by Patrick Zier | Dec 27, 2024 |
It was College Game Day, it was before Indiana’s first playoff game against Notre Dame, and Curt Cignetti, the Hoosiers’ coach, was on. Boy was he on. “We don’t just beat top 25 programs, we beat the s— out of them,” Cignetti declared. Uhhh…no, you don’t. Actually, top 25 programs beat the s— out of you. Or did you forget that 38-15 shellacking you took from Ohio State, the only top 25 team you played?
However, it seems Cignetti was referring to his personal record as a coach and not specifically his first season at Indiana. Problem with that is that as a coach, Cignetti is a little loose with his top 25 rankings. He has never beaten a team that finished in the top 25, although he has beaten teams that were in the top 25 at the time he played them.
Make of that what you will, but that was part of the reason Cignetti and Indiana were at the center of a controversy as the College Football Playoff began last week. The Hoosiers went into the Notre Dame game with an 11-1 record and were thumped, 27-17, by the Irish in a game that wasn’t that close, Notre Dame leading 27-3 with just a couple minutes left in the fourth.
Given the fact that Indiana did not beat a single team with a winning record this year (Nebraska and Washington were both 6-6) there was a lot of talk from a lot of different places that the Hoosiers should never have been in the playoffs to begin with. And you can certainly make that argument. A lot of people weren’t that happy about 11-2 SMU getting a bid, either. The Mustangs got beat, 38-10, by Penn State after losing their conference championship game to Clemson, 34-31.
Still, the playoffs are doing what they’re supposed to do, generating a lot of excitement about college football, even if most of it seemed to center around two teams that lost. Other than that, one of the main sticking points seems to be the way teams are awarded byes. Under the current setup, the four highest ranked conference champions get first round byes. Georgia (SEC), Oregon (Big Ten) Boise State (Mountain West) and Arizona State (Big 12) were the picks this year. Giving Boise State a bye is ridiculous, and would have been avoided had the four top-ranked teams, Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas, been used instead.
But the central issue remains how teams are chosen and which ones are left out. To a certain degree, going from a four team playoff to 12 teams was supposed to solve this; to hardly anyone’s surprise, it didn’t. That’s because it’s an insolvable problem. No matter how many teams are in, someone’s always going to be left out and they’re going to complain.
This year, the primary aggrieved parties were Ole Miss and Alabama, particularly Alabama which went 9-3 but played four top 25 teams and beat three of them, No.2 Georgia, No. 14 South Carolina and No. 23 Missouri. The Tide lost to No. 7 Tennessee. Proponents of Alabama – and Ole Miss, which also beat No. 2 Georgia and No 14 South Carolina – said they deserved to be in based on the difficulty of their schedules when compared to Indiana and SMU.
On the surface, there’s an argument to be made there. But Ole Miss also lost to Kentucky, which didn’t beat a single Power Four conference team except Ole Miss, and Alabama lost Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, two mediocre teams at best.
“I’m disappointed that we weren’t one of the 12 teams selected,” Alabama Coach Kalen DeBoer said during a press conference on You Tube. “I certainly feel we’re one of those (a playoff caliber team).
Kiffin made fun of Indiana and SMU getting torn up by Notre Dame and Penn State while Ole Miss and Alabama stayed home. “I think this is what you’re going to have to get used to as fans,” he commented via On3.
But SMU’s Rhett Lashlee and Indiana’s Cignetti were quick to jump to the defense of their teams. “We earned the right to be in (the playoffs),” Lashlee said according to On3. “It’s unfortunate that, you know, a bad game is going to maybe make it feel like maybe that’s not the case.”
Asked if his team deserved to be in following the loss to Notre Dame, the usually firey and bombastic Cignetti was more subdued. “Is that a serious question? I’m not even gonna answer that,” he said. But then, after a moment’s pause, he shook his head “yes.”
And by the way, Tennessee, ranked No. 7 in the country, was man handled by Ohio State, 42-17. Guess they shouldn’t have been in, either.
by Patrick Zier | Dec 13, 2024 |
There were excited whispers, a sense of anticipation. A positive buzz filled the room. Things would change now. Scott Frost was coming home and he would right the ship, bring this program back to respectability. Applause and cheers as Frost was formally introduced as the new coach – at Nebraska.
Substitute Central Florida for Nebraska and essentially, you have what took place in Orlando as Frost, the man who pulled UCF out of the dumpster just a few short years ago, was brought back to do it again. Frost is a still youthful looking 49, although perhaps hardened a bit by his recent experience in Lincoln.
