georgia 35 5) Oregon 33 6) Alabama 22 7) Utah 18 8) Oklahoma 16 9) Penn State 15 10) [tie] Baylor 3 Memphis 3 Oklahoma State 3 *Ohio State gets a tie breaker with Georgia for receiving a 1st place vote. also receiving votes: Appalachian State 1, Minnesota 1
We’re getting down to the nitty gritty of the season. This past week was forecasted to make some distinctions between teams but it may have stirred up more questions. We have a new #1 as LSU took down Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The Tigers are now in the driver’s seat in the SEC West and current favorites to win the conference. Alabama drops to a tie for 5th with Georgia. Looking at the ballots, committee members probably disagree most on these two teams. Bama’s loss either signifies a missed opportunity for a quality win in an otherwise weak schedule or a near miss against the best team in the nation. Voters ranked Bama as high as 2nd and as low as 10th. Georgia has voters focused either on wins against Notre Dame and Florida or that hideous, jaw dropping loss to South Carolina. Voters ranked the Dawgs as high as 3rd and as low as 9th. *The Lagniappe Group* - due to the high number of teams finding their way onto ballots this week, we’re offering a little something extra. It’s our version of free football or maybe an extra beignet stuffed in the bag: an 11-15 ranking. This is not a permanent expansion, just a little something extra. Will it happen again? Maybe, maybe not. Don’t fret over the future, just enjoy the treat while it lasts. 1) LSU 49 (4) 2) Clemson 37 3) Ohio State 35(1) 4) Minnesota 32 5) [tie] Alabama 25 Georgia 25 7) Baylor 18 8) Oregon 16 9) Oklahoma 10 10) Utah 8 *The Lagniappe Group* 11) Notre Dame 6 12) Penn State 4 13) [tie] Auburn 2 Memphis 2 15) Boise State 1 |
ABG CFBThe Curator and other knowledgeable voices...mostly Southerners... on the subject Archives
August 2019
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