When Frost first came to UCF in 2016, he was regarded as one of the nation’s brightest young offensive coordinators and as he built UCF back up, it became very clear that Central Florida was just going to be a stepping stone to bigger and better things. And after Frost guided the Knights to a 13-0 record and a self declared national championship in 2017, he was gone.
To Nebraska, where he had grown up and played quarterback for the Huskers under the legendary Tom Osborne. Nebraska had been up and down since then and had lost its national relevance and Frost was thought to be just the man to restore it. But it never worked.
Sometimes, he seemed close to turning the corner but a 5-22 record in one score games and a 10-26 record in the Big Ten knocked him down and when he lost to Georgia Southern, 45-42, three games into the 2022 season Athletic Director Trev Alberts, who hadn’t hired Frost, let him go.
And that’s where the story really starts. In his first stint at UCF, Frost was known as a players’ coach. He created a much more relaxed atmosphere around the program after taking over from Danny Barrett, who replaced old school George O’Leary when he left before the 2015 season ended. Frost tried to do the same thing at Nebraska, but close observers said that approach, which hadn’t worked for Mike Riley, Frost’s predecessor in Lincoln, was the exact opposite of the discipline the team needed. And when Alberts finally fired Frost, stories began to crop up about a disorganized operation that left Frost in an entirely new light.
Frost, it was said, was often late for practice. He didn’t make recruiting calls. He drank. He threw his players and assistant coaches under the bus and things got so bad at one time that some of his assistants actually went to Alberts and pleaded with him to do something.
How much of this is true is unknowable. It seems totally out of character for Frost, who was dealing with his dad’s terminal illness at the time and could have been affected by that.
But there are things that indicated the program was in disarray. First, Alberts reducing Frost’s buyout, which was hardly a vote of confidence. Then, he fired Frost three weeks before the buyout was to take effect, choosing to pay the full amount rather then wait.
And finally there’s the Dylan Raiola saga. Raiola, the quarterback who Frost’s replacement, Matt Rhule, is building his team around, was one of the top prospects in the country coming out of high school and had strong ties to Nebraska. His father, Dominic, won the Rimington Trophy as the best center in the country while playing for Nebraska. His uncle, Donovan, was Nebraska’s line coach.
Reportedly, Dominic invited Frost to a family function and Frost, at the last minute, backed out despite efforts by Dominic to try and persuade him otherwise.
After that, in May of 2022, Raiola committed to Ohio State, then, in December of 2023, he switched to Georgia. But with Frost now gone, he wound up at Nebraska.
“Coaching is a funny thing,” Frost said after accepting the UCF job for a second time. “You put yourself out there and do the best you can and sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn’t. It worked great at UCF. You get a lot of praise when things are going well and you take a lot of criticism when they aren’t. You have to take the arrows and the slings as well as the cheers.
“You have good times and bad times everywhere in this game and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. We did the right things here and pushed the right buttons and got it done.” And UCF is betting he can get it done again.
by Patrick Zier | Dec 13, 2024 |
Officially, South Florida’s football season ends Christmas Eve with a bowl game in Hawaii. Actually, it ended Saturday, Sept. 28th, with 9:10 left in the third quarter at Tulane. That’s when USF quarterback Byrum Brown went down with a lower leg injury that has kept him sidelined since and pretty much sidelined the Bulls’ offense as well.
Before all this happened, it was expected that Brown would build on his highly successful 2023 season, when he started to attract attention as one of the better quarterbacks in the country. Brown was – and is – pretty much of a do everything kind of guy. In 2023, he threw for 3,292 yards and 26 touchdowns. He also ran for 809 yards, tops on the team, and added another 11 scores.
That led to Brown being nominated for the Maxwell Award, the Walter Camp Award, the Davie Brian Award and the Johnny Unitas Award. It also got him noticed by a lot of Power Four conference schools, who saw top level talent in a 6-foot-3, 229-pound duel threat quarterback who could be the solution to a lot of problems at a lot of places if he decided to leave South Florida. And while it was not openly talked about around USF, the possibility of Brown moving on after this season was there if he opted to enter the transfer portal.
All that changed at Tulane, but almost immediately after he got hurt, Brown was back on the practice field and his presence at practice fueled intense speculation about his status. Virtually every week during the season, Golesh was asked about his availability. Will he play this week, will he play next week, how about the bowl game?
“I don’t want to overplay it or underplay it,” Golesh said. “He’s been practicing and preparing ever since he got hurt. He has prepared to be the starting quarterback. Byrum is a highly intelligent young man,” Golesh said. “He’s a great communicator. He tells the doctors and the training staff exactly how he feels.”
Because of the way he plays, Brown needs a strong lower body. “I remember having this conversation a year ago when he was banged up,” Golesh continued. “You have to be mentally tough before you can be physically tough and he wants to play, but for Byrum especially, he’s got to feel real good, particularly in his lower body, to go play his game because he creates so much. He’s got to be able to move around.”
In Brown’s absence, Bryce Archie has been running the team and while he has done a respectable job, he is not Brown, so Brown’s return for the bowl game against San Jose State would give the Bulls a definite boost. “Young men are resilient, and every time we’ve had adversity, they’ve adjusted,” Golesh said. “We’ve had to make changes and they believe in Archie, but going back to what they’re used to would certainly be nice. They’d be more than excited to get Byrum back healthy.”
Although he’s had a long layoff, if be does play in the bowl game Golesh doesn’t think that will have much of an impact on Brown’s play, probably because he has continued to practice. “Obviously, he will have to adjust, but we try and create as competitive an atmosphere in practice as we can,” Golesh said.
So, Brown should be ready to play if he is able to play. And will he be able to play? “I’ve said from the beginning I would never put somebody out there that’s not healthy enough to perform,” Golesh commented. So we – and San Jose State – don’t really know Brown’s status, which is probably exactly the way Golesh wants it.
by Patrick Zier | Dec 2, 2024 |
It has not been a good year for college football in Florida. With apologies to Miami, not much has gone right. Florida State, at 2-10, has been knocked to the mat and Florida is struggling to get off it. Central Florida has been unable to establish itself in the Big 12, and South Florida, which is eying a promotion to the big time, stumbled when it lost to Rice Saturday to finish 6-6, a bit of a dip from last season.
But it is the status of the programs at Florida and Florida State, the state’s two flagship universities, which is of the most concern. Again with apologies to Miami, they are the bellwethers. They lead the way. If they don’t have it together, college football, here. struggles to keep it together.
The annual Florida-Florida State game is an example of this. In the Bobby Bowden-Steve Spurrier years, it was not only the most important game in the state, if was frequently one of the most important games in the nation. It was a battle that could, and did, determine national champions. In 1996, Florida went into the contest ranked No.1 in the country with Florida State No.2. Florida State won, 24-21, setting up a rematch in the Sugar Bowl. Florida smashed FSU in New Orleans, 52-20, giving Spurrier and the Gators their first ever national championship.
This year, nothing was on the line except pride. FSU had a chance to save its season, it didn’t, and Florida needed to keep a late season surge intact. It did.
Where this leaves these two programs is uncertain. FSU’s Mike Norvell went into the year with high hopes and expectations. FSU was coming of a 13-0 regular season run in 2023 and then, for reasons that are not fully understood, the ‘Noles fell apart. They couldn’t beat anybody, or at least not anybody that mattered.
For football in Florida to become relevant again, FSU must become relevant. It must reach a certain standard, and maintain it. Norvell knows this. “It’s a disappointing end to an awful season,” Norvell said at a post-game press conference shown on the school’s website. “Very disappointing that we performed the way we did. Like I told the team in the locker room, this is getting fixed. It’s going to be an immediate, fast fix. We are going to make sure that every person who is a part of this program is all in on that process,” Norvell declared.
For the Gators, things are not quite as desperate. This was Billy Napier’s first winning season in three years and while Florida still has a long way to go to reach the level of the Spurrier-Urban Meyer years, there were signs of a rejuvenation in the second half of the season.
Napier said he felt the team turned the corner in the off week before the Tennessee game. Florida would lose that one, 24-17 in overtime, but the Gators stood toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the country and it appeared to give them the confidence they needed.
“I think midseason, that’s when it all kind of came together,” Napier said according to a post-game video on on on3.com. “I think the players did a good job of kind of putting their blinders on the first month and didn’t allow excuses, didn’t allow blame and really just went back to work. Go back to that first open date before the Tennessee game, and I think the Tennessee game was pivotal, the way they responded there.”
That game appeared to get the Gators going as they followed up with big wins over Ole Miss and LSU and finally Florida State. Now, the challenge becomes keeping that momentum into a bowl game and then 2025.
And FSU? “We’re done playing the way we did this year,” Norvell declared. “I take full responsibility for that. I’m willing to do what’s necessary to make sure we don’t ever have another season anywhere like the one we had this year. So to the Florida State fans, the university, past players, the players in the locker room, I’m sorry. It will be fixed,” Norvell emphasized.
If he can pull that off, it would go a long way towards fixing college football in the state. And again with apologies to Miami, college football here is in desperate need of fixing.